Wang Yuchen: On the Problematic Logic and Contemporary Value of Western Marxism
The study of Western Marxism in our country has already achieved a certain historical accumulation. Moving beyond a grasp of the specific theoretical viewpoints of Western Marxist theorists toward a grasp of the "problem-logic" of Western Marxism holds significant reference value. This shift allows us to more deeply apprehend the theoretical essence of Western Marxism and enable it to truly become a theoretical resource for advancing the Sinicization of Marxism.
I. The Theoretical Starting Point of the Problem-Logic of Western Marxism
In his book Considerations on Western Marxism, the British scholar Perry Anderson pointed out: "Western Marxism was a product of the defeat of the proletarian revolution in the advanced regional centers of European capitalism after the First World War; it developed within the increasing separation between socialist theory and working-class practice." After World War II, Communist Parties in Western countries encountered difficulties in their socialist explorations by mechanically copying the Soviet model, which triggered reflection among intra-party theorists and progressive intellectuals. In their view, Western European society relied on "total rule"—comprising both the political violence of political society and the cultural-ideological control of civil society. This meant that the Western socialist revolution should adopt a mode of "total revolution" encompassing cultural-psychological, economic, and political revolutions, wherein the cultural-psychological revolution is the foundation and premise. It was precisely due to the analysis of Western social structures and differing views on revolutionary strategy and tactics that fierce debates broke out within the Marxist camp. These debates were inevitably reflected in the question of how to understand the philosophical essence of Marxism. Regarding this, Karl Korsch pointed out in Marxism and Philosophy that at the time, the Second International and the Comintern [1] jointly opposed the "Western Communism" and "Western Marxism" represented by Lukács, Gramsci, and himself. The content of the debate concerned the strategy and tactics of Western revolution; the result was the emergence of a Western form of Marxist philosophy distinct from that of Soviet Russia.
The inquiry into the essence of Marxist philosophy is manifested in whether that essence lies in its specific conclusions or in the dialectic of the "unity of theory and practice." This constitutes the theoretical starting point of the problem-logic of Western Marxism. Early Western Marxists such as Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci all emphasized that the essence of Marxist philosophy is dialectics. The subtitle of Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness is "Studies in Marxist Dialectics." Lukács opposed reducing the essence of Marxist philosophy to specific conclusions, emphasizing instead a "totality dialectics" based on the interaction between subject and object. This "totality dialectics" is both a subjective dialectic of critique and revolution—determining the critical value-orientation of Marxist philosophy—and a historical dialectic based on human practice. This determines that the object of study for Marxist philosophy is human social history and the nature that enters the realm of human practice; it is a theory of praxis-materialism concerning the relations between humans and humans, and humans and nature.
Similarly, Korsch and Gramsci opposed the economic-determinist interpretation of Marxist philosophy, which was rooted in the methods of natural science and the standpoint of modern rationalist philosophy. They demanded a return to the dialectical tradition of the "unity of theory and practice" found in German Classical Philosophy [2], the restoration of Marxist "philosophical consciousness," and the subsequent interpretation of Marxist philosophy as a "totality" theory based on human practice. Based on the Western historicist cultural tradition and the Italian Marxist philosophical tradition, Gramsci insisted on the principle of the "unanimity of philosophy, history, and politics." He explicitly termed Marxist philosophy the "philosophy of praxis," emphasizing that its function and mission were not to discover immutable metaphysical laws or specific stages of historical development. Rather, it aimed to reveal the internal mechanisms and organic connections of interaction among social elements by studying the relations between humans and humans, and humans and nature. By grasping the basic trends of historical development and exerting the critical value-function of the philosophy of praxis, it sought to spread proletarian cultural ideology, seize cultural-ideological hegemony, change people’s mentalities, and form a unified "collective consciousness" for the proletariat.
The common point among early Western Marxist theorists represented by Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci regarding the essence of Marxist philosophy lies in their opposition to understanding and elucidating Marx’s materialist philosophy from the standpoint of natural-scientific materialism or modern rationalist philosophy. Their focus was not on the commonalities between Marx’s materialism and "old materialism" [3]. Instead, they emphasized that the characteristics of Marxist philosophy should be elucidated at its point of rupture with modern philosophy and its specificity against old materialism. They stressed that, in terms of its philosophical form, Marxist philosophy is not a modern "epistemological philosophy" [4] but a modern "subjective-praxis philosophy." They sought to view the totality of the interaction between subjective and objective factors in the process of social development as the factor determining social trends. While premising the decisive role of objective factors in social-historical development, they emphasized the role of subjective factors and the organic connection between Marxist philosophy and people’s "life-world" [5]. From this, an academic tradition emerged in Western Marxist views of Marxist philosophy that prioritized criticality and reality, eventually forming two major interpretive modes: "humanism" and "scientism."
