RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 341 Marxism and Us--or Not
Episode 341 of RevolutionZ quotes: "The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living" and with that claim from Marx asks whether today's movements should enrich the Marxist tradition as a viable and worthy heritage that only needs some modest contemporary refinements, or transcend it entirely as concepts and banners of dead generations that constrain our creativity.
Why this topic now? As political tensions mount and movements for fundamental change grow, young activists will be increasingly uged to take Marxist theory as their guiding framework. But do Marxist concepts provide the conceptual tools and organizational commitments we need to navigate current crises and in time create the revolutionized society most progressive movements desire?
This episode highlights "economism" -- which privileging economic analysis while inadequately addressing gender, race, ecology, and political dimensions of social life -- and also Marxist class analysis which fails to recognize how managers, professionals, and other empowered employees monopolize empowering tasks and decision-making positions to form a distinct class between capital and labor which can also rise to ruling status and has done just that in all past Marxist revolutions. Do conceptual blindspots explain why Marxist revolutions consistently elevate a new ruling elite over workers rather than creating genuine classlessness, or is the cause perverse leadership or external opposition. The episode also takes on what is called dialectics, historical materialism, the labor theory of value, and Marxism's views of and more often absence of vision for a better society.
The episode asks, does immersing in and advocating the whole Marxist tradition support or subvert our collective endeavors? If it does the latter, as the episode argues, then what must we enrich or transcend to do better? If it does the former, contrary to my observations, okay, immerse, learn the lingo, and carry on, but correct me too, please.
The episode is provocative and controversial, perhaps even a bit funny here and there. It invites listeners to critically examine inherited theory and consider what conceptual tools we truly need to build a more just and participatory world. It proposes some answers and it also urges those who disagree to make known their views. Some will say the episode's claims are ahistorical, over dramatic, exaggerated, or even delusional or worst of all a reactionary attempt to disarm movements. Fine, if any of that is the case, it should be pretty easy to demonstrate. I hope those who think so will attempt to do so.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 341st consecutive episode and I think it's going to be a long one. Also, let me perhaps apologize in advance. My tone may be a bit angry, aggressive, confused, annoyed, frustrated. I don't know what that's, because, like other mornings, I've woken up this morning and paid attention to the news. It may be that by the time you hear this, which is usually five days after I record perhaps as early as June 15th you will hear it, but not earlier June 14th will have happened and we may have moved from Trump seeking a police state to his presiding over one. Or perhaps the opposite will be happening Trump and his agenda will be unraveling, with resistance very smartly and effectively growing and reaching out all around the country. Or what else may have happened? Perhaps another war, governors and senators arrested to applause or to outrage, trump wearing a crown or resigning. That is how volatile today appears to be as I sit to record this episode. Who knows what's next? So, june 15th or after, I hope you are either celebrating and joining the positive prospects unfolding as you hear this, or you are stealing yourself and preparing to fight on in pursuit of such positive prospects despite unfolding criminality and chaos. Yet even with such tumultuous matters occurring and again, who knows what else each new day will have brought I'm going to step back a bit from the immediate situation, or step forward from it, if you prefer, to address something closely related but more encompassing.
Speaker 1:Not long ago, I had an article on Znet about whether to enrich or to transcend Marxism. You may wonder why I wrote and submitted it and even more so why I did it now. It's because I think in this coming period there will be a good many entreaties to neither enrich nor to transcend Marxism, but instead to immerse in it. My article was long and dense, which, nevertheless, I'm going to present today, and I'm pretty sure it's going to get quite a bit longer here, because I'm going to editorialize some of my own reactions to the content as I go along. So here goes A pretty recent Jacobin article reposted on Znet argued that we need more Marxism.
Speaker 1:To my eyes, the tone was if we aren't Marxist, we aren't materialist. If we aren't materialist, we don't believe in reality. And if we pay inadequate attention to reality, we will chase rainbows and succumb to misleadership. Conclusion we need to be Marxist, materialists. If that is true, we all need to get on board to avoid being mired in magical, counterproductive thinking, as steadily more people become deeply disenchanted, then horrendously horrified, then outstandingly outraged at today's world and, in response, steadily more and more people want to do something about it.
Speaker 1:There will be such offers of helpful guidance. Smart people, confident people who have scads of answers will offer tools to utilize and concepts to employ to make sense of what is happening and of means to make things better. Follow our lead, sign on with us, they will urge. Their offer will prove helpful if the offered tools and concepts are well suited to the world we face and the tasks we undertake. If not, then not. So which is it I interject? Saying I interject is how I will introduce editorial comments I add to the article as I present it here. So I interject. The article, as you can hear, already feels aggressive. The offer to help won't be helpful if what is offered won't help us. That observation should be utterly obvious. It should be a trivial truism. But I think too few people utilize that criterion when they tout Marxism. But let's see sentences.
