The necessity of a ‘critical marxism’

The necessity of a ‘critical marxism’
September 5th, 2018 •

We have proposed a series of ways we can use the eonic model without getting involved in theory or speculation. At some point we might try a theory, but in the end we are given everything we need to proceed in practical terms without having to fully explain the eonic effect.
And if we consider the confusion the Israelites generated with the Old Testament account of the Axial Age we would do well to proceed with caution as to the generalization of the eonic model. We have to face the fact that we will be condemned to make a mess of this data if it becomes the object of unrestrained speculation. But there are a host of simple and practical uses of this kind of model and it can be a way to create a superset of the marxist/socialist legacy. We can do this easily because marxism and socialism are output of this system, late effects near the divide point, and thus have a special status. But they may also be instantly flawed results. We can take marxism as an historical object and move to incorporate it in a larger and more flexible framework of the eonic model which suggests that a postcapitalist outcome, or else a critique and regulation of such, is desperately needed and clearly indicated by the pattern we have discovered.
We are out of time to replace marxism but unless we do we will inherit another flawed version of postcapitalism that is vitiated by inadequate theories. This is very easy to correct but does the left have the will to do this?
Let us proceed as if marxism is obsolete but relatively easy to upgrade with variants of the eonic model, that is, no model at all, but a chronology with structure detectable empirically and with indications as ‘eonic emergents’ (e.g. the innovations of modernity) given as such with or without explanations. In the end we need to stay free of too much theory and the legacy of both historical materialism and neoclassical economics are both liabilities. Our manifestos suggest a form of praxis with a time line model of the eonic effect in the background as a possible tool and most of all a warning that it is very hard to get history straight. Neither Marx nor the economists succeeded there. But the legacy of Marx points to something desperately needed: a challenge to unrestrained capitalism whose effect has suddenly shown itself to be a terminal catastrophe in the onset of climate change…