1It is not difficult to find many interpretations of Marx’s thought that claim his social theory to be outdated given the contemporary developments of science, mainly the so-called ‘complexity science’. One of the key authors of the philosophical development of complexity science is the well-known Argentine philosopher of science Mario Bunge (1919-2020), who claims the ontological development of recent years is a good example of how Marx’s social theory is outdated since the later develops a holistic conception of reality (Bunge, 1998; 2000; 2012).

2The ontological turn proposed by complexity is based on systems theory. Systems theory is the ontological perspective of a complex world, that is, one made of not independent and autonomous entities, but interrelated systems of systems. However, Bunge has argued that some forms of systems theory have privileged the causal power of the whole (top-down) or the parts (bottom-up; Bunge, 1979; 2000). He, then, proposes systemism, i.e. the systems theory that conceives the part-whole relation influencing each other at the same time (Wan, 2011). According to him, different from Marx that established a holistic and deterministic (economicism) view of society, systemism conceives society as a system made up of systems (Bunge, 2000; 2012). Modern society, then, must be analyzed as a system formed by the economic, political, and cultural subsystems, and each subsystem has its own properties and structures influencing one another (Bunge, 1979).

3Besides a few scholars dealing with this issue, the main contemporary collections of the Marxist debate seems to neglect it, such as The Marx Revival: Key Concepts and New Interpretations, edited by Musto (2020), and Routledge Handbook of Marxism and Post-Marxism, edited by Callinicos et al. (2021).

4There is, however, some authors that dealt with this problem. The elements of Marx’s theoretical framework have been the subject of an approach towards the scientificity of complexity. The problem is: there seems to be no systematic treatment of this issue yet, especially regarding systemism (Bensaïd, 2009; Foley, 2003; Prado, 2009; 2011).

5The French author Daniel Bensaïd, for example, provides a brief exposition of the evolution of the scientific conception that leads to some views and questions related to the science of complexity, such as systems theory, non-linear causality, and principles like the instability and indeterminacy of future events. While correctly emphasizing issues related to non-linear causality and non-deterministic scientific laws in Marx, the French author seems not to provide substantial indications regarding the relationship between systems theories and Marx’s thought. The author only presents one perspective of systems theories, that of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, preventing us from asserting that Marx’s thought “foreshadows, within its own limits, general systems theory” as he does (Bensaïd, 2009, 305).

6Focusing on the analysis of the dynamics of capitalism, the American scholar Duncan Foley (2003) set out to list, albeit briefly, that Marx’s critique of political economy is a powerful and comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding capitalism as a complex, adaptive system capable of self-organization. His argument is that the classics of political economy and Marx “incorporate many insights from contemporary complex systems theory” (Foley, 2003, 1).

7Brazilian thinker Eleutério Prado (2009; 2011) may have been the one who delved the most into the issue of the close relations between complexity and Marx’s thought. Unlike Foley, who focuses mainly on Marx’s analysis of capitalism and the process of self-organization, Prado also delves into the philosophical foundations of this new scientific stance. Yet, in his collections of articles, although he asserts that some principles and concepts of complexity are not foreign to Marx’s work, he does not seem to have aimed at providing support for the possibility of systematizing and reconciling the general elements of systemism with Marx’s thought.

8What these important studies and authors do not seem to have accomplished, therefore, is a systematic and more detailed exploration of the possibility of Marx’s theoretical framework carrying the general elements of this new ontology. It is in this area of lacking systematization that the present article aims to contribute to the discussion.

9We propose a systematization of Marx’s social theory in light of the ontological developments of complexity science and argue that is very plausible to conceive the underlying ontological propositions in Marx’s thought as a system theory. Our contribution relies in making a proper approximation and systematization of Marx’s ontological foundations within the framework of complex theory. We argue that Marx’s notion of totality and uneven development are key ontological categories to overcome any holistic interpretations of his thought. We can establish a systemist perspective by properly understanding how Marx conceives the relationship between the individual, human agency, and social structures.

10More important, however, is to understand Marx’s view of society as a complex of complexes. That is, beyond the misinterpretations of economic determinism, Marx conceives bourgeois society as a totality formed by less complex totalities: the capital order is a system formed by the economic, political, and cultural systems (Netto, 2020). Social complexes, however, have their own properties and tendencies of development, which do not necessarily correspond to each other. That is, the category of uneven development is an ontological one and establishes that social complexes that formed society develop unevenly (Lukács, 1978; Medeiros, 2016). Thus, the ontological categories of totality and uneven development repudiate any holistic vision of Marx’s thought, and even establish a perspective on society compatible with that contemporary systemism advocates.

11Thus, we argue that the underlying ontological elements of Marx’s thought can establish a systems worldview. To do that, first, we expose the contemporary development of systems theory, mainly the contemporary systemism proposed by Mario Bunge. In the second section, we present the underlying ontological elements in Marx’s social theory and argue that totality and uneven development are key ontological categories for establishing a systemist Marx.

1. Systemism: The Ontology of A Complex World

12In the last decades, we have seen the establishment of a new ontological, epistemological, and methodological posture in science as a whole. Commonly known as ‘complexity science’, this new scientific posture seeks to counter the classical science established by great thinkers such as Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton during the Modern Period Scientific Revolution. One of the foundations of classical scientificity is the atomistic and reductionist perspective of scientific investigation: the decomposition of a system into its constitutive parts, analyzing them in isolation and then reconstituting their results through aggregation to explain the dynamics of the whole.

13An aggregate of parts of a system is a collection of unrelated parts and therefore lacks systemness. Since the parts of an aggregate do not interact, according to Bunge (1979, 4), “the behavior of each is independent of the behavior of the others. Consequently, the history of the aggregate is the union of the histories of its members.”

