Marxism: Is It Science?

Overview
Max Eastman subjects Marxism to a forensic intellectual critique, asking whether its claims and methods rise to the status of science. He approaches Marxism not only as a political creed but as a system of explanation about society, economy, and history that stakes empirical and predictive claims. Eastman balances acknowledgment of Marxism's insights with sustained skepticism about its theoretical rigor, testing Marxist doctrine against historical evidence and standards of scientific method.

Origins and Method
Eastman traces Marxism's roots to German philosophy and nineteenth-century political economy, emphasizing how Hegelian dialectics and Feuerbach's materialism shaped Marx's method. He argues that the dialectical stance lends Marxism a sweeping interpretive frame but also a tendency toward teleology and abstraction. Eastman scrutinizes whether the dialectical method furnishes testable hypotheses or primarily supplies rhetorical structure that can absorb contrary facts rather than be revised by them.

Critical Examination of Core Doctrines
The book evaluates central Marxist propositions, historical materialism, the labor theory of value, class conflict as the engine of history, and the inevitability of proletarian revolution, against standards of evidentiary support. Eastman challenges the labor theory of value on economic and logical grounds, citing the rise of alternative value theories and empirical complexities that Marx did not fully anticipate. He also interrogates the deterministic language of historical materialism, suggesting that it simplifies contingency, culture, and plural causal forces that shape social change.

Predictive Claims and Historical Evidence
A major concern for Eastman is Marxism's predictive record. Marxist predictions about capitalist collapse and the spontaneous global victory of the proletariat are weighed against twentieth-century developments that resisted such forecasts. Eastman highlights instances where predictions failed or required ad hoc adjustments, and he argues that a hallmark of scientific theories is the capacity to be falsified. Where Marxist doctrine stubbornly reinterprets anomalies rather than abandons or revises core tenets, Eastman sees the behavior of ideology rather than the evolution of theory.

Political Consequences and Practices
Eastman connects theoretical weaknesses to real-world political consequences, examining how Marxist theory has been institutionalized in revolutionary movements and state formations. He critiques tendencies toward authoritarianism when Marxist doctrine is treated as doctrinaire truth rather than a contingent analysis. Eastman is especially critical of applications that suppress dissent and subordinate empirical inquiry to party orthodoxy, arguing that these practices reveal an ideological rigidity inconsistent with scientific openness.

Conclusion and Legacy
Eastman does not deny that Marxism offers valuable tools for analyzing exploitation, class dynamics, and economic injustice, but he insists that such contributions do not rescue Marxism from its scientific shortcomings. He calls for clearer distinctions between useful social diagnosis and claims of lawlike historical inevitability. The book concludes by urging that social inquiry adopt standards of testability, openness to revision, and empirical grounding if it aspires to scientific status, while preserving the moral and critical energy that drives social critique.