Organic Marxism as an Alternative to Capitalism and Ecological Catastrophe
* Book: Philip Clayton and Justin Heinzekehr. Organic Marxism: An Alternative to Capitalism and Ecological Catastrophe. Process Century Press, 2014
URL = https://www.openhorizons.org/8203organic-marxism-process-philosophy-and-chinese-thought.html
Context
Philip Clayton:
"Justin Heinzekehr and I recently finished a book on organic Marxism, process philosophy, and Chinese thought: Organic Marxism: An Alternative to Capitalism and Ecological Catastrophe. (The text that is excerpted below was co-written by both of us.) The English version of the book was published by Process Century Press in September 2014, and the Chinese version in early 2015. The book was inspired not only by our Chinese friends who are both Marxists and process thinkers, such as Zhihe Wang and Meijun Fan, but also by Jay McDaniel, whose work has integrated these three schools of thought in complex, interesting, and important ways. Because the Open Horizons website inspired the book in many ways, it seems appropriate that the first short summary of the book should appear here. We dedicate this post to John Cobb, whose radical vision has inspired both this website and our book."
Discussion
Parallels between Organic Marxism, process philosophy, and traditional Chinese thought
Phillip Clayton:
"There are significant parallels between Organic Marxism, process philosophy, and traditional Chinese thought. Establishing the interconnections between these three different traditions is a crucial step in developing any social philosophy that serves the common good rather than profits for the few.
Engaging in comparative discussions of this sort is a central feature of a growing group of Marxist schools of thought. We here use the common label “Open Marxism” in order to draw attention to what these emerging schools share in common. Open Marxisms flourish in the constructive postmodern context, rejecting the rationalism and determinism that dominated the modern European period. They acknowledge that all of life is an open-ended process and that leaders manage at the local, national, and international levels always “at the edge of chaos.” Scientific thinking is increasingly moving from the study of closed systems to open, non-static, organic systems (see Chapter 9 in the book). In response, economic and political theories have likewise begun to shift from the old orthodox and doctrinaire schools of thought to much more fluid, dynamic, and responsive approaches. For scholars and leaders today who are interested in structuring society for the good of humanity and the planet, these new embedded and contextualized Marxisms are bringing new life to Marxist critiques of wealth and power in the West.
The tendency for the wealthiest class to assume power, and to utilize that power to its own advantage at the expense of the non-wealthy, is pervasive across capitalist systems; it’s why such systems exist in the first place. Yet the details of how the injustices are overcome, and what society looks like afterwards, are not uniform. Open Marxisms recognize how greatly cultures vary and how deeply cultural systems affect the way a given society is organized and experienced. These differences crop up even when analyzing such central Marxian themes as work, production, and class relations.
What about the distinctive features of the Chinese context? Many scholars today, both in China and in the West, are working in the spirit of the new open Marxisms. We include among them the “Return to Marx” movement, which represents an important Marxist school in China today. This movement emphasizes the importance of turning back to the original Marx and reading his works, without being dominated by the interpretations of Lenin and the later Russian Marxists. The “Return to Marx” school offers an important corrective to a certain tendency in the early phase of Chinese Marxism, which sometimes let Russian Marxists define the form that Marxism should take in China. At the same time, recent scholarship has also uncovered the dissimilarities between nineteenth-century German Marxism and our present context. The differences invite one to update Marx and to engage in a constructive rethinking of Marxism. As Prof. Zhihe Wang writes:
Unlike orthodox Marxism or dogmatic Marxism, Chinese Marxism is an open Marxism which changes form according to the current situation. From Mao Zedong’s thought and Deng’s theory to Jiang’s “three represents theory” and Hu’s “Scientific Outlook on Development,” all point to such an open orientation.[iii]
Numerous publications on constructive postmodernism in China have already shown how deeply process thought connects with the ancient philosophical traditions of China. (In this respect, postmodern thought contrasts strongly with modernism, which usually defines itself in opposition to the traditions that precede it.) Organic Marxism is a form of process thinking; both affirm that reality is an open, evolving process. Each time categories of thought are embedded in a new context—be it a new culture, historical period, region, or political movement—they sprout and grow in new ways. Consequently, open process thinkers do not expect Marxism to be a static thing but to evolve continually, just as human social systems are constantly evolving.
These are the reasons it is crucial to explore the connections between the three terms in the title of this post. Regarding the first connection, the links between traditional Chinese thought and process philosophy have long been recognized. Concerning the second, we have attempted to show how process philosophy helps to transform modernist Marxism into Organic Marxism. The third connection is particularly urgent; we need to show how Chinese traditional wisdom can play an important role in Organic Marxism. For example, we note that the most significant recent school in Marxist studies, Ecological Marxism, rarely mentions the Chinese traditions. We hope that our constructive proposal in the book will help to overcome that limitation."
(https://www.openhorizons.org/8203organic-marxism-process-philosophy-and-chinese-thought.html)