On Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Socialist Thought

Ellen Meiksins Wood is an active Marxist scholar in the current Western New Left camp.She is a professor of political science at York University in Canada.She had been the editor of New Left Review that is an important international leftist magazine in a long time.She became the editor of Monthly Review in the 1990 s.Wood is a well-known contemporary political theorist and Marxist theorist,representing the most primitive voice of the left,and has initiated a new path of the study of the history of political thought in the "social history of political theory".She always understands the importance of political thoughts in the historical context,which is the central insight of all her works.The themes and historical periods covered by her works are unusually diverse,consistently rigorous,independent of ideas,and steadfast in the dual cause of socialism and democracy.This paper is mainly divided into introduction,body and conclusion.The introductory part clarifies the reasons for the selection of the topic,the significance of the study,the research methods and the structure of the text,the current research situation of Wood’s socialist thought in the academic circles at home and abroad.The body part contains five chapters in total;the conclusion part summarizes the theoretical contribution of Wood’s thoughts on socialism and her expectations for the development of future research.Chapter one mainly investigates the ideological and realistic background of Wood’s socialist thoughts.Firstly,the ideological background includes the ideological basis and the theoretical construction on the basis of critical reflection on other theories.On the one hand,the ideological basis of her thoughts is the socialist ideology of Marx and Engels,and the cultural Marxist school mainly focuses on Thompson’s historical and cultural theory,metaphorical theory,working class formation theory and the analysis of Marxist scholar Robert Brenner’s "political Marxist" thought.On the other hand,itcriticizes the structuralist Marxist thought represented by Althusser,the post-structuralist thought represented by Poulantzas,McPherson’s liberal democratic political theory,and the post-Marxist trend of thought.Secondly,the new changes of capitalist social relations,the changes of international communist forces and the left-wing forces,and the development of the new social movement have undoubtedly exerted great influence on her works.Chapter two Mainly discusses Wood’s socialist goals.Firstly,to explain the content construction of Wood’s socialist goals,that is achieving the goal of eradicating class and democracy.Wood constructs this goal through the inheritance of Marxist traditional socialist ideas and the criticism of post-Marxist "general human goodness".The construction focuses on the essence of the discourse of "the goodness of universal humanity" and the specific goals of socialism.Secondly,it explores the possibility of achieving Wood’s socialist goals.It explores the connection between the socialist goal and "the goodness of universal human beings" to realize Wood’s socialist goal,and it mainly includes relying on the working class for class struggle,creating relevant conditions to achieve the reconciliation of the interests of the working class and the general interests of socialism,and discussing the main task of the socialist movement,namely the re-occupation of the field of democratic struggles.Chapter three,mainly on the basis of Wood’s critical theory of capitalism,combs and summarizes the relationship and connotation between Wood’s socialism and democracy.Firstly,the logic of his socialist democratic theory is explored mainly from the three analytical paradigms of history,class and mode of production.Secondly,based on Wood’s criticism of capitalist democracy and the critical analysis of post-Marxist democratic concept to discusses the characteristics of socialist democracy,that is,socialist democracy is the absolute transcendence of capitalist democracy,socialist democracy is the combination of economic democracy and political democracy,and socialist democracy is the real democracy.Finally,it discusses the issue of carrying out the struggles for socialist democracy,and explains the goals,subjects and methods of the socialist democratic struggles.Chapter four,mainly dealing with the specific content of the thoughts of the socialist state.Firstly,it discusses the essence of the socialist state and indicates that the future human society appears in the form of a state without a class society.It believes that the socialist state is a non-classical public power,and the socialist state should be a politicalform that succumbs to society.Secondly,to point out the task of the socialist state in the era of globalization,the essence of "globalization" is the universalization of the capitalist system.In essence,capitalism and democracy are incompatible.Therefore,the socialist state must be compatible with the capitalist system.One is implementing the defensive practice of class politics,that is,taking the state as the main body to carry out political struggle against capitalist hegemony,and the other is to expand the scope of democracy.Chapter five is mainly about the evaluation of Wood’s socialism.It analyzes the theoretical value,theoretical limitations and significance of Wood’s socialist thoughts.And it emphasizes the things to strengthen the building of socialist political civilization with Chinese characteristics and strengthen the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics.In a word,this paper critically studies the basic content and theoretical essence of Wood’s socialist related thoughts under the guidance of Marxism.It should be seen that her firm Marxist position and the theoretical principle of historical materialism.It is impossible for this paper to review all her contributions,but we firmly appreciate her thoughts on the contradictory relationship between capitalism and democracy,as well as her ideas on the relationship between capitalism and democracy.In the process of globalization,she has made a commitment to a political platform that transcends capitalism and moves towards a truly democratic society.But we should also see that her starting point is still the background reality of Western capitalist countries.For us in the socialist countries,the practice and development of Marxism must combine theory with social development practice and revolutionary practice concretely.