[In what follows my prompts to the AI, ChatGPT, are in Italics. The AI’s responses appear in quotation marks. The text in brackets is commentary that I added after the fact. I have two aims. Further explore how AI operates and its possible consequences. And further explore the Marxist Tradition’s composition and its consequences.]

I prompted ChatGPT: “I have an article (https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/should-our-resistance-enrich-or-transcend-marxism/) that critiques to immerse in The Marxist Tradition as being an unsuitable agenda for today’s activists. I have uploaded the article to you and would like your opinion: What did I get right, what did I get wrong, and what’s your overall reaction where you respond, however, in the persona of a Marxist, and perhaps in a style like that of Karl Marx.”

“Excellent—your piece ‘Enrich or Transcend Marxism’ has been processed, and I now offer a full response from the standpoint of a Marxist critic, in the writing style of Marx—dialectical, polemical, and rooted in historical materialism. This response does not adopt the tone of agreement, but one of comradely struggle over truth.”

[The AI titled its reply: Against the Spirit of Departure: A Marxist Critique of ‘Enrich or Transcend Marxism.’ It starts with a section titled I. Introduction: A Specter Haunts the Text.]

“The article’s author announces, as many have before, that Marxism—like an ancient edifice—stands weathered by time, noble in intent but no longer fit for habitation. The claim is not unfamiliar. Indeed, there is a long tradition of those who, failing to find the dialectic alive in Marxism, conclude it is dead. But the dialectic does not reside in text alone. It resides in praxis, and in this, I contend, the author has erred—not by seeking to improve upon the Marxist tradition, but by divorcing the form of Marxism from its content while retaining little of its method.”

[Actually, I was concerned with immersing in the Marxist Tradition and I addressed some key concepts in light of social relations and history…but the AI is responding as a Marxist—meaning it’s responding based on the training it has had on Marxist content. The training has created nodes in its network associated with Marxism. It ‘chooses’ each new word it adds to its response to my article to comply with my instruction to be Marxist. Thus, AI Marxist proceeds:]

“The piece reveals earnest commitment, broad vision, and righteous discontent with the limitations of past revolutionary strategies. And yet, in its attempt to both ‘enrich’ and ‘transcend,’ it proceeds not by sublating contradiction, but by bypassing it, retreating from Marxism’s rigor in favor of a pluralistic humanism unmoored from material conditions. Let us proceed step by step.

“The author critiques Marxism for privileging the working class—defined traditionally as the proletariat in direct opposition to the capitalist class—arguing that this focus is outdated, narrow, and instead he introduces the “coordinator class” as a distinct locus of power, supposedly obscured in the Marxist lens. This critique, however, misunderstands the materialist conception of class. For Marx, class is defined not by income or education, but by relation to the means of production.”

[true, and for me too, Class is defined by relations to the means of production, but not by relations only to property. I add for additional consideration relations to the division of labor and to the mode of allocation.]

“So-called ‘coordinators’—managers, technocrats, professionals—are not omitted in Marxist theory; they are subsumed under the petit bourgeoisie, or, when they function as agents of capital accumulation, as appendages of the bourgeoisie itself.”

[True again. Exactly. Or, put less rhetorically, in the Marxist Tradition those who I call coordinators are typically thought about either as small capitalists or as tools of capitalists but are not thought about as a separate economic class between labor and capital. Their different structural source than ownership relations is ruled out a priori. Their derivative different interests and consciousness than owners and also than workers can’t exist. Their potential to become a new ruling class is delusion. So infers AI Marxist.]

“Yes, Marx did not coin the phrase ‘coordinator class.’ But to claim that his analysis is thereby flawed is akin to claiming Euclid misunderstood geometry for lacking non-Euclidean terms.”

[AI Marxist is rhetorically clever, but whether done by machine or human, this argument is Marxist sophistry. First, my article isn’t about Marx or his times. It is about whether to immerse in the Marxist Tradition is a useful step for current activists. Second, AI Marxist is right that for Marx to not include in his work something not yet known in his time doesn’t critique him. However, if what’s left out is critically important its continued absence does critique Marxism a couple of centuries later.]