The primary representative schools and figures of the humanist interpretive mode are the Frankfurt School, Henri Lefebvre, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ecological Marxism. The primary representatives of the scientism mode are Louis Althusser, the Italian school represented by Galvano Della Volpe and Lucio Colletti, and Analytical Marxism. Although these two modes diverge on specific theoretical points, they share the following commonalities. First, both advocate for understanding the essence of Marxist philosophy at its point of rupture with modern Western philosophy, opposing its interpretation as an epistemological or positivist philosophy. The Frankfurt School opposed viewing Marxist philosophy as an ontological materialism in the modern sense. Max Horkheimer viewed modern rationalist philosophy and modern positivist philosophy as "traditional theory" lacking a critical dimension, while calling Marxist philosophy "critical theory." He believed "traditional theory" took isolated individuals and facts outside of history and real life as its objects of study, based on Cartesian methodology, with the goal of acquiring knowledge. In contrast, Marx’s critical theory—distinct from economic determinism and liberalism—takes the social whole and people’s social lives as its objects, is "based on Marx’s critique of political economy," and is a social-critical philosophy aimed at transforming reality and achieving human freedom and liberation.
Second, they emphasize the critical value-function of Marxist philosophy. In the eyes of Western Marxist theorists, the reason for the failure of Western revolution lay in the economic-determinist interpretation of Marxist philosophy then prevalent in the Marxist camp. This interpretation blunted the critical value-function of Marxist philosophy, leading Western Communist Parties to neglect the cultivation of proletarian class consciousness, leaving them unable to resist the constraints of bourgeois ideology and the encroachment of "reified consciousness" in the market economy, thus causing a crisis of proletarian class consciousness. Based on this understanding, Western Marxist theorists placed special emphasis on elucidating the critical value-function of Marxist philosophy and sought to unify the scientific nature of Marxist theory with its critical value-function. Regarding this, Ben Agger pointed out in Western Marxism: An Introduction: "The history of Western Marxism is a history of constant alternation between a determinism in which crisis triggers revolution and a pessimism regarding socialist change formed during periods of political harmony and class reconciliation... Many Marxists have either exaggerated the determinist tendency or the voluntarist tendency."
Third, they all emphasize the connection between Marxist philosophy and the real "life-world" of humans, focusing on exploring the real problems of capitalism and forming many theoretical innovations. Because Western Marxist theorists opposed interpreting Marxist philosophy as a modern rationalist epistemological philosophy and demanded the reconstruction of the organic link between Marxist philosophy and the human life-world—exploring the road to liberation for both the Western proletariat as a whole and for the individual—they attached great importance to reflecting on and exploring the social realities of capitalism. They paid attention to the development of modern Western capitalism and the human predicament, which generated theoretical topics such as the critique of alienation and everyday life, the critique of technological rationality, ecological critical theory, and political philosophy, greatly expanding the theoretical space of Marxist philosophy.
II. Western Marxism's Cultural-Ideological Critique of Contemporary Capitalist Society
Western Marxism emphasizes the critical value-function of Marxist philosophy to launch a cultural-ideological critique of contemporary capitalist society. In their view, contemporary capitalism differs from classical capitalism, which relied primarily on political violence to maintain its rule. Instead, it relies on both political violence and cultural-ideological control, showing an increasing dependence on the latter to make people identify with the capitalist cultural order and political rule. This led them—unlike Marx and Engels, who moved from philosophical research toward economic research—to shift their theoretical themes toward philosophy and especially cultural studies, forming the "cultural turn" of Western Marxism. Based on the objectives of their theoretical exploration, Western Marxism can be divided into two major types: theories exploring the liberation of the proletariat as a whole, and theories exploring the liberation of the individual in the West. The former is represented mainly by Lukács, Korsch, Gramsci, Althusser, and Ecological and Analytical Marxist theorists; the latter is represented mainly by the Frankfurt School, Sartre, and others.