Speaker 1:Today, many young people are marching leftward in Marxist footsteps, from a passion for freedom to a critique of capitalism. But, unlike Marx, they have the whole tradition of Marxism to guide them. That last point is undeniably true. Marx couldn't access the whole edifice. It didn't exist yet. Today, for Tommy and whoever else comes along, the whole edifice is there to consult, to employ, to advocate. But will taking the whole tradition of Marxism as their guide reveal to young people who march leftward the critical, essential elements of their circumstances that they will need to navigate to win a better society? I interject and I do so, I know, at the risk of being annoying to ask you do you agree that that is the right question? In that case, we have the same criteria of judgment.
Speaker 1:The article continues Abortion denied, male malevolence, racism resurgent immigrants deported medicine, collapsed science, lobotomized education, disrobed inequality, accelerated ecology, raped war spread fascism enthroned. To best react to all the policies and reconstructions that threaten us, should we immerse ourselves in Marxist text? Learn the lingo, brandish the banner. I interject. Many young people moving left will be told now that they ought to do just that learn the lingo, just as I was told that when I was a young person. But is that good advice? Back then I listened, I learned and I promptly decided it wasn't good advice.
Speaker 1:Before long I wrote a book called what Is To Be Undone my first. You can tell from the title, it examined the tradition, but it didn't hop on board. Before long Robin Hanel and I together wrote Unorthodox Marxism and then also Marxism and Socialist Theory and more. The group pressure to be Marxist was great and in those two post-What is to be Undone books we were trying to avoid alienating the Marxist community, which included our friends and our co-activists, by our remaining at least unorthodox Marxists. But the truth was the books revealed too many problems with Marxism for us to pull that off. The article continues. Weeks, months, years and decades come and go.
Speaker 1:Left scholars periodically proclaim that Marx said it, marx knew it, marx taught it. To win a better world. We should channel Marx's collected works. We should be guided by the whole Marxist tradition, which of course includes Lenin, trotsky, mao and so much more. The scholars are scholarly. They know so much, they are so confident, they have so many answers. Some of them even sound wise. Such big words, such complicated sentences. But is it true that if we don't seriously study Marx to learn his old answers to our current questions and, for that matter, if we don't seriously study Lenin and Trotsky or whoever else aligns with Marx, to learn their answers as well. The more of them the better. Then our knowledge, preparation and thinking will be too shallow to advance our needs and desires. We will chase rainbows and be misled. This refrain is likely to echo for many directions in coming weeks as resistance to Trumpism grows Align with Marx.
Speaker 1:His advocates say they believe they have valid tools and concepts and, of course, feeling thus, they want to share them. They want to spread them. That's what advocacy attempts. Fair enough, however. The bearded big man, the optimistic oracle, the grandest grandteacher, the most famous flag-bagger himself wrote the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. Is that a danger? Is that a danger?
Speaker 1:Non-marxologists might think Marx must have been referring to the effect of the tradition of dead generations on reactionaries who wish to return to the past. It turns out, however, that reading further, we find that reactionaries aren't Marx's or weren't Marx's target, aren't Marxist or weren't Marxist target. In his next sentence he clarifies his focus. To avoid confusion or outright obfuscation, he continued quote and just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epics of revolutionary crisis, they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. So it was revolutionaries, not reactionaries, that Marx was eloquently castigating for borrowing quote names, battle slogans and costumes from the past in order to present the present in quote honored disguise and borrowed language. Until we find that, over and over, today is costumed as if it was yesterday, and this is done, ironically, by those claiming to seek tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Some will say I exaggerate the problem. Maybe that kind of result is possible, they say, but we can do better. If so, I reply did Marx exaggerate too? Suppose you operate in the tradition of some dead thinker. Should you trumpet that? Should you effusively footnote it? Should you press your preferred old texts on others? What is a committed comrade to do? What are activists to do? Do we really need to imbibe and celebrate Marxism to find out?
Speaker 1:When asked these questions, my first observation is that there is no need to display your lineage, much less to trumpet it, even if your claimed lineage is brilliant, much less if it isn't. What matters instead is to make clear what you yourself believe and to show why you believe it using your own words of today? Can we agree that we only occasionally have good reason, and even then most often only stylistic reason rather than a revelatory reason, to quote dead men's words? And can't we agree there is never reason to treat dead men's words like scripture, as if to quote such words provides unassailable argument or evidence. Unassailable argument or evidence. Instead, to convey our own passion on behalf of our own aims and address the expectations, fears and experiences of those who we address, why not present relevant experiences and logical connections in our own words, as evidenced in our own times? I interject. I hope that doesn't sound odd. Let me put it another way To parrot dead leftists, even when they are eloquent, even when they are relevant, shows you know how to quote, but alone it shows nothing else and it suggests you may not know much else. The article continues Consider a person who repeatedly quotes Marx and advises voraciously reading Marx or some other long-gone icon to make some point about contemporary relations, much less about contemporary means or aims.