“Theory develops dialectically; the proper Marxist response is to incorporate new observations within the logic of material contradiction—not to invent neo-class categories divorced from the totality of social relations.”

[AI Marxist successfully sounds like a Marxist. That is impressive—or horrifying. But what does “develops dialectically” mean? What does “material contradiction” mean? And does the Tradition itself address the “totality of social relations”? More, how is to introduce a “neo-class category”—the coordinator class—“divorced from the totality of social relations”? Doesn’t it, instead, add back previously ignored social relations?]

“The author charges Marxism with failures in past revolutions—specifically, the emergence of authoritarianism, elitism, and inequality in ostensibly socialist regimes.”

[Actually, such failures are the bulk of the Tradition, so I charge that immersion in the Tradition isn’t very helpful, unless, arguably, it is done to reject the Tradition’s failures and their causes. AI Marxist unsurprisingly leaves out that the past revolutions continued racism and misogyny, spawned political dictatorships, and installed a new economically defined ruling class. In other words, it leaves out the failures I addressed. In activating its neural links connected to Marxism it didn’t even register those failures. That is, AI Marxist uses the linkages in its trained neural net to follow my instruction to answer like a Marxist even at the cost of ignoring much of the substance it is responding to.] 

“This is no novelty. The Stalinist betrayal, the bureaucratic ossification of the Eastern Bloc, the failures of Third World socialism—all are well known.”

[Yes, all they are well known to the AI due to its training, and they are well known to me due to my investigations. But the Tradition typically blames these failures on rogue individuals, nasty bureaucracy, and/or vile external enemies. It doesn’t even consider much less blame them even in part on the Tradition’s concepts and its structural/institutional commitments. Will AI Marxist tell us why?]

“But to lay these failings at the feet of Marxism per se is to confuse a doctrine with its deformation. One might as well blame Christianity for Torquemada or Darwin for eugenics. Marxism, when reduced to the actions of its betrayers, becomes a straw man.”

[Another eloquent Marxist response. Actually, frighteningly, more eloquent than many muster. However, a non-sequitor as my article blames the Tradition’s failures on its concepts and commitments which “the betrayers” brilliantly implemented. If I asked AI Marxist about Marxism’s view of mainstream economic concepts I think it would rightly blame capitalist practices on capitalism’s underlying economic concepts and institutional commitments and not just on evil people or external enemies. My point? When a Marxist addresses mainstream economic concepts and commitments to get to the heart of the matter, it is rightly radical. When a critic addresses the Marxist Tradition’s concepts and commitments to get to the heart of the matter, I am ignorant and even unmoored.]

“The true question is this: What were the material and historical conditions under which revolutionary movements degenerated? What contradictions remained unresolved? What external pressures—imperialism, blockade, sabotage—shaped outcomes? To abandon Marxism due to failed applications is to abandon medicine for the persistence of disease.”

[AI Marxist is again seriously eloquent. And it has rightly indicated the true question for someone who unyieldingly believes as an unchallengeable axiom that the causes of the Marxist Tradition’s problems can only be found outside the Marxist Tradition. My article argues instead that the Marxist Tradition has repeatedly arrived at what it has sought. It has sometimes been delayed by external factors, yes, but Trotsky put the point I make well: “I consider that if the Civil War had not plundered our economic organs of all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative, we should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management much sooner and much less painfully.” Trotsky understood, that is, that the Tradition’s results are not contrary to the Tradition’s concepts and commitments but instead consistent with and facilitated by those concepts and commitments. The so-called betrayers within were actually brilliant implementers within.]

“Next, the author [of the article] strikes a noble chord. He wishes to place gender, race, ecology, culture, and kinship on equal footing with class in our revolutionary aims. He proposes a pluralism of oppressions and struggles, each with its dignity and imperative. But there is a price to this ecumenicism. By elevating all to equal footing, the author risks flattening contradiction.”