Theories exploring the liberation of the proletariat as a whole emphasize that the critical value-function of Marxist philosophy must be exerted to form a mature class consciousness and a unified collective will. Lukács emphasized that against the bourgeoisie's state power and sophisticated techniques of political rule, the proletariat's only advantage is its possession of a class consciousness capable of grasping social totality and social essence—namely, historical materialism. Therefore, "when the final economic crisis hits capitalism, the fate of the revolution (and with it, the fate of humanity) will depend on the ideological maturity of the proletariat, i.e., on its class consciousness." He thus criticized the Marxists of that time for their economic-determinist and "vulgar materialist" [6] understanding of historical materialism, which abandoned the aforementioned advantages of proletarian class consciousness, neglected its cultivation, and severed the individual goals of the proletarian struggle from the final goal, resulting in the proletariat's loss of strength. Lukács demanded that Marxist philosophy not be reduced to scientific knowledge but that its ideological function be exerted, putting forward his theory of "class consciousness." In Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch criticized the understanding that denied the philosophical consciousness and dialectical content in Marxist philosophy, viewing it as a distortion that led to two serious consequences: first, bourgeois thinkers used the pretext that Marxism lacked philosophical content to supplement it with bourgeois philosophies such as Kantianism or Machism [7], thereby falsifying Marxism; second, revisionists and reformists of the Second International, by denying the philosophical content of Marxism, neglected its organic link with the dialectical tradition of German Classical Philosophy (represented by Hegel) and the principle of the "unanimity of theory and practice, philosophy and reality." They simplified historical materialism into economic determinism and technological reductionism, losing the critical value-dimension. Based on this, Korsch emphasized that the philosophical consciousness of Marxist theory must be restored, and that a "total revolution" model involving economic, political, and cultural-ideological revolutions should be adopted in the West. Gramsci interpreted Marxist philosophy as the "philosophy of praxis," emphasizing its mission to spread proletarian cultural ideology and form a unified collective will. Gramsci particularly stressed that the philosophy of praxis must exert its cultural-ideological function to seize cultural-ideological hegemony through the "war of position" [8]—defeating the enemy point by point—to form a unified proletarian collective will.
In order to guarantee the scientific nature of Marxist theory while simultaneously exercising its ideological function, Althusser divided Marxist theory into “dialectical materialist philosophy” and “historical materialist science.” He emphasized that historical materialist science is a theoretical anti-humanist “overdetermination” [9] that exists in the form of scientific theory, undertaking the function of providing scientific knowledge, and is unrelated to ideology. “Dialectical materialist philosophy,” however, exists in a state of practice and requires us to elaborate upon it theoretically. It does not provide scientific knowledge but primarily assumes an ideological function; Althusser also emphasized that whether the connotations of dialectical materialist philosophy could be scientifically elaborated related to whether the international workers' movement of the time possessed scientific theoretical guidance, and thus to the success or failure of that movement. In his book For Marx, he defined “dialectical materialist philosophy” as a “theory of theoretical practice,” highlighting the general guiding role of dialectical materialist philosophy for theoretical practice. Because these views were criticized for the error of “theoreticist” decoupling of Marxist theory from its intrinsic link to the workers' movement, in Lenin and Philosophy he redefined dialectical materialist philosophy as “class struggle in the field of theory.” Furthermore, he proposed the theory of “ideological state apparatuses” concerning the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, creatively putting forward the distinction between “repressive state apparatuses” and “ideological state apparatuses.” For him, the so-called “repressive state apparatuses” refer to the government, army, police, prisons, and courts that exercise the function of political rule through repressive means; the so-called “ideological state apparatuses” refer to the family, school, and church that execute political rule through non-repressive ideological means. Their roles are complementary, though the role of the repressive state apparatus lies mainly in maintaining the political conditions for the reproduction of capitalist relations of production, while the ideological state apparatus primarily assumes the reproduction of the relations of production themselves. Althusser argued that in contemporary capitalist society, cultural hegemony is exercised primarily through ideological state apparatuses to ensure the reproduction of capitalist relations of production. He emphasized that whereas classical capitalist society relied mainly on the religious ideological apparatus, contemporary capitalist society relies mainly on the educational ideological state apparatus. This requires that Western revolution must prioritize ideological critique and the struggle for hegemony.
