OTOH, Marx claimed scientific status for his system. Why, then, is it not the foundation of modern political science?
I haven’t read any Marx, so feel free to dismiss my limited understanding. I did however read a book that is relevant : ‘Why Marx was Right’ by Terry Eagleton. The author addresses why Marx is still relevant in a modern context and debunks common criticisms of Marx.
It is my understanding that from a political standpoint, Marx’s works were misinterpreted and/or used to promote political aims of whichever leftists came to power - be it the Bolsheviks or the Communist Party of China or whoever. In modern terms, this renders his political writings mute because of the history behind their uses.
From an economic standpoint (which I am considerably less versed in), doesn’t Marx assert that a country’s capability to produce food is the driving force for everything else? This, I can agree with. However, class systems in the traditional sense are eroding and changing; class systems are not as straightforward now as they were one or two hundred years ago.
Japan imports a lot of food (in 2006 it was 60% of calories imported, or 30% of food value). That lack of self-sufficiency doesn’t drive them into the poor house.
Japan remains one of the richest countries in the world. They ship Toyotas to other places, and in exchange they receive soy beans and beef. Some Japanese worry about the military implications of this in a time of war, and maybe that’s a valid concern, but domestic food production is not the “driving force” for everything. They trade. Trade is the driving force.
It’s not. Marx really didn’t do political science as such, and his study of government wasn’t particularly systematic or scientific. Modern political science started either around the turn of the century with people like William Dunning, Woodrow Wilson, John Burgess and Charles Beard, or in the 1920s and 1930s with Charles Merriam and the Behaviorialist revolution