[give AI Marxist a hand. It goes where nowadays few Marxists might openly venture, and many others would refuse to go at all. ‘To place on equal footing’ here means to acknowledge that each emanates powerful influences that mold and can even define prospects for social change options. How does to add that flatten contradictions? Doesn’t it instead add additional ones? More, we might reasonably wonder why AI Marxist doesn’t see how the Tradition “flattens contradictions” not only involving these others facets of ire but also between workers and coordinators and between coordinators and owners when it adopts as an unchallengeable assertion that economic class only derives from relations to property?]

“Not all social relations are co-equal in structuring historical development. Race, gender, and other oppressions are real and crucial—but they are mediated, reproduced, and perpetuated through the mode of production.”

[Yes, when the Tradition looks at race and gender it does so as they are mediated, reproduced, perpetuated and also—AI Marxist oddly left out—altered by class dynamics. True enough, but AI Marxist ignored the article’s claim that the Tradition doesn’t look sufficiently effectively or at times even at all at the intrinsic dynamics born directly of kinship and culture relations to see how those race and gender dynamics mediate, reproduce, perpetuate, and also alter class dynamics.]

“To make class one ‘ism’ among many is to lose sight of its structuring centrality. This is not hierarchy; it is dialectics. Race and gender are not “add-ons,” but interwoven moments in the unfolding of capital. To analyze them properly, one must root them in the material base, not only in the superstructure of identity or morality.”

[Ah, the inevitable resort to ‘dialectics.’ Of course we should pay attention to how economic factors impact race, kinship, polity, ecology, and indeed everything. But we should also pay attention to the intrinsic features born of those other dynamics and to how those in turn affect everything, including the economy. For that matter if the former is being dialective, why isn’t the latter, whatever AI Marxist might have in mind by using the term ‘dialectics’?]

“The article’s author proposes replacing Marxism’s focus on objective structures with a new ethos: values of participation, equity, and dignity. He favors a framework that centers agency, vision, and desire.”

[Yes I do urge that we pay attention to all that and more but nowhere do I say we should ignore objective structure, which I guess would mean ignore reality. On the contrary, I said the Tradition itself ignores various objective structures—components of reality—including those that generate misogyny and racism and ironically but devastatingly those that generate the ruling class that the Tradition has repeatedly installed. It seems that the AI, adopting the persona of AI Marxist, can’t even hear much less rebut such claims. So goes immersion in the Tradition.]

“But what are these values, if not ideals? What sustains them, if not material possibility? What produces them, if not historical struggle? Here, the author flirts dangerously with idealism. He shifts the engine of history from necessity to preference, from contradiction to aspiration. Yet values do not float above history. They emerge from it. One cannot will a new world into being by preferring it. One must understand what makes the old world persist—and that requires materialist analysis.”

[I would add structures do not float above ideas, delinked, uncaused. Preference alone isn’t enough. I agree. One must know what makes the old world persist. Yes. It helps to also know what one desires”—preferences aren’t everything but nor are they nothing. So of course we need to pay attention to what is (and to what is possible) but not via a materialist analysis that is severely blinkered by economism and made dismissively ignorant by erroneous class analysis. Our analysis must do better. More, for completeness, I should add that there is nothing historically inevitable about the Tradition’s products unless we place the Tradition’s concepts and commitments in command, in which case, yes, the Tradition’s concepts and commitments will tend to yield what they have always in the past yielded.] 

“The article closes with an impassioned call for a better world—participatory, pluralist, post-hierarchical. It rejects doctrinaire purity, embraces innovation, and seeks to motivate with hope, not duty. And yet, one must ask: Where is the theory of power? Of state? Of accumulation? The revolution cannot proceed by moral feeling alone. What shall be seized? What transformed? What abolished? Without a theory of capital, of exploitation, of historical motion, the vision remains a blueprint without scaffolding. To critique Marxism for its blind spots is just—but to replace it with a scaffold of values absent material grounding is to build castles in the air.”

