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Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumBelieve it or not: Karl Marx is making a comeback
Marx most certainly wasnt right about everything, but he wasnt wrong about as much as people think. A revival of his thought is good news for progressive America. It can give the left fresh arguments that were previously forgotten to history, and new organizing strategies that theyve long since abandoned.
* * *
The first problem with the left that Marx might have noted is the wholesale abandonment of the working class. As Perry Anderson points out in his essay, Considerations on Western Marxism,
Increasingly, the left is dominated by what the German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg might call Kathedersozialisten or professorial socialists. These thinkers, frequently drenched in academese, talk and debate in a way almost entirely designed to alienate anyone who does not already accept their conclusions. The professorial left seems to have innumerable answers for those wondering what Lacanian psychoanalysis has to offer us, but can give us little guidance as to whether the Working Families Party should support Cuomo or run its own candidate.
* * *
The first problem with the left that Marx might have noted is the wholesale abandonment of the working class. As Perry Anderson points out in his essay, Considerations on Western Marxism,
The extreme difficulty of language of much of Western Marxism in the twentieth century was never controlled by the tension of a direct or active relationship to a proletarian audience.
Increasingly, the left is dominated by what the German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg might call Kathedersozialisten or professorial socialists. These thinkers, frequently drenched in academese, talk and debate in a way almost entirely designed to alienate anyone who does not already accept their conclusions. The professorial left seems to have innumerable answers for those wondering what Lacanian psychoanalysis has to offer us, but can give us little guidance as to whether the Working Families Party should support Cuomo or run its own candidate.
Marx and Engels also offer the left a new way to discuss ideology. In his brilliant collection, The Agony of the American Left, Marx-ish historian Christopher Lasch writes,
Lasch is arguing that, to a large extent, humans are biased toward the state of affairs that currently exists and then work backwards to justify it to themselves. That is, were more likely to embrace a deeply unjust economic system, simply because its the one weve always known. A recent study bears this out, finding that market competition serves to psychologically legitimize inequalities that would otherwise be considered unjust. Because many on the left, especially populists, do not understand ideology, they often write and argue as though the entire American political system is controlled by a small cabal of business or political leaders conspiring to fool the masses.
The rest at: http://www.salon.com/2014/06/22/believe_it_or_not_karl_marx_is_making_a_comeback/
The Marxian tradition of social thought has always attached great importance to the way in which class interest takes on the quality of objective reality Lacking an awareness of the human capacity for collective self-deception, the populists tended to postulate conspiratorial explanations of history.
Lasch is arguing that, to a large extent, humans are biased toward the state of affairs that currently exists and then work backwards to justify it to themselves. That is, were more likely to embrace a deeply unjust economic system, simply because its the one weve always known. A recent study bears this out, finding that market competition serves to psychologically legitimize inequalities that would otherwise be considered unjust. Because many on the left, especially populists, do not understand ideology, they often write and argue as though the entire American political system is controlled by a small cabal of business or political leaders conspiring to fool the masses.
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Believe it or not: Karl Marx is making a comeback (Original Post)
Joe Shlabotnik
Jun 2014
OP
"capitalism is based on a collective drawing upon our deepest desire: to exploit."
hedda_foil
Jun 2014
#3
barbtries
(28,774 posts)1. i never read marx
maybe i should.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)2. The Communist Manifesto is a pretty quick read.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm
Its less daunting than something like Das Capital, which I admit I've picked up, and then put down, quite a number of times.
Its less daunting than something like Das Capital, which I admit I've picked up, and then put down, quite a number of times.
barbtries
(28,774 posts)4. thank you for the link
i'll check it out.
hedda_foil
(16,371 posts)3. "capitalism is based on a collective drawing upon our deepest desire: to exploit."
With the exception of libertarians, who have tried to turn the immorality of capitalism into a sort of perverse morality (greed is good), most politicians and economists are entirely unconcerned with the fact that capitalism is based on a collective drawing upon our deepest desire: to exploit.
The underlying logic of capitalism is that if we all take our most primordial impulses and mix them up in the magical mechanism called markets, we are left with progress. Recent history suggests we may be left with only more ugliness. As G. A. Cohen writes, the immediate motive to productive activity in a market society is (not always but) typically some mixture of greed and fear. The participants in market transactions are not interested in fulfilling human needs they are interested in making a profit. Fulfilling human needs is one way to make a profit exploitation, the creation of desire through advertising or downright fraud are others. Human progress is an ancillary consideration, individual profit is the goal. Today, speaking in moral terms is not incredibly popular inequality is seen not as a moral issue in which a small class has a dangerous amount of power, but instead as an inefficiency to be corrected with a technocratic policy.
2banon
(7,321 posts)5. Interesting, a Salon publication
In my past experience reading Salon, felt as though it more of a liberal publication than Leftist.