Speaker 1:Imagine hearing or watching this person, doesn't he often and even though women are now forefront all across activism, this person will only rarely be a she seem more concerned to get his audience to genuflect to Marx, or more concerned to demonstrate his own allegiance to Marx than he is concerned to help larger undecided audiences? Consider current observations based on current evidence and reasoning. In short, doesn't the quote from the past often mask contemporary communicative poverty? Still worse, doesn't doing so sometimes appeal to some dead author's authority, which in turn risks a slip slide towards sectarian conformity? Why not instead take Marx's own advice and let the dead generations rest in peace? Why not avoid nightmarish mimicry? Why not stop borrowing? Why not create? I interject Without getting too catty about all this.
Speaker 1:I have to wonder why do Marxists so often sound so smart, so knowledgeable? Hell, sometimes they are, but very often it is because, with 150 years of preparation and quoting the most eloquent writers and being familiar with a lot of them, they have words galore to offer. But ask them to put it in their own words, to make it refer to now, even just to make it comprehensible, and see what happens. The article continues. Please note so far I haven't offered a word of critique of Marxism itself, nothing about its substance, not one word. Instead, the above observations are about how to communicate substance, not about the merits of the substance to be communicated. I hope we can agree on all that. I think such stylistic observations are far from unimportant.
Speaker 1:But to now assess Marxism's actual substance, I'd like to consider the harsh claim that the goal of struggle in every Marxist text that offers a serious economic or societal institutional vision is an economy that elevates about 20% of the population to ruling class status and that also retains patriarchy, racism and political authoritarianism, not to mention continuing to excessively spew pollution. Is that critical claim true or am I ignoring material reality and, as a result, mired in rainbows and misleadership? Well, one way to assess the claim is to consider that when Marxist movements have actually guided revolutions, those revolutions have delivered societies with exactly the horribly flawed features the claim anticipates. Does this aspect of Marxist tradition matter? The actual practice? Do those outcomes exist, consistent with and not despite Marxism's concepts? Were they externally imposed or were they internally?
Speaker 1:Intrinsic Vision, warped, practice, flawed Okay, we Marxists can almost all agree that that happens. But maybe the underlying concepts are fine. Maybe the problem has been that Lenin, Trotsky, mao and all the post-Marxist parties have misapplied Marxism. No need to transcend anything, we need only use it better. I interject. This may seem a little subtle, but the issue isn't can the concepts yield useful insights that would otherwise be hard or even impossible to attain and impose no damning errors if the concepts are wielded by geniuses operating in libraries. The issue is instead will the concepts yield otherwise unattainable useful insights and no damning errors when used by real people, with real people's biases, in real conflictual societal settings? Applying them under pressure in the street, on the assembly line or in the church or one's household is quite different than pondering them in a library. The article continues what Marx and most Marxists have said they desire. But then I would add that despite those undeniable personal desires, in practice most Marxists haven't pursued institutions consistent with mass working class participation, democracy and freedom or with ending patriarchy, racism and authoritarianism.
Speaker 1:Are my claims about institutional aims false? Should we immerse ourselves in the whole tradition? Should we establish reading groups for long-dead writers? I interject, is it that they just haven't gotten to all that yet? But will, so there is no problem. 150 years of the tradition hasn't been enough time.
Speaker 1:The article continues. Marxists will say come on, michael, it was outside pressure and civil wars, plus inadequate understanding or sometimes bent motivations that led to the distortions that we all find abhorrent. But I reply if that was so, then shouldn't the tradition, which is to say the plans, policies, textbooks and quotations from the early days to now, all not only blame external factors and bad guys which they do but also include concepts and institutional aims contrary to what emerged and pursuing what didn't emerge. But that isn't the case. And in our time shouldn't we have better concepts and institutional aims that won't be perverted by external opposition or internal misleadership? I interject. Maybe someone can tell me why the above simple reasoning is false, or tell me the same thing about aspects that will follow.
Speaker 1:Despite these issues often being portrayed as incredibly complex and talked and written about incredibly obscurely, it seems to me that these issues really aren't all that difficult and the observations offered here are virtually self-evident. The article continues to decide about immersing ourselves or even just advocating the whole Marxist tradition. Suppose we could put every Marxist text about economics and or society in a pile, to the very limited extent that anything in that pile provides not just analysis of some of what has been plus admirable descriptive adjectives of liberation, but also provides more encompassing actual proposals about what can and should be. Isn't the included institutional vision most often only economic, and doesn't it include top-down decision-making, a corporate division of labor, remuneration for output or bargaining power and markets, or central planning for allocation, each of which institutions intrinsically elevates a new ruling elite. That's a mighty big claim, I know. But if we look at actual Marxist-inspired revolutions, don't we see just those hard institutional aims implemented not occasionally but every time? Do we really want to blame that on everything, but on the guiding concepts and inclinations? I interject. And why would we want to do that, even though the connection between the concepts and the outcomes is entirely evident? Might it be loyalty to dead generations? Why would we want to do that, even though the connection between the concepts and the outcomes is entirely evident? Might it be loyalty to dead generations, loyalty to earlier held views? Or perhaps there are even some material or psychological interests at stake? The article continues Could it be put more assertively that the reason Marxism in command hasn't delivered what most Marxist advocates have wanted from it hasn't been exclusively bad leaders or even violent external opposition?
