Four Pillars of a Revisionist Marxism

The essay identifies four points of continued relevance of reconstructed, lower-case marxism for the analysis of the contemporary world: (i)its epistemological and, especially, critical-realist approach to the nature and process of our knowledge; (ii)its systematic critical attention to structural inequalities integral to contemporary capitalism which are analysed holistically and historically; (iii)certain theoretical concepts and propositions such as class, hegemony, and alienation which serve as heuristic guideposts for the analysis of society (rather than as diagnostic or prognostic tools); and (iv)Marx’s ethical postulate for the social sciences not only to explain but to change society, which this author understands as a call for individual and collective action to ameliorate the injustices and miseries of the world (but, emphatically, not to construct the perfect society as such attempts tend to cause more harm than good).