Why do liberals jump through hoops to not give credit to Marx?

[RadioRaheem84]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOsZSIcU9

The guy in the video goes through a lengthy tirade about how the economy is really this eco-systemic thing that is evolutionary and ever changing not a rigid atomized and linear thing like the right wing asserts. He says that this way of thinking is finally breaking ground and is taking storm among some academics and whatnot. but it got me to thinking that isn't what he was saying pretty much what Marxists have been saying all along? Notions of dialectal materialism, historical materialism and marxian economics, heck the whole left, whether Marxian or not, the class analysis? This is all starting to don on some liberals now?

The thing that irks me is that these liberal types assert themselves as understanding the flaws now in free market orthodox thinking and that a new enlightenment is on the way (and being led by thoughtful liberals).

I just have to ask, did the USSR really fuck up any credence that might be given to socialism as being a viable alternative, or heck a viable critique to capitalism?

Are they truly just all ignorant that what they're saying reflects on stuff that was talked about by leftists early in the last half century? They really cannot be this insular? It seems like all of their findings also are steeped in this psuedo-spiritual, environmental language too, even if they point to science to back up their claims. That it's all "oneness" per se.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Liberals aren't Marxists. They might be rooted in enlightenment and progressive thought, but they aren't Marxists, so I don't see it as any huge surprise that they....well, aren't Marxist!

[GiantMonkeyMan]

There's a caveat with this sort of thinking, though. Marx understood that the only way to end the structural deficiencies of capitalism was by a revolutionary tearing down of the old order. These sort of individuals might utilise some of the analysis or method of marxism but would never come to revolutionary conclusions on how to effect fundamental change.

[RedMaterialist]

They are afraid of being called Marxists and losing their jobs.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

They are afraid of being called Marxists and losing their jobs.

Yep, pretty much this.

Because of the damage done by the old 'communist' states and the generation of brainwashing by right-wing think tanks, giving any credit to ol' Dr. Karl can be a career-ending disaster.

Which is depressing, because day by day we can see Marx's warnings to us proving to be true. And in the end it will be Marx and his followers that will be proven to have been in the right all along.

[RadioRaheem84]

Liberals aren't Marxists. They might be rooted in enlightenment and progressive thought, but they aren't Marxists, so I don't see it as any huge surprise that they....well, aren't Marxist!

They don't have to be Marxist, but how can they just all ignore a big chunk of history like that? How can they just ignore Marx as though he was just a blip in the history books or think that Das Capital was just a Mein Kampf like rant? If I were to study religion would I skip over Christianity or any of the major faiths that had an impact on the world?

I just think that people with that kind of time and money and intellect cannot just ignore something like that. I could understand not agreeing with Marx's solution but his critique of capitalism is rooted in the very same things these guys are espousing and claiming they've discovered. It shows the utterly insular level of thinking these people exhibit. Whether they're shallow libertarians who think they're job creator or liberals who in class collaborationist terms and environmentalism will save capitalism, it's the same narcissistic thinking.
These people just end up sounding so morally smug and pseudo-spiritual and grasping at straws to save this system.

[G4b3n]

Liberals aren't Marxists. They might be rooted in enlightenment and progressive thought, but they aren't Marxists, so I don't see it as any huge surprise that they....well, aren't Marxist!

I would argue that Marxism and anarchism are much more rooted in enlightenment era philosophy and classical liberalism than what we call liberalism today.

[RadioRaheem84]

Funny what's never mentioned is how the ML revolutions of the early twentieth century said their revolutions were the continuation of the French and American revolutions. I believe Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Lenin, Castro, Thomas Sankara and more all said that they were following the traditions laid out during the enlightenment to their final destination.

[RedMaterialist]

Funny what's never mentioned is how the ML revolutions of the early twentieth century said their revolutions were the continuation of the French and American revolutions. I believe Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Lenin, Castro, Thomas Sankara and more all said that they were following the traditions laid out during the enlightenment to their final destination.