14Modern atomism, as a general ontology, seeks to understand reality as a collection of autonomous and independent entities. Such entities have fixed qualities that do not depend on their relationships with other entities. They are frozen parts in their autonomous properties and qualities that, in their aggregate, explain the whole. From the perspective of physics, therefore, any system is reduced to the different combinations and movements of elements with permanent and homogeneous properties and qualities. From the social point of view, it is based on conceiving society as a collection of independent individuals with permanent and immutable properties and qualities, who interact with each other only externally (Hodgson, 1993; Prado, 2011).

15In addition to atomism, a second fundamental principle to support this scientificity is reductionism. From the atomistic worldview, it is understood that a system is formed by autonomous components that combine to explain phenomena through aggregation. That is, it is possible to explain macroscopic phenomena from the microscopic analysis. Ulanowicz (2009, 22) argues that “[n]ot only did this assumption entail the belief that there exist fundamental, unchanging, smallest material units, but also that these units could be built up and taken apart again.”

16‘Complexity science’ currently proposes to be a movement that seeks a reorientation of the foundations of scientific analysis. Emphasizing this aspect, W. Brian Arthur, one of the pioneers in the approach linking complexity and economics, states that “[c]omplexity is not a theory but a movement in the sciences that studies how the interacting elements in a system create overall patterns, and how these overall patterns, in turn, cause the interacting elements to change or adapt” (Arthur, 2015, 3).

17These reorientations of scientific investigation aim to unveil the mechanisms of complex systems. Such systems generally have a large number of heterogeneous components in interaction (exhibit systemness); have qualitatively different properties from their components and are irreducible to them in isolation (exhibit emergent properties); are not characterized by stable states of development and are, to some extent, unpredictable (are nonlinear and non-equilibrium); have spontaneous internal organization, being resistant to internal or external perturbations (exhibit self-organization); and constantly change through environmental stimuli (are adaptive; Bunge, 1979; 2000; 2014; Heylighen, 2008; Holland, 2014).

18Ontologically, complexity opposes the atomism of classical science by establishing a worldview based on systems theory. The emergence of systems theory can be located in the 1940s. During this period, the cybernetic revolution and the emergence of information theory provided a new perspective for understanding natural and social systems. Building on these early developments, the new approach realised that it was no longer possible to study parts of systems as isolated components that do not interact (McGlade and Garnsey, 2006).

19The most well-known and widespread systems perspective is proposed by the Austrian biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy in his book General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications, published in 1969. In fact, Bertalanffy is considered the father of the ‘general systems theory’, and his work marks an important shift in the perspectives of classical scientificity that would lead to systemic approaches.

20In General System Theory, Bertalanffy (1969) argues that modern society has become so complex that a new scientific approach is needed to understand it. From modern engines and spacecraft to “innumerable financial, economic, social and political problems” (Bertalanffy, 1969, 4), it was now necessary to deal with complex phenomena, no longer reducible to isolated events. According to Bertalanffy (1969, 5), “[i]n one way or another, we are forced to deal with complexities, with ‘wholes’ or ‘systems’, in all fields of knowledge. This implies a basic re-orientation in scientific thinking.”

21Bertallanffy’s view, however, is that the complexity of the real world imposes huge limits on the scientificity, whose founding fathers were Descartes, Galileo, and Newton. The systems approach, he argues, has only now become comprehensible, and its need for development stems from the simple fact “that the mechanistic scheme of isolable causal trains and meristic treatment ha[s] proved insufficient to deal with theoretical problems, especially in the biosocial sciences, and with the practical problems posed by modern technology” (Bertalanffy, 1969, 11-12).

22Bertalanffy (1969, 31) postulates that General System Theory represents a new approach that aims at studying “not only parts and processes in isolation, but also to solve the decisive problems found in the organization and order unifying them, resulting from dynamic interaction of parts, and making the behavior of parts different when studied in isolation or within the whole.”

23Following computational developments from the 1990s, some contemporary perspectives emphasize heterogeneous interactions of multiple agents through computational modeling. This perspective of computational simulations is also based on a bottom-up approach, as it emphasizes multi-agent modeling to understand the behavior of complex systems (McGlade and Garnsey, 2006, 8).

24This approach is known as Agent-Based Models and seeks to understand complex systems through computational simulation, placing great emphasis on adaptive processes. Agent-Based Models have been applied in various scientific fields and have been strongly advocated by groups of scientists associated (or close) to the Santa Fe Institute in the US, founded in 1988 by physicist Murray Gell-Mann and other scientists (McGlade and Garnsey, 2006).

25However, we do not aim to present the various systems theories developed in the last few decades, but to present what we consider the most advanced contemporary perspective. A theoretical systems perspective that seems to overcome some limitations of previous systems perspectives is found in the work of the Argentine philosopher of science, Mario Bunge. According to Bunge (1979; 2004), everything that exists, except elementary particles, is a system or a component of a system. The universe is a system composed of subsystems such as galaxies, formed by solar systems, formed by planetary systems, and so on. For Bunge (1979, 9), however, “[t]he universe is the only system closed at all times.” That is all other systems, whether natural, physical, or social, exchange matter, energy, and information.

26Every concrete thing, therefore, abstracting from its particularities, is a system composed of subsystems, or rather, a system of systems. “Every system except the universe is a subsystem of some other system. Finally, the universe itself is neither a mere thing nor a loose aggregate of things but a system of systems” (Bunge, 1979, 245). Moreover, the components of systems are always interacting with other components, “there are no stray things: that every thing interacts with other things, so that all things cohere forming systems” (Bunge, 1979, 245).

27Physical systems are composed of systems such as atoms, which are made up of elementary particles, the only things that do not form a system but are part of one; biological systems are composed of systems such as chromosomes, cells, organs, ecosystems, etc.; social systems are composed of societies made up of economic, cultural, political, etc. systems. All of these systems of systems have differentiated levels of complexity and organization (Bunge, 1979; 2000).

