Skip to main content
Log in

Mental footnotes in Socialism: the current social validity of the concept of bourgeoisie from the Marx’s and Engels’ “Manifesto of the communist party”

  • Published:
Mind & Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Aim: The main aim of the present study is to identify which mental footnotes (related to Marx’s and Engels’ Socialism) have more weight in the current cognitive processing of citizens. Background: We used the “Manifesto of the communist party” as the main source of the thoughts from these authors. Method: An experimental design (based on a previous qualitative research) was carried out to test the influence of mental footnotes on the citizens’ decision on the validity of the concepts. Results: The findings point out that there are strong, current, mental footnotes related to the Marx’s and Engels’ concept of bourgeoisie. Conclusions: The Marx’s and Engels’ Philosophy is currently alive, at least, some concepts related to bourgeoisie. People mostly think that the current means of production of modern bourgeoisie were developed in the feudal age, proletariat struggles with bourgeoisie from the beginning, Communism and Socialism are the only political movement that recognized this bourgeoisie-proletariat antagonism and the means of production are nowadays extended to other social classes. The present methodology (from an Experimental Psychology perspective) means a reliable technique to extract the essence of a text and to test the influence of its concepts on human cognitive processing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abreu J (2010) El socialismo [The socialism]. (V. Jaspe, Ed., & L. Neves & M. Morales, Trans.). Caracas, Venezuela: Fundación Biblioteca Ayacucho. (Original work published in 1855).

  • Bravo G (1976) Historia del socialismo 1789–1848: el pensamiento socialista antes de Marx [History of socialism 1789–1848: socialist thinking before Marx]. Ariel, Madrid

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky N (1980) On cognitive structures and their development: a reply to Piaget. In: Piatelli-Palmarini M (ed) Language and learning: the debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 35–54

    Google Scholar 

  • Cole G (1957) La historia del pensamiento socialista: tomo I los precursores 1789–1850 [A History of socialist though: the forerunners 1789–1850]. México D.F., México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. (Original work published in 1953)

  • De Cabo I (1987) Los socialistas utópicos [The utopian socialists]. Ariel, Barcelona

    Google Scholar 

  • De la Cruz F (2011) Las revoluciones rusas: origen, desarrollo y crisis de la URSS. Repercusiones internacionales [The Russian revolutions: origin, development and crisis of the USSR. International repercussions]. Clío Hist History Teach 37:1–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Dongli Z, Karl RE (2005) Prospects of economic transformation. Crit Asian Stud 37(3):495–500. https://doi.org/10.1080/14672710500200631

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engels F (1892) Socialism: utopian and scientific (P. Lafargue, Trans.). Moscú: Progress Publisher. (Original work published in 1880)

  • Espinoza E (2014) El socialismo en el siglo XXI [Socialism in the 21st century]. Estudios Del Desarrollo Social: Cuba y América Latina 2(2):107–155

    Google Scholar 

  • Fau M (2011). El materialismo histórico o Marxismo [Historical materialism or Marxism]. Buenos Aires, Argentina: La Bisagra

  • Felber C (2012) La economía del bien común [The economy of the common good]. Barcelona, España: Deusto

  • Fourquin G (1973) Los movimientos populares de la edad media [The popular movements of the middle ages]. Madrid, España: Castellote

  • Gregor A (2019) Classical Marxism and Maoism: a comparative study. Communis Post Commun 52(2):81–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2019.04.001

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamburger A (2014) El socialismo del siglo XXI en América Latina: características, desarrollos y desafíos [The socialism of the 21st century in Latin America: characteristics, developments and challenges]. Revista De Relaciones Internacionales, Estrategia y Seguridad 9:131–154

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harnecker M (1976) Los conceptos fundamentales del materialismo histórico [The fundamental concepts of historical materialism]. Madrid, España: Siglo Veintiuno

  • Harnecker M (2000) Cómo vio Lenin el socialismo en la URSS [How Lenin saw socialism in the USSR]. Madrid, España: América Libre. Accessed from http://www.rebelion.org/hemeroteca/harnecker/harnecker_lenin051100.htm

  • Harnecker M (2010) América Latina y el socialismo del siglo XXI [Latin America and 21st century socialism]. Concepción, Chile: Al Aire Libro Ediciones

  • Harvey D (2018) La dialéctica [The dialectic]. Territorios 39:245–272

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson-Laird PN (1983) Mental models: towards a cognitive science of language, inference and consciousness. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson-Laird PN, Byrne RMJ (1991) Deduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc, Hillsdale

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson-Laird PN, Savary F (1999) Illusory inferences: a novel class of erroneous deductions. Cognition 71:191–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(99)00015-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirkup T (1892) A history of socialism. Cornell University Library, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  • Laffont R (1997) The Black book of communism: crimes, terror, repression (J. Murphy & M. Kramer, Trans.). Harvard University Press, Cambridge

  • Mackenzie N (1969) Breve historia del socialismo. Barcelona, España: Labor

  • Mahajan M, Nimbhorkar P, Varadarajan K (2009) The planar k-means problem is NP-Hard. Lect Notes Comput Sci 5431:274–285. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00202-1_24

