The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. on one hand the currenta rticle appears to sduffer from lack of scope adn OR and on the other there seesm to be a lot of literature disiccusiing different aspects of the term. I suspect that what we need is a different article less reliant on OR that addressed the contents of the books. Anyone here up to working on that? Spartaz Humbug! 05:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neo-Marxism

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Neo-Marxism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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The contents of the Neo-marxism page refers primarily to Marxists who were not Stalinists: Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno. The implication is that plain old "Marxists" are all Stalinists, which is a fringe POV and politically motivated byt right-wing ideologues from the Cold War. The people covered in this list considered themselves Marxists, and were and are considered by most people to be Marxists. Sometimes these people are identified more specifically as "Western Marxists," others as "the Frankfurt School" - but these designation does not mean they are not Marxists, just as labeling someone a Stalinist does not mean he is not a Marxist. All of the scholars and activists mentioned on this page rightfully should be discussed on the Marxism page

It is not surprising that when one googles "Neo-marxism" the first hit is the WP article. As I said above, some people do use the term "neo-marxist" but they constitute a fringe view. All the major sources on marxism - by Marxists, by intellectual historians, and historians, identify these men as marxists. We should not create new articles just to accommodate a fringe view, that violates our policy on POV-forks

The article actually says "There is no formal Neo-Marxist organization and seldom do people call themselves Neo-Marxists, so it is difficult to describe who belongs to this movement. Also there is no set definition as to what a Neo-Marxist is, which makes grouping and categorizing this idea even more difficult." which is practically an admission of defeat. I take it to mean: our time can be spent more productively by working on other articles that do have a clearly defined object or scope.

This article also violates NOR and reads like a personal essay. This is why I do not propose a merge. If it were properly researched and had encyclopedic content, I would have proposed a merge. But it does not offer any information that is not already on WP at the Marxist article or other articles already linked to that article. In other words, WP already covers, much more encyclopedically, all the content - which is meager - in this article. This article simply adds nothing to Wikipedia.

This article was created in 2005 and it still reads like a stub. If 7 years of work can't move it beyond a stub, I see no point in continuing. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further: there is a big-fat reference dictionary for libraries called Biographical Dictionary of Neo-Marxism, (apologies for the ad link but it shows the cover) which should more or less be sufficient to end this challenge as a Speedy Keep. This is clearly recognized as THE term for a definable school of thought and thus worthy of encyclopedic coverage. Carrite (talk) 16:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Point of information, a couple Neo-Marxist journals of interest would include New Left Review in the UK and Socialist Revolution (later Socialist Review) in the United States. I've never seen Telos, but I would bet my lunch money that it is also in this ballpark intellectually. Carrite (talk) 16:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think you're at risk of going hungry this lunchtime! For many years now Telos has been far more influenced by Carl Schmitt than anyone else, and while the degree of Schmitt's influence on Benjamin and Kirchheimer has been much discussed in recent years, nobody has proposed Schmitt as having any vicinity to neo-Marxism. AllyD (talk) 17:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another comment... The nominator was taken aback by this statement: ""There is no formal Neo-Marxist organization and seldom do people call themselves Neo-Marxists, so it is difficult to describe who belongs to this movement. Also there is no set definition as to what a Neo-Marxist is, which makes grouping and categorizing this idea even more difficult." This is actually very correct and helpful. Like some wag said about pornography, "I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it." There is no organization — true fact — the term is not often used as a self-description — true fact — which makes it difficult to describe who belongs to the movement — this logically follows. Want a couple names? Erik Olin Wright. Eric Hobsbawm. E.P. Thompson. Perry Anderson. Do or did any of these self-describe as "Neo-Marxists"? Maybe not. Does that make it hard to include them in the intellectual school? Harder, for sure. Does that mean that there is no such thing as "Neo-Marxism" or that they were not members of that school, broadly construed? No. Carrite (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Hobsbaum? a CPGB loyalist. Thompson and Anderson? Anderson's side of their dispute c1980 was in "Arguments within English Marxism", not neo-Marxism mark you. AllyD (talk) 17:34, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here's another book: Neo-Marxism: The Meanings of Modern Radicalism, published by Greenwood Press in 1982. Note the date, the school of Neo-Marxism was strong more or less from the events of 1956 in Hungary and Poland, which caused soul-searching among many Western Marxists about the nature of the USSR, through the early 1990s, events which called into question the entire Marxist edifice. Carrite (talk) 16:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One more book, then I'm gonna go make french toast: Social Theory and the Frankfurt School: Neo-Marxism and the Rise of Capitalism. Yeah, it's print on demand, which impresses nobody, not a big publisher like Sharpe, Cassell, or Greenwood (cited above). Still, this should put to rest any notion that the term belongs to one author or lacks common currency. Carrite (talk) 17:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that