Speaker 1:Of course there have been bad leaders, to put it mildly, and of course opposition has been intense and destructive again to put it mildly. But perhaps the deeper and more persistent problem has been that intended Marxist movement dynamics have themselves elevated bad leaders and going still one step further. Perhaps the problem has been the concepts that have elevated or at any rate did not prevent those harm-elevating movement dynamics, all that stuff, movement dynamics and underlying concepts that led to or didn't prevent the bad outcomes. That is the real heart of the tradition, isn't it? Of course the problem wasn't that everybody in Marxist-Leninist parties explicitly wanted to trample workers on the road to ruling them. That is overwhelmingly false. It is even nonsense. The problem, if you agree there has indeed been a problem, and which I have yet to display, has been that, however well-meaning the vast bulk of the Marxist rank and file may have been, some of the core concepts of Marxist parties and movements have inexorably led those parties and movements, when they succeeded, to trample workers.
Speaker 1:Structures pushed the leaders, concepts elevated the structures. Aren't the structures and concepts the essence of the tradition? Shouldn't we assess those and not just complain about Lenin's personality and reactionary violence? The offered claim suggests that, even with the very best motives, the odds are that Marxist movements aren't going to make a revolution in our modern world because, a they won't have sufficiently broad concepts and aims to appeal around extra-economic desires and even not to repulse those with extra economic desires, and especially, ironically, because B they will lack sufficient working class support. But if they do transcend those problems and they do help make a revolution, the claim is that the odds are overwhelming that their success will elevate a coordinated class of empowered employees to economic rule over the working class of disempowered employees and will leave patriarchy, racism and authoritarianism modified and even reduced in some respects, but also intact and even intensified in other respects, like has occurred throughout the tradition. I interject Note that I still haven't indicated any deep and damaging conceptual problems. But isn't it clear that, given the flawed outcomes, one should look for such problems and not assume that there are none? And again, isn't that utterly obvious, or shouldn't it be? The article continues.
Speaker 1:Some Marxists will find these claims personally insulting. I don't think they are. They aren't about particular people or motives. They aren't about people's personalities, much less people's genetics. They are instead about widely advocated and utilized concepts, methods and institutional allegiances which, even in the hands of wonderful people, have repeatedly yielded results that those people never wanted. The target of the claim is not bad people, but the nightmarish tradition that weighs down good people. Not a word about Marx, lenin or whoever. Words only about Marxism, leninism and whatever. The claim means no harm nor puts fault on individuals who get caught up in and even become advocates or scholars and implementers of the tradition, but the nightmarish tradition itself. That is what I offer many words about. I interject At this point. I have to put up or shut up, which is to say, I have to address some Marxist concepts and find fault with them or shut up. So the article continues.
Speaker 1:Having gotten this far, let's get more concrete. First, let's consider the claim that Marxism's core concepts and associated practices overemphasize economics and underemphasize gender, kinship, community, culture, polity and ecology. I interject, in other words, let's consider the claim that Marxist concepts tend to cause Marxists to pay excessive attention to the role of economics and to pay too little attention to the role of other dimensions of life, and even more that those concepts distort the types of attention paid to each. The article continues Note that the claim doesn't imply that all or even any Marxists ignore everything other than economics. Of course not. No one remotely aware and fair could suggest that. Nor does this claim imply that all or even any Marxists don't care greatly about other matters. Most do, of course. It does imply, however, that when, if at all? It does imply, however, that when, if at all, yesterday's Marxists and didn't escape them or transcend them.
Speaker 1:They tended to highlight dynamics arising from their understanding of class struggle or that demonstrated implications for their understanding of class struggle, but to downplay or even totally ignore concerns rooted in the specific features of race, gender, power and nature. They most often also claimed that this type of limited accounting was a virtue. It was materialist, it was scientific, it shoved away the peripheral to focus on the essential I interject a bit redundantly, I admit. It focused as much energy as possible on what required attention class relations and did not get distracted by calls for extra or often even any attention to other dimensions and constituencies. The article continues.
