Wouldn't you count the classical socialdemocracy as an off-spin of Marxism? Up till the "third way" 1990s, certain Marxist awareness was still there. If Lenin's bolsheviks would not had taken the call to revolution that seriously (in barely capitalist Russia, of all places), Marx's legacy in the 20th Century would probably had been very different.
Ideologies (as world perspectives) are not dead really. Instead, a strong selection towards public awareness is taking place, especially now, once the "only" Soviet alternative is defeated. Only those ideologies that fit social legitimation needs of power/wealth holders are promoted, while others are ignored or ridiculed. This period is special by the degree of control of ideology selection. But once consensi of G20 dinners and intimidation of free tanks would cease, more various ideas will be discussed.
But then I also think that one of Marxism's problems has traditionally been a certain tendency among it's adherents to treat Marx as a Prophet and his writing as scripture. I far prefer the notion of him as one of the nineteenth century's greatest thinkers who revolutionized how we think of society and spawned a political movement. At least that's what I think his relevance is today.
Apart from compulsory (and rather formal) indoctrination by Soviet education and politicization, what would be examples of Marx's adherents treating him as a Prophet?
On Marx as prophet and his writings as scriptures though, I stand by my point. If you look at the debates during the Second International period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, or those within the SPD during Weimar, there is a strong tendency among the participants to argue from Marx rather than from a broader perspective. That is, you'd get ideas 'refuted' by saying that they went against this or that in Marx's writings, rather than a genuine counterargument. Then there's the whole teleological aspect of the Marxist narrative. There I feel that Marx himself bears quite a bit of blame. All in all, Marxists seemed to often forget that Marx was just a human being who lived in a certain period of time, a brilliant one, but without psychic powers and quite capable of being wrong.
Gould and Buchanan seem to be adopting Engels especially for their science fights.
The problem with capitalism is that it has been adopted all over the world. Once ingrained systemically, the transition to alternatives seems like a bit of fantasy.
I recognize that it is but one ideology, and yet its pervasiveness and ability to adapt and encumber resistant movements make it all the more formidable. Capitalism seems better able to accommodate a critique of metaphysics in the wake of Marx.
Again, the most well-known Neo-Marxist theorists have pushed Marxist thought into our century, and yet they recognize the dominance of the capitalist model as being so pervasive not because it's the better one (necessarily), but because of its evident entrenchment. That doesn't mean there aren't other models out there, communal, etc. It just means that those models are, for all purposes, impractical at the moment, and any chance they have of becoming dominant is usually rooted in the complete collapse and total failure of capitalism. Which won't do much for the proletariat, I suppose.
The biggest obstacle for alternative views is the "self-interest" of leading industrial and political classes, I think. They pushing forward this libertarism as de facto social legitimation. The power-holding classes made quite a progress in the recent decade in accumulating a critical mass of economic and political power. By now they are almost autonomous from the masses (and any "dangerous" ideas).
Several aspects of ideological isolation dynamics can be found in Naomi Klein's book "The shock doctrine". I will give two examples from there:
If you look at late capitalism today, especially it's global character, the dismantling of this system would cause such upheaval, especially when it comes to distribution of energy resources and food, that many hundreds of millions would die, if not billions.
It's so systemically entrenched at a global level that a move to another system is the equivalent of radiation therapy to remove a cancer.
Here and there, there may be alternative models, but globally it seems to be the model most countries have adopted.
This global capitalism is a problem, in all its unsustainability. The world we know is dismantling before our eyes.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine...
I am not talking about imposing other global order. I do not recommend any particular global order at all. In contrary - global top-to-down economic solutions must be resisted. To survive this economic crash, every country, community must have freedom to make decisions of its own. Someone would strike then ingenious solutions very probably. That's why plurality of ideologies is welcome now.
I wish this capitalism to retain most of its structure and buzzing network as it can. But the global system must be open to voluntary unscripted adaptations of its parts. What is not welcome is to let clubs of G20-lite leaders of wealth and power holders to decide everything. That would likely to lead to reversing all social evolution of the last 120 years, back to "Oliver Twist" scale gaps between haves and havenots.