the question is, is there really something called "neo-Marxism" that is notable enough to justify an article. If you think so, and want to write it, I'd be happy to watch and see the result, but given that people have been working on this for seven years makes me really skeptical. Also, I simply do not see The New Left Review in the same article as dissident Marxists in post-Stalin Soviet Union - this is the point I was making when I quoted the article's own admission of incoherence. I think many people you mention - e.g. Hobsbawm and Anderson - are Marxists, as are most of the people associated with the new Left Review. But I think your important point is that there whould be a place in WP for these. I agree. Now, here is what I think is the real issue: there are in fact many different forms and flavors of "Marxism." Marxism in Britain in the 1930s-1970s is different from Marxism in Germany or Italy in the 1920s which is different from Marxism in Russia in the 1880s which is different from Marxism in China in the 1950s which is different from Marxism in China in the 1960s. People working on the article on Christianity face the same kind of problem. I still propose deleting this article. Here is my proposal for moving forward: first, important individuals (Antonio Gramsci, Rosa Luxemburg, and Walter Benjamin ... I would add Michael Taussig and Eric Wolf and Perry Anderson and Maurice Dobb and Eric Hobsbawm ... should each have their own articles which situate their work historically culturally and nationally. Clearly and well-defined movements like Bolshevik-Leninist, Trotskyism and The Frankfurt School should also have their own articles. But in my view, most important is a great article on Marxism which has good summaries of each of these well-defined movements, placing them in their larger theoretical/ideological context. And I think herein lies the solution to our dilemma, and I admit - but gladly, because I think it has long been an effective approach at WP - it is a provisional solution.
I do not believe that all of the people and ideas from the sources you have found that use the term "neo-Marxism" belong in the same article, and I think that some of the people and ideas in the sources you have found are not notable enough for an article of their own. Some, perhaps, do, but unless you are prepared to do the work now, I don't see appropriate articles being written about them yet. So, what should we do? I think we should do what editors working on the Christianity article and other articles that are similarly about large and heterogenous topics do. We (you, other people knowledgeable about and interested in these diverse intellectual and political movements) should work on them within the context of the Marxism article. In general, it is a wise approach to work on a main article and then spin off daughter-articles, and a highly risky approach to work the other way around. There are obviously challenges about how best to identify and delineate different intellectual and political movements. I believe that the best place to work on these challenges is with the other editors active at the Marxism article. There is the place to show the diverse influences, bring out the decisive differences, and, ultimately, decide just how notable a trend is, and how much weight to give it. If it turns out that a number of editors working at the Marxism article believe that the best way to organize this material is under the header "Neo-Marxist variant," great! And for a long time there may be just a paragraph on this variant. At some point, editors working on the article might feel that the section on Neo-Marxism is getting too big, and for good reason — that is the appropriate time to create a new article on Neo-Marxism, and it will be a good article. But it is also possible that editors collaborating at the main article will decide that there is a better way to organize and present this material. They may discover that enough reliable sources indicate that we are really talking about two or three or four variants; that these variants may have been called "neo-Marxism" by some people at some time but that there is a more common and more appropriate way to identify them. The reason I would like you to change your vote to delete is because I believe that the best place to work out these questions in a collaboration with other knowledgeable editors is at the Marxism; I would like you to change your vote to "delete" because I think the best place to incubate an article on a notable variant of Marxism is first at the Marxism article, because the editors who watch and regularly contribute to that page are the best judges of when – if – it is time to create a new article on a particular variant of Marxism. Maybe if that was the approach someone took seven years ago, we would at this point actually have a great article on neo-Marxism, or a very well-written section at the marxism article on neo-Marxism, or a few new articles on very different variants of Marxism that were allm unfortunately, at one moment in their history called "neo-Marxism. I think this is the most productive way to move forward. I think you raise great and important points, I am just suggesting that this article was an ill-conceived way to handle this and that there is a much better way. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 19:31, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
PS: In the context of development studies - "neo-Marxist theories of development" -
* Google scholar
* Google books
seem particularly important. (Msrasnw (talk) 09:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC))[reply]
PPS some possibly useful sources:
A couple of books
  • Limqueco, Peter and Bruce J McFarlane (1983) Neo-Marxist theories of development, Croom Helm, New York, St. Martin's Press
  • Barrow, Clyde W. (1993) Critical Theories of the State: Marxist, Neo-Marxist, Post-Marxist, The University of Wisconsin Press
A well cited article:
  • Skocpol, T (1980) Political response to capitalist crisis: Neo-Marxist theories of the state and the case of the New Deal, Politics & Society March 1980 vol. 10 no. 2 155-201
Some articles I read long ago:
  • Foster-Carter,A (1973) Neo-Marxist approaches to development and underdevelopment Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 3, no1
Which includes a proper discussion of a use of the term.