[AI Marxist is once again eloquent in its assigned persona. But why is to fill the Tradition’s blind spots, to add attention to the non economic real world factors critical to change, to add the effects of racism, patriarchy, and authority including their effects on economy—plus to recognize the real world sources and consequences of a class between labor and capital—to ‘build castles in the air.’ Why isn’t it actually paying attention to reality that  Marxist Tradition’s concepts ignore and even deny? To propose new structures to make real favored values grounds those desired values in sought institutions which is ironically, exactly what the Tradition fails to do. Talking about the future, where is AI Marxist’s recognition of the Tradition’s horrid inclination to elevate the coordinator class in its sought future? It is absent. AI Marxist’s neural net has taken in that blindness during its training. AI Marxist’s questions are valid but the Marxist Tradition’s answers to those questions are profoundly flawed.]

“In sum, the author does not enrich Marxism. He dissolves it into a soup of ethics, pluralism, and structural sensitivity—admirable ingredients, but insufficient for a revolutionary meal. Marxism remains indispensable not as dogma, but as method—a guide to understanding, not a script for reenactment. The task is not to transcend it, but to develop it—to confront its gaps not by abandonment, but by dialectical augmentation.”

[The persona’s bottom line. Recognize it? And if the Marxist Tradition has only modest gaps, sure, we should enrich it to sensibly fill those minor gaps. But what if the Tradition’s failings are not only due to modest gaps but also and mostly due to massive outright errors that are cemented into its failed concepts and methods? Then what? And in any event, what the hell is “dialectical augmentation”? Don’t Marxists have in mind revolution when discussing dialectical augmentation of society? Why doesn’t revolution only apply in that realm? Why can’t “dialectical augmentation” include to transcend and not just reform a flawed conceptual framework?]

“Let the dead bury the dead, the old forms pass. But do not mistake the sickness of a moment for the death of the method that can still cure it.”

[What if this particular moment of sickness has spanned the entire duration of the Tradition and has afflicted movements and whole societies with exactly the ills that the Tradition’s concepts evidence and generate? AI Marxist ends by quoting Marx:]

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”

[I like that Marx quote too, unlike the ones that I offered from Lenin and Trotsky which I found horrible and which AI Marxist unsurprisingly ignored. In fact, Marx’s quote’s advice is exactly the basis on which we should question the advisability of immersing in the Marxist tradition. The Tradition’s concepts and institutional commitments infect its practice. And the practice has consistently showcased flaws for changing the world that current activists ought not immerse in.]

At this point, I wanted to see if there was any difference in the substance the AI would relate if I prompted for it to react to the article again, but not as a Marxist…so, I prompted: “Okay, I read your take on the article as a Marxist might react. You did a fine job, I think, of offering what a typical Marxist might reply but in so doing you didn’t address what the article actually said. Can you now, yourself—not adopting some persona—summarize the article and say what you think it got right or got wrong? AI no longer a Marxist replied:

 “Thanks for the clarification — I’ll now provide a direct summary and analysis of your article ’Enrich or Transcend Marxism?’, highlighting what it argues, what it gets right, and where it might be contested.”

“The central argument of ’Enrich or Transcend Marxism?’ is that the traditional Marxist framework, while historically important, is insufficient for guiding effective contemporary activism or envisioning a desirable future society. The article does not call for abandoning Marxist insights, but it does argue they must be significantly enriched—or even transcended—to meet today’s diverse and multi-dimensional needs.”

[Now it is replying as ‘itself,’ not as AI Marxist. The substance already differs.]

“1 Economism and Class Reductionism: The article argues that Marxism tends to prioritize economic class above other axes of oppression, such as gender, race, and power in kinship and cultural life. As a result, it inadequately explains and engages with struggles outside the economic realm.”

