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Conservative Marxism
*Before I dive into this, I apologize if I've posted it before. I have a vague memory of doing so, but no post history... So maybe it was a dream. Anyways*
Have you encountered any conservative Marxists? If we take Marxism to be an account of how the world works (think the way Rafiq describes it) then it doesn't necessarily follow that one needs to want the proletariat class to rise, be sympathetic to that, or do anything to aid it. In fact, they could celebrate or aim to be in the bourgeois class, knowing full well what it entails, without any of the capitalist feel good myths.
Am I wrong to ask this? Do you think most conservatives do view society in this way? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated as it's been baffling me a bit lately.
They may certainly exist but if someone feels this way then they've misunderstood Marxism. Capitalism cannot last forever. Either the revolutionary proletariat will displace the bourgeoisie, or capital will continue to expand until it consumes everything and collapses upon itself, which could happen in a thousand different ways.
Socialism or barbarism.
I don't think it means that they have misunderstood Marxism.
For example, let's say I'm a 20 year old male, who does not plan on having kids, and will likely live to be ... 80.
The chances of a world wide revolution destroying the capitalist system in the next 60 years are probably worse than my chances of finding my way somehow into the bourgeois class.
If the bourgeois class is displaced after my death, who cares? I'm in it for the material benefits. #YOLO.
Do you still think they would necessarily have to mistake it then?
Well sure, hypothetically speaking you could have a full knowledge of what capitalism implies and just say "Fuck the world" and go along with it anyway. I don't know of any individuals like this, but I suppose there's nothing stopping you as long as you realize that capital will eventually self-destruct.
Yeah.
I honestly feel as though it may be more common than we think.
Does every rich capitalist really believe in capitalist myths about why they got where they did? Or do they just genuinely not care, but cover it up to avoid the obvious negative repercussions of being a raging asshole. Interesting..
I would take a lot of what comrade Rafiq says with a large grain of salt.
Marxian economics is politically neutral. One can observe a vulgarized version of this among the elites, and their proxies. Marxism, however, is anything but neutral. Marx was unabashedly, unequivocally on the side of the working class.
All you are really discovering, and it's hardly a secret, is that the emancipation of mankind is a moral imperative.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
I mean I don't think I'm discovering anything, I'm just more interested in hearing if anyone has an experience with a conservative Marxist. Because to me it makes perfect sense that you could uphold Marx's perception of the world while being opposed to the changes he prescribes (or claims are inevitable).
Also, let's assume this is the case. Where would the revolutionary marxist go from there in a discourse with the conservative Marxist? Would they make an idealistic moralistic argument to try to convince the other to support class struggle? And let's assume it isn't in the class interest of the conservative marxist for this to happen.
What you really mean to say is a Right-winger who believes in Marxian economics. Like I said; there are a number of individuals on the right who subscribe to a sort of vulgarized version of Marxism. However; none of these people study the literature. They're not spending their evenings pouring over Kautsky, and Bordiga. I don't think anybody like that actually exists. It's more usually more instinctual, more subconscious.
I still take issue with the language.
In any case; yes, the only arguments for Socialism that would be applicable to such a person, presuming they were fairly wealthy, would be moral ones. So what? Again; the emancipation of the working class is, at it's heart, a moral imperative, anyhow. Nobody's really involved in the Socialist movement, to the extent that it exists, to improve their station in life, because there isn't any indication that doing so will improve their station in life. If you want a better standard of living; you should try to find a better job, or get a second job, or get a degree, or make some smart investments, etc. I'm not telling you that you should abandon the Radical Left, I'm just pointing out that you that it isn't likely to increase your standard of living, which you, and everyone else, probably already knows. The fact that I'm in a labor union, or the fact that come from blue collar family, or that I grew up in an affluent suburb where working-class people like me were viewed as peasants, all of these things certainly influenced my gravitation towards Socialism, certainly. However; that's not why I am a Socialist, today. That's not why I will continue to be a Socialist. I will continue to be a Socialist because it is right, because in or modern age, the exploitation, and degradation that billions of people experience, daily, as a direct, and inevitable consequence of that system, is unnecessary, and more importantly; it's inexcusable. The emancipation of mankind, the very beating heart of Socialism, is a moral imperative.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
The author Christopher Lasch has been described as a conservative Marxist.
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or dreamed that one possessed. Yet, it is only when a man is able, without bitterness or self-pity, to surrender a dream he has long possessed that he is set free - he has set himself free - for higher dreams, for greater privileges.”
-James Baldwin
"We change ideas like neckties."
- E.M. Cioran
Karl Marx felt that the transition from capitalism to another form of economic development was a positive development for humanity.
So being any sort of Marxist while being opposed to some sort of transition out of capitalism...that doesn't make much sense.
"Win, lose or draw...long as you squabble and you get down, that's gangsta."
There is a profound difference between using Marxist analysis and being a self-identified Marxist. There is nothing inherently revolutionary about the labor theory of value, capitalist icon Adam Smith used it.
When I look back at the last 30 odd years it's arguable the neoliberal right were far better "Marxists" than their liberal/Labor opposition -- whether it is Thatcher breaking the miners or the present struggle in the States to bust public sector unions. Clearly their structural analysis has been superior. Being on the left is like being like Wil E Coyote in a Roadrunner film, being always one step behind.
They would have to have a vulgarized version, though, wouldn't they? Vulgarized to the point where Marx's analysis was considered as politically neutral. Because it's not like Marx's analysis of capitalism doesn't introduce its supercession as absolutely necessary!
