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Socialism and Pop Culture
Socialism is the watchword and the catchword of our day. The socialist idea dominates the modem spirit. The masses approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal upon our time. When history comes to tell our story it will write above the chapter "The Epoch of Socialism."
-Ludwig von MisesI don't usually like quoting reactionaries, but this one got me thinking: in the 20th century, the term "socialism" dominated the political debate. A significant number of revolutionary movements articulated themselves as "socialists" of sorts: Arab socialism, the Nazis (National Socialists), African socialism, etc. All seemed to be enthralled with the idea of "socialism", ostensibly because they viewed the term as a buzzword like "liberty" or "equality" that appealed to the masses as well as an intellectual foundation contrasted against bourgeois capitalism.
Nowadays, you don't see that. Nowadays people have replaced socialism with more right-wing terms like "nationalism" or "capitalism" and use them to gather public support as well as articulate their social and political visions. You see this especially on the alt-right, who've essentially created an entire movement on the idea of opposing "the Left", although they include figures as diverse as Lenin and Hillary Clinton. It seems that "the Left" has assumed the same derided position once occupied by "the capitalists" or "the imperialists", a political bogeyman created and used to rally support behind a particular movement or program. Part of me is wondering if this has to do with a transformation of the boundaries of class struggle: instead of proletarians versus capitalists, we see proletarians versus managers (i.e. "liberal elites"), with the capitalists standing at the side and lending support to whoever has more momentum.
An injury to one is an injury to all -Industrial Workers of the World
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all -Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free -Eugene V. Debs
You're describing fascism? They use buzzwords to get people to join like Hitler did with socialism, or Libertarians do today. They demonize a diverse group of people to be one demon "the left". They frame themselves as the "true working class" against the liberal elites.
In the Us socialism and communism have always been demonized. The Cold war didn't help.
I think it's more to do with socialism (of a sort) being an actual "thing". Even if people were supporting reformism that called itself socialism, the welfare state, labor movements, and social democratic parties with a base and the room to deliver reforms within capitalism were just a political fact of post-war life in "the west".
The 1970s were a turning point and this reality began to change. Places where there were stronger labor movements held out for a while, but neoliberalism was the accepted political reality by the 90s in most places.
The ruling class were not by-standers, they organized, funded, and argued to change these conditions as a way out - for them - of Keynesian economic slumps and an increase in labor militancy.
But now that labor has been de-clawed, fash talk about "cultural-Marxism" by which they mean the gains by or accommodations to anti-oppression social movements.
The ruling class have also pushed this - but are ambivalent to the actual fash-part. When right-populist aims coincide with their own, they support and encourage it to an extent.
I'm not sure what this has to do with socialism and pop culture. Pop culture is probably a product of modern consumerist capitalism. It is mass produced, easily reproduced, cheap and quickly obsolescent in what seems to me to be a good example of historical materialism. Von Mises himself was a cheap imitation of an economist. Even Milton Friedman said he was, finally, a fool. Von Mises ended his career saying that everybody but himself (including Friedman) was a socialist.
I don't think this means that socialism is "pop culture," that it is merely a buzzword meant to appeal to the masses or anti-capitalist intellectuals. Socialism is a real economic and political movement which develops out of capitalism.
There's no question the structure of capitalism has changed. The owners of capital (stockholders, etc.) no longer control the economy, that power has, as you say, shifted to the managerial class, or really, to the giant corporation, a gigantic abstraction. Society itself may be morphing into one corporation with the managers at the top and a mass consumer class at the bottom consuming endless pop culture from Big Macs to Iphones to teen pop singers. Nothing will keep teenagers from their concerts.
The last capitalist may be Donald Trump as clown:
"Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right."
If capitalism has become a pop phenomenon then it may be on the verge of collapse.
I think you're basically giving a ground-level perspective of these overall mostly-timeless class dynamics -- but you're saying that there's now a 'political market' based on current prevailing trends, rather than its preceding era of more-*principled* political affiliations and mass movements.
Since your description is empirical and value-neutral, we *could* interpret it *positively*, to say that the historical Stalinist-type model of the state is now part of everyone's political consciousness -- a new proletarian movement would *of course* have to advance an approach to these daily issues of managerial control, versus the conventional status quo capital-hierarchy reactionary-capitalist approach.