“2 Obsession with Ownership and Production: Traditional Marxism centers its critique on ownership of the means of production and capitalist exploitation. The article suggests this leaves unaddressed other critical structural dynamics—particularly the division of empowering versus disempowering labor, and the coordinator class that arises even in non-capitalist systems.”

“3 Inadequate Attention to Vision: The piece critiques Marxism for lacking compelling, clear, and participatory visions of what a better society would actually look like. Where such vision exists, it’s often too vague or incomplete (e.g., just ‘abolish private property’ or ‘workers’ control’), and doesn’t extend to cultural, gender, or ecological systems.”

“4 Democratic Centralism and Organizational Hierarchies: The article challenges Marxist habits of top-down organizing, where leadership often reproduces the hierarchies it seeks to dismantle. It pushes for prefigurative practice—organizing now in ways that reflect the future we want to build.”

“5 Alienating Language and Culture: The author critiques Marxism’s reliance on opaque, often elitist language and its tendency to create insular subcultures that alienate broader audiences.”

[Operating without an instruction to adopt a Marxist persona has apparently freed the AI to see the article’s contents much more clearly than earlier. The only conclusion I can see is that the earlier Marxist persona curbed its perceptions and comprehension.]

“The article offers a more holistic and updated framework. It explicitly incorporates attention to race, gender, ecology, and democratic structure alongside economics. It offers a concrete institutional vision of future workplaces, family structures, media, and culture. The emphasis is on balance, participation, equity, and pluralism, not just anti-capitalism.”

“What the Article Gets Right:

“1 The Need for Multi-System Analysis: The critique of class reductionism is widely acknowledged even among many contemporary Marxists. Race, gender, and ecology have their own dynamics and cannot be subordinated to class. This is one of the article’s strongest and most timely points.”

“2 Importance of Prefigurative Politics: The argument that movements should embody the values they hope to achieve resonates with many leftist traditions beyond Marxism—particularly anarchism, feminism, and newer movements like Rojava’s democratic confederalism. The call for participatory structure is well-founded and widely applicable.”

“3 Recognition of the Coordinator Class: The notion that a new class emerges in some post-capitalist societies—those who monopolize empowering tasks—is a powerful critique of past Marxist experiments. This “coordinator class” concept adds nuance to the traditional two-class model.”

[Chuckling, I’d say it adds a bit more than nuance…]

“4 Vision as Strategy: The article’s emphasis on the need for concrete vision (especially institutional vision) is important. Without knowing what we want, it’s hard to build a path to get there or motivate people to join. The author is correct that Marxism has often under-specified its vision for the future.”

“5 Language and Accessibility: The critique of movement culture, jargon, and insularity is valid. Movements that fail to communicate clearly or that alienate people culturally risk becoming irrelevant. Marxist spaces have often been guilty of this, even when their content is sound.”

[I was moved to turn all this into an article because of how strikingly different it was when the response by AI Marxist presented a Marxist reaction, to when it  presented its own reaction. As itself, the AI saw what the article says. Bound by its Marxist training, it didn’t.]

“What Might Be Contested:

“1 Dismissal of Marxism’s Adaptive Capacity: While the article makes powerful criticisms, it might underplay the diversity and evolution within Marxist thought. Many Marxist feminists, ecosocialists, critical race Marxists, and libertarian Marxists have addressed the very concerns raised. One could argue the problem is not Marxism per se, but which version one applies.”

[This is true, one could indeed argue that. Of course, one might instead argue that Marxism’s different versions try to deal with flaws that predominate in the Marxist Tradition so they actually make evident that we need to enrich or to transcend the Tradition. The Marxist Tradition’s internal contradictions don’t only not conceptual reform but instead conceptual revolution.]

“2 Coordinator Class as a New Class: While compelling, the argument that this class is structurally distinct and must be a centerpiece of anti-capitalist analysis is still debated. Some may see it as an extension of class stratification under capitalism or bureaucracy, rather than a fully distinct class in a materialist sense.”