And then there is a reply:
  • John Taylor (1974): Neo-Marxism and Underdevelopment — A sociological phantasy, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 4:1, 5-23
A couple of Encyclopedia/Dictionary Entries
  • McCarthy, Pat, Neo-Marxism In H. James Birx (ed.). Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Volume 4. Thousand Oaks, California. Sage Reference. 2006.
  • Neo-Marxism – Marshall, Gordon and Scott, John. A Dictionary of Sociology. New York. Oxford University Press. 2005.
Some nice web sources:
Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 22:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC))[reply]
comment But what do these books and articles say? We can't make this decision based solely on book titles. From what I have read (and I have not read all) these works are all referring to different things; the authors use the phrase "neo-" just to indicate these are new trends. That does not make it one topic for one encyclopedia article. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:58, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply - the books and articles say quite a lot of interesting and different things. However the fact that there are books about this topic and entries in dictionaries and encyclopedias clearly indicates to me we should have an article. An area I know a bit about is Development Economics - and here there is an approach known as the Neo-Marxist approach. This approach is connected with - Dependency and World systems theories and its focus is on external exploitation rather than the normal "internal" exploitation of orthodox/classical marxism. Not all marxist approaches by new people would be counted as neo-marxist. In the debate we have the orthodox camp including Laclau, Brenner, Warren , and Sender & Smith and in the Neomarxist camp and the neomarxists Baran, AG Frank, Wallerstein, (the early Cardoso). The articles by A Foster-Carter and the reply by Taylor might help if you are interested. My recollection is that also in Industrial Economics a Neomarxist approach - stressing the "monopoly capitalism" (Baran and Sweezy) angle is also refered to in the literature. (Orthodox marxists might well have a more competitive capitalism in mind as their benchmark. I can see that these two (Neomarxist development and Neomarxist economics) could provide two useful sections in an expanded article on Neomarxism. Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 23:33, 20 July 2011 (UTC))[reply]
replyI can see the reasoning behind the two articles you suggest, and this is precisely why I think this article should b deleted (and why I actually think you should vote to delete) - the manifold works people keep finding via google would not be well-served by this one article but rather by several more specific articles. Your two suggestions are actually quite constructive in my view. But both of them - along, perhaps, with others (e.g. one on revisionist Marxisms in post-Stalinist communist countries) - would displace this one, that is my point. Ask yourself, which one(s) would you be more likely to work on? Slrubenstein | Talk 06:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another reply: I think you might be right in that several articles might be (have been) written separately about the varieties of meanings of Neo-marxism. But this article might be usefully used as a way of assisting the reader with basically a series of alternative redirections. I think since it is a term people may look up and no single redirect would be appropriate we should therefore have an article. The article could then say something about the ambiguity and contested nature of the term and each of the different meanings should then have sections introdcuing them and links to other articles. The article to my mind should not attempt a single unified definition of the term. There were similar issues and criticism of articles I started on Applied economics and Business economics where both terms are used in a variety of ways. (Msrasnw (talk) 10:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC))[reply]
“Not used in scholarly sources” ? And the Neo-Marxism of this source concerns some parallel world?Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 11:26, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think not, "Neo-Marxism" is an older term than "New Left". Neo-Marxism arose out of a revaluation of Marx which started in the 1930s, and particularly after his earlier works emerged into wider circulation in the 1950s which revealed a more humanistic Marx. These new ideas on Marx, neo-marxism, inspired the developement of the "New Left" in the 1960s. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 23:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bibliographic proof please. The subject of the neo-logism predating the new left does not indicate that the term pre-dates the new left. Its a non-notable neologism, it doesn't appear in the scholarly texts. See if you can find it in Leszek Kołakowski's Main Currents, I couldn't. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps if you open your other eye you may see the scholarly texts already presented above. Since Neomarxismus originated in Germany decades before the proponents of the "New Left" were even born, you may want to also check out:
