Oh yeah definetely its daft which is why i cringe when McDonnell does it on TV as people don't know what it means.
Doesn't put them on the hard/far left though, the hard left would be the militant revolt side of things. None of Labour policies come under that label at all. Sharing the socialist ideals isn't anything to hide as if ashamed.
Labour isn’t Marxist. Labour is a social democratic party; a tradition that was influenced by Marxist ideas, but developed quite differently over time. Corbyn – as far as I can actually understand his economic ideas – is also more of a social democrat than a Marxist. Or at least just some kind of hybrid, who doesn’t have an entirely coherent view of the world.
I think Marx is profoundly misunderstood even by most people who claim to be Marxist. Marx was an outstanding social scientist for his time. His ideas didn’t come out of nowhere, but by criticising existing ideas and developing them further. Classic economics (e.g. Mills, Smith, Ricardo), German philosophy (German idealism+ Kant, Feuerback&Co), French utopian socialism, and historic interpretation of French history.
Just like with most scientists of the past: Ultimately it turned out that most of his ideas are wrong, but his contribution was vital in the development of various fields.
Following classic Marxists ideas means that you follow science that is 150 years old, which isn’t a great idea. Thats why we got a plethora of different schools, that criticised and developed his ideas. It is often overlooked that many schools, that have Marxist roots, have been or still are quite influential in social science. If Marx would be reborn today, he’d draw quite different conclusions, because he would have much more data and information. He’d probably be a big supporter of behavioural science, but who knows. Fair fecks to anyone who agrees with some form of Neo-Marxist economics or any other school in any field that adopted some of his ideas. Nothing wrong with that. Completely random examples would be Neo-Gramscianism (Cox) or critical theory (Habermas).
The problem with Marxism is, that it wasn’t just an academic theory, but also a practical political philosophy. Yet over time many followers of this radical and revolutionary political ideologiy didn’t keep up with the intellectual advancements and became reactionary. They are essentially stuck in time. There is a certain sense of irony in that. It is not unreasonable to link a politician, who calls himself a Marxist, to this rather reactionary interpretation of the term, because that is how it is often used.
There is no definitive right or wrong here, because the meaning of labels is constantly changing and these concepts are also contested.
My personal (100% subjective) opinion is, that the most useful way to differentiate between Social-democracy and Socialism/Marxism is the following: Social-democrats are in principle in favour of private ownership of the means of production and free markets, while Socialists (Marxists) are not. Socialists want some form of collective ownership or mixed model.
So how does Corbyn fit into this? Well. Officially he is committed to social democracy and Labour is completely committed to social democracy. Sometimes when you hear him talking he shows a lot of admiration for socialism so. Once you start to question property rights, you are radical by anyone’s standards. That’s why I think it is fair to call Marxists “far-left-radicals”. That said I see Corbyn more as a staunchly left-wing social democrat. McDonnell is imo a socialist (he is probably even more).