I don't think Lenin said that the Russian Revolution was a "continuation" of the French and American revolutions. Both the earlier revolutions were bourgeois destruction of the remnants of feudal societies. The Russian Rev. was clearly a workers' revolution.

I agree with your general point. Every time I re-read Marx it seems like I find something directly relating to present social and economic conditions.

Here is one I especially like: "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation of commodities...'” All you have to do, if you live in the US, is look out the window and you see the immense accumulation of the ubiquitous US commodity, the automobile.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I would argue that Marxism and anarchism are much more rooted in enlightenment era philosophy and classical liberalism than what we call liberalism today.

Chomskyite Anarchism is liberal for sure, Marxism absolutely not. Marxism is not a "pure" or "true" version of liberalism. Marxism negates enlightenment ideals. Marxism denies that there is such a thing as natural rights. Marxism rejects rule of law, seeing equality before the state as an impossible pipe dream because states don't exist in vacuums. Marxism does not celebrate the nation state, it seeks to destroy all nations. Marxism seeks to abolish private property, rather than protect it.
If someone is a communist in a meaningful way, and there interest in socialism doesn't have to do with moralizing, then they are necessarily anti-liberal.

[Firebrand]

Because if liberals acknowledged marx they'd be one step closer to having to face the irresolvable contradictions inherent in their own position. In other words acknowledging marx, means facing their own inevitable failure. Most people aren't too keen on that.

[waqob]

Funny what's never mentioned is how the ML revolutions of the early twentieth century said their revolutions were the continuation of the French and American revolutions. I believe Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Lenin, Castro, Thomas Sankara and more all said that they were following the traditions laid out during the enlightenment to their final destination.

The American Revolution was a war between the American bourgeois and the British bourgeois it wasn't revolutionary by Marxist standards

[AmilcarCabral]

Dear Radio: From my own personal humble opinion about why progressive-liberals (Green Party, Thom Hartmann, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Amy Goodman, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Hedges, Michael Parenti, Norman Solomon, Counterpunch.org, Moveon.org, Commondreams.org, Alternet.org, etc) do not even mention the words *dictatorship of the proletariat* and do not give credit to the founding fathers of political socialism (Marx, Engels, Lenin etc) it is all because of fear, of being scared against their own co-workers, friends and peers of being alienated, rejected and kicked out of their social-circles of pro-capitalism progressive social-democrat friends and being forced to live in the seven solitudes. Most humans are scared and enslaved. Heck man, around where I live people are even scared of walking outside when the weather is around 40 to 50 degrees Farenheit.

Basically fear is one of the main impediments for humans all over the world becoming socialists, joining socialist parties and helping those socialist parties rise to government and power in order to experience the realization of socialist workers governments in most countries of the world


.



The guy in the video goes through a lengthy tirade about how the economy is really this eco-systemic thing that is evolutionary and ever changing not a rigid atomized and linear thing like the right wing asserts. He says that this way of thinking is finally breaking ground and is taking storm among some academics and whatnot. but it got me to thinking that isn't what he was saying pretty much what Marxists have been saying all along? Notions of dialectal materialism, historical materialism and marxian economics, heck the whole left, whether Marxian or not, the class analysis? This is all starting to don on some liberals now?

The thing that irks me is that these liberal types assert themselves as understanding the flaws now in free market orthodox thinking and that a new enlightenment is on the way (and being led by thoughtful liberals).

I just have to ask, did the USSR really fuck up any credence that might be given to socialism as being a viable alternative, or heck a viable critique to capitalism?

Are they truly just all ignorant that what they're saying reflects on stuff that was talked about by leftists early in the last half century? They really cannot be this insular? It seems like all of their findings also are steeped in this psuedo-spiritual, environmental language too, even if they point to science to back up their claims. That it's all "oneness" per se.

