DOI: 10.17072/2078-7898/2018-2-179-190 

BIOMARXISM AS THE EXPERIENCE OF MODERN RECONSTRUCTION OF MARX’S THEORY

Vladimir A. Rybin
Doctor of Philosophy, Docent,
Professor of the Department of Philosophy

Chelyabinsk State University,
129, Kashirin brothers str., Chelyabinsk, 454001, Russia;
e-mail: wlad@csu.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-3343-1048

The crisis of the modern global capitalism again attracts scientific interest to the theory of Karl Marx. However, in the new situation, all its earlier versions demonstrate their limitations and inefficiencies. The new request for the reconstruction of the Marxist teaching is based both on the whole complex of scientific cognition achievements over the past one and a half centuries and on modern review of classical works. An in-depth analysis of Marx’s main works of the early and late periods allows us to affirm that his method of solving the basic task of Marxism — elaboration of the principles for the new society which would replace capitalism — is more meaningful than it was supposed before. The main question for Marx was the question of life and the essence of the living. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, culture was conceptualized by Marx through the image of living integrity, which includes both the living organism of a particular human individual and the totality of artifacts created by man from the substance of nature. Capital, being the main scientific and theoretical work of Marx, is largely devoted to the consideration of anthropologically destructive effects of industrial production in market conditions. The «living» in the system of a pathologically functioning living entity is the basic methodological idea of Marx. Insufficient development of natural sciences in Marx’s lifetime did not allow him to develop this idea in its complete clarity. This is one of the main reasons why Marxism was later distorted and could not fully realize its humanistic potential. However, these days the latest achievements in natural sciences create the prerequisites for the review of Marx’s teachings in accordance with their original purpose — in the form of biomarxism. In this respect, Erwin Bauer’s Theoretical Biology and basic general biological principles discovered by him at the level of a living organism are of great heuristic significance. Extrapolation of these principles on the level of biosphere creates the opportunity to disclose the specific features of the life process in the natural environment, and then to model it in the scale of culture in relation to man, thereby providing the reconstruction of Marx’s teaching adequate to modern conditions.

Keywords: Marxism, nature, life, biology, man, culture, industry, capitalism, morphology, disease, hierarchy.

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Received 28. 04.201 8

For citation:

Rybin V.A. Biomarxism as the experience of modern reconstruction of Marx’s theory // Perm University Herald. Series «Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology». 2018. Iss. 2. P.179–190. DOI: 10.17072/2078-7898/2018-2-179-190