Proceeding from and developing the Enlightenment, Karl Marx did the most to show that there is now in fact a science of society, including a science of revolution--even if that science is struggling for recognition relative to the "hard sciences" of physics and chemistry. Marxism is no less a science than the theory of evolution and biology are science; even though Christian creationists oppose them. There was even a time when people did not realize there is a science of nuclear particles. What we call physics was not always so well-conceived or even imagined.

Like earth sciences such as geology and evolutionary biology, the science of society has frequent recourse to the study of the historical record. What all sciences have in common is the practice of proceeding with the useful assumption that the world is independent of the consciousness of the observor. The trees in the forest exist whether any other individuals or species live or die. The existence of truths regardless of the individual's will is a frequent and important manifestation of science.

Many Liberals including those calling themselves "Marxist," criticize us for believing in struggle for a most scientific road to revolution. We believe there is a best way forward at all times. For saying this, the Liberals call us "sectarian," which is a word they misuse when they should say "committed" and "scientific." The Liberals and pseudo-Marxists exaggerate and caricaturize us as if we were saying there is only one progressive road in the world and it is MIM's. The Liberals oppose honing the best science, because science is frequently discomforting for established beliefs, so they stress how the world has many truths. In contrast, we Marxists do not say truth is not a matter of everybody being 0% and MIM being 100% correct, but the difference between knowing 25% of the world and 30% is not to be sneered at. We are very concerned with it and we form an organization of scientists called the vanguard party for the purpose of advancing the truths available to society even if just a little further than they would have been advanced without an organization for the promotion of science production.

It just so happens that the spread of science also undermines the rule of the strongest individuals. The ruling class of the wealthiest individuals with private armies and government politicians at their disposal benefits from spreading relativism. It stands to reason that if there are only billions of people with their own equally valid opinions, opinions that cross-cancel, the oppressed and weak will have no basis to unite against the ruling elite, so it is that relativism protects the ruling class, and that is not a matter of opinion!

Relativism is the belief that everything is a matter of opinion. It underlies post-modernism, which is the fashion in academia today trying to replace Marxism as a systematic type of thought.

People who oppose science are superstitious or mystical. We Marxists may say they are pre-capitalist in having reactionary ideas dominant prior to those of the Enlightenment. The ultimate mystical ideas are religion, which cannot be falsified.

Science is partly production of falsifiable theses. "Falsifiable" in this context does not mean false or invented. It means that there is evidence conceivable that could disprove the thesis. "Falsifiable" means possibly proven false.

The belief in God as practiced by Christians, Muslims etc. is not falsifiable. It is simply a belief in authority.

If in the year 2100 it turns out the bourgeoisie was the class that worked hard to bring about communism, we Marxists would have to concede that one of our theses was proved wrong and look for a replacement thesis. If the bourgeoisie turned out to be the class to actually accomplish communism in the year 2100, we scientists could not quote from Marx, Lenin and Mao--dead people--to contradict reality. Such an attitude would be unscientific dogmatism. The original use of the word "dogma" referred to religious beliefs before there was a Karl Marx. When Marxists practice dogmatism, it is not on account of their Marxism but on account of their being raised in a religious world where science is still progressing from relatively low levels.

Contrary to empiricists who allege to be scientists, falsifiable thesis production (science) does not mean throwing away a thesis as soon as one fact contradicts it. That would be like throwing out your flashlight just because it flickers sometimes. We Marxist-Leninist-Maoists would be proud to assist the world in getting from 25% to 30% truth in our lifetimes; hence, we do not throw away a scientific thesis until we find a scientific thesis that does even better in social practice or explaining historical evidence.

Amongst those who accept that there is a science of society, there are the elitists and philosophers as Marx called them who believe that science is a matter of the reflective genius of the most intelligent members of society. Max Weber was typical of this view in that he said science and practice of that science were two different things. He believed people practicing science could contaminate science by introducing their practical biases into science. Weber believed scientists could hand over the results of their work to others for them to decide what to do with those results, so according to Weber, the two things should be separate, science production and what to do with science once it is supposedly produced.

