Marxist Foundations

The purpose of this chapter is to identify foundations of Marxist thought, in order to assess whether Laski's writings and activity in the 1930s and 1940s can be categorized as Marxist. The chapter considers what being a Marxist can involve. Several ways in which people can be Marxist are thus discussed. Whether Laski qualifies as a Marxist in each way is considered. The chapter goes on to discuss an argument by Geoff Boucher that Marxism's key features are history, structure and praxis. This is considered to be useful to an assessment of where, intellectually and politically, Laski can be located in relation to the Marxist tradition. Nevertheless, the chapter goes on to argue that Erik Olin Wright's argument that Marxism revolves around class analysis, historical trajectory and emancipation is considerably more useful. This way of discussing Marxism is adopted for analysis of Laski's work in the remainder of the book.