Modern Marxists and the Continuing Relevance of Marxism
Modern Marxists and the Continuing Relevance of Marxism
However modern Marxists reject the above arguments and argue instead that the Marxist critique of capitalism is still relevant in the C21st . Thus modern Marxists and others have challenged all of the above theories of post-capitalism and continue to argue that despite theories of the managerial revolution, democratic pluralism significant changes in class structure that even nowadays that the rich continue to exercise massive economic and political power. Among the criticisms made by Marxists of post-capitalist theories are the following:
• the ideas of the Managerial Revolution were inaccurate in that there would be no real change in business practices because of the similarities of class background (and, by implication) of attitudes and values of managers and owners, because managers often own large amounts of shares and because other company objectives presuppose profitability.
• Also, nationalisation had not reduced the power of the capitalist class because generous compensation had been given, because the profitable sector of private industry had not been nationalised and because nationalised industries recruited managers from private industry who followed broadly similar business objectives. Nationalised industries might even subsidise private profit from time to time.
• changes in the UK capitalist class structure had been far less significant than suggested by post-capitalist theorists: o it was recognised for example that any redistributionof wealth and income which had occurred was mainly between the rich and the comfortably off (often members of the same families), with little improvement in the relative position of the poor; o even if the skilled sections of the working class had become more affluent they remained significantly worse of than most members of the middle class and had not by the mid 1960s at least significantly changed their attitudes and values; o Abel-Smith and Townsend
However modern Marxists reject the above arguments and argue instead that the Marxist critique of capitalism is still relevant in the C21st . Thus modern Marxists and others have challenged all of the above theories of post-capitalism and continue to argue that despite theories of the managerial revolution, democratic pluralism significant changes in class structure that even nowadays that the rich continue to exercise massive economic and political power. Among the criticisms made by Marxists of post-capitalist theories are the following:
• the ideas of the Managerial Revolution were inaccurate in that there would be no real change in business practices because of the similarities of class background (and, by implication) of attitudes and values of managers and owners, because managers often own large amounts of shares and because other company objectives presuppose profitability.
• Also, nationalisation had not reduced the power of the capitalist class because generous compensation had been given, because the profitable sector of private industry had not been nationalised and because nationalised industries recruited managers from private industry who followed broadly similar business objectives. Nationalised industries might even subsidise private profit from time to time.
• changes in the UK capitalist class structure had been far less significant than suggested by post-capitalist theorists: o it was recognised for example that any redistributionof wealth and income which had occurred was mainly between the rich and the comfortably off (often members of the same families), with little improvement in the relative position of the poor; o even if the skilled sections of the working class had become more affluent they remained significantly worse of than most members of the middle class and had not by the mid 1960s at least significantly changed their attitudes and values; o Abel-Smith and Townsend