Before I get into this thread just a quick preface:
Let's not make this thread an argument over socialism, because that's not what it's about.
I heard it said at this forum a little while ago that Marx is one of the most oft-quoted philosophers, and yet one of the least understood. That got me to thinking that it may be worthwhile to at least understand what his thought was, given how influential it's been in the past century.
I have a bit of an idea of the big stuff from indirect sources, but I also wonder what important ideas he had that might not be as public. Critiques from major thinkers would be welcome as well.
As an aside from that, if anyone has recommendations for sources to read they'd be more than welcome. I did a bit of searching there and found a recommendation for a Marx-Engels reader that I can link to later, but I haven't read it yet.
Marx is an interesting figure. Overtly political to the point of being under-read for political reasons, which should be a lesson to all academics in a way. But he was and is one of the finest social theorists of his day, and his works remain the benchmark for analyses of capitalism as a full system.
Das Kapital was unprecedented, and I would challenge any claim to have outdone it as a full scale analysis of the system. I think it is quite telling that even his most bitter detractors nevertheless borrow his terminology and often many of his assumptions as well! His influence on political theory is impossible to erase as well, and my own field is profoundly shaped by his portrayal of power relations in society generally. During the cold war, this had to be on the down low in the US, so people would cite sources in such a way as to keep them at a few degrees of remove from Marx himself; it is a guessing game I find amusing when reviewing 60's and 70's era literature.
I am not a Marxist, but I think his theories are worth extended study, and his insistence on reasonable empirical support for most statements was a rare dedication for a social scientist of his generation. His economics have become outdated by the prevalence of stock and other imaginary products; he did not believe that material goods and their production would ever become as thoroughly eclipsed by speculation as they have now become (though he may well be correct about the ultimate fate of such speculations) as well as by the rise of robotics in material production -- our materials produce materials, something he could not have predicted but which throw his theory into disarray.
The bibliography of Marxism is absurd in its size and breadth, very hard to wade through and I cannot claim to be expert in it. There's a
new biography of Marx out this year, which has inspired a fair amount of comment. I have been meaning to check it out, but haven't had the time yet. Royce's "Classical Social Theory and Modern Society" is another recent entry, which I like a great deal. It covers Durkheim and Weber as well as Marx, but I think this actually ends up explaining his role in sociology and economics better than if it were just focused on the man himself - provides critical context in terms of what was and was
not filtered from his writing into scholarly consensus. Looking back into the original Western revival of Marx, Hal Draper of the Berkeley FSM produced a whole multivolume series on Marx under the title "Theory of Revolution" and actually covering a host of topics very thoroughly over several books through the 70's. Influenced how a lot of people felt about Marx during an era of renewed social activism, very biased in his approach, but informative in an "emic perspective" sort of way.
The Oxford Very Short Introduction to Marx is what I hand to interested students, it is a surprisingly effective summary. But then, I teach freshpersons, so...
