ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how a Marxist psychology can be constructed that draws on Marx's social theory regarding the structure of society, the relation of psychology to social structure, and human nature. Marx and Lev Vygotsky are shown to enrich each other. A Marxist psychology must grow out of Marx's ideas about social consciousness and its grounding in a social structure of social conditions for that is as close as Marx came to discussing psychology. Marx's theory of social consciousness is unusual in that it rests consciousness completely upon social conditions. When Marx speaks of social conditions organizing aspects of consciousness, he is referring ultimately to the organization of conditions in a conical pattern that is centralized in the mode of production, or political economy. Critics of Marxism claim that it neglects social and psychological change. This leads to condemning Marxism as static, reified, and mechanistic.
