E. P. Thompson & British Ethical Socialist Tradition: Historical Generation of the Moral Dimension of “British Marxism”

Author: Zhang Liang, 2023-01-14

Summary

Marxism and the issue of justice have become a hot topic of debate in the domestic academic community. To fully understand the issue of justice in the British and American academic circles, we cannot be separated from the moral dimension of “British Marxism”.

Therefore, we need to return to the historical context of the debate on “socialist humanism” in the early days of the British New Left Movement. Starting from the theoretical reflection on the tradition of “dogmatic Marxism”, Edward Thompson developed the theory of ” socialist humanism ” which is closely related to the British 19th century ethical socialist tradition , and tried to prove that ” socialist humanism ” is the proper meaning of Marxism.

Although Charles Taylor is not opposed to ” socialist humanism ” in general , he opposes using a simple ” yes ” or ” no ” to judge the relationship between Stalinism and communism. Alasdair MacIntyre pushed the debate on “socialist humanism” to a new height, proposing to get out of the “moral wasteland” in the unity of “conceived human nature theory” and “real historical struggle”.

Keywords

New Left; British Marxism; socialist humanism; morality

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