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Karl Marx is often
represented as an "economic
determinist" who credited economic
structures with a basic determining
role in just about every aspect
of human life, and simple models
such as "base"/"superstructure"
are often invoked to support this.
Whilst it may be true that Marx
understood individuals to have the
scope for meaningful thought
and action determined by their social
context, as Peter G. Stillman shows,
it does not follow that there is
a direct causal relationship between
"economic" circumstances
and spheres such as religion, politics
or culture.
Critiques & Rejoinders for
“The Myth of Marx’s
Economic Determinism”
Submit
a rejoinder
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Source:
“The Myth of Marx’s
Economic Determinism” was
written for Marx Myths and Legends
by Peter G. Stillman, in April 2005,
and rights remain with the author,
as per Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Licence 2.0.
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Biographical information
Peter G. Stillman
is Professor of Political Science
and Director of the Program in Environmental
Studies at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie,
New York, U.S.A. He has been teaching
Marx there since 1970 and he has
published five articles on Marx:
"A Critique of Ideal Worlds:
Hegel and Marx on Modern Utopian
Thought," in G. Saccaro del
Buffa and Arthur O. Lewis, eds.,
Utopie per Gli Anni Ottanta:
Studi Interdisciplinari sui temi,
la storia, i progetti (Roma:
Gangemi, 1986), pp. 635-673.
"Hegel, Marx, and Dialectic
Theory" [review essay], International
History Review III, no. 2 (May
1986), pp. 288-93.
"Marx's Enterprise of Critique,"
in J. Roland Pennock, ed., Marxism
(NOMOS Series; New York: New York
University Press, 1983), pp. 252-76.
"Scarcity, Sufficiency, and
Abundance: Hegel and Marx on Material
Needs and Satisfaction," International
Political Science Review 4,
no. 3 (Summer 1983), pp. 295 310.
"Property, Freedom, and Individuality
in Hegel's and Marx's Political
Thought," in J. Roland Pennock,
ed., Property (NOMOS Series;
New York: New York University Press,
1980), pp. 130-67.
He has also published articles on
Hegel's political thought, ecological
political theory, utopian thought,
and aspects of French thought. He
co-translated and co-edited a new
version of Rouseau's Confessions
and has just co-edited The New
Utopian Politics of Ursual Le Guin's
The Dispossessed, in which
he also published a chapter on "The
Dispossessed as Ecological Political
Theory."
See also: http://faculty.vassar.edu/stillman/PeterGStillman/
for a full listing of his publications
and other professional matters.
The website does show his dog but
does not indicate that he plays
ice hockey and golf when he can.
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