No Marx

The socialist movement would be far more diverse but at the same time there would be no anarchist/socialist split. I'd like to think a more Syndicalist bent would develop but that's really just me projecting.
 

Rstone4

Banned
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.
 

Rstone4

Banned
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.
 
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.

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.
 
The start of my thoughts, which ultimately became a sort of mini-TL:
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...
 

Rstone4

Banned
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 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 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.
 
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 that's a highly deterministic course to take for any alt history scenario. It requires Trotsky and lenin to both be alive and conditions in russia to be the same. That's hardly for sure. I mean just as an example, in a world where syndicalism becomes a very mainstream ideology internationally France, Britain, Germany, and the US could all end up as the bastion of socialist thought due to the fact syndicalism by it's very nature appeals heavily to nations with a large tradition of trade unions, whereas communalist anarchism would probably appeal more in the more rural parts of the world. It really is a mater of what catches on and what the nations which arise are like.
 
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.
 
You seem like you think you disagree with me but are making mostly points I agree with.

Might be a bit of yeah but nah, or nah but yeah.

The History of Ideas would be narrowed. As would Political Economy. Labour History. Studies of Class Society. This is probably the biggest loss from losing Marx. He was an exciting and interesting thinker who brought unusual tendencies into conflict.

Within Socialism the main effect will be on bourgeois socialist parties, which were mostly irrelevant; and, Marxism per Marx didn't really have much of an influence on their ideologies and practice. The German SPD came more out of the petits-bourgeois than the class. (Compare the USPD to the AAUD for starters).

Without Marxism providing a coherent programme for disaffected petits-bourgeois and fragments of older dissipating classes to latch onto elements of chance of the 20th century, like Leninism's influence, will be very very different.

Sam.
 
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