Western Marxism shifted Marxist theory away from political economy toward aesthetics and philosophy.

Evidence

There is, of course, a much older traditionand a Marxist one at thatwhich has treated Marxism essentially as an epistemology and mainly in the twin realms of culture and aesthetics. Perry Anderson has quite rightly emphasized that a certain distancing from political economy in favour of philosophy, the habit of reading Marx in relation both to great philosophers of the past and to the main developments in the bourgeois academy, and a preoccupation with cultural superstructures in general and literary production in particular, were all hallmarks of most of the more influential theorists of what has come to be known, largely due to Anderson’s own characterization, as ‘Western Marxism’ ~These prior shifts have doubtless left an imprint upon the work of those contemporary literary theorists of the Anglo-American academy who are at all open to that tradition, but some other features are more fundamental. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 32

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the lineage of ‘Western Marxism’ via Anderson’s characterization, establishing why contemporary theory engages Marxism mainly as discourse/epistemology.
• XREF: This genealogy contextualizes why Ahmad sees discourse-determinism — the milieu Spivak’s strategic essentialism inhabits — as materially evasive: theory was already severed from political economy before poststructuralism. — connects to: Detaching Marxist concepts from their political praxis distorts them into decorative analytics. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 31; Western Marxism advanced aesthetics but never extended Marxist political economy — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 290; Western Marxism’s central concern was the aesthetics of developed capitalist culture. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 175 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Western Marxism’s central concern was the aesthetics of developed capitalist culture. #corroborates (0.85) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 175
• Western Marxism advanced aesthetics but never extended Marxist political economy #qualifies (0.80) — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 290
• Critical Theory adopted Marxism’s substance while rejecting its orthodox economic-base form. #corroborates (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 18
• The base-superstructure formula weakened Marxism by reducing ideas to mere reflections #expands (0.75) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1693
• Marxism is not economic reductionism and requires attending to ideas in their own terms #complicates (0.75)