Ecosocialist theory [10] proposed the thesis that “capitalism is inherently anti-ecological,” identifying the capitalist system and mode of production as the root and foundation of the ecological crisis, and launching a critique of the values carried by capital and the consumerist values that serve as capitalist ideology. Capital promotes consumerist values and lifestyles throughout society, characterized by “encouraging all people to place consumption activities at the center of their daily concerns, while intensifying the experience of dissatisfaction at every level of consumption already achieved.” The “consumption” advocated by these consumerist values is not built upon the real needs of human beings, but upon the “false needs” deliberately manufactured by capital for the sake of pursuing profit and maintaining political rule. Ecosocialist theory thus criticizes consumerist values and lifestyles for inverting the relationship between needs, commodities, satisfaction, and happiness, which inevitably leads to the alienation of relations between individuals, society, and nature, and to ecological crisis. To resolve the ecological crisis and realize the freedom and liberation of the proletariat, one must launch a critique of consumerist values to liberate people from their dominance and seek satisfaction and happiness through creative labor. Analytical Marxism, in its theoretical exploration of the future and destiny of socialism, abandoned empirical and historical investigations of social development in favor of the discourses of morality and justice. It defends socialism from a normative perspective and consciously assumes the task of defending socialist value principles, responding to liberal discourses of justice within the field of political philosophy and elaborating the value connotations of socialist egalitarianism.
Unlike Western Marxist theories that explore the freedom and liberation of the proletariat as a whole—which focus on how to free the proletariat from the shackles of bourgeois ideology to form a mature class consciousness and universal will—Western Marxist theorists exploring individual freedom and liberation focus on how to enable the individual to escape the total control of Western society, forming autonomous consciousness and independent personality to create conditions for personal liberation. The Frankfurt School emphasized that the progress of science and technology advanced the development of productive forces, leading to an immense abundance of social material wealth and a certain improvement in the material living standards of the working class. Capitalist society entered a period of stable development, but this meant neither that capitalist society had eliminated social contradictions nor that the working class had attained freedom and happiness. On the contrary, dominated by the profit motive, capital did not apply the growing social material wealth to the free and comprehensive development of the working class and Western individuals, but instead subjected them to more comprehensive control and extra-repression.
Habermas, in Technology and Science as “Ideology”, argued that science and technology exercise an ideological function. Differing from the “top-down” method of traditional ideology, it adopts a “bottom-up” approach. Western capitalist society utilizes the social wealth brought by scientific and technological progress to establish a broad social welfare system throughout society, thereby gaining people’s identification with and loyalty to the capitalist system. Fromm, in a series of works such as The Sane Society and Man for Himself, revealed how technological progress, through the control of nature, fosters a non-productive, market-oriented personality. This locates the value of the self in the ability to achieve market exchange and external recognition, leading to the loss of independent personality and causing people to worship authoritarian ethics while fearing to pursue their own true interests, resulting in the alienation of the self, interpersonal relations, and the human-nature relationship. How to foster an independent personality, allow people’s productive potential to flourish, overcome alienation, and realize human freedom and liberation became the core issues of Fromm’s theoretical inquiry.
Horkheimer and Adorno, in Dialectic of Enlightenment and other works, proposed the “theory of the culture industry,” revealing that the culture industry, based on scientific and technological progress, outputs consumerist values aimed at controlling and dominating people’s inner worlds, thereby achieving total rule. In their view, the cultural products produced by the culture industry are essentially a form of cultural alienation. This is because, from the perspective of production, true cultural production is individual and creative, whereas the culture industry produces cultural products through reproduction and mass production, characterized by standardization, massification, and homogenization. From the perspective of the essence and purpose of culture, while the essence of culture is originally to elevate humanity and promote free and comprehensive development, the products of the culture industry are special commodities aimed at profit. From the perspective of the consequences of consumption, because these cultural products are special commodities devoid of intellectual depth, they primarily use advertising as a medium to guide people into chasing and consuming cultural products to forget the pain of life. This means the culture industry inevitably subordinates people's inner worlds to society, causing them to lose the capacity for rational reflection and critical consciousness, thus exercising an ideological function. Through the above analysis, the Frankfurt School argued, on the one hand, that scientific progress and increased social wealth have not brought freedom or happiness; on the other hand, contemporary Western society is already a society of total rule and total alienation. They emphasized that the increase in social wealth and material standards by no means implies that contemporary Western society is an ideal society without contradictions. On the contrary, the basic contradictions of capitalist society have not changed; the working class remains in a state of political oppression and economic exploitation. The manifestation of these basic contradictions has merely been transformed into a contradiction between the trend toward the totalization and integration of social production and life and the individual’s requirement for personalized, free development. Liberating the individual from being increasingly swallowed by the social totality and restoring critical consciousness is the prerequisite and foundation for Westerners to obtain freedom and liberation. They thus proposed that the realization of this freedom and liberation should occur through aesthetic art or the cultivation of love, forming autonomous consciousness, independent personality, and restoring critical consciousness.