Speaker 1:Well, I have to agree that to focus on what is critical and even to bypass what is peripheral is often wise. Even more, I don't say that yesterday's Marxism said nothing useful about race, gender, sex and power, or at least about the economic aspects of each. But I do believe that yesterday's Marxism did not sufficiently counter tendency imposed by then current society, or by then current struggle, or by then current opposition or, most important, by then current tactical and strategic choices that together generated racist, sexist and authoritarian outcomes, even against the best moral and social inclinations of most Marxists On those axes, that is, implications for overall outcomes. Yesterday's Marxism left out too much. That is not peripheral but is instead actually critical for the tradition to guide us to tomorrow. Did some practitioners do better than others? Of course, but the norm and the outcomes are what matter most. I interject, dare, I violate my own advice and point out that that is precisely how Marx would look at this situation. I believe he would say don't pay attention to what advocates of some viewpoints say they want, pay attention to what they in fact deliver. And I would add, also also to what their viewpoint turns out to have furthered.
Speaker 1:The article continues. In other words, the claim called economism that many offer about Marxism's overemphasis on economy and insufficient emphasis on other sides of life does not predict monomania about economics or even a universal and inviolable pattern of exclusive attention to economics and zero attention to everything else. No, instead, the claim predicts a harmful pattern of narrowness in how attention is given to extraeconomic phenomena. So does this claim deny reality? I interject, notice the above claim is such that to show that many Marxists have cared about race, gender or authority doesn't even address the claim, since that is agreed from the outset. And in case you are getting fidgety about the too frequent interjections. I shall try to limit them going forward. It is just how I react to it now.
Speaker 1:The article continues, but does the claim deny reality? Well, doesn't Marxism instruct us to study such phenomena as race, gender, etc. And to correct the ills associated with such phenomena race, gender, etc. And to correct the ills associated with such phenomena, but to do so with our eyes primarily on what Marxism says are the paramount change-relevant causes and effects, which Marxism in turn says are the economic ones? Doesn't Marxism provide valuable and even essential insights about the economic dimensions of other than economic sides of life, but not much about their non-economic dimensions?
Speaker 1:By analogy, imagine a flawed feminist, anti-racist or anarchist who says we should pay attention to economic phenomena to correct ills we endure, but we should do so always with our eyes primarily on what feminism, anti-racism or anarchism deems the paramount change-relevant causes and effects, which they would, in this hypothetical case, say are the intrinsically gender, racial or political causes and effects. Wouldn't Marxists rightly reply that those other approaches, in those hypothetical cases, would need economic enhancement? And rightly so if those other approaches operated as indicated. But isn't it just as valid for those other approaches to say that the Marxist focus on class and economics needs core gender, racial and political enhancement, since it does operate in the way indicated. If that is all so and I wonder who would seriously contest it as it is put here then one did follow that the fix for Marxism's economism would be for Marxists to agree that feminism, anti-racism and anarchism have their own core insights and that, just as advocates of each of those perspectives need to take account of class-focused understanding, so too do people who seek classlessness need to take account of those other sources' core insights about their focused areas of needed change core insights about their focused areas of needed change. Indeed, won't prioritizing only a one-way causation whether it is from economics to the rest or from some other partial focus to the rest, miss phenomena of crucial importance, especially given the racial, gender, authority, ecology and class biases and habits that are imbued so prevalently in current societies? But if so, then doesn't that imply that we need concepts that counter, and certainly not concepts that accentuate, such biases? That is the anti-economism claim, and the good news is that in recent years, it has seemed that a great many of today's Marxists largely agree with the need to transcend economism in order to enrich Marxism.
Speaker 1:The bad news is that I think the majority of today's Marxists haven't yet adopted new concepts that equally prioritize those other areas of needed change. They don't have vision for those other areas of needed change. They don't have vision for those other areas. They don't have clear understanding of the interactive effects of those other areas. Other people do, but not the Marxist tradition. Instead, I think the concepts and words of the dead generations that inhabit Marxism's tradition still tend to crowd out or sometimes even stamp out such broader insights as soon as momentum for fundamental change builds and causes them to seek new recruits to Marxism.
Speaker 1:So while perhaps even the majority of today's Marxists accept the need to escape economism, and while they sincerely seek to do so often by embracing another perspective so that we get socialist feminism, marxist anti-racism, anarcho-marxism and eco-Marxism and so on, nonetheless isn't a lingering obstacle to their success that, in times of crisis and existential need, their allegiance to their whole tradition's core traditional framework tends to overcome their good intentions? As movement urgency rises, don't desires for enlarged breadth of focus tend to get washed away by entreaties to highlight economy? Get behind our banner. Only our banner and its awesome tradition Address your concerns, but by our methods. That is what we might call Marxism's economism problem. I interject. And now comes a massive irony In the discussion that often occurs about the place of class analysis and concern for class as compared to the place of and concern for gender, race, power or ecological analysis.
