Went long on Red Star San Francisco’s blog on the “zombie” of Marxism and the importance of thorough, careful analysis of our situation. A quick excerpt:
“No scientific theory of any kind is perfectly and immortally correct in the literal sense, but just as we should measure a scientific theory by its ability to explain existing phenomena and predict new ones to a certain degree of accuracy, so too should we judge historical materialism on its ability to describe the motion of history in a way that is useful for guiding our understanding of what is going on out in the world.
Here we see the author’s core misunderstanding in the view of Marxism as science. Just as the discovery of quantum mechanics does not disprove Newton’s laws of motion, but rather uses them as a foundation for knowledge that comes later, viewing Marxism as a science does not mean accepting anything Marx, Engels, or even Stalin said as gospel and eternal truth, but rather using their work to organize present phenomena, explain our place in history, and test future approaches.”