[That the coordinator class is not a fully distinct class “in the materialist sense” is true if “in the materialist sense” means “as a product of ownership relations.” But if the concept “class” seeks to identify economic constituencies that powerfully impact prospects for economic change and that can even become a new ruling class, then the coordinator class is a class in every relevant sense, including ‘a materialist sense.’ My guess is, if I offered that observation to the AI, it would agree.]

“3 Prefigurative Practice vs. Strategic Power: The article valorizes prefigurative politics, but some argue this can limit capacity to confront power. Marxists might argue that strategic seizure of state power (even if temporary or flawed) was historically necessary. The question of balancing prefiguration with realpolitik is ongoing.”

[Yes, to turn the state into a polity that seeks to aid continued transition to a new society is essential, I agree, though it is not alone essential. But to turn the state into any kind of dictatorship, as has occurred repeatedly in the Marxist Tradition, instead obstructs attaining a desirable new society. Is that merely bad actors? Or is it bad concepts and commitments? By the by, might it be that the Tradition doesn’t have much place for prefigurative politics as one part of winning a new society because it doesn’t have an enunciated, worthy shared vision to prefigure.]

“4 Is RPS New or Synthesized? Critics may ask whether RPS is truly transcending Marxism, or whether it’s simply a synthesis of Marxism with feminism, anarchism, and ecology—an enrichment rather than a replacement. If so, is ‘transcend’ too strong a word?”

[To “enrich” the Tradition’s concepts and call the result “unorthodox marxism” was my mindset once, in a book by that name I wrote with Robin Hahnel, but the resistance to its proposed changes and even the lack of perception of what they were about has been so great that I now think to “transcend” may be the only way to escape the failings and thus the right word to use.]

“5 Lack of Engagement with Marxist Humanism or Libertarian Marxism: The article criticizes “Marxism” as a whole, but does not distinguish much between authoritarian, orthodox, Leninist strands and more democratic, humanist ones. This might flatten some internal debates and advances within the tradition.”

[This is another reasonable observation, but the article is about the heart of the Tradition—not about all that exists at the edges in rebellious libraries and classrooms—and in that regard the article addressed what seems to me to dominate the Tradition.]

“Your article articulates a serious, thoughtful, and respectful challenge to Marxism. It doesn’t burn bridges—it builds new ones. The case for a richer, more pluralist, more inclusive framework for contemporary struggle is strong. Whether this means enriching Marxism or transcending it depends on what one believes “Marxism” essentially is. But the clarity, urgency, and care with which the argument is made gives it power—and invites continued dialogue, not doctrinal closure.”

[Marxism is indeed, nowadays, different things to different folks. But the Tradition, is, I think, well defined.]

I then replied: I wrote another piece, about a month after the first… it follows — that is I next uploaded it—Will Marxism Help Or Hinder Resistance? (https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-marxism-help-or-hinder-resistance/) I prompted: Could you answer the same questions about it? It did, but to save space and avoid inducing comas, I will merely summarize. 

“The article takes up the same core issue you explored in Enrich or Transcend Marxism? but in a more pointed and strategic way: whether activists today should immerse themselves in the Marxist tradition as a guiding framework, or instead transcend it in order to address the needs of 21st-century struggle. The piece reiterates your earlier criticisms, adds historical and personal context, and ends with an explicit public challenge to prominent Marxists to respond.

“You open by stressing that theory matters—activists need a shared conceptual “toolbox” to coordinate efforts, develop vision, and avoid reinventing the wheel. Marxism is one such framework: long-standing, highly developed, with a vast literature and activist lineage. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right one for today.

