The Marxist economy died of its internal contradictions.
Firstly, what were the internal contradictions?
Even the orthodox Soviet Marxism-Leninism does not look terribly bad when looking back from now (especially through post-soviet Russia). One emergent reason for the Soviet failure is that actually very few were interested in saving (or even keeping) the system. Self-interested ideology would not had allowed itself to dissapear so quietly.
And then, surely, there is an issue of less narrow interpretations of Marxism. If core Marxism is cold dead, something like it will be born anyway.
Like feminism, socialism, capitalism, and most other isms, the basic internal contradiction is that these definitions are supposed to be completely define relationship dynamics. So if you're a Worker you have a certain set of qualities, by definition. If you're an Owner you have a different set of qualities.
Absolutes like these are unhelpful, if not downright stupid. What's missing is a personal context.
Specific actions and relationships - usually power relationships based on dominance and submission hierarchies - are the problem. The labels are a misdirection. They're too crude to be useful as a description of real social relations, except in a very caricatured and superficial way.
So in practice what happens is that the Grand Narrative disguises and legitimises everyday acts of social violence in Marxism, Capitalism, Christianity, Islam, Nationalism, and the rest.
I suspect almost all Grand Narratives exist to do this, and it's very difficult to see morality in terms of specific and personal human relationships between individuals when there's a Grand Narrative available to tell you what to feel.
There's a subset of Grand Narratives which focus on personal relationship in a more positive way, but they're rare and not usually very popular - certainly not politically.
Possibly also relevant is the Karpman Drama Triangle - which is a good a map of how political Grand Narratives seem to play out as any.
We know better, now.
As a theory, Marxism is still a potent one. It is reflexive anti-Marxism that is quite a Grand Narrative now.
Secondly the predictions Marxism did make, especially about social relationships in the absence of Capitalism, have turned out to be spectacularly wrong.
Thirdly Marxism has become so buried under so many contradictory off-shots and interpretations that it's no longer possible to know what Marxism actually says. There seem to be some points that Marxists more or less agree on, including the infinite plasticity of human character. But on that point Marxism has been disastrously wrong.
Finally, there's nothing 'reflexive' about trying to put together a comprehensive critique. There's nothing inviolate about Marxism. It made some useful points at the time, and it's possible to learn from them. That doesn't mean it should be treated as the final word on social relations.
The fall of capitalism was indeed beyond-scientific prediction. Marx could have calmly stopped by capital and labour crises - and boy, wouldn't be right?
Picking up contradictory and agreement points of presumed followers is like pedantically reading a Bible by each letter - that is not really interesting. As prediction of social "experimentations" go, social theories can only test a couple of them per century - not a great basis for definite inferences.
We may label the obvious Soviet experiment as disastrously wrong, mut we may also give a decent (non-exclusive) credit to Marxism for almost a century of the social-economic-democratic evolution where almost all members of some societies got full economic-social powers and rights. That should not taken for granted - before we know it, we might find ourselves in the "tested" social systems where only rich Bourgeoisie and their servants are overwhelmingly visible, like it was 100 years ago, or it is shown in Latin-American soap operas.
The labels are a misdirection. They're too crude to be useful as a description of real social relations, except in a very caricatured and superficial way.
More, please.
Eric Berne was a human treasure. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
