[theoh]

That's all fine. I think you will agree, though, that engaging with Marx's writing, however critically, is not the same as offering an explicit correction to Marx's theories or putting them to the test. It's more of a case of "thinking with Marx". The tropes of Marx's thinking are kept alive somehow rather than dismissed — there is faith that Marx and the others had put their finger on something important and that their writing continues to be worth discussing.

An attempt to entirely refute Marx or Freud would not be taken seriously in academia — there's always some kind of affirmative stance in relation to the old theorists. Unless you are some kind of genius or enfant terrible.

[claudiawerner]

>An attempt to entirely refute Marx or Freud would not be taken seriously in academia — there's always some kind of affirmative stance in relation to the old theorists. Unless you are some kind of genius or enfant terrible.

I don't think that's true either; while it's more likely to be true inside the three disciplines I named, it's not true outside them. Samuelson's and Steedman's criticisms of Marx are held to be pretty much the end of Marx in economics, for example - and economics is far larger of a science in academia than political economy is. There are theories of Marx which are held by many to be simply wrong, or perhaps with some insight that he offered but his theories don't live up to, even what Marx called the theories he was most proud of. Obviously nobody can refute Marx entirely in one fell swoop - since Marx's project was multi-disciplinary and very few people nowadays have knowledge in all the requisite fields to a sufficient level - but as I said, Marx and Freud are questioned both sympathetically (thinking with) and unsympathetically (questioning their bedrock philosophies and most proud achievements). I really think they are only held to the esteem that other greats are held - and possibly less. Keynes, Weber and Aristotle in my judgement enjoy far more support than Marx and Freud do today the entire academy considered as a whole.

[theoh]

This is an unsatisfactory discussion, because you are attacking straw men.

Samuelson was a genius and a once-in-a-generation thinker. I specifically avoided excluding the existence of such people who can take on the incumbents of the theoretical pantheon.

You at least concede that great thinkers are all more or less held in a certain level of esteem. It's precisely this pious, respectful attitude that makes unsympathetic critiques rare. I'm not saying that an academic world in which such critiques were commonplace would be better, or even possible. The conservatism and conventionality of the framework in which academic work takes place may well be intrinsic to the social function of the activity. The fact is that a vast amount of work is done which rehearses, builds on, applies, or seeks to recover value from the work of the 'masters'. Skepticism is not the word I would use to describe the way the literature is typically approached. Criticality is circumscribed by a sense of decorum — one must not be too critical of a thinker whose work so many others have engaged with. To be too critical would be arrogant, or at the very least it would indicate that one was in the wrong intellectual milieu.

I really am not aware of highly respected "unsympathetic" engagements in today's academia. Yes, there were high-profile disputes in the past between contemporaries — Einstein and Bergson, for example. But today refutations and dismissals don't seem to be considered appropriate. The overwhelming mood is one of appreciation of classic texts within small specialized interest groups. Rigorous refutations (as in Samuelson's work on Marx) really don't seem to happen very often at all. They almost seem like something rude.

[beat]

That's probably because in no small part, "rigorous refutation" is confused with "vigorous refutation" that is shallow and partisan in nature. Hating on Marx is easy; refuting Marx completely in a rigorous manner is hard; doing it without an obvious axe to grind is even harder.

Even to the extent that Marx was wrong in the particulars, he got a lot of essentials right in new and unique ways. More importantly, it's impossible to have a serious conversation about labor that excludes Marx entirely (unserious conversations are another thing). And we've now had over a century of refutations of various types and degrees, from both right and left. Contributing something actually new and significant to the literature would be even more difficult than developing a thorough and academically rigorous "refutation".

Hence, the nitpicking about details from the left, and the unrigorous blanket rejection from the right. Both are far safer ground than trying to introduce breadth on the left or rigor on the right.

[beat]

One can engage with Marx's writings without being "Marxist", and certainly without being Leninist. I think of when Matthew B Crawford wrote his excellent Shop Class as Soulcraft. He used Marxist terminology about labor in order to critique Taylorism and the social harm of scientific management, in terms of removing worker control over their own production. And he got lambasted from some corners for it, even though his argument was not by any stretch of the imagination socialist, much less "Marxist". He responded by pointing out that if you're going to talk about the value of labor at all, you'd be a fool to not use Marx's terminology, because otherwise, you'd have to reinvent the wheel.