Speaker 1:Pretty much everyone, on all sides, tends to take for granted that the quote class first, or quote class more, or quote class alone, or or quote class whatever advocates. The Marxists, even if they underplay other factors. In any event, of course, at least have class in mind in a compelling, accurate, suitable and productive way. Well, not me, I do not think that, and so the article continues. A second area of concern, less noticed and less confronted than the tradition's economism, is, ironically, that regarding Marxism's primarily focused side of life, the economy, marxism's concepts fall profoundly short. Many Marxists might reply to that. Come on, how could that be? You are being ridiculous. Whatever limitations of focus Marxism may have, surely its economics is powerful? Well, yes, I agree that it is to an extent. For example, marxism rightly argues that mode of production matters greatly and emphasizes the extreme importance of class conflict. Good. It explains the drive to accumulate. It sheds light on how economy affects other spheres of life Good. But none of that requires immersion in or advocating the whole Marxist tradition and severely offsetting the good.
Speaker 1:Marxism near universally fails to highlight a class that exists between labor and capital. Yesterday's and also most of today's Marxists tend to a priori deny the roots of a third class in how the economy defines and apportions work. Yesterday and also today's Marxists tend to teach instead that classes owe their existence only to ownership relations. That view persists, and yet isn't it blindingly evident that that view is why Marxism has nearly always failed to see that the economies that Marxists have either positively called socialist or negatively dismissed as deformed socialist or as state capitalist have in fact neither elevated workers nor retained capitalists in ruling status? Something different is going on Instead in what has also often been called 20th century socialism. Aren't capitalists gone, but workers still subordinate? Indeed, hasn't what the Marxist tradition has sought and at times implemented beyond capitalism in every case elevated not workers but instead a class of planners, managers and other empowered employees to ruling economic status? Hasn't it been out with the old boss, in with the new boss?
Speaker 1:But a Marxist might sensibly reply is this dismal result intrinsic, or is it instead due to the misleadership or external imposition that has perverted Marxism's wisdom? In response, we have to ask why does a new economic boss emerge, and I won't even get into why does political dictatorship emerge? Is it repeatedly a revolution that was hijacked? Or is it that victorious Marxism has in every case sought and won public or state ownership of assets, top-down decision-making, corporate divisions of labor, remuneration for output and power, and either markets or central planning for allocation, and that those choices have not yielded desired classlessness, but a new class boss? And hasn't all this happened, remarkably, even while Marxists simultaneously urge the need for worker liberation via workers' control? In other words, when Marxists have implemented their favored institutions, they have undeniably not attained their qualitative goal. But is that because, as I assert, some key Marxist conceptual and institutional commitments have not only permitted but have propelled what I call coordinator rule, even while Marxists have denied that the coordinator class between labor and capital and capitalism even exists? Could it be that the reason why Marxism isn't all that popular among working-class audiences is not because those audiences have been misled, but because those audiences have sensibly seen Marxism's aim as a nightmare and not a utopia? Is that because they have been tricked? Or is it because, in that regard, their eyes are wide open? Please note, these claims do not even remotely suggest that most, or arguably even any individual Marxist self-consciously try to advance the interests of managers, lawyers, accountants, engineers, planners and other empowered actors over and above disempowered workers, though some do. It suggests instead that certain concepts within Marxism do little to prevent this elevation of a coordinator class as a new ruling class, and indeed even propel it.
Speaker 1:The claim is that in the Marxist tradition, coordinator economic dominance emerges even despite and against the better sentiments of most of Marxism's rank and file. This may seem peculiar. After all, how could a movement most of whose members want one thing repeatedly wind up implementing something damningly worse and even diametrically opposite? But actually it is not uncommon. Social outcomes often deserve from rank-and-file desires which are ignored and often harshly repressed. For example, sincere and eloquent advocates of workers' control who favor privately owned corporations, whether they do so for personal gain as owners themselves or due to a sincere belief that private ownership is essential for a well-functioning economy, do not usher in workers' control. Their institutional choice to retain private ownership trumps their worthy desire for workers' control. Workers who persistently seek the latter get some lip service but wind up ignored or repressed. All Marxists understand that dynamic, because Marxism's concepts highlight how a choice to retain private ownership will rule out workers' control. Similarly, the critical current claim rendered here is that sincere and eloquent advocates of worker self-management, who favor markets or central planning and who favor the corporate division of labor whether they advocate these priorities for personal gain or due to a sincere belief that those choices are essential for a well-functioning economy will not usher in self-management. Their institutions will trump their worthy desires for self-management. Workers persistently seeking self-management will get some lip service but will wind up ignored or repressed.
Speaker 1:I claim that those immersed in the Marxist tradition often fail to understand the logically quite similar dynamic to the one they do understand regarding capitalists, because in the coordinator case, marxism's central concepts don't highlight and instead even obscure the class processes at work and instead even obscure the class processes at work. So is it contrary to reality and even nasty to point out that Marxists ought to easily understand this possibility, not least because Marx himself smartly advised that when judging some intellectual framework, one should discount what it says about itself. We want workers above all and instead notice what its concepts obscure. There is no class of coordinators above workers of an aspiring ruling class will obscure that class's behavior, hide that class's roots in social relations and even deny that class's existence, all while aggressively and even violently furthering that class's rise to dominance.
