Marxism and Critical Realism: The Same, Similar, or Just Plain Different?

Abstract

The author examines the relationship between Marxism and critical realism. He problematises the suggestion that Marx implicitly utilised a critical realist theoretical framework. He does this by exploring three areas of inquiry: epistemology and ideology; the method of abstraction; causal powers and social form. By exploring these areas, the author demonstrates that critical realism in fact pursues a different theoretical project to that of Marxism. Moreover, by severing the link between theory and practice, critical realism commits fundamental theoretical problems and errors which it initially claimed to have surpassed. The author concludes by suggesting that these problems were inherent within the critical realist project from the outset.