Overall, the emphasis on the critique of culture and ideology is a commonality of Western Marxism. However, the focus of those theories exploring the liberation of the proletariat as a whole is how to form mature class consciousness and a universal will through ideological critique, advocating for a socialist political revolution with class politics as the subject. The focus of those exploring individual freedom and liberation is how to form autonomous consciousness and independent personality through ideological critique and aesthetics, establishing a humanist socialist society.
III. Western Marxism’s Inquiry into Contemporary Capitalist Realities and Its Theoretical Innovation
A prominent characteristic of Western Marxist theory is its emphasis on exploring capitalist modernization and the reality of contemporary Western society from the ontological dimension of human freedom and liberation. This has led to the formation of innovative theories such as the critique of alienation and everyday life, the critique of technological rationality, ecological critique, and the critique of political philosophy. These serve as important intellectual resources for advancing the Sinicization of Marxism and the construction of Chinese Marxist philosophical theory.
Influenced by Max Weber’s sociology, Georg Simmel’s philosophy of money, and Marx’s analysis of “commodity fetishism” in Capital, Lukács argued that a universal phenomenon of reification exists in capitalist society. He proposed the “theory of reification,” making the theme of alienation an important theoretical tool for Western Marxism’s critique of capitalism. Lukács defined reification as “a man’s own activity, his own labour becomes something objective and independent of him, something that controls him by virtues of an autonomy alien to man.” [11] It manifests not only in the fact that objects produced by labor turn back into an existence that dominates humans, but also in the fact that a person's labor is opposed to the person themselves. Lukács believed the root of reification lies in the prevalence of technological rationality and capitalist mechanized large-scale production based on that rationality. Reification implies not only that capitalist modernization causes the value of things to rise while the value of humans falls, but also results in a positivist way of thinking that “sees the trees but not the forest,” leaving people unable to grasp the distinction between phenomenon and essence in capitalist society and causing them to lose their status as subjects in historical development. Although Lukács’s theory of reification suffered from the flaw of conflating “alienation” (异化) with “objectification” (对象化), he proposed it before Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 was published, demonstrating his keen theoretical insight. This theory was inherited and developed by subsequent Western Marxists, becoming an essential tool for analyzing the human condition and criticizing capitalist society, leading to theories of “total alienation,” “the alienation of everyday life,” and “the alienation of consumption.” The core of these theories is the identification of contemporary capitalist society as essentially a society of total alienation, where not only the relations of self, others, and nature are alienated, but alienation also permeates people's consumption activities and daily lives.
The value of Western Marxist alienation theory lies in its profound revelation that while contemporary Western capitalist modernization has brought about the development of productive forces and an increase in material wealth, it has not brought people freedom and happiness. On the contrary, it has brought a more comprehensive controlled repression; it is the subordination of man to things, the fragmentation of the human body and mind, and the loss of self-awareness and independent personality. However, it must also be seen that the alienation theory of Western Marxism possesses the following three defects: First, they failed to explore the root causes of alienation from the perspective of capitalist private ownership and the division of labor. Instead, they simply attributed it to the prevalence of technical rationality [12]. Consequently, their theory veered toward a critique of philosophical, cultural, and nodal values rather than toward a critique of political economy as Marx did, making it difficult to find a practical path to overcoming alienation. Second, in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx not only argued that alienation arises from capitalist private ownership and the division of labor, but also clearly defined the connotation and essence of alienation from four aspects: "the relationship of the worker to the product of labor," "the relationship of the worker to the act of production," "the relationship of the worker to his species-being," and "the social relationship of man to man." Western Marxist theorists, however, generalized the use of the concept of alienation. They even detached it from capitalist private ownership and economic relations, generalizing it into a subjective psychological experience, holding that "alienation is a mode of experience in which the person experiences himself as an alien... divided from himself." This effectively labeled all negative phenomena in social life as alienation, which in practice subjectivized the concept. Third, they conflated "objectification" with "alienation," effectively ontologizing alienation. This not only reduced human social history to a history of alienation and resistance against it, but also reduced Marxist philosophy to an abstract philosophical anthropology aimed at resisting and overcoming alienation.