28Scientists therefore study systems, whether consciously or not, whatever their nature:

Physicists use the concept of a system just as frequently as mathematicians, for they study such systems as atoms, molecules, crystals, stars, laser beams, and weather systems. Likewise, chemists study systems of interacting chemical reactions. And of course, biologists study systems at all levels: subcellular (such as chromosomes), cells, organs, multicellular organisms, populations, and ecosystems. Only particle physicists’ study non-systems, such as quarks, electrons, and photons. But they know that all such simple things are parts of systems or will eventually be absorbed by some system. (Bunge, 2000, 148)

29According to Bunge, by understanding reality from the systems perspective, it is impossible to use the reductionist principle to investigate it. An aggregate, as we have seen, is a collection of independent parts, each behaving in its own way, and therefore lacks integrity and unity. In systems theory, the parts or subsystems “are linked, whence the history of the whole differs from the union of the histories of its parts. ... A system, then, is a complex object, the components of which are interrelated rather than loose” (Bunge, 1979, 4).

30Thus, it is necessary that the micro-macro interaction, part-whole, be investigated through a systemic approach that surpasses both top-down and bottom-up perspectives: “All artifacts, whether physical like television networks, biological like cows, or social like corporations, are systems” (Bunge, 2000, 148). Therefore, we should consider their interactions “in a systemic way rather than bit by bit. That is, they should be examined and handled as wholes, though not as blocs but as systems with a composition, an environment, a structure, and a mechanism” (Bunge, 2000, 149).

31According to Wan (2011), for Bunge, the subsystems of a system and their level of internal complexity exhibit autonomy of development to components. “Every level (both of the world and of science) has autonomy and stability to some degree” (Wan, 2011, 52). This means that subsystems are not solely determined by the macroscopic dynamics of the system (top-down). Bunge also suggests that he does not prioritize only the microscopic dynamics (bottom-up), but rather a mutual influence between the components themselves and the whole. That is, “the expression ‘micro-macro interaction’ has to be taken as an ellipsis. ... Every concrete thing (system) on any given level is composed of lower-level things (systems), and is characterized by emergent properties absent from these components” (Wan, 2011, 52).

32In this view, social scientists scientifically study human social systems. Human society is an animal society with many remarkable new properties that are not even found in higher animals (proto-social). The human being “is neither an animal at the mercy of its genetic makeup and its environment, nor a free spiritual being akin to divinity” (Bunge, 1979, 186).

33However, human beings are primates who work and are capable of developing various other potentialities: “man is, instead, the primate that works and strives to know, that builds, maintains, and transforms social organizations far beyond the call of the gene or the environment, and that creates artistic, technological, and intellectual cultures, and also plays” (Bunge, 1979, 186).

34Human beings are gregarious animals, not rigidly determined by biological or genetic factors. This is because there are social selections in human society that modify the genetic composition of future generations. “Consequently, mankind does not evolve exactly as other species do: the theory of evolution does not apply to it nowadays the way it did a couple of million years ago” (Bunge, 1979, 186-187).

35Given this differentiation, human society is a system formed by main subsystems such as biological, economic, cultural, and political. Biological because “[t]he very existence of human society ... has biological roots that cannot be cut” (Bunge, 1979, 186). Or, “[a]ll three artificial subsystems share the same natural and artificial environment” (Bunge, 1979, 204-205). The human being is part of nature, but cannot be reduced to it. The other three main subsystems make up exclusively human aspects. These subsystems are in systemic articulation and each of them can be considered a whole composed of other subsystems of lesser complexity.

36Wan summarizes Bunge’s view as follows:

A human society is a social system composed of four major subsystems: (a) the biological system, whose members are bound together by sexual, kinship, and friendship relations; (b) the economic system, the bonds of which are relations of production and exchange; (c) the political system, characterized by the coordination/management of social activities and the struggle for power; and (d) the cultural system, the members of which engage in cultural or moral activities like learning, teaching, inventing, designing, singing, painting, and so on. These four subsystems partially overlap and interact with one another, because most people are members of at least two of them. (Wan, 2011, 62, emphasis in the original)

37The specific articulation of components offers relative autonomy of development for the subsystems. For instance, “[i]f every culture is a subsystem of a society then it has its own dynamics, hence some degree of autonomy, and it also interacts with the other subsystems, namely the economy and the polity” (Bunge, 1979, 214). Bunge argues that the subsystems always develop through their own dynamics and the mutual influence of other subsystems.

38He also argues that there is no single determinant in the development of social systems: “Of course, sometimes one of the subsystems takes the lead and the others follow, but at other times it is the turn of a different subsystem to start a new development. Tout se tient: there is no primum mobile in society” (Bunge, 1985, 163). We will see that in saying this, Bunge is directly attributing this deterministic view to Marx.

39However, Bunge draws attention to the ontologically priority of the material base of human society. This is for a very simple reason: “There is no philosophizing on an empty stomach and, from a certain point on, no subsistence without new thinking, cooperating, and organizing” (Bunge, 1979, 186). Or, “in particular no culture and no polity can function in a physical vacuum” (Bunge, 1979, 205). In summary, society “is a system composed of subsystems (economy, culture, polity, etc.), and possessing properties (such as stratification and political stability) that no individual has” (Bunge, 1979, 252).

2. Marx and Systemism: A Possible Approximation

40Many authors claim that Marx has a holistic view. For example, Bunge (2000, 141) insists that “Marx was a holist”, or rather, Marx’s thought is based on an “obsolete holism” (Bunge, 2000, 147). Popper (2011) follows the same line of reasoning by stating that “Marx was the last of the great holistic system builders.” Holism “is the thesis that the whole precedes and dominates its parts, and must therefore be studied independently of the later” (Bunge, 2012, 86). In contrast to this unilateral view supposedly held by Marx, “by definition of the part-whole relation, neither exists without the other”, according to Bunge (2012, 87).

