Originally Posted by
Denny Crane!
I'm going to present a different viewpoint to Chriscase which usually ends in my intellectual arse getting handed to me but here goes.
I'd simplify the term to become a label that infers the difference between Hegel and Marx and Engels. A dialectic is the thesis/antithesis and synthesis and the marxist dialectic attempts to synthesise Hegels idealism with the contradictions and economic theory envisioned by Marx (and engels), which was less a sythesis and more a huge turnaround.
I'd say the term and label is a little different to the economic theory as it seems to be a descriptive label but I've always had problems with philosophies overly complicated and complex language that I feel does more to confuse than enlighten the beginner (and this all I fear I will ever be so it is always more obvious to me).
In particular I am wary of people like Marx whose philosophy and economic theory was so relative to the social structures of his time (with no first principles which I believe helped lead to the disasters that were the statist led translational periods) and mired in complicated language and broad concepts that lack definitive clarification.
Of late I have investigated libertarian socialism, beginning with Proudhon and working my way forward and in this fashion I have revisited Marx. The biggest thing I can say about Marx is how unsure I am of his ideals, his transition and battle against the hegelian dialogue is partly responsible for his lack of clarity in an obsession with analysis of what proved to be transitory social conditions, classes and conditions.
Upon revisitation of Marx I found that I didn't particularly believe that he really didn't think capitalism unjust, he certainly never explicitly said so and certainly stated that capitalistic exchange isn't unjust. He certainly never named capitalism 'unjust' which makes marxist rhetoric baffling to me. The best I could make of it was that Marx thought that Capitalism was not the best way, but not explicitly evil or unjust.
The second thought is that I have oft railed against the lack of morality in Marxist thought. In some ways this disturbs me because I believe a lack of first principles allowed the rugged pursuit of marxism in whatever fashion possible led to the horrendous genocide. If no limits, or distinctions are set in any philosophy and a utopian goal is set in place as in religion then anything can be deemed necessary because of a utiliterian aim of acheiving the utopian vision. On reflection though I think Marx was avoiding morality in order to escape the Utopian nature of philosophical thought (read hegels idealism) and in doing so was determined to maintain a purely analytical aspect to his views on society and capitalism, as well as any possible transitions to a more moral society.
(which makes my moral aspersions on marxism irrelevant, my view that marxism was immoral is wrong. It is the marxists I have encountered who are immoral)
However the lack of morality that people seem to ascribe and adopt in their pursuit of marxism can partially be blamed in the writings of marx, the ideas that (ref HUME) justice isn't necessary in a society with abundance and no scarcity (hi this is planet earth calling on every level) and the other is that in his bid to escape utopianism he dismissed morality almost entirely.