By reflecting on the social effects of science and technology, Western Marxism formed its critique of technical rationality. This critique unfolded primarily along two dimensions: a critique of the philosophical worldview and a critique of the social basis carrying the use of technology. From the dimension of the philosophical worldview, they proceeded by revealing the inherent deficiencies of Enlightenment reason and the consequences of the prevalence of contemporary positivist philosophy. In their view, the fundamental purpose of Enlightenment reason was to demand that people establish rationality, rid themselves of the fear of nature and the worship of myth, and move toward self-reliance. Enlightenment reason thus fundamentally changed the pre-Enlightenment fascination with and awe of the mysteries of nature. They viewed nature from a pragmatic perspective, thereby seeing the relationship between man and nature as one of control and being controlled, utilization and being utilized. The problem lies in the fact that Enlightenment reason’s standard for judging "science" was not knowledge of the ultimate causes and causal relationships of the world, but rather "utility." Consequently, anything that did not conform to the rules of calculation and pragmatism was considered suspect, and all inquiries into the causal relations and ultimate causes of things were denied and discarded as metaphysical illusions. The so-called "science" of Enlightenment reason excluded value factors, effectively severing the internal connection between "instrumental rationality" and "value rationality." "Reason" thus alienated into "technical rationality," and "science" was reduced to "technique." The popularity of contemporary positivist philosophy further reinforced the worship of scientific-technical rationality and the prevalence of the trend of scientism. From the perspective of the social basis carrying the use of technology, the profit-seeking nature of capital ensures that capitalist production’s use of technology follows an "economic rationality" pursuing economic efficiency and growth. This dictates that the application of technology is not for realizing the free and well-rounded development of the person, but for obeying and serving the needs of capital’s pursuit of profit. Under contemporary capitalist conditions, this application of technology can only further intensify the tension between man and nature, and between man and man. Regarding how to avoid the alienation of science and technology, Western Marxism proposed: first, the relationship between science and technology and philosophy, and between science and technology and values, should be reconstructed; a "technical ethics" aimed at curbing irrational human desires should be established to ensure that the use of science and technology is conducive to the harmonious development of man and nature, and man and society. Second, the unreasonable capitalist system and mode of production should be transformed, and the relationships between people reconstructed.
Western Marxism conducted in-depth explorations on how to solve the increasingly serious ecological crisis in the contemporary world, forming ecological critique theory. They opposed Western "Deep Green" ecological trends based on ecocentrism and Western "Light Green" ecological trends based on anthropocentrism, which sever the view of nature from the view of history and explore the roots and solutions of the ecological crisis solely from the dimension of ecological values. Instead, they advocated exploring the roots and solutions of the ecological crisis based on the idea of an ecological community within historical materialism, which inherently unifies the views of nature and history. Unlike the "Deep Green" and "Light Green" trends entangled in the debate between "ecocentric values" and "anthropocentric values," Ecological Marxism explicitly identifies the capitalist system and mode of production as the root of the ecological crisis. They refer to the contradiction between the productive forces and relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure, as the "first contradiction" of capitalist society; the result of this contradiction's movement is an economic crisis caused by insufficient demand. They refer to the contradiction between capitalist production and its conditions of production as the "second contradiction" of capitalist society; the result of this movement is an ecological crisis caused by the destruction of production conditions, emphasizing that the economic crisis of contemporary capitalist society is primarily manifested as an ecological crisis. Based on this understanding, Western Marxism focused on analyzing the movement of capitalism’s internal contradictions, the characteristics of the capitalist mode of production, capital’s profit-seeking nature, and the new ways capital maintains its political rule by borrowing consumerist values and lifestyles—thereby revealing the internal link between the capitalist system/mode of production and the ecological crisis. Upon this foundation, they launched an ecological critique of capitalist society, an ecological critique of the capitalist use of technology, and a critique of capitalist cultural values. They proposed that the ecological movement should be organically combined with the organized workers' movement to lead the ecological movement toward a radical class movement. This involves dismantling the capitalist system and the value of "the supremacy of material desires" carried by capital, or establishing an anthropocentrism based on the genuine collective and long-term interests of humanity, or establishing a new type of ecocentrism that breaks the capitalist reversal of use-value and exchange-value. By establishing an eco-socialist society based on production justice and ecological rationality, economic growth and technical application can develop harmoniously with nature and humanity, and the ecological crisis can be truly and fundamentally resolved. Thus, an ecological critique theory was formed based on the realization of a historical materialist ecological community, distinct from Western "Deep Green" and "Light Green" trends.