41Firstly, we need to briefly understand the relationship between individuals and social structure in Marx’s thought, to then discuss his possible systemic view of society.

42A careful reading of Marx’s work does not allow us to impute a holistic view of his thinking. As Marx ([1852] 1979) makes clear in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, the production of social structures by individuals does not occur in an existential and material vacuum. On the contrary, individuals do not choose the social structures in which they will be inserted, much less the material conditions that limit their activity and the level of material development (productive forces) of the period in which they will live. This means that the social structures in which individuals are inserted are independent of their will and deliberate choice, as they are constructs of past generations, limiting their actions to the real possibilities of transforming these same structures that they will encounter.

43This does not refer to the idea of a one-way determination of social structure over the individual, but rather to the limits imposed on human action. The very common argument in this regard is the interpretation of certain passages in Marx’s work in which a one-way determination between the material base and ‘spiritual’ life is implicitly involved. We will see that this is incompatible with Marx’s thought when we discuss the concept of ontological priority and the category of uneven development. Be it enough to mention that this argument merely characterizes his materialist position. And when Marx uses the word “condition”, he is only referring to limiting/directing the activity of individuals or social complexes in a particular period. In the language of complexity, it is only a process of downward causation. In other words, the established whole limits allow or block the actions of the parts that make it up in a given context. Or, as Marx and Engels ([1846] 1976, 54) state in The German Ideology, “circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.”

45On the one hand, “social structures are dependent on human activity in the sense that they cannot reproduce themselves in its absence, although they are not the deliberate result of this activity” (Medeiros, 2016, 186). On the other hand, individual action “is enabled or constrained by the structural conditions of activity, although it is not a mechanical unfolding of such conditions, since it preserves its teleological character (and therefore the alternatives, values, and role of subjectivity)” (Medeiros, 2016, 186).

46Kosik (1976) had already pointed out Marx’s opposition to the holistic perspective. If the whole has ontological priority over the parts and determines them in a unidirectional way, we arrive at a false totality, a superior reality: “Hypostatizing the whole and favoring it over its parts (over facts) is one path that leads to a false totality instead of to a concrete one” (Kosik, 1976, 27).

47In this way, the whole presents itself as a reality separated from the components that constitute it, that is, it becomes “independent of facts and would lead an existence different from theirs. The whole would be separated from the facts and would exist independently of them” (Kosik, 1976, 27). Society in Marx “has nothing to do with the holistic, organicist, or the neo-romantic concepts of wholeness which hypostatize the whole over its parts and mythologize it” (Kosik, 1976, 28).

48Indeed, if Marx had constructed a holistic conception of society, in which the whole unidirectionally determines the parts, the revolutionary political itinerary would be irrelevant, since the working class, as a revolutionary subject, would be incapable of intervening in the transformation of social reality. It is precisely the opposite that occurs in Marx’s analysis: society conditions (enables/limits) the action of individuals, but individuals (not isolated, but collectively) can intervene in social reality and transform it. Individuals are components of the social structure, but it constrains/limits the actions of the individuals themselves. There is a unity in social existence between individuals and social structures in society.

49Following the argument, it is necessary to analyze how Marx conceives society as a whole to understand how the foundations of systemism are compatible with his underlying ontology.

The category of totality therefore means, on the one hand, that objective reality is a coherent whole in which each element is, in one way or another, related to every other element, and on the other hand, that these relations form, in objective reality itself, concrete correlations, sets, units, linked to each other in completely different ways (Lukács, 1979, 240).

51In Lukács’s terms, in his Ontology, this totality means that Marx understands social being and society as a complex of complexes. Following this line of reasoning, José Paulo Netto asserts that it is essential, therefore, to understand that Marx “grasps the constitution of social being as the constitution of complexes of complexes: social reality is a concrete totality composed of concrete totalities of lesser complexity” (Netto, 1994, 37, emphasis in the original).

52Let’s take a closer look: the social being is a complex that has human action and social structures as its main components; the society that emerges from human relations is also a complex formed by main complexes such as economy, politics, culture, art, etc., which are articulated in the constitution of the society of each historical period. This is a general characterization of society, but in each period of history, society and its main complexes acquire specific characteristics, properties, and qualities. It is for this reason that Marx, according to Lukács (2011, 88), seeks to “discover the general laws and the particular laws (that is, those that are specific to certain periods) of this broad process of social development.”

53Here we could simply reframe “complex” as “system”, since they characterize reality as a whole articulated entity. If society is a complex (system) formed by complexes (subsystems) in articulation, it is essential to keep in mind that in Marx’s thought, “the opposition between ‘elements’ and totality should never be reduced to an opposition between the intrinsically simple and the intrinsically compound” (Lukács, 1978, 30).

54On the contrary, each complex in society is also an irreducible totality with components in articulation. This means that, in Marx, “[e]very ‘element’ and every part, in other words, is just as much a whole; the ‘element’ is always a complex with concrete and qualitatively specific properties, a complex of various collaborating forces and relations” (Lukács, 1978, 30).

55On the one hand, society is constituted as such by the articulation of main social complexes such as economy, politics, and culture, for example. On the other hand, these main complexes are also constituted by irreducible complexes (totalities), characterized by various relationships of each historical period such as law, religion, art, etc. It is precisely this conception of society that Lukács understands as a complex of complexes in Marx. Or, in terms of systems theory, society, for Marx, is a system of systems.

