Interview with Lukas Meisner – magazine “The Argument”: Marx expand with Marxism

“” The argument “is on offer,” explained editor Wolfgang Fritz Haug in conversation with “ND” last year and thus promoted a successor. You accepted the offer. How did it come about?

It was not planned. It happened in May 2024 at the conference of the Berlin Institute for Critical Theory. After dinner, Wolfgang and I went for a walk on the Havel and I said: “‘The argument’ is the most important Marxist scientific magazine in Germany, it must not die, you cannot allow that.” Whereupon he only said laconically, but with VERVE: “That is true. But then you have to do it! ”I believe that, along with my letter, about which we have exchanged ourselves for a while, he found it positive that on the one hand I stand between science and literature and on the other hand between east and west. My parents are from the GDR, I grew up in the FRG. This double socialization is helpful for plural Marxism.

You are a writer and philosopher. What are their intellectual influences and how do they harmonize with the tradition of plural Marxism in “The Argument”?

The paths to Marxism at a time that was characterized by postmodernity and neoliberalism were not direct, not even with me. Not least because I am not an academic child. I first had to beat bourgeois sociology through the abstrusures of philosopher habit, the literary science Neusprech. In the end I wrote my doctorate on critical theory.
This had expanded the Marxism with methods of totality analysis and ideology criticism in the times of fascation, which I consider to be relevant in particular today; “The argument” stands in this tradition. But the critical theory has been domesticated over the years, it has strayed from its revolutionary starting point. Nevertheless, I consider their work – especially from the 1930s or that of Herbert Marcuse after the Second World War – to be decisive for the Marxist development.
Another background that I share with “the argument” is the plural Marxism, which also includes Leninist or Soviet Marxism, not to forget the Chinese. This opening towards the east and south came under the bikes in the Frankfurt school, unlike in “the argument”. Wolfgang once said that we have to think ecumenical, analogous to how Christianity had to learn to combine different denominations and bring them to dialogue. Various Marxisms have to talk to each other these days, Western Marxism is not enough, if only because it does not think sufficiently internationalist and remains too far from socialist politics.

Interview

Jacobin

Lukas Meisner is a writer, sociologist and philosopher. Since 2025 he has been editor of the magazine for philosophy and social sciences “the argument”.

Is Plural Marxism a solid construct, its own school of thought?

Plural – expressly not more pluralistic – Marxism means that you open Marxism, but not for liberal theory, but for enormous plurality that the Marxisms have been developing internationally for 150 years. Marx must be expanded or deepened by Marxisms, for example with regard to feminist, anti -olonial, ecological questions, but new marxisms or post-marxisms must be remembered by means of Marx that terms such as workers’ class or communism are as little antiquated as the criticism of political economy.

Do you remain true to the previous line of “The Argument”? What innovations will there be?

One can rely on the fact that “the argument” remains a opposite, pluralmarxist, critical-scientific magazine. It will be new that we rejuvenate ourselves by two to three generations. We have a lot of people who are politically organized. It is important that you don’t let this thread tear off. We will also advertise “calls” per issue, not least in order to become better known in the younger generations, also among current humanities and social scientists, in social movements, left-wing parties.
Another innovation is that we want to have a larger proportion of the literary genre. This is followed by the previous “argument”. For example, there are the “News from the Patriarchate”. These are more essayist forms, the more informal tone we need all the more in the era of Tikkok and Co. The class struggle can be carried out on different fronts and not least the art. One of the special features of “The Argument” was Frigga Haug’s foundation of the “autonomous women’s editorial team”. The majority of our new editorial team is occupied by women or flinta*, because we want us to be the majority of a “women’s editorial”. This will be reflected in future priorities.

A rejuvenation of the editorial team brings a breath of fresh air, but also presents them with challenges, right?

The older generation will remain represented in the review section, and we also agree with its inappropriateness. Indeed, the challenging will be that there is a certain break in terms of personnel. Nevertheless, we have the content and methodological overlap points to build on the big shoulders we stand on.
To communicate across different generations, the left is generally lacking. A continuity in the “argument” from the beginning was the question of peace, anti -militarism. This is more important than ever these days. The older generation represents the associated anti -imperialism even more clearly. The newer generation is often very different socialized here, sometimes ideologized, which needs to be problematized; On the other hand, it has sensitives to be included. Overall, we need a left one that is intergenerational to discuss with each other, from the question of discrimination critical of discrimination to the global disarmament.

When can the first publication be expected and which topics are to be expected?

The booklet comes at the end of the year, working title: “35 years of West German unity”. It is about the highly topical nexus of anti -communism, neoliberalism and neo -fascalization. In the mixture of the 35-year celebrations, last year of the fall of the Berlin Wall and this year of German unity, we want to be a thorn in the beautifully colored bourgeois eye of West Germany. Because Germany is West Germany today. It is not for nothing that “the argument” only published itself in condolence color in the early 1990s. Because the collapse of real socialism is not a reason for undifferentiated celebrations for Marxist.
The topic of West German unity is not provincialism. The past 35 years have been globally shaped by the hegemony of progressive neoliberalism, which has increasingly turned to authoritarian. We in the “argument” recognize a continuity between the fundamental anti -communism, which in every form of alternative to capitalism senses so -called totalitarianism, a neoliberalism that has programmed capitalist realism into its DNA, and a fascation that, after many years of welfare, is now – to the outside and inside.
This is becoming more and more extreme, and it also affects the political center: there can be no fascism if the bourgeois center does not bend. That was already the case in the early 1930s; And the bourgeois center also bends nowadays. We have already seen this in the traffic light government and in EU politics, GEAS (common European asylum system) to the turn of the times. Suddenly it was a completely normal slogan that we have to deport a large scale that the FDP has to set a good will – or that Germany should be a big power again.
We have to remind you that if you don’t want to talk about capitalism, we also have to remain silent about fascism. That means we have to ask the system question if we want to be anti -fascists. The fire wall was only available as a socialist alternative. In this sense, the first new issue is to be read.

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“The argument” was created in 1959 at the Free University of Berlin from an air leaf series published by Ulrike Meinhof. Politically it was a dynamic time, the magazine became an important organ of the 68-student movement. Such a movement is currently not in sight, but the shift to the right brings enormous crowds on the streets. What does it mean for a theoretical magazine these days to be practically relevant?

It means that we have to be fearless. We experience a defamation of left -wing basic attitudes, we will experience headwind. But it is also clear that we left classic bourgeois values ​​such as freedom of press or assembly, whenever the bourgeoisies kick their own ideals with feet. We shouldn’t be afraid not to swim with the hegemony, but have to intervene in the height of the time. So it has always done “the argument” without subordinating a current or left sectarian. It is an attempt to keep an eye on the whole and to advance emancipatory-marxistic. In Marxism you cannot do theory far from practice. The other way around, counter -hegemonic activations require strong theoretical clarification. Our wish is that we will be consulted again by left -wing parties and left -wing activists in the future.