Problematics in Contemporary Marx-studies

Abstract

In 1998, the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto was celebrated in many “developed” countries. An international conference was held in Paris in May, several new editions of the Communist Manifesto were published, and many journals published special issues. Since then, various Marx readers, and several Marx dictionaries and many books on Marx have been published. Marx-studies seem to be renewed.
Readings of Marx change with changing historical and political contexts. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the “actually existing socialism” has already had profound consequences in the world of ideas and in global politics. Many authors discuss Marx “after the fall of communism, ” “for a post-acommunist era, ” or “après les marxismes.” Marx is no longer necessarily the theorist of proletarian revolution. Rather he is now widely considered as a democrat against liberalism, or as the premier critical theorist of capitalist society.
One of the focuses in contemporary Marx-studies is the relation between Hegel and Marx. While Althusserian Marxists and “Postmodernists” reject Hegelian inheritance in Marx, Hegelian Marxists insist the continuity between Hegel and Marx. While the former argues that Marx criticized Hegelian liberalism, the latter insists that Hegel was democratic as well as Marx. They, however, agree with each other that Marx was a democrat.
Another focus is Marx's approach to ecology. While some argue that Marx was in favor of the human domination of nature, others insist that Marx's approach to nature, especially his concept of the metabolism between nature and society, provides original and useful insights into the environmental crisis under capitalism. Capitalism exploits not only human nature as labor power, but also nature itself as resources. As opposed to some ecologists' critiques, Marx aimed to abolish the alienation of labor and nature entirely. Red and Green can still go together.
There have always been multiple Marxes, and each one is a product of a reading strategy. As there were multiple Marxes, so there were multiple debates. Re-reading and re-assessing Marx is itself an important way of thinking and doing, but is also a way of reconstructing a Marx at the same time. So we may not forget, as Terrell Carver says, that Marx is plural for us because our problems are plural.