56To illustrate this point, society can be considered as an articulation between two large complexes: human action and the structural conditions of action (objects, forms of consciousness, values, linguistic structures, etc.). In addition to this bipartition between human activity and conditions of activity, other complexes can be found within each of these “complexes”. For example, human practices are constituted by entire domains of activities that are carried out with a relative degree of autonomy, at least in a minimally developed social formation: material reproduction activity, artistic practices, political activity, theoretical production, etc. Similarly, the economic complex itself can be considered in its relation to the complexes of politics, science, the arts, religion, etc., and/or to the totality constituted by all these domains (Medeiros, 2016, 187).

57The fundamental point here is that, for Marx, it is not possible to isolate the phenomena of a particular social complex from the other complexes of society since they only establish themselves as an articulated totality. Although Marx’s mature scientific itinerary focused on the critique of political economy, it differs radically from reductionist scientificity, which “isolates so-called phenomena of pure economics from the total inter-relations of social being as a whole” (Lukács, 1978, 12).

58The constitution of social reality as an articulated totality (complex of complexes) prevents phenomena from being “elaborated to be put in an abstract connection with another that is just as artificially isolated (law, sociology, etc.)” (Lukács, 1978, 12). On the contrary, Marx’s thought “starts from the totality of social being and always flows back again into it” (Lukács, 1978, 12).

59That is why the mature work of Marx cannot be fitted into singular fields of knowledge. Marx’s work is not solely an economic work, but rather a social theory that seeks to understand the historical specificity of bourgeois society as a system (complex) with economic, political, and cultural subsystems (complexes) in constant articulation and transformation.

60The articulation between multiple relationships that form the totality causes Marx to distance himself from atomistic and reductionist scientificity since he always “seeks to comprehend this as closely as possible in all its intricate and manifold relationships” (Lukács, 1978, 28).

61The category of uneven development is fundamental to establishing a systemic position in Marx’s thought. Firstly, it is necessary to emphasize how Marx conceives development in order to understand its ontologically uneven character. The concept of development, at a higher level of abstraction, is here used in an ontological sense: it indicates a quantitative and qualitative increase of the specific components of each sphere. That is to say, organic life develops to the extent that it increasingly depends on unique attributes of biological reproduction that are not found at the level of the inorganic sphere. Similarly, the social sphere develops to the extent that it increasingly depends on purely social categories and processes that do not correspond to biological reproduction as such (Medeiros, 2016).

62Social development, therefore, means that society becomes increasingly an artifact, i.e., a more exclusive product of social relations. “Social being, however, involves a development in which these natural categories, although they never disappear, nevertheless retreat ever more into the background in relation to the leading role of categories that can never have any analogy in nature” (Lukács, 1978, 45).

63From the perspective of societies, understood as a complex of complexes, “to pronounce sentences regarding the development of society means to speak about the degree of development/complexity of its constitutive spheres: economy, politics, arts, law, religion, etc.” (Bonente, 2014, 277). This is made explicit in two senses. In an extensive sense, it concerns the increase of predominantly social categories that regulate the functioning of society. In an intensive sense, it concerns the increase of complexity (relations and mediations) of already existing components.

64It has been seen that, for Marx, society can be understood as a complex of complexes. However, the development of the social complexes of society can never be conceived in a linear way and through relations of correspondence. On the contrary, social complexes have relative autonomy of development between themselves, even though they are always interconnected. This means that social complexes such as the economy, politics, and culture have their structures and dynamics, even though they are interrelated: “Of course, within the framework of the laws that concern society as a whole, the development of each sphere assumes its particular character” (Lukács, 2011, 93).

65The main line of evolution of social beings towards greater sociability is therefore not linear. At a certain point, the development of a social complex may move in the opposite direction from the others, or there may even be moments of regression in development among the complexes. This is the foundation of Marx’s category of uneven development and, together with the category of totality, is key to a systemic view in his work.

66Although Marx has always addressed the problem of uneven development, it is in the famous Introduction of 1857 that he exposes a delimitation of what this category is about. Marx’s classic example is the relationship between the economic system and that of art to affirm the intrinsic “unequal development of material production and e.g. art” (Marx, [1857-1858] 1986, 46, emphasis in the original).

67More specifically, art is not simply a reflection of the material base of a society in a particular historical period, but social complexes have their tendencies and relative autonomy of development: “As regards art, it is known that certain periods of its florescence by no means correspond to the general development of society, or, therefore, to the material basis, the skeleton as it were of its organisation” (Marx, [1857-1858] 1986, 46). Let’s take, for a moment, the relationship between:

the Greeks compared with the moderns, or else Shakespeare. It is even acknowledged that certain forms of art, e.g. epos, can no longer be produced in their epoch-making, classic form after artistic production as such has begun; in other words that certain important creations within the compass of art are only possible at an early stage of its development. If this is the case with regard to the different arts within the sphere of art itself, it is not so remarkable that this should also be the case with regard to the entire sphere of art in its relation to the general development of society. The difficulty lies only in the general formulation of these contradictions. As soon as they are specified, they are already explained (Marx, [1857-1858] 1986, 46-47).

68In comparison between Greek art and the historical phase of capitalism in the 19^th century and their respective social relations, Marx wonders:

• 4 Marx also questions: “is Achilles possible when powder and shot have been invented? And is the Ilia (...)

