What if Karl Marx was never born.
People who use the phrase "marxism" wrong in our time line use a different phrase wrong in the ATL
People who use the phrase "marxism" wrong in our time line use a different phrase wrong in the ATL
Do you have a basis for this assumption? Because Marx's influence on Socialism is pretty unique and without him the entire playing field really is different. I mean for some perspective his feud with Bakunin essentially created the split between Anarchism and socialism which had previously been aligned.
My basis for this assumption is the way people abuse many terms as catch-alls when they are really the names of specific examples. In US culture we have Xerox, Kleenex, Coke, and McNuggets. Also the annoying and endless debate between Democracy and Republic that even my political science professor (PhD no less) didn't understand.
Karl Marx said:Marx and Engels aren't forced from Paris in 1845, leading Karl to be killed during the turmoil of 1848 (shortly after Manifesto is published), while Engels is arrested within the year, and dies in prison. Bakunin becomes the most prominent "revolutionary" thinker in Europe, and communism (as such) becomes a subset of anarchism, dominating its "left wing" -- only to see individualist anarchism (followers of Max Stirner) overtake it in influence. While "command economics" continues to be viewed as a fringe reactionary idea, thinkers like JS Mill develop defenses for economic interventionism that distinguish between the creation and distribution of wealth. Bruno Bauer and followers, meanwhile, develop historical materialism, which finds its main impact on sociology and "scientific socialism". Nietzche, meanwhile, sees far more medium term influence than OTL, inspiring a major ideology in European politics (similar, in some ways, to OTL Thatcherism). The most infamous ideology to emerge from Europe, though, is the 20th Century right-wing idea of achieving utopian socialism through total war...
Except in this scenario there never really would be the brand name to overtake the catch all. There would continue to be numerous socialist ideologies and in my opinion it's unlikely any of those would be overtaken like they where with Marxism. I mean all the examples you use are talking about the one overbearing product becoming a catch all for similar products (although I've never really heard the coke/soda one, having lived all my life in a "soda" region), here there isn't anything overbearing which would take over for the catch all which will remain socialism.
Except in this scenario there never really would be the brand name to overtake the catch all. There would continue to be numerous socialist ideologies and in my opinion it's unlikely any of those would be overtaken like they where with Marxism. I mean all the examples you use are talking about the one overbearing product becoming a catch all for similar products (although I've never really heard the coke/soda one, having lived all my life in a "soda" region), here there isn't anything overbearing which would take over for the catch all which will remain socialism.
In my russian history survey class the professor brought up that several forms of communism and socialism were popular various russian groups of thinkers. Since Marx isn't around to take top spot, Lenin and Trotsky pick up on some other forumation of socialism/communism. Perhaps one better suited to russia's needs. This form is what Lenin and Trotsky build their revolution around and that name becomes attached to socialism/communism in the west.
Except Marx made some pretty unique contributions. Abstract labour power as a theory of value. It would take someone recapitulating the theories of surplus value work with an eye for category errors and an understanding of actual labour processes from the left.
Or, for that matter, a vigorous anti-substitutionalist bent; such as in Critique of Gotha Programme.
Also the concept of the proletariat as a self-producing final class arising out of the abjection of waged abstract labour. That's a pretty weird combination of left Hegelianism, understanding of labour process, understanding of class.
Engels is probably far less significant without Marx. _Condition_ is moralistic and appeals to the bourgeois. _Family_ has a kind of scientism that is unlikely if Engels didn't have to compete intellectually with Marx's work. Anti-Duhring ("Socialism: Utopian and Scientific") seems to be a combo of the scientism and Engel and Marx egging each other on to shit all over any other socialist intellectual from a bourgeois background in Europe.
I mean sure, we'll get it later, James P. Cannon looks like a retread of De Leon. Trotsky looks like a retread of the Victorian Socialist Party, etc. But these will be built up from below, largely out of concrete proletarian experience; rather than having socialist bourgeois intellectuals sticking their fingers in the pie.
On the other hand, people forget that Marxism wasn't all that influential outside of central Europe until a small bunch of schizmatics took power in Russia. The parallel evolution of Syndicalism worldwide, and the parallel evolution of "parties of the new type" whether in a situation with workers dominant (VSP), or nascent (DeLeonism), or functionally non-existent (Leninism) indicates that deeper springs form socialist ideas than merely dead men with beards.
Sam.
You seem like you think you disagree with me but are making mostly points I agree with.