On the contrary. Besides the LTV, which explains how accumulation of capital is possible, Marx also shows how that accumulation becomes its own impediment and shows how this is at the heart of the system and how it results in periodic crisis. All of these moments are in a chain that begins when a worker shakes hands with a capitalist.
But the upshot is that the Marxist theory of capitalism sees its termination and the potential destruction of society as historically inevitable. It also calls on the working class to throw off their chains, seeing this as the precondition for capitalism's supercession and the move towards the next higher mode of production. Without, conceding to these points, the 'conservative Marxist' might have certain economic convictions but they could not be described as Marxist.
So a conservative Marxist would either be in a state of ignorance about Marxism or in a permanent state of self-contradiction.
I mean, I guess it's possible that this character is also extremely nihilistic and welcomes the collapse of human society and so doesn't need to embrace the normative politics of Marxism...
But I'm tired of this hypothetical character already. He should fuck off.
"Events have their own logic, even when human beings do not." - Rosa Luxemburg
"There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen." - Lenin
Yeah; but that doesn't mean that this will happen in their lifetime. Furthermore; if they are above a certain standard of living, this might not be desirable.
Yup.
Marx probably believed that, but I don't. To be fair; Marx could not have conceived of nuclear weapons, anthropogenic climate change, or genetically engineered pathogens. While our government may be devided on these issues, the military, oddly enough, is not. The pentagon pretty much regards a terrorist attack utilizing a 'dirty bomb', within the continental United States as inevitable, an attack using an atomic bomb, either by a terrorist group, or a state, as likely. It predicts humanitarian disaster, increase in the spread of diseases, refugee crises, etc. The reports aren't classified. It's a pretty bleak picture. So; the destruction of society may very well be inevitable, but it is not inevitable that humanity will survive it.
That's what I said.
Like I said; they wouldn't be a; 'conservative Marxist' they would be a; 'Conservative' (There aren't any real Conservatives, anymore.) who subscribes to Marxian economics.
Agreed.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
Christopher Hitchens later in his life, comes to mind.
I read an article about Hitchens, I think it was in The Atlantic, the author said, and I'm paraphrasing a bit, here; 'Hitchens was a practicing Trotskyist his whole life, he just didn't practice hard enough.' They phrased it slightly differently, I can't remember exactly; but that cracked me up, a bit.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
No, I don't think conservatives view the world in that way. I think most of them are reactionaries. Some of them are champagne socialists who give money to the poor out of guilt and some are religious but their corpulent wealth compromises their ideology or religion.
It's very difficult to be very wealthy and religious or be very wealthy and be a genuine socialist.
To be a member of the bourgeois class and remain a Marxist is perfectly possible, without going out of your way to funnel millions to revolutionary organisations so they'll spare you. Bourgeois ideology is incompatible with Marxism, however the two can coexist in somewhat of a bizarre and obscene way. Any Marxist, though, recognizes that one of the most significant contradictions within the capitalist mode of production is class contradiction, and any Marxist recognizes the only class capable of doing away with the capitalist mode of production is the revolutionary proletariat. A member of the bourgeois class can live his life as a Marxist and contribute absolutely nothing to the revolution, and remain a Marxism. You can be a Marxist without being a revolutionary Communist. Social conservatists rely on idealist and ideological presupposions, about "tradition", usually religious in nature excluding your occasional bizarre irreligious-nationalism that we have seen with Fascism. No, you cannot remain a conservative and still remain a Marxist. Not because Marxism is inherently, politically revolutionary, but because it is not (The likes of Kautsky, Lenin had to condition it for being politically revolutionary within their own respective times) ideological. Conservatives rely on the notion that all of human history has essentially been the same and reject notions of social revolution, (I.e. what distinguishes Feudalism from Capitalism are just "new guys" taking the place of the old, and so on).
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
Christopher called himself a "very conservative Marxist" but that doesn't necessarily mean he was a social conservative, he was (according to him) a conservative Marxist in that he preferred to retain the legacy of Marxism. Of course, I don't know of any traditional Marxists who claim the first world war was a result of religious beliefs, or claim 9/11 happened simply because of religion and not the conditions which birth religious fundamentalism. Galloway, that idiot, however I recall a grain of truth coming from him at an Amercian forum of sorts where he was being bood by the crowd, simply for asserting that the Middle East truly had degenerated into an even worse shit hole and that religious fundamentalism was a result of Imperialism, etc. while next to him Hitchens attacked him for being "soft" on the terrorists. Hitchens is an opportunist, really.
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
I agree.
[FONT=Verdana]Economic Left/Right: -7.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.13[/FONT]
"Kick over the wall 'cause government's to fall,
How can you refuse it?,
Let fury have the hour, anger can be power,
D'you know that you can use it?"-The Clash, "Clampdown"
Arguably, the obscene coexistence of Marxism and bourgeois ideology isn't "bizarre" at all, given the birth of Marxism out of liberal-scientific ideology. Marx's attitude toward progress and the progressive role of capital has meant that Marxism has often acted as a theoretical vanguard of capitalist development (theoretically, and in practice), running out ahead to understand the inevitable crises of capitalism. Certainly, the "left" emerging out of Marxism, and its various organizations, are deeply complicit in the emergence of the contemporary state-capitalist order / "empire". Whether or not a "conservative Marxism" is possible is a muddy matter in this context, since, at this point, s'all ideology (in the pejorative sense of the term used by Marx).
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The life we have conferred upon these objects confronts us as something hostile and alien.
Formerly Virgin Molotov Cocktail (11/10/2004 - 21/08/2013)
