2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: "Everyone now is more or less a Socialist" [View all]Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Take anarchist (libertarian socialism) as an example. Even within Marxist groups, there are competing ideological foundations: Some are more authoritarian style socialists, while others (Council Communists and Autonomous Marxists) favor more libertarian strands of socialism. In fact, Council Communists and Autonomous Marxists have more in common with anarchists than they do with the more common Marxists. What is the "true" Marxism? Well, that's sort of a challenge to answer, as even Marx himself waffled on his theories. He became a bit more libertarian in his views after witnessing the events with the Paris Commune. Towards the beginning, he developed his theories that were inherited from the anarchist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whom he was very fond of. Borrowing and developing his theory on scientific socialism from Proudhon. He did have a conflict with Proudhon later, and the two traded polemics with Marx criticizing Proudhon's "The Philosophy of Poverty" with his own "The Poverty of Philosophy."