Western Marxism identifies capitalist society as an unjust society. How to realize human freedom and equality and ensure social justice became the practical issues they focused on, and the exploration of these issues formed their political philosophy. This is reflected in Western Marxism's proposal of theories aimed at nurturing proletarian class consciousness and individual independent personality, such as class consciousness theory, cultural hegemony theory, the theory of ideological state apparatuses, the theory of legitimacy crisis and the public sphere, recognition theory, ecological political philosophy, and the justice theory of Analytical Marxism. Their explorations not only revealed changes in contemporary Western modes of rule and the predicament of contemporary Western human existence, but also answered the challenges posed by the political philosophies of libertarianism and left-liberalism (represented by Nozick and Rawls) against historical materialism. They highlighted the necessity and importance of excavating, organizing, and constructing a political philosophy of historical materialism according to the changes in contemporary Western social and historical conditions, defending historical materialism and socialism from a normative dimension, and providing theoretical resources for us to enrich and develop Marxist political philosophy.
IV. The Contemporary Effects and Value of the Theoretical Logic of Western Marxism
The inquiry into the essence of Marxist philosophy is the theoretical starting point of the logic of Western Marxism. They oppose the interpretation of Marxist philosophy as economic determinism or technical reductionism. They believe that Marxist philosophy is not an early-modern [13] epistemological philosophy, but a modern materialist philosophy that explores the relationship between man and nature and between man and man. This dictates that the function and mission of Marxist philosophy should be the realization of human freedom and liberation, thereby forming an academic tradition that emphasizes the criticality and practical nature of Marxist philosophy. The theoretical logic of Western Marxism is not only of great value for understanding the essence, theoretical mission, and theoretical form of Marxist philosophy, reconstructing the internal link between Marxist philosophy and the human life-world, and expanding the theoretical space of Marxist philosophy; it has also produced extensive theoretical and practical effects in the contemporary era. It is an important intellectual resource for advancing the theoretical construction of Chinese Marxist philosophy and solving the problems of modernity in the process of Chinese-path modernization.
First, the Western Marxist understanding and interpretation of the essence of Marxist philosophy highlights its fundamental difference from early-modern philosophy and its modern character. It emphasizes that the function and mission of Marxist philosophy do not lie in revealing the absolute essence and universal laws of the world, but rather in investigating how the "totality" [14] composed of subjective and objective factors impacts the process of social-historical development and the human condition, so as to realize human freedom and liberation. Simultaneously, it opposes and avoids interpretations of Marxist philosophy as natural-scientific materialism, economic determinism, or technical reductionism, and reconstructs the organic connection between Marxist philosophy and the human life-world. This represents an understanding of Marxist philosophy under Western social-historical conditions and cultural traditions, and is an important component of the developmental history of 20th-century Marxist philosophy. The Soviet-Russian "dialectical materialism and historical materialism" interpretation model and the Western Marxist "practice materialism" [15] interpretation model were the two representative interpretation models of 20th-century Marxist philosophy. Western Marxism developed precisely through the reflection on and criticism of the Soviet-Russian model. How we view the relationship between these two models not only concerns how we view the theoretical nature and value of Western Marxism, but also has significant value for our understanding of the essence of Marxist philosophy and the construction of its theoretical system. According to the research of the Chinese scholar Mr. Yang Geng, the term "dialectical materialism" originated with Plekhanov. Plekhanov believed that "dialectical materialism" was the term that best represented the philosophy of Marxism, but since dialectical materialism involved the historical realm, it could also be called "historical materialism." In fact, Plekhanov "called Marxist philosophy 'dialectical materialism' to highlight its essential characteristics; he called it 'historical materialism' to explain its field of research." While inheriting Plekhanov’s view that "dialectical materialism" is Marxist philosophy, Lenin also believed that "historical materialism" is the application and extension of "dialectical materialism" in the historical field. This view of Lenin was ultimately inherited by Stalin in his essay Dialectical and Historical Materialism, which finally established the textbook system of Marxist philosophy with its dual structure of "dialectical materialism" and "historical materialism." The Soviet-Russian interpretation model played a huge historical role in helping us grasp historical laws and promoting the popularization of Marxist philosophy. However, the problem with this model is that it stands on the position of early-modern rationalist philosophy, interpreting Marx’s materialist philosophy as an epistemological philosophy. It primarily emphasizes the commonalities between Marx’s materialism and old materialism, rather than highlighting the essence of the philosophical revolution Marx achieved or the particularity of Marx’s materialism. This is precisely the fundamental reason Western Marxism criticized this interpretation model. Western Marxism, on the other hand, advocated elucidating the connotation of Marxist philosophy at the point of its rupture with early-modern materialist philosophy, taking man and his practice as the basis and starting point of Marxist philosophy.
