Atlas / Comparisons / Alternative for Germany vs Classical Marxism

Alternative for Germany and Classical Marxism

Measured distance across six axes

28.0 / 49.0 possible

Opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CU, ID, CH.

Axis by axis

AxisAfDScientific socialismGapReading
EC · Economic organisation+04−1014DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CU · Social and cultural order+09−0615DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
AU · Organisation of power+05+023AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
SC · Scale of decision+03+041AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
ID · Rule of membership+08−0917DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CH · Method and tempo 00+088DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.

Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →

The evidence behind the widest gaps

A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.

AfD · EC +04

Coded +4: founded on euro policy, now mixed between market liberalism and eastern regional welfarism.

  • Programme textProgramme commitments to abolish inheritance tax and to leave the euro sit alongside eastern demands for higher pensions.

Scientific socialism · EC −10

At the floor: abolition of private property in the means of production.

  • Programme textThe Manifesto states the theory of the communists in a single sentence: abolition of private property.

AfD · CU +09

Coded +9: national identity, Leitkultur and opposition to what the party calls gender ideology.

  • Programme textProgramme rejects multiculturalism explicitly and opposes recognition of gender beyond the binary.

Scientific socialism · CU −06

Coded −6: the bourgeois family, religion and nationality all treated as historically transient.

  • Programme textThe Manifesto answers the charge of abolishing the family and of abolishing countries by accepting both.

What this comparison does not establish

Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.

Alternative for Germany

2013– · Germany

Founded against euro bailouts, reoriented around immigration, national identity and rejection of climate policy.

Classical Marxism

1848–1914 · Germany, Europe

History driven by class struggle; capitalism generates its own gravediggers; proletarian revolution abolishes classes and eventually the state.

Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.

Open in the atlas