  • Hans Heinz Holz: Strömungen und Tendenzen im Neomarxismus. Carl Hanser Verlag, München 1972
  • Andreas von Weiss: Neomarxismus. Die Problemdiskussion im Nachfolgemarximus der Jahre 1945 bis 1970. Karl-Alber-Verlag, Freiburg/München 1970
For the monolingual wikipedians among us, this source provides the context and precedence of "neo-marxism" in relation to the "new left". --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 02:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And Kolakowski's text indicates that these are not the terms used in English. Your citations are from texts after the fact, not in English. Your wikilink is to Frankfurt school and New Left which we already have articles on. The article points out that it is a non analytical category, "Since there are no closed neo-Marxist movement, no organizations, and rarely people who call themselves neo-Marxist, is a clear limitation of belonging to neo-Marxism is difficult, sometimes the use of the term is arbitrary, and are in daily political debate too often general social or unspecific positions critical of capitalism - then mostly meant as a negative evaluation - referred to as neo-Marxist." and Kolakowski, the most significant author on the varieties of Marxist ideologies, doesn't use this descriptive phrase. Kolakowski, instead, devotes a chapter to the Frankfurt school. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well Leszek Kołakowski described Marxism as "the greatest fantasy of our century", so it is no surprise that he dismisses "neo-Marxism". The expression "the Frankfurt School" was a term coined in the 1960s to label a group of neo-Marxist philosophers associated with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Kołakowski is right, "Neo-Marxism" isn't a movement, it is a body of ideas that departs from orthodox Marxism as rooted in the Second International. The Frankfurt School were not the only proponents of neo-Marxism, there existed other schools such as the Praxis School. On the otherhand, the New Left can be described as a movement that incorporates neo-Marxist ideas. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 03:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kołakowski's taxonomy stands as the most significant scholarly history of ideas of Marxism in English. If Kołakowski's terminology and categories ignores "neo-Marxism" and instead specifically singles out other categories, that our taxonomy and presentation of Marxism ought to be using that of Kołakowski, and not those of a few predominantly West German 1970s sociologists, and a few descriptive English uses of "neo" in tertiary sources disconnected from the core literary streams in the history of ideas of Marxism. Surprisingly enough, Kołakowski's categories accord with the standard presentations in English of the history of major Marxist schools of thought until the early 1980s. How you could describe the New Left pales in policy against how the central texts describe and order the taxonomy. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't Kołakowskipedia. Eminent scholar Paul Gottfried devotes a whole chapter to NeoMarxism[1] in his book The strange death of Marxism: the European left in the new millennium, published by the University of Missouri Press. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 06:27, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that Martin is on-point here. This is not a POV fork and the Frankfurt School is a subset of Neo-Marxism, broadly construed. Deficiencies in the article can be corrected through the normal editing process. Carrite (talk) 03:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
These sources are just using "neo" to say that it is a new development. You are taking an adjective and turning it into a name. This is a mistake many people here, who seem to be reading snippets of texts rather than bodies of literature, are making. Are you sure you are not misinterpreting the use of "neo-Marxism" here by taking it out of context? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't think so. Neo-marxism appears to have defined political and social characteristics as the source presented by Miacek below shows. --Martin Tammsalu (talk) 21:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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