Speaker 1:Marxists look at the theory and ideology of mainstream economics and see the conceptual inadequacies that obscure and elevate domination by owners, but they don't see something quite similar regarding Marxism's own relation to the class between labor and capital. That is when we look to see what the Marxist tradition highlights, obscures and seeks. Don't we see that Marxism's focus on property relations as the only basis for class conflict obscures the importance for class conflict of the distribution of empowering tasks among economic actors? Don't we see that that's why Marxism misses that with owners gone, coordinators can rise to rule workers? Don't we see that Marxism removes from view the rule exerted by about 20% of the population, the coordinator class that monopolizes empowering work over the remaining 80% of the population, the working class that does mainly disempowering work in so-called 20th century socialism, which system we really ought to call coordinatorism? Don't we see, in other words, that despite the sincere and off-stated aims of so many of its adherents, in practice Marxism overwhelmingly and predictively, aggressively, and all too often even violently, elevates the coordinator class to rule over workers?
Speaker 1:Even as Marxism's concepts have hidden coordinatorators' role and even their very existence, the tradition gets in the way of the aspirations and even the observations of its own advocates. Does to urge that we need to transcend Marxism, seek to rob activism of everything any Marxist has ever said. Or is it only a call to not succumb yet again to the now stultifying and even suicidal aspects of this particular tradition of dead generations? Dare, I suggest it would Marx brought back to life. Now call today's Marxism, and especially today's Marxism-Leninism, the ideology of the coordinator class and not of the working class. We can only guess, and why bother to guess or even to care, unless we are historians of ideas, whether Marx would do so or not? Isn't it clear that to argue that we should ourselves do so doesn't imply that we think that somehow all Marxists are themselves overt enemies of classlessness? Isn't it clear that it instead urges that, even when Marxists overwhelmingly desire classlessness, their conceptual and institutional allegiances tend to trample those desires? I interject Having heard all this criticism. I think it would be fair if you were now thinking okay, what else can you show me? Are you just naysaying, michael, or is there a way out of this messy picture you have painted? Fair enough, so the article continues. Okay, let's get positive.
Speaker 1:A pivotal question arises how might today's Marxists seek a better Marxism for tomorrow? How might new Marxists augment, alter or otherwise transcend faulty current concepts to avoid the two problems we and so many feminists, anti-racists, anarchists, councilists and others have highlighted, and might we make the needed changes and also sensibly retain the Marxist banner, name and tradition? Regarding economism, such new Marxists might decide that to transcend a conceptual framework that starts from economics and, even while revealing important economic dynamics, primarily examines other realms with the intention of seeing their economic implications but not their intrinsic extra-economic dynamics. And having recognized that economism problem, perhaps such neo-Marxists let's call them might choose to ground their overall improved perspective on concepts that highlight economics but that also equally highlight polity kinship, culture and ecology. Perhaps they might prioritize understanding each of these life spheres' own intrinsic logic and dynamics and seeing how, in actual societies, each of these life spheres influences and even limits and defines the others, without presupposing that they all line up according to some particular hierarchy of importance.
Speaker 1:For example, as a possible correction to today's economism, tomorrow's Marxist wanting to do better might say I am Marxist, but I am also an equally feminist intercommunalist. Wanting to do better might say I am Marxist, but I am also an equally feminist, intercommunalist, anarchist and green, which means I recognize that dynamics arising from spheres of life other than the economy can even define economic possibilities, just as the reverse can occur. Of course, I still think society's mode of production and class struggle are critically important, but I also realize gender, race, religious, ethnic, sexual and anti-authoritarian struggles are each also critically important. I realize that just as we need to understand non-class struggles in their relation to class struggle, we also have to understand class struggle in its relation to gender, race, political and ecological struggles. So, okay, suppose tomorrow's Marxist does renounce the idea of an economic base which affects an extra-economic superstructure, which superstructure is, in turn, overwhelmingly only affected. Suppose tomorrow's Marxist denies that societies rise and transform only due to modes of production and instead sees how modes of kinship, culture and polity are also crucial to how societies rise and transform. Suppose tomorrow's Marxist still argues the importance of class struggle, but no longer sees class struggle as the alone dominant conceptual touchstone for identifying strategic issues. After such changes, could the label Marxist come to connote what this neo-Marxist believes? I'm not sure. Maybe it could, though much of the Marxist tradition of dead generations would likely strenuously resist these changes. Indeed, I think this battle has been unfolding for decades.
Speaker 1:In contrast to the above trend toward overcoming Marxism's economism problem, marxism's class definition problem seems to me to more strongly resist correction. Capitalists are capitalists. Marxists rightly urge and this is so by virtue of their private ownership of the means of production To no longer have capitalists above workers derivatively requires. Marxists rightly argue that we must eliminate private ownership of means of production. So far, so good and also so essential. Marxists then say non-capitalists own only their ability to do work which they sell for a wage Also good.
