Talk:Economic determinism

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 * This article is currently a work in progress, i'd appreciate it if nobody deleted my empty headlines as they remind me of what to write next. I'd appreciate any contributions. Thanks.--EatAlbertaBeef 00:03, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * This article is now completed, i'd appreciate any contributions, abolition of my biased point of view or rewording/structuring of my sentences. Thanks--EatAlbertaBeef 04:11, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Can someone please here how explain how "Vulgar Marxism" differs from Marxism? I am certainly confused by the term.

Question.
Is 'Economic Determinism' solely a concept of Marx and Engel and followers of theirs?

It would seem that that would be a subset of the concept, even if they perhaps first thought it up.

76.17.84.43 (talk) 08:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Good point. It seems that Adam Smith and David Ricardo, as well as most utilitarians might also be included in this camp. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.233.224.51 (talk) 04:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Poor Article
Although I'm not sympathetic to the view that Marx and Engels were economic determinists, this article is in serious need of revision. For instance, the criticism section points out the thinkers that originated this interpretation of their work, and that such a reading can arguably be linked to the worst practices of Stalinism, but it doesn't provide much reason as to why it economic determinism should therefore be considered an invalid interpretation of their work. For example it could possibly be argued that while Kautsky, Bukharin, Luxembourg, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, etc. had a more determinstic view of history and society than Marx and Engels, they did so because Marx and Engels had failed to apply their own theories as stringently as they should have Hanshans23 (talk) 17:06, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

An idealist misunderstanding of Marx
"According to Marx, each social mode of production produces the material conditions of its reproduction. Otherwise said, it is the ideology that is responsible for grounding secondary civil services such as politics, legislature, and even culture to an extent. Roughly speaking, ideology is the guiding influence of the mode of production, and without it, difficulties would theoretically arise with reproduction."

Marx did not claim that ideology/ideas guide economic reality, but rather the opposite: that material, economic realities guide our social realities. Marx and Engels both were also definitively not economic determinists; they believed that economics was only the primary driver of such things but not the only one.

Potential further places to learn more:

Base and superstructure

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_10_27.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/peter-stillman/article.htm

Critiscm Section
The critiscm section is not critiscm on economic determinism as an idea, what the page is headlined as. Instead it is a critiscm on the idea that Marx was an economic determinist so it really only belongs in the section prior. 96.241.228.29 (talk) 13:11, 4 December 2021 (UTC)