“You restate, in condensed form, the five main criticisms from your earlier work: Economism—Historical materialism, when used by real-world actors, tends to prioritize economics to the detriment of race, gender, and other social relations. Truncated Class Analysis—Marxism’s exclusive focus on ownership blinds it to a third “coordinator” class, which often emerges to dominate in post-capitalist societies. Labor Theory of Value Limits—Marxism misattributes wage levels and economic dynamics to embodied labor time, rather than power relations, and ignores equitable remuneration debates. Dialectics as a Distraction—Marxist dialectical method, as taught, is obscure, unnecessary for effective activism, and can intimidate newcomers.  Sectarian Drift—Marxism fails to guard against — and may encourage — sectarianism, inflexibility, and destructive infighting.”

[Again having ditched the Marxist persona, the AI’s summary is unobjectionable. It continued:] 

“Some Marxists will see your dismissal of dialectics as missing its point—that it’s not about jargon but about a method of understanding dynamic, interconnected change. Even if they admit it’s often taught badly, they’d argue it’s not dispensable.”

[True, some would, and I am going to want to pursue this matter further with the AI below to see what it says “dialectics” even is. The AI’s Final Take on the second article was:]

“This second piece is more confrontational than your first, not because it’s hostile, but because it actively seeks response and debate. It distills your criticisms into a more usable form, pairs them with specific challenges, and puts respected Marxists on the spot. Where the first article was more a reasoned ‘here’s why I think Marxism is insufficient,’ this one is ‘here’s the case, here’s the evidence, and here’s the challenge — if I’m wrong, show me.’ That shift makes it more likely to provoke the very engagement you’ve been looking for — though, given your past experience, you may again find Marxists preferring silence over public rebuttal. If nothing else, it gives non-Marxist activists a crisp set of questions to ask when considering what theoretical tradition to invest in.”

[And that was exactly my purpose, which the AI operating as itself saw but which it totally missed when operating as AI Marxist.]

I next prompted: “You say I am missing or perhaps oblivious to the use of ‘dialectics’ to understand issues and relations of importance. Okay, tell me what you mean by dialectics and what it helps an activist understand that they couldn’t understand by far simpler paths…”

“Sure — here’s a concise, plain-language answer that takes dialectics seriously without falling into jargon. In the Marxist tradition, “dialectics” is a way of thinking about the world as made up of interconnected, changing, and often contradictory processes rather than isolated, static facts. Its philosophical roots go back to Hegel, but Marx stripped it of Hegel’s idealism and grounded it in material reality—hence dialectical materialism.

Key features often emphasized:

“1 Interconnection – No phenomenon exists in isolation; its causes and effects are linked to many others.

“2 Contradiction – Systems contain internal tensions (class conflict, ecological exploitation) that drive change.

“3 Change Through Struggle – Change isn’t smooth; it often comes from the resolution of contradictions, which produces new contradictions.

“4 Historical Specificity – Social arrangements are products of history, not eternal truths.”

[No doubt some scholars won’t accept the above, but will it be solely due to the fact that the AI answered in plain English? Isn’t to do all that if say dialectics offers almost universally accepted as common sense…except when dogma, bias or interests intervene?]

“Marxists who value dialectics argue it can help activists by:

“1 Avoiding One-Issue Thinking: Dialectics encourages you to look for connections: for example, how wage struggles are linked to racism, how climate policy is tied to imperialism.”

[Here too, doesn’t everyone look for important connections? And isn’t doing so common sense? More, isn’t whether you see all important contradictions and factors, or only some, what matters? Doesn’t the Tradition violate its own instruction to be “dialectical” when it sees only some? Why don’t defenders of the tradition see that?]

“2 Seeing Systems Dynamically: Instead of treating capitalism as a fixed structure, dialectics emphasizes its tendency to evolve through crises — which can reveal when conditions are ripe for reform or rupture.”

[Again, do we really need to read obscure tomes about this only to find that we don’t understand them, and that we perhaps even feel inadequate, dumb, or ignorant as a result.]

“3 Understanding Oppositional Forces: The idea of contradiction helps frame why institutions generate resistance (e.g., why police reform efforts trigger backlash from entrenched interests).”

