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John Milton Bunch
30 September 2025
I’m going to repurpose the floral metaphor here and use it to discuss two related, but distinct, topics related to Marx and science as discussed by Burgis, Hamilton and McManus in Flowers for Marx. In what might be for some readers the more maudlin sense, I’ll address the question of “Can Marxism be a science,” and conclude that no, it cannot, unless we reject the definition of science that scientists themselves use.
And in the more hopeful, spring-is-in-the-air sense, I’ll address the deeply intertwined questions of “Can Marxism be studied scientifically,” and “Can science itself be used to further Marxist goals.” The answer to both of those questions is undoubtedly yes. Although a yes with caveats, of course, because to approach a question with science means being willing to give up or modify existing systems of belief.
I want to add to the hopeful sense by saying that as an intellectual product generated by social media discourse, Flowers for Marx is about as good as it gets and I congratulate and thank the authors for what they’ve done.
I’m going to define Marxism as a worldview, or a model of the world, inspired by something within the scope of the original work of Karl Marx and Marx-influenced writing of the intervening century and a half.
Socialism is a socio-economic system distinct from capitalism in which those otherwise dependent upon wage labor under capitalism are no longer subject to exploitation.
Socialists want to replace the current system of private ownership of the means of production with a new system based on collective ownership and economic democracy.
To summarize, socialism is a desired form of social and economic organization to replace capitalism. Marxism is the acceptance of a theory of the world of humans that, among other things, provides an explanatory model of the operations of capitalism.
The key consideration is a scientific theory’s ability to predict the behavior of the phenomena under study. Science isn’t about proving theories to be true. It’s about creating explanatory models that best explain what we see.
This approach makes a couple of primary assumptions about the world – first, that the universe follows natural laws. Second, that people can gain enough purchase on these natural laws that explanatory models capable of accurate prediction can be assembled.
For an example of how this plays out among real scientists, consider James J. Jenkins (1974):
Jenkins, J. J. (1974). Remember that old theory of memory? Well, forget it. American Psychologist.
Jenkin’s story is an example of paradigm shift and of why you must be willing to recognize and admit that a model isn’t working, and change it in the face of new evidence.
Scientific explanations always have an element of uncertainty. You must be willing to change your explanatory models when the evidence no longer supports them.
Interestingly, as Ben Burgis notes in Flowers for Marx, Marx himself frequently revised his views in light of new evidence.
John Milton Bunch studied cognitive and neural sciences, instructional technology and learning at the University of South Florida in the 1990’s, earning a PhD. He retired from a career in corporate training and consulting, and now writes on topics he finds interesting, such as political theory, art and media. But mostly he’s a husband and father.