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Originally Posted by Archaea
What I never got about Marx is how he ignored the cause aspect of religion in economics. I side much, much more with the post-modernists than I do with historical materialism. To have rigid objectivism while ignoring the relative, or ability to switch positions, from cause to effect and vice versa, seems whacko.
How do Marxists deal with this inherent inconsistency. As I understand Marx, religion is caused by the harmful effects of economic oppression, it is man's last gasp for hope for relief. However, religion also causes economic change. How does Marx deal with that? Does he simply ignore it? And do you know the difference in contributions between Marx and Engels? I do not. Then again, I am not a university professor so that might explain it.
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Good questions.
The other two of the "big three" in classical sociology, Durkheim and Weber, both have better arguments about religion's interwovenness with economics than does Marx. Durkheim has been fairly supplanted by Goffman and Berger, but there's still some interesting stuff in Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of Religioius Life. There's plenty that I like in Weber. Come to think of it, Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" is an excellent, short work that could have us thinking about the changes from Joseph Smith to subsequent leadership in interesting ways. It would be a great outside the box book of the board.
The early Marx who is still wrestling with Hegel is better on religion. Das Kapital was finished by Engels, and is Marxism at its most rigid. I'll take my collection of early Marx with me over break and maybe I'll post something on this.
Some of what is interesting at the intersection of Marxism and religion is the presence of "Communist priests" who have been mixed up in South American politics at different times. There's a way to think of the communist utopia as a Christian utopia, and especially if one emphasizes Luke's Gospel, but there's no way around Marx's condemnation of religion as superstructure (as an economic effect).
For Marx, historical materialism starts with the most basic, objective human needs--like eating. If one argues that those acts are not only economic, but also technological and/or ritual, then one might be able to adapt Marxism--except that Marx sees technology, ritual, and consciousness itself deriving from the alienated false consciousness of economic production and relations. Innis, McLuhan, and others push the technological/ritual side, and have been roundly condemned by Marxists for doing so.
Lewis Mumford wrestled with such issues and he's one of my favorite thinkers. He tried to suggest that some technologies were democratic and others were autocratic, but that both were tied into economic imperatives. In a manner a bit reminiscent of Weber, Mumford has machine-like human activities preceding the machines themselves. Monks in a 10th century Spanish monestary have to start acting in clock-like ways--have to become a clock--before the modern clock is invented and so on.
I'll ruminate on this over the break.