Speaker 1:But then Marxists say that all these wage-earning employees, by virtue of their having the same ownership situation as one another, have the same class interests. They are all in the working class. This is where the problem arises. I interject. And why would brilliant advocates of Marxism, having discerned and developed the idea that the economy yields classes, decide not only that who owns what generates classes, which is clear enough, but that who owns what is the only thing that generates classes? It may be helpful as we proceed, to wonder about that.
Speaker 1:The article continues. The point is, marxists almost universally fail to recognize that some wage-earning employees can have crucially different class interests than other wage-earning employees due to occupying different positions in the corporate division of labor. Suppose some Marxists decide to consider this possibility and as a way to test it, they hypothesize that there is a class between labor and capital. They ask is such a hypothetical third class real? Is anyone actually in this hypothetical third class or is this hypothesis immaterial, unscientific nonsense To my eyes?
Speaker 1:Once Marxists admit that such a third class might exist and thus entertain the possibility that something other than ownership relations might generate class difference, if they then look closely to see if it is so, they will easily see that managers, lawyers, accountants, engineers and other employees who are highly empowered by their economic position in the corporate division of labor Because it allots to them a virtual monopoly on empowering tasks and the levers and requisites of daily economic decision-making, while it allots to other employees overwhelmingly disempowering tasks that leave them subordinate. Such neo-Marxists will then see that in a new economy without owners, the former coordinators will decide and the latter workers will obey. In that case, if that is what we see, once we allow something other than what the tradition's instructions constrain our observations to be, doesn't it follow that to no longer have empowered coordinators above disempowered workers, we must replace the offending institutions, market central planning and especially the corporate division of labor. But if that is in turn the case, then why do most Marxists and all Marxist-Leninist visions explicitly advocate a corporate division of labor, markets or central planning? More, doesn't that advocacy explain why Marxists typically fail to see that even when private ownership is eliminated, markets, central planning and corporate divisions of labor will nonetheless elevate a ruling class of structurally empowered coordinators above a subordinate class of structurally disempowered workers? Isn't this blatantly and utterly obvious once one accepts concepts that rule it out a priori? Marxists often movingly and sincerely, qualitatively describe the justice, equity and dignity that they wish to achieve. They want workers liberated at last. But if we look at texts by Marxists and at their proposed economic vision, don't we find vague rhetoric that lacks institutional substance? Or, when there is institutional substance, don't we find institutions that deny the justice, equity and dignity that Marxists personally favor? Similarly, when we look at Marxist practice, which is most often Marxist-Leninist practice, don't we find these same coordinatorist structures universally implemented? Could a Marxist today transcend this problem by adopting a three-class view that sees beyond only property relations as able to cause class rule and that understands the possibility of a third class become the ruling class and yet reasonably continue to call him or herself a Marxist.
Speaker 1:Suppose a Marxist did follow that path, which indeed some Marxists have at times tried to do, including myself. When Robin Hanel and I co-authored a book nearly 50 years ago called Unorthodox Marxism, I think signs that it had occurred would be obvious. For example, such neo-Marxists would critique what has been self-labeled socialism by its advocates in various countries around the world, but then they would not call it capitalism or state capitalism or even deformed socialism, but instead would call it a new mode of production that enshrines an economic coordinator class and not just a political bureaucracy above workers. And I think such neo-Marxists would then offer an opposed vision that would disperse with private ownership of means of production, of course, but also dispense with market central planning and corporate divisions of labor, as well as with modes of remuneration that reward property, power, power or output. And I also think such neo-Marxists or, if you like, unorthodox Marxists, would propose new defining economic institutions to seek in place of those that they reject. The new institutions that would gain support from such neo-Marxists might be, for example, a commons of productive assets, collectively self-managed worker and consumer councils, remuneration for duration, intensity and onerousness of socially valued labor, a new division of labor that has jobs, balanced for empowerment and a new kind of participatory planning in place of markets and central planning.
Speaker 1:Then, in accord with their altered economic vision, whatever new defining features it might in fact advocate, I think such new Marxists would also advocate movement organizations, methods and programs that would embody, propel and actually arrive at their positive aims. They would also realize that strategies for social change that elevate centrist parties, top-down decision-making and corporate divisions of labor will not eliminate coordinator class rule, but instead entrench it. They would acknowledge that the Marxist tradition, taken as a whole, has flaws that lead to coordinator class rule, regardless of the sincere desires of many, or even of nearly all Marxists, to end up someplace much nicer than coordinatorism. So what would be the relation of such neo-Marxists to the Marxist tradition that they had previously celebrated? Well, I very much doubt such neo-Marxists would call themselves Leninist, trotskyist, maoist or even Castroist. But even if they did, they would certainly disavow huge swaths of associated thought and action. I would also anticipate that, instead of persistently and exclusively quoting some valid insights from Lenin and Trotsky positively, of which there