What is a Marxist?

Answer 1

Marxists can be many things: revolutionaries, politicians, academics, historians, poets, etc. The only aspect that you might say brings their beliefs/actions together is a sympathy with those who wish to overturn the existing capitalist order of society by drawing upon the understandings laid down by Marx and Engels over 40-50 years in latter half of the 19th century. In these writings they aimed to show how the history of all existing society is structured by class conflict over the materials that reproduce that society. This understanding is closely related to socialism - which was around in one form or another a long long time before Marxism. Loosely described socialism was associated with a diverse collection of beliefs that became more and more prevalent in the era of the Enlightenment (late 17th-18th centuries). Some of the great figures in this were Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, Proudhon, etc. These doctrines, in line with the spirit of the age, began to question the foundations for everyday beliefs which organised, justified and explained society into strict hierarchical orders (such as monarchies, religions, etc). Socialists questioned the claim that these orders were given by God and that they reflected the natural order and place of different human beings. They began to question justifications that the poor were poor, or slaves were slaves, because they had certain given (inferior) natures that made them only fit for those roles. Instead, most socialisms began with the rejection of divine authority and replaced this with the idea that man's nature (whether he/she be poor, rich, slave, etc) was the result of man-made actions and force (wars, division of property, etc). These societal divisions had obscure historical roots that were often disguised as religious or national ideologies and were therefore accepted as eternal orders (e.g. the Church or the Nation). But they were in reality (according socialists) the result of man's will and need to dominate other men. Socialists wished to free humans from the domination of other humans. Socialists believed that society determined the nature/behaviour of any individual you met (not any divinely ordained good or evil nature). And that if you could create a truly free society you would create better truly free humans. This is the root of the name "socialist". These ideas were influences upon - and subsequently greatly influenced by - the French Revolution in 1789. Just over 50 years later, Marx and Engel's were dismayed by the degree to which socialists (and communists who professed similar understandings and goals) were as prone to follow whimsical and idealistic notions of mankind as were their religious counterparts. They were particularly dismayed that these idealistic visions were often completely impractical and only served to discredit more serious demands for political and social change. Changing society required drastic but realistic changes to the material division of society they felt. In writing their Communist Manifesto they sought to set down ideas that would clarify the views of the Communist Party and allow supporters of social justice and change to understand what was at stake in the issues which they fought for and debated. Over 30-40 years of writing, both Marx and Engels would lay down a body of work that would become the touch-stone for all those who worked under the name Marxist. They put forward immensely complex and revolutionary understandings of History, Economics, Phillosophy - all under the name of a new all-embracing philosophy of Historical Materialism (although this name itself is really a later invention). In essence Marx wished to make his work into a new science for the investigation of society and historical change. At root Marxists claim that all history is the struggle for those material resources (property, food, water, technology) that allowed societies to reproduce themselves. This struggle takes place between classes. This extraordinarily simple idea underlay every complex organization of society that you can find. All words in the service of myths or religions or governments or democracy, are really just justifications for different hierarchies that serve the interests of some particular group. Those who suffer from these divisions (such as slaves or workers) have been trained and persuaded to accept these words from the moment they were born (Marx called them ideologies). This is where it gets even more complex. For Marx did not claim that his doctrine aimed at revealing a reality or truth that was universal and for all time. It would require a God that truly existed to make any truth universal and ahistorical. Instead he claimed that all truths with regard to human philosophy, society and history, were normally representative of the interests of certain societal groups at certain historical moments. His work sought to show the working classes how their interests had been silenced and hidden by those who forced them to labour for things that they did not benefit from. In earlier societies these oppressors were Kings or Druids or Popes or military dictators. These figures/groups dominated the production of weapons or books and forced the masses into work (sometimes justifying this order with religious beliefs). But in the era of industrialization and the bourgeois capitalist, things were much more complex (though not fundamentally different). In capitalist society, workers worked harder than ever before and the benefits of whatever they produced were taken away by the owner of their factory (the capitalist). The capitalist was backed by the military and legal power of the state which granted him rights of property and ownership. These divisions within society were then justified/explained by numerous ideologies that were paid for and produced by bourgeois academics, universities and disciplines (such as economics). Marx claimed that capitalist societies agonies and torments would only get worse. The uneven distribution of the products of society (and the irrational nature of that production itself) only allowed greater inequality and suffering. This in the end made some kind of revolutionary change inevitable no matter how stable capitalism might seem at a given time. The end result of this change was not inevitable, however. That would be the responsibility of those involved in revolutionary epochs. For the Marxists the goal would be communism. In order for mankind to be truly free, then each individual needed to be freed from having to constantly fight and chase after the basic necessities of life (food, housing, etc). Only then would he/she be free to pursue their own true wants and become their own person. This could only happen once workers had wrested control of production from the minority capitalist owners (who used ideology to justify their ownership). Only then could workers turn the aims of production towards the needs of society as a whole. In communist societies work was supposed to become secondary to living. However, as money and production were for millenia the very basis of all societies beliefs and values, this would be immensely difficult to achieve. Capitalists who controlled the state, ideology and the military would not simply "give-up" their rights to ownership and control. They would have to be overturned by force. This would only happen if the working classes began to organise themselves in the face of intimidation and harassment. Marx intended his doctrine to help in the task of this organisation. The day would then finally come when, sparked by increasing hunger, oppression and increasing understanding of their role in society, the workers would rise up and through an international revolution overthrow the capitalist organization of society. Once this happened, history as we have known it would come to an end. And in the new egalitarian society, a new even more complex "history" would begin, as each individual member would seek to contribute to societies new goal of providing for mankind and exploring what it means to live as a free human. Marxists are those who work in this theoretical and revolutionary tradition first mapped out by Marx and Engels. This can mean many things. But normally it means a commitment to work towards an egalitarian society by applying the historical materialist conception of enquiry and drawing upon the insights explored by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Lukacs, Gramsci, Benjamin, Mao, Sartre, Guevara, C.L.R. James, and a whole string of other communist-marxist thinkers and revolutionaries. It is a tradition/practice of enquiry that continues right up to this day. One of the most important aspects of being a marxist would be that theoretical understanding can not be pursued as a goal in itself. This would be ideological. Rather all truths, action and theory must be practically related to society and be dedicated towards the goal of changing the oppresive class conditions of everyday life. Whether this change should be a step towards a more egalitarian society, or a step towards the Revolution that will finally bring about that egalitarian society, is a matter of contention even among Marxists. For criticisms of this Marxist tradition (and there is a lot) see Friedrich Von Hayek, Milton Friedman, Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe amongst others.

Answer 2

A Marxist is someone who follows the political and economic theories of Karl Marx, which focus on the idea of class struggle, the critique of capitalism, and the goal of achieving a classless society where wealth and power are distributed equitably among all individuals.

Answer 3

A person who believes in the writings of Marx [the Communist Manifesto] but keeps it to him/herself.