[is Greek mythology] possible in the age of selfactors, railways, locomotives and electric telegraphs? What is Vulcan compared with Roberts and Co.,19 Jupiter compared with the lightning conductor, and Hermes compared with the Crédit Mobilier? All mythology subdues, dominates and fashions the forces of nature in the imagination and through the imagination; it therefore disappears when real domination over these forces is established. What becomes of Fama beside Printing House Square? Greek art presupposes Greek mythology, in other words, nature and even the social forms have already been worked up in an unconsciously artistic manner by the popular imagination (Marx, [1857-1858] 1986, 47).4

69In these terms, Netto (1994, 38) argues that “historicity does not conform to a unilinear movement: in each totality constitutive of the concrete social totality, the negativity that dynamizes it refracts itself according to its particularities.” The heterogeneous relations between the complexes “are realized within the framework of a system of mediations that responds, in the movement of the concrete social totality, to the uneven development of its constitutive totalities” (Netto, 1994, 38, emphasis in the original). In short:

Uneven development ‘simply’ means that the main line in the movement of social being, the increasing sociality of all categories, connections and relationships, cannot develop in a rectilinear fashion, according to some kind of rational ‘logic’ but that it develops partly by detours (even leaving behind blind alleys), and partly in such a way that the individual complexes whose combined movements are what composes the overall development must stand towards each other in a relationship of non-correspondence (Lukács, 1978, 129).

70Here it is already possible to contest the simplified idea that asserts that, in Marx, the economic base would unilaterally determine the other social complexes of the so-called superstructure. It becomes evident that Marx never established the absence of “relative autonomy of the development of particular fields of human activity (law, science, art, etc.)” (Lukács, 2011, 88). Marx’s thought only denies “that it is possible to understand the development of science or art exclusively, or even mainly, based on their immanent connections”, since they always occur as moments of the totality of relations, i.e., “as moments of the whole historical development, ... through the intricate complex of interactions” (Lukács, 2011, 89).

71From this ontological view of the category of uneven development as a cornerstone, it is natural that uneven development occurs in certain historical periods and social formations. In The German Ideology, for example, Marx and Engels assert that:

It follows from this that even within a nation the individuals, even apart from their pecuniary circumstances, have quite diverse developments, and that an earlier interest, the peculiar form of intercourse of which has already been ousted by that belonging to a later interest, remains for a long time afterwards in possession of a traditional power in the illusory community (state, law), which has won an existence independent of the individuals; a power which in the last resort can only be broken by a revolution. This explains why, with reference to individual points which allow of a more general summing-up, consciousness can sometimes appear further advanced than the contemporary empirical conditions, so that in the struggles of a later epoch one can refer to earlier theoreticians as authorities (Marx and Engels, [1846] 1976, 83).

73“Uneven development is thus in Marx’s eyes a well-established fact, and the task of science is that of explaining its conditions, causes, etc.” (Lukács, 1978, 136). Or rather, it is the task of science to discover the structure and corresponding mechanisms of each complex and to analyze them as a whole. It is the category of totality, as seen, that enables a scientifically adequate view to uncovering the structure and mechanisms of the interacting complexes.

74The central point here, in the field of analysis of uneven development, is that this category already breaks with simplified and often ill-intended readings about how Marx conceives the relationship between social complexes. This already sets Marx apart from the classic simplification based on the “conception that the genesis of the work of art, which certainly belongs to the superstructure, can therefore be simply and directly derived from the economic base” (Lukács, 1978, 130). The category of uneven development already breaks with this erroneous reading, but it is necessary to highlight the ontological priority of the economy to other social complexes to demystify this view.

75In attributing economic determinism to Marx’s thought, his social theory would be based on a deterministic and reductionist conception of the analysis of society. By scientifically unraveling the functioning of the economy of a particular society, it would be possible to understand the functioning of other social complexes such as politics and culture, as they would be mere reflections of the material base. In other words, “an ‘economic’ analysis of society would provide an ‘explanation’ of the political system, cultural forms, etc.” (Netto, 2011, 13). In this simplified view, therefore, Marx “placed the ‘economic factor’ as determining to social, cultural, etc. ‘factors’ in the analysis of history and society” (Netto, 2011, 13).

76Marx’s economicism cannot be exclusively attributed only to his various “critics”. To some respects, it served as the basis for certain Marxist views over the last century. The clear distinction between the economic base and the other social complexes of the so-called superstructure was a result of this period, by establishing a unidirectional causal nexus between the two.

77Vulgar materialism draws the erroneous, distorted, and aberrant mechanical conclusion that between the base and superstructure there is only a mere causal nexus, in which the first term appears only as cause and the second appears solely as effect. For vulgar Marxism, the superstructure is a mechanical, causal consequence of the development of the productive forces (Lukács, 2011, 90).

79This interpretation of Marx’s thought—which took place over a really brief period of time, no more than two decades—constituted a contradictory process, simultaneously successful and burdensome for Marx’s legacy. Successful in terms of influence: it was this interpretation that promoted, as we have noted, the encounter of Marx’s ideas with broad working masses; however, burdensome in terms of its peculiarity: the intended and achieved dissemination turned out to be a vulgarization of Marxian ideas, which resulted in a reductionist and simplistic conception of the foundations of revolutionary social theory and of the complexity of the theory itself, finally converted into something resembling a doctrine. In those two decades, an interpretive strand of Marx’s work was born that would soon be systematized as ‘Marxism’: a kind of encyclopaedic summary that ended up being summarily (and mistakenly) identified as ‘Second International Marxism’ and, frequently, characterized (erroneously) as ‘orthodox Marxism’ (Netto, 2020, emphasis in the original).

80We believe that it is from the dissemination of this official view that several authors built their critiques of Marx, without delving deeply into their writings. This is the case with Mario Bunge, who, although never textually proving his theses about Marx and Engels, states in Evaluating Philosophies that “[h]ere I will confine myself to criticizing what I take to be the main ideas of the philosophy of Marx and Engels, without regard to the uncounted emendations and embellishments added by their followers” (Bunge, 2012, 83).

81Bunge (1998; 2012), who has been presented as an important figure in contemporary reflections on systems theory, insists on attributing such simplified views to Marx’s work. In addition to the attribution of a supposed holism and historical determinism in Marx (already demystified), Bunge also insists on attributing the thesis of economic determinism to Marx’s thought. According to Bunge, Marx “postulates that everything social is economic ‘in the last instance’” (Bunge, 2012, 86).

