Anti-communist marxists

[28350]

So the other day I was talking with friends on facebook comment thread, and I encountered someone who calls himself a marxist but condemns communism, and supports US global hegemony. He said he'd read modern interpretations of marx (eg. negri, hardt, deleuze, et al.). Has anyone else ever encountered someone with similar views?

[Tablo]

Never heard of it in my life.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

wat

[28350]

Yeah I mean I know he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, but he clearly thought he did.

The conversation was basically this:

"U.S primacy is key to deter conflicts and aggression...U.S primacy prevented continued conflict on the Korean peninsula and ultimately prevented a nuclear North from unleashing hell on earth to innocent South Korean civilians."

to which i responded
"Yeah I'm pretty sure [he's] only communist by his own declaration, considering US primacy is the strongest power the bourgeoisie has ever had"

him:
"hegemony is empirically accepted to be better than all alternatives, rogue states must be deterred which cannot happen in a world where there is no sense of order or threat of retaliation, we saw how multipolar diplomacy in the absence of a dominant power failed in both world wars.

also marxist, not communist. There is a difference."

I ignored this guy for a while until he said this:
"communism as a pure economic system fails and is pointless even without its flaws, the marxist paradigm of evaluating human behaviours however is profound brilliance."

me:
‎"communism as a pure economic system fails and is pointless even without its flaws"
So for some complex reason (communism fails and is pointless), you refute what is by Marxist definition the liberation of the working class and of humanity....
"the marxist paradigm of evaluating human behaviours however is profound brilliance."
However, you take that same Marxist definition of human interaction and give it an okay. Thus, you deny what you believe would be the liberation of the working class. You believe in class struggle, you're just on the other side.

him:
"Pure communism cannot coexist with dissent, any truly egalitarian society would be one free of biopower which directly precludes the liberation of the proletariat, and to reject biopower we need the capacity for micropolitical resistance.

I ...support the liberation of the working class and do believe that class struggle defines the existence of humanity but the roots thereof are the constant need to create a permanently exploitable other, which in the case of the Marxist paradigm would be the reserve labour army within the lowest classes, to secure power. Under a uniform system of communism micropolitical resistance to structures of biopolitics is either successful and undermines the liberation of the lower classes through the resulting destruction of communism or is unsuccessful and thus reifies the cultural hegemony of status quo power dynamics."


me:
"Translation: "We need exploitation because communism doesn't work.""
and then i gave up.

idk, i just thought it was kinda funny

[Robespierre Richard]

Sounds like some crazy dude and/or in academia. I've had "Marxist" profs talk about how they think communism is a joke.

[28350]

From what I can tell, he's a high school kid (10th or 11th grade)
edit: but yeah, this is some sort of grossly deformed academic marxism completely divorced from real world implication
if there is such a thing as revisionism, this is it

[Robespierre Richard]

Oh then he's just impressionable lol...

[praxis1966]

I'm not talking about anyone here mind you, but I think guys like him claim to be Marxists simply as an "in" to spout nonsensical pseudo-philosophical double speak in order to make themselves seem more intellectually important than they really are. What you should have done is told him to stop copypasting and come up with an original idea as he obviously had picked that horse hockey up in some jagoff 300 level philosophy course.

Either that or just said, "Fugoff, no TA's allowed. Go grade some papers or something."

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Much of the bourgeois seem to think along similar lines. Business Week, the Financial Times and much of the business press almost seem to accept a Marxist analysis-they implicitly recognise the law of value and its basis in class relations only they don't think socialism can work, therefore they're on the other side.

Max Shachtman regarded himself as an "orthodox Marxist" only his Third Campism eventually led him to support Nixon and the Vietnam War, though a deep Marxist analysis of course.

Studies show that reading too much Deleuze & Guttari and Hardt & Negri can cause brain damage, as well as promote tooth decay, or so my dentist tells me.

[Martin Blank]

Studies show that reading too much Deleuze & Guttari and Hardt & Negri can cause brain damage, as well as promote tooth decay, or so my dentist tells me.

I think you and I have the same dentist.

[Dimentio]

So the other day I was talking with friends on facebook comment thread, and I encountered someone who calls himself a marxist but condemns communism, and supports US global hegemony. He said he'd read modern interpretations of marx (eg. negri, hardt, deleuze, et al.). Has anyone else ever encountered someone with similar views?

The Anti-Germans?

[L.A.P.]

Have you guys ever heard of Christopher Hitchens? The islamophobic non-socialist Marxist who believes globalization is internationalist revolution and supports neoconservative foreign policy. He's a very confused man who gets a lot more credibility than he deserves, his politics went apeshit ever since the end of the Cold War and 9/11.

[#FF0000]

That's Neo-Conservatism, OP.

[Reznov]

From what I can tell, he's a high school kid (10th or 11th grade)
edit: but yeah, this is some sort of grossly deformed academic marxism completely divorced from real world implication
if there is such a thing as revisionism, this is it

The real question is, who are you to judge?

Why don't you ask him more questions and try to bait him out in believing in Communist/Socialist ideals instead of actually calling it Communism? (I get so many fence sitters like that.)

[Red Commissar]

Either he's associating "Communism" with the big bad Soviet Union, or more likely in this case, a modern version of the wonderful "State Department Socialists" of olden times.

I've met a Trot that thought along those lines. Then again he wasn't really a Trot, more of the scatterbrained type that fashioned himself as a "socialist" only. Seemed to only take a liking to Trotsky due to misinterpretations of his views.

[9]

Max Shachtman regarded himself as an "orthodox Marxist" only his Third Campism eventually led him to support Nixon and the Vietnam War
so his third campism led him to reject his third campism? :unsure:

[The Douche]

He's a "state department socialist"/proto-neoconservative.

[9]

He's a "state department socialist"/proto-neoconservative.

yes, I know who he was ;)

my point was that its nonsensical to say (as LR seemed to be saying) that shachtman's support for the "third camp", i.e. the working class against both 'imperialist camps', is what led to his support for american imperialism (the "first camp"), since supporting one of the 'imperialist camps' presupposes a rejection of the "third camp".

it would be more reasonable to attribute his later social chauvinism specifically to his theory of bureaucratic collectivism, altho personally I think that was only part of the equation.

[The Douche]

yes, I know who he was ;)

my point was that its nonsensical to say (as LR seemed to be saying) that shachtman's support for the "third camp", i.e. the working class against both 'imperialist camps', is what led to his support for american imperialism (the "first camp"), since supporting one of the 'imperialist camps' presupposes a rejection of the "third camp".

it would be more reasonable to attribute his later social chauvinism specifically to his theory of bureaucratic collectivism, altho personally I think that was only part of the equation.

Was referring to the old boy in the OP, not Mr. Shachtman.:)

[9]

Was referring to the old boy in the OP, not Mr. Shachtman.:)

oh lol my bad. I assumed since you said "proto-neoconservative" that you meant shachtman. whatev.

*stops derailing the thread*

[Thirsty Crow]

He sounds like one of those confused guys who, incidentally, butcher any value of notions such as "biopolitics" by using it as a fucking catch phrase meant to attack any "universalist" pretensions.
He also butchers the vital core of Marxism (which is the revolutionary theory).

[Red Future]

..hmm in my experience a lot of Liberals are willing to adapt Marxist positions and ideas so long as it doesn't involve supporting anything that could be evil and totalitarian and so communist like Leninism.