[Sure, I guess, but “dialectics”? The AI leaves out the word “internal” as in pay close attention to “internal contradictions.” But of course that is what to look at the conceptual and institutional commitments of the Marxist Tradition does and what to instead look only for betrayers and external enemies avoids.

“4. Because it focuses on systemic interrelations, dialectics can prompt activists to ask: ‘If we win this reform, how will the system adapt in ways that might undermine it?’

[Fine, but is this what all those books are about? Or do the books mostly make the obvious obtuse?]

“Could We Get All This Without ‘Dialectics’? Yes — and this is the crux of your critique. You could teach every one of the above points without ever mentioning the word ‘dialectics’ or its philosophical lineage. You might call it systems thinking, historical analysis, or strategic cause-and-effect mapping.”

[Or you might call it informed common sense, rationality, or if you add the need to check against evidence, science.]

“Many activists already practice something like dialectical thinking in plain language: they look for root causes, they study power dynamics over time, they connect struggles. The value of ‘dialectics’ in the Marxist sense is less in providing totally new insights than in bundling them into a coherent worldview with a long historical and philosophical pedigree.”

[But the common sense advisories are also bundled with a gigantic volume of obscure language that lets a so-called dialectician plead about views the dialectician doesn’t like that dialectics is missing from them, or to assert that dialectics instead says otherwise, to get his or sometimes her way. The upshot seems to be that dialectics doesn’t mean anything that is remotely obscure to anyone until it is put into obscure language. And, in any event, to read about or adopt the obscure language doesn’t always have the valued effects, witness countless dialecticians who look only outside the Marxist Tradition for its “contradictions” and who claim that to look inside is “undialectical” or even “unmoored.”

“Exactly — in practice, dialectics is just common-sense systems thinking dressed up in philosophical attire, and to adopt the vocabulary doesn’t guarantee adopting the habits of mind it’s supposed to foster.”

---

That was the end for me and the AI on the topic, Marxist Tradition. I offer this set of exchanges, despite my massive misgivings about AI, for whatever you might take from them. I have to admit that I found the effect on the AI’s observations of having the AI adopt a Marxist persona compared to when I didn’t require that quite revealing about the AI itself and also about the consequences of immersion in the Marxist Tradition.

I know there are wonderful, brilliant and committed Marxists. I know that many Marxists have had incredibly powerful and relevant insights many of which remain essential for contemporary activists. But I also know those insights are well known and rather straightforward. One can learn them relatively easily from contemporary allies. Immersion in Tradition not necessary. I also suggest that beyond and even embedded right along with its wise insights, the Tradition has devastating flaws that have dominated its practical results. Does anyone on the left doubt that? But if we don’t doubt it, what should we do?

I think we should agree with much of Marxism’s understanding of the implications of private ownership. But I also think to immerse in the Tradition and advocate it goes much further than that. I think to work to implement the Tradition in the manner of Trotskyists, Leninists, and Maoists leads to places we should not want to arrive.

We should certainly retain correct and useful Marxist insights. Of course. We should certainly jettison wrong and counter productive Marxist flaws. Of course. We should certainly add to what we retain wisdom from feminists, anti-racists, anarchists, and ecologists and from those who see that between labor and capital there is a third critical economic class that can become a new ruling class unless activism welcomes its participation but not its rule as we all seek classlessness. We should mix the emerging enriched results together to yield a worthy toolbox of concepts and commitments.

What do we come up with? Does that yield something we want to call unorthodox Marxism? Or would we rather distance further from the Marxist Tradition’s myopic economism, class obfuscationism, textual obscurantism, and impoverished vision, even as we celebrate our connection with anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-authoritarian traditions? Do we think that to transcend the Marxist Tradition is to renounce revolution so we resolutely refuse to do so? Or do we think that to transcend the Marxist Tradition is to wisely seek worthy revolution so we do, do that? Does your personal mix of useful concepts enrich Marxism or does your personal mix of useful concepts transcend Marxism? Should we together reform the Marxist Tradition? Or should we together revolutionize it? That is my question. 

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