In contrast, in his "Theses on Feuerbach," Marx said most famously that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point however is to change it." According to Marx, many people conceiving themselves as elite intellectuals sit around observing reality and proposing scientific generalizations about reality, many of which would quickly evaporate if confronted with struggle in the real world. By trying to change something, we find out how well we understood that something scientifically. Applying heat and combining other elements with iron ore we change it to become steel, if we know our science.

According to us Marxists, the science of people is like the sciences of engineering or medicine with their obvious applied sides. No one doubts that a blue print for a car or a building has to be implemented through construction and no one doubts that the vaccine on the drawing board is not proved till tried in humyns. Yet when it comes to science of society, economics, politics and revolution, many pre-scientific people who are unconscious allies of the bourgeoisie attempt to cut off the applied side of science and retard its development by so doing.

Marx said capitalism would retard solutions to homelessness, hunger, illness, pollution and war. He said that there was no way to dispute him without trying socialist revolution, anymore than a vaccine could be proved except by trying it. Is calling for volunteers to take a vaccine not science? And if calling for participants in a vaccine trial is production of science, then why is not calling for volunteers to make the proletarian revolution part of the production of science? The more volunteers to take the vaccine, the better is the chance of proving that it really works, and the more volunteers for the revolution who really carry it out thoroughly, the better will be the chance to see if socialism really works. The bottom line is that Marxism does the most to promote all sciences with its explicit stress on the relationship between theory (scientific theses) and its (their) application in the real world.

The fact that a medical doctor could choose to do something other than cure illness does not make his work to cure illness unscientific. Yes, the doctor had an "opinion" that medicine is the career of choice. That is a completely different subject than whether or not medicine has a scientific element.

This is where the non-Marxist scientists err and retard the development of science. The fact that Marxist-Leninist-Maoists could choose to abandon the profession or study whatever they want does not change the fact that Marxists-Leninist-Maoists advance science regarding poverty, hunger, pollution, war, illness and homelessness--above all through social practice, one large part of which is class struggle.

Many people including most calling themselves "Marxist" separate ideology from science to such a degree that they prefer to advance Christian rules of ethical conduct regardless of their value in the real world, regardless of the fact that telling kids not to use birth control and not get sex education for instance actually increases the abortion rate. In contrast, we genuine Marxists interchange the terms scientific thesis and ideological principle freely. The only reason we should not interchange them freely occurs when we make a mistake and catch ourselves being non-Marxist, probably in a Christian way if we live in the Western imperialist countries. When we catch ourselves being Christian, we should refer to ideological errors undercutting science.

The proletariat is the group of people with the greatest interest in ending hunger, homelessness and war. That is not a moral statement the way the "Ten Commandments" is a moral statement. The proletariat exists independently of our will. The more clearly we proclaim proletarian principles and unite the proletariat in action, the more likely we will see what the proletariat can do!

Populists and social-democrats define the proletariat as the majority of any country. Such is a definition for the benefit of aspiring parliamentary politicians and it has no scientific value. These ideologues sacrifice science for ideology, by putting majority rule on a pedestal of moral principle regardless of what representing a majority in power means in its implications--racism, war and super-exploitation in the imperialist countries of today. We Marxists are looking for the least conservative element of society to mobilize to bring about the most change and we do not put majority rule above finding this group of people who can reshape society in its revolutionary image.

When we Marxists speak of an "historic mission" of the proletariat, we are making at once both a scientific and ideological statement. The mission is that the proletariat will overthrow capitalism and establish classless society. It is either true that the proletariat tends toward the fulfillment of that mission or it is not. Hence, it is a falsifiable thesis. Our calling on the proletariat to fulfill that mission speeds up the production of science. Speeding up the production of the science of revolution more surely saves lives than the best vaccine.

See the proof for our thesis that socialism saves millions of lives a year when it gets the chance

See our discussion of materialist method underlying all science