ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that what motivates Karl Marx in his complex methodological stance is not a psychological predilection to authoritarianism, speculation, or holism. Marx’s methodology is premissed on an Aristotelian ontology. The chapter offers a synthesis of the elements into an investigation of the claim that Marx’s methodological commitments prefigure in some way the practice of totalitarianism. It examines the case put forward by Jon Elster, in order to show some of its metaphysical shortcomings, and it is on the ontological plane that the correspondence to the hard core of Marx’s project is to be discovered. Siding with the opponents of those who propose the adoption of methodological individualism into debates about Marx and Marxism is not a very surprising manoeuvre. More important both to the self image of the practitioners of Analytical Marxism, and to an objective characterisation of the approach, are matters of intellectual tone and perspective.