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx K, Engels F (1888) Manifesto of the communist party. In: Blunden A (ed), S. Moore, & F. Engels, Trans.. Moscow, Russia: Progress Publishers. (Original work published in 1848)

  • Marx K, Engels F (2000) El manifiesto comunista [Manifesto of the communist party]. In: El Aleph (ed), Trans.. Toronto, Canadá: El Aleph. (Original work published in 1848)

  • Mathôt S, Schreij D, Theeuwes J (2012) OpenSesame: an open-source, graphical experiment builder for the social sciences. Behav Res Methods 44(2):314–324. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0168-7

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyskens C (2018) Inequality and social stratification in Maoist China (Review). Twentieth-Century China 43(2):196–202. https://doi.org/10.1353/TCC.2018.0020

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monedero JC (2008) Hacia una filosofía política del socialismo del siglo XXI: notas desde el caso venezolano [Towards a political philosophy of 21st century socialism: notes from the Venezuelan case]. Cuadernos Del Cendes 65(28):71–106

    Google Scholar 

  • Moro T (2011) Utopía [Utopy]. In: Galatrava J (ed), & R. Esquerra, Trans.). Madrid, España: Círculo de Bellas artes. (Original work published in 1516)

  • Ormerod R (2017) The history and ideas of Marxism: the relevance for OR. J Oper Res Soc 59(12):1573–1590. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602495

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paterman J (2019) Lenin without dogmatism. Stud East Eur Thought 71(2):99–117. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-019-09325-6

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pavlov IP (1927) Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of cerebral cortex (G.V. Anrep Trans.). Oxford University Press, Oxford. (Original work published in 1926)

  • Pipes R (2016) La Revolución Rusa [Russian revolution]. Barcelona, España: Debate

  • Popper K (1959) The logic of scientific discovery. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramírez J (2017) The XXI century socialism in the context of the new Latin American left. Civilizar Ciencias Sociales y Humanas 17(33):97–112. https://doi.org/10.22518/16578953.902

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Resnick S, Wolff R (1994) Between state and private capitalism: what was Soviet “socialism”? Rethink Marx 7:9–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/08935699408658084

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz C (2011) Marx y el marxismo [Marx and Marxism]. Thémata 44:485–504

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon HA (1955) A behavioral model of rational choice. Quart J Econ 69:99–118. https://doi.org/10.2307/1884852

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stalin J (1924) Foundations of Leninism. Moscow, Soviet Union: Pravda

  • Vásquez E (1993) La dialéctica en Hegel y Marx [The dialectic in Hegel and Marx]. Apuntes Filosóficos 3(2):75–91

    Google Scholar 

  • Velarde J (2017) Breve revisión a la historia de la Unión Soviética en el centenario de la Revolución Rusa [Brief review of the history of the Soviet Union in the centenary of the Russian Revolution]. Universidad católica boliviana, vol 12, no 38, pp 85–120. Accessed from http://www.scielo.org.bo/pdf/rcc/v21n38/v21n38_a05.pdf

  • Vilchez JL (2013) The locus of stimuli meaning in the influence of attention on movement: meaning-dependent activation model. J Mind Behav 34(2):165–176

    Google Scholar 

  • Vilchez JL (2015) Effects of mental footnotes on the trajectory movement in a driving simulation task. J Mot Behav 47(3):211–225. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222895.2014.974492

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vilchez JL (2016) Mental footnotes: Knowledge constructivism from logical thinking to personal beliefs and therapy. Res Psychother Psychopathol Process Outcome 19(2):157–164. https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2016.234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vilchez JL (2018) Mental footnotes. Knowledge constructivism: from logical thinking and personal beliefs to social rationality and spiritual freedom. J Relig Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-018-0591-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vilchez JL (2019a) Mental footnotes: knowledge constructivism from logical thinking to daily functioning. Rev Contemp Philos 18:7–22. https://doi.org/10.22381/RCP1820191

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vilchez JL (2019b) Effectiveness of mental footnotes in the cognitive therapy for panic attack: two case-studies. Res Psychother Psychopathol Process Outcome 22:123–127. https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2019.337

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vilchez JL (2022) Percepción y distorsiones del socialismo en ciudadanos de Cuenca, Ecuador [Perception and distortions of socialism in citizens of Cuenca, Ecuador]. Sur Academia: Revista Académica-Investigativa De La Facultad Jurídica, Social y Administrativa 9(18):36–51. https://doi.org/10.54753/suracademia.v9i18.1352

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

Funding was provide by Dirección de Investigación de la Universidad de Cuenca (Ecuador) (Grant No. 2040000 07 2144).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jose L. Vilchez.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Vilchez, J.L. Mental footnotes in Socialism: the current social validity of the concept of bourgeoisie from the Marx’s and Engels’ “Manifesto of the communist party”. Mind Soc 21, 165–182 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-022-00292-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-022-00292-w

Keywords

Navigation