82Popper makes the same argument by stating that after having made a “critical analysis” of Marx’s thought, the latter would rely on an “economic determinism as well as prophetic historicism” (Popper, 2011).

83At the opposite end of the philosophical current of Bunge and Popper, Portuguese author Boaventura de Sousa Santos also insists on this simplified view of Marx. He claims that “in turn, the economic structure of society, the so-called ‘economic base’, determines and explains the political, legal, and cultural forms that dominate in society” (Santos, 1999, 36).

84In this way, Marx’s theory would be based on two fundamental principles: determinism and reductionism. Reductionism in the sense that society is fully explained by the economic base, and determinism in the sense that this same economic base rigidly determines the other social complexes. The two principles complement each other: determinism is a consequence of “its economic reductionism” (Santos, 1999, 36).

85In Boaventura’s view, Marx’s error is that the explanation of society “by the economic structure tends to transform political and cultural phenomena into epiphenomena, without their own life and dynamics, and as such does not allow them to be thought of autonomously, on their own terms” (Santos, 1999, 37).

86Let us now examine the real meaning of the priority of the social complex of the economy in Marx’s analysis. The clear identification of society as a totality formed by social complexes with relative autonomy among themselves, as well as the understanding of the real meaning of the ontological category of uneven development, already allows us to show that such attributions to Marx’s thought are simply gross misunderstandings.

87It is from this understanding of the totality and uneven development of social complexes that it is possible to clarify “in a truly scientific way the developments and transformations that occur in each singular field” (Lukács, 2011, 88). It is therefore necessary to clarify the importance of the role of the social complex of the economy in Marx’s thought through the concept of ontological priority. First of all, economy, in general terms, concerns the production and reproduction of human beings. That is the way in which human beings organize themselves in a certain historical period, establishing certain relationships, to extract from nature what is necessary for social reproduction. This means that capitalism is just one form of social organization with certain economic relations.

88The emphasis on the social complex of the economy that can be interpreted from Marx’s work concerns exclusively the necessary ontological priority of transforming nature in relation to the other social complexes. In other words, there is an existential priority in ensuring the minimum necessary to survive, and only after that, can human beings engage in activities not related to the transformation of nature (remembering that this is a position very similar to Bunge’s).

89The ontological priority of the economy only affirms that culture, politics, or even philosophical reflection cannot exist without at least the minimum guarantee of the biological reproduction of human beings: “If we ascribe one category ontological priority over the others, we simply mean that one of them can exist without the other, without the opposite being the case” (Lukács, 1978, 31).

90The ontological priority of the economy over other social complexes can also be understood through “the thesis of all materialism, that being has ontological priority over consciousness” (Lukács, 1978, 31). However, this should never be understood as a value hierarchy: “What this means ontologically is simply that there can be being without consciousness, while all consciousness must have something existent as its presupposition or basis” (Lukács, 1978, 31).

91Here, it is possible to identify the reason why labor is the primary activity of the social being in relation to other categories of mediation, such as articulated language. Understanding the ontological priority in this sense is essential for visualizing it not only with regard to categories, but especially in the domain of social complexes.

92It is just the same ontologically with the priority of the production and reproduction of human existence over other functions. If Engels, in his speech at Marx’s graveside, spoke of the “simple fact ... that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.”, here again, it is exclusively ontological priority that is involved (Lukács, 1978, 31).

93Specific cultures and politics of each historical period can only exist when one is not in an immediate struggle for survival. It is no coincidence that this elementary observation was established by Marx and Engels since the 1840s. In The German Ideology, they affirm that:

the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to ‘make history’. But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, housing, clothing and various other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life (Marx and Engels, [1846] 1976, 42).

94The observation of the ontological priority of the production and reproduction of life does not express, in any way, relationships of economic determinism, but only indicates that the other social complexes are ontologically linked to a certain material base of the different societies already established in human history. The “materialist theory starts out from the opinion that the social whole (the socio-economic formation) is formed and constituted by the economic structure. The economic structure forms the unity and continuity of all spheres of social life.” (Kosik, 1976, 64, emphasis in the original) Marx never conceived “society to be a series or a cluster of factors, some of which appear as causes and others as effects” (Kosik, 1976, 64).

95In the letter addressed to Joseph Bloch in 1890, Engels demystifies the reductionist and deterministic position of the materialist conception of history, stating the ontological priority of social production and reproduction: “[a]ccording to the materialist view of history, the determining factor in history is, in the final analysis, the production and reproduction of actual life. More than that was never maintained either by Marx or myself” (Engels, [1890] 2001, 34).

96The question of “ultimate analysis” here concerns precisely the character of the priority of material production and reproduction in social reality: “Now if someone distorts this by declaring the economic moment to be the only determining factor, he changes that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, ridiculous piece of jargon” (Engels, [1890] 2001, 34). The social complex of the economy is the necessary base for the emergence of other complexes, but the interconnection of all factors from different complexes acting together plays a fundamental role in the course of history.

98In another moment, in a letter addressed to W. Borgius in 1894, Engels definitively clarifies the role of the ontological priority of the production and reproduction of life, as well as the real meaning of uneven development:

Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But each of these also reacts upon the others and upon the economic basis. This is not to say that the economic situation is the cause and that it alone is active while everything else is mere passive effect, but rather that there is reciprocal action based (Engels, [1894] 2010, 265, emphasis in the original).

99From the standpoint of systemism, it is possible to identify elements of the systemic position in Marx’s thought: overcoming top-down and bottom-up views, it is understood that individuals are the components that give rise to social structures, but these structures exert downward causation, hindering, limiting, or allowing the actions of individuals. Moreover, society is conceived as a complex formed by social complexes such as the economy, politics, and culture that have a relative autonomy and, even interrelated, develop unevenly.

