Criticism Of Western Marxism On Economic Determinism

Since it was created, Marx's historical materialism has been misunderstood as economic determinism. In the time of Second International, theorists represented by Bernstein and kautsky who were influenced by positivism, interpreted Marxism positively, understanding it as vulgar economic determinism, which brought negative influence on proletarian revolution as well as led to a wrong direction for truly comprehending Marx's historical materialism.Faced with that situation, western Marxist came forward to criticize it fiercely one after another. There are mainly three ways for criticism: The first one is humanistic way. The early Marxists represented by Lukacs, Gramsci and Korsch attacked economic determinism without reservation respectively from the perspective of totality, practical philosophy and subjectivity; The second is scientism way. Such representatives as Althusse offered a new scientific interpretation for historical materialism in the light of defending the scientificity of Marxism, which not only responded to humanism but also criticized economic determinism; The third way tried to combine humanism with scientism in name of the reconstruction of historical materialism of Habermas. The western Marxism has contributed much to the criticism of economic determinism, enriching the theory of historical materialism. However, the accurate and complete comprehension was absent, which made the re-criticism for western Marxism become a new issue.Today, economic determinism has not completely disappeared, and for China which is devoted to economic development, it is also a realism proposition for getting rid of such influence on the theory and practice. The perspective, used by western Marxist to criticize this proposition, not only provides theoretical enlightenment but also a developmental direction for reflection on the present realistic society. Only by abandoning the negative influence of economic and product determinism can the society progress fully and healthily and human beings become truly free from material desire.