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Marxism: Marxism is a social, political, and economic philosophy named after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is a system of analysis and critique of capitalism, as well as a political program for its overthrow and the establishment of a socialist society. See also K. Marx, F. Engels, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Terence Ball on Marxism - Dictionary of Arguments

Gaus I 20
Marxism/interpretation//Ball: A Marxian approach to textual interpretation encounters a number of difficulties, among them the following. We have seen already that Marxists assume that the ruling ideas of an epoch are those that serve the interests of the ruling class; and since most political thinkers have belonged to an educated and literate elite, their ideas serve the ruling class.
1) BallVsMarxism: But then Marx and Engels (and Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Lukács, and many other prominent Marxists) have not belonged to the class of oppressed labourers but to a learned and literate
Gaus I 21
elite.
>K. Marx
, >F. Engels, >L. Trotsky, >G. Lukács.
By Marxian lights their ideas should serve the interests of the ruling capitalist class, not those of the labouring proletariat. How can the ideas of these Marxists serve the interests of a class to which they do not belong?
MarxismVsVs: All attempts (by Marx and others) to answer this question - that there are some who through will or intellect transcend their ‘objective’ class basis, that the workers cannot theorize for themselves because they are afflicted with ‘false consciousness’ whilst middle-class intellectuals are not, etc. - are merely ad hoc rationalizations and are clearly unsatisfactory.
2) VsMarxism: Moreover, how Marxists can interpret all political theories, past and present, as ideological masks concealing and justifying the domination of one class by another - and yet exempt their own theorizing as an exception to this rule - is not explained (or even explainable) in any satisfactory way.
3) VsMarxism: (...) not least, Marxian interpretations have a formulaic, cookie-cutter quality: the interpreter has preset ideas about what she will find – namely ideological trickery or obfuscation in the service of the ruling class – and, presto, she finds it lurking in even the most innocent-sounding passages.
>Ideology.

Ball, Terence. 2004. „History and the Interpretation of Texts“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Ball, Terence
Gaus I
Gerald F. Gaus
Chandran Kukathas
Handbook of Political Theory London 2004


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