100Marx’s perspective can be directly related to a view of society as a system of systems. Lukács succinctly summarizes our position, stating that for Marx:

[E]very society as a complex, we see that it consists, in an extremely intricate fashion, of heterogenous complexes which are thus heterogenous also in their effects; we need only refer here to the differentiation of antagonistic classes, or to the systems of mediation which erect themselves into relatively autonomous complexes (law, state, etc.). It should never be forgotten here that even these partial complexes themselves consist of complexes, human groups and individuals, whose reaction to their environment, which forms the foundation of all complexes of mediation and differentiation, insuperably involves decisions between alternatives (Lukács, 1978, 146).

101From the perspective of the particularity of a historical moment, especially since Marx’s object of analysis is modern bourgeois society, this also applies intensely. Bourgeois society is not, for Marx, reduced to an economic system. It is, in fact, a system composed of interrelated economic, political, and cultural subsystems in constant transformation. These subsystems (totalities) are in a constant process of transformation in their own structures, even if linked to their economic base. This is why capitalism, as the economic system of bourgeois society, is always in transformation, as is its political system.

102The bourgeois society, based on the capitalist mode of production, may well remain in periods of relative increase in democratic rights, as well as remain in periods of dictatorial, monarchic, etc., political regimes, as seen in Marx’s analysis in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. The social complexes of bourgeois society have this relative autonomy of development, even though always linked to the economic base of the capitalist mode of production. In short:

The modern bourgeois society is not simply a ‘whole’ made up of functionally integrated ‘parts’. Rather, it is a concrete macroscopic and inclusive totality of maximum complexity, constituted by totalities of lesser complexity. None of these totalities is ‘simple’; what distinguishes them is their degree of complexity and the modality of their articulations and interactions with the ‘predominant moment’, from which subordinating and/or subordinate relations may result. ... The diverse character of the totalities that make up bourgeois society—that is, the specific character of each of them—determines the nature of their connection with the material production of social life (the ‘predominant moment’) and the peculiarities of the tendencies/laws that operate and regulate them, that is: determines the legality of each of them ... The legality of the ‘predominant moment’ cannot be summarily transferred to the other totalities beyond that which constitutes material productive activity: each totality has its own characteristics, such that its own legality must be investigated along with its interaction with the other totalities (Netto, 2020, 451, emphasis in the original).

103With these considerations, it seems plausible to list the general elements of a theory of systems that were already established in Marx’s theoretical framework. Bertalanffy (1969, 11), one of the pioneers of systems theory in the 20^th century, recognized that “[a]lthough the term ‘system’ itself was not emphasized, the history of this concept includes many illustrious names”, and Marx is one of those names. However, Bertalanffy does this only to indicate the existence of mere illustrious precursors of specific elements regarding the theory of systems.

104We now know that Marx is not only a precursor of specific elements but also carries in its theoretical elaboration the general elements of a systemic view of reality. In addition, Marx also seems to overcome both top-down and bottom-up views of analysis. Even more, considering Bunge’s systemism, it is possible to perceive that many of his ideas are contained within Marx’s perspective. In other words, systemism can learn and be inspired by Marx’s thought to understand social reality, being a relevant social theory for a contemporary world.

Conclusion

105Focusing on the ontological reorientation of complexity, we saw that this contemporary conception of reality is based on systems theory. We exposed Mario Bunge’s systemism as a version of systems theory that affirms reality as a system made up of subsystems with relative autonomy of development, although interconnected. In this view, specifically in the social domain, society must be conceived as a system formed by the economic, political, and cultural subsystems. More than that, none subsystems are completely determined by the others and they have a certain autonomy of development.

106We also saw that Bunge was a leading critic of Marx’s thought by affirming a supposed holism and determinism in his works. However, as we have seen, it is implausible to impute any sort of determinism (economic determinism) and not even a holistic conception of society into Marx’s theoretical framework. Although it has not been possible to discuss it further in this article, we have indicated this simplified view had been disseminated and widespread by certain interpretations made by the official Marxism during the last century, and above all by the structuralist interpretation of Marx.

107We suggest a reinterpretation of Marx’s thought as a systems theory by reclaiming the categories of totality and uneven development in its proper ontological nature. Marx’s conception of society cannot be reduced to the holistic and economic determinism thesis. We saw that there is no unidirectional determination of social structures on individual’s agency, nor there is an economic determination on political and cultural social complexes of a particular society.

108Totality and uneven development provide us with the key categories to understand Marx’s notion of society as similar to systemism without committing anachronism. Following key insights from Lukács’s view of Marx’s works we can understand social reality as an articulated whole. Understanding society as a totality only means that a specific social formation is a complex of interrelated complexes. A bourgeois society is a system with interconnected economic, political, and cultural subsystems with relative autonomy of development. That means that no social complex can fully determine the development of others.

109Although the economic complex has the ontological priority for the existence of the political and cultural complexes, it cannot fully direct the development of them. And as we stated reclaiming the ontological nature of the category of uneven development provides us a key understanding of the reinterpretation of Marx’s underlying ontological claims as a similar notion of contemporary systemism.

110By interpreting Marx’s ontological claims in these terms, we can overcome much of the simplification and distortion of 20^th century Marxism. Even more, by doing so, many of the holistic and deterministic visions of Marx’s thought claimed by important non-Marxist authors, such as Mario Bunge and Karl Popper, could not be supported or even claimed with a correct reading and interpretation of Marx’s ontological view.

111As we have noticed, Bunge’s systemism is permeated by claims that we can find in Marx’s conception of social reality: the notion of man as a primate that works; the priority of material basis for the development of other social complexes; the notion of society as a system of systems; the autonomy of development of each social complex, etc.

I would like to thank the reviewers for their important considerations about this article.