Second, Western Marxism emphasizes the critical-evaluative dimension of Marxist philosophy, highlighting the fundamental position of the human being, praxis, and dialectics within Marxist philosophy. They take the question of culture and ideology as the theme of their theoretical research, focusing on how the totality formed by the interrelationship and interaction of subjective and objective factors in historical development influences the progress of human social history. They strove to resolve the dialectical relationship between the scientific and evaluative nature of Marxist theory; however, in practice, they did not resolve this problem well, but rather oscillated between the two. Their theoretical explorations and defects have produced extensive social and theoretical effects in the contemporary West. Regarding its social effects, the theoretical exploration of Western Marxism is not only closely linked to Western socialist movements but has also exerted a profound influence on contemporary Western social movements, such as urban movements, ecological movements, and feminist movements. Regarding its theoretical effects, the linguistic "cultural turn" achieved by Western Marxism influenced the theoretical construction of post-Marxism, the trend of Cultural Studies, and Late Marxism, and constituted the second turn in overseas Marxism—namely, the shift from the cultural turn back to the study of political economy. Under the pretext of changes in the socio-historical conditions of the contemporary West, post-Marxism emphasizes that class politics based on historical necessity is no longer possible. By borrowing and extending Gramsci’s cultural hegemony, Althusser’s "overdetermination" [16] and theory of ideology, and combining these with postmodern philosophical and cultural trends, they constructed a post-Marxist theory focusing on "pluralist democracy," "contingency," and "articulation theory." While borrowing the aforementioned thoughts of Gramsci and Althusser, they regarded the emphasis on the determinative role of economic factors as an "essentialism" that should be rejected and discarded. Consequently, they moved toward a complete negation of the determinative role of economic factors and a one-sided emphasis on the role of culture and ideology—a form of subjective idealism that demonstrates the negative effects of the cultural turn in Western Marxism. Conversely, Late Marxism, represented by Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, and David Harvey, combines Western Marxist cultural research with the study of political economy. They strive to explore how to elevate the micro-politics of contemporary capitalist society into a totalizing politics against capitalism, thereby realizing the second turn in overseas Marxist research (from the cultural turn back to political economy). This approach both avoids an economic-determinist interpretation of Marxist philosophy and achieves an organic unity between cultural studies and political economy research, demonstrating the positive influence of the Western Marxist cultural turn.
Third, the theoretical explorations of Western Marxism have also exerted a profound influence on contemporary Chinese Marxist philosophical research. First, it promoted reflection within Chinese academic circles regarding the essence of Marxist philosophy and the exploration of its theoretical system. Before Western Marxism was introduced to Chinese academia, the Soviet-Russian interpretive model of "dialectical materialism and historical materialism" was prevalent and considered the only correct interpretive model for Marxist philosophy, serving as the standard for judging the correctness of all domestic and foreign philosophical theories. The introduction of Western Marxism into Chinese academia occurred during the same historical process as China’s Reform and Opening-up and the New Period [17] of socialist construction. It prompted Chinese academia to reflect on the "textbook system" [18] of Marxist philosophical interpretation, encouraging researchers to begin grounding themselves in the needs of modern philosophical and cultural trends and the practice of Chinese modernization to explore the "true spirit" of Marxist philosophy. Thus, Western Marxism became an important intellectual resource for advancing the theoretical construction of Chinese Marxist philosophy. Second, Western Marxism's discussion of the relationship between the scientific and evaluative nature of Marxist theory influenced Chinese academic reflections and debates on the essence of Marxist theory, manifested in discussions regarding the relationship between the "academic nature" and "reality-oriented nature" of Marxist theory. Although some of these discussions suffered from the defect of using the strengthening of Marxism’s academic nature as a pretext to weaken or even negate its practical application to reality, they nonetheless emphasized that Marxist theory should both be liberated from the status of a guiding ideology characterized by political pragmatism to enhance its disciplinary character (i.e., its scientific nature) and exert the evaluative function of Marxist philosophy in observing reality. They emphasized that the theoretical nature of Marxism is the organic unity of academic rigor and practical relevance. Third, Western Marxism's focus on the exploration of practical issues and the numerous theoretical topics derived therefrom not only prompted Chinese Marxist philosophy to open up fields such as the philosophy of culture, the philosophy of everyday life, the study of technical rationality, and ecological and political philosophy—thereby expanding the theoretical space of Chinese Marxist philosophy—but also led Chinese Marxist philosophy toward the life-world of contemporary Chinese people. This established an organic connection with the real world, making Western Marxism an important intellectual resource for Chinese Marxist philosophy in solving the problems of modernity encountered during the process of Chinese modernization.
(Institutional affiliation: School of Philosophy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law) Web Editor: Tong Xin Source: Marxism & Reality, Issue 4, 2021