[RadioRaheem84]

The American Revolution was a war between the American bourgeois and the British bourgeois it wasn't revolutionary by Marxist standards

You're right but the point is that the ML state leaders thought that they were moving past the liberal enlightenment ideals and pushing society forward.

[AmilcarCabral]

Radio: I read in a philosophy book by Eugen Fink, that ideas require a lot of time. And even in the book "The Prince" by Machiavelli, he talks about that there is nothing harder for a government to introduce into a society new ideas, and new institutions, because according to Eric From, humans are creatures of habits and traditions (except very well-informed people who are very open to new philosophies of life)

So, having said all this, what I would like to say is that like other forum members of this forum have said in this forum, that leftists will have to wait for the economy in USA to get real bad, like gas rising to 15 dollars per gallon, the price of bread, milk, cereals, meat, cheese, eggs getting very expensive, a situation of 50% unemployment, and many other factors for the ideas of marxism, socialism and communism to become politically correct and to replace the current mainstream political system in USA and in most countries of the world (which is capitalism), to be replaced by socialism.

We also have to realize that humans have had about 5000 years or more of plutocratic political systems. We might even say that capitalism really has 5000 years but with different labels. I read in the book "The Republic" by Plato, Politics by Aristotle, and History of Rome by Indro Montanelli, that in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, they had banks, private property, public property, upper classes, lower classes, the concentration of wealth in a few and poverty in the many. So the tradition of a few being rich and living like kings and the majority being poor and living stressed painful lives has about 5000 years.

So it will be very hard to turn in the whole world *The dictatorship of the proletariat* and *anarchist-communism* (the phase right after the workers-dictatorship) into mainstream political systems, mainstream philosophy of life, and mainstream psychology in the masses

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You're right but the point is that the ML state leaders thought that they were moving past the liberal enlightenment ideals and pushing society forward.

[helot]

Dear Radio: From my own personal humble opinion about why progressive-liberals (Green Party, Thom Hartmann, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Amy Goodman, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Hedges, Michael Parenti, Norman Solomon, Counterpunch.org, Moveon.org, Commondreams.org, Alternet.org, etc) do not even mention the words *dictatorship of the proletariat*

.
You seriously think saying "dictatorship of the proletariat" is useful? This particular use of 'dictatorship' is archaic, it is incredibly uncommon. At best you'd be seen as pretentious at worst people wouldn't know what the hell you're on about. Why not communicate things in everyday language?

[erupt]

You seriously think saying "dictatorship of the proletariat" is useful? This particular use of 'dictatorship' is archaic, it is incredibly uncommon. At best you'd be seen as pretentious at worst people wouldn't know what the hell you're on about. Why not communicate things in everyday language?

Socialist rhetoric is one of the most virulent things that prevents socialist movements from growing in this day and age. Also, the fact that certain pseudo-socialist nation-states, and even fascist states (for example, Mussolini used to call Fascist Italy a "Proletarian Nation"), co-opt socialist rhetoric and symbolism doesn't help anything.

All this just scares ignorant minds away from ever viewing any kind of socialism in a constructive, positive manner.

[kohctpyktop]

It's generally pretty bad PR to relate yourself to anything to do with Marx today

[Blake's Baby]

The American Revolution was a war between the American bourgeois and the British bourgeois it wasn't revolutionary by Marxist standards

Not sure this is really the case.

Yes, Britain was well on its way to being the epitome of the bourgeois state; but a) this was not yet really the industrial bourgeoisie we were to experience slightly later, and b) Britain's relationship to the American colonies was still a semi-feudal one, it certainly wasn't 'liberal'.

Hell it's arguable that the American revolutionaries were themselves semi-aristocratic; at best, two aristocratic-bourgeois hybrids were in combat and the slightly less aristocratic one managed to become independent from the slightly more aristocratic one.

Still one up for the Enlightenment. For 20 years the US was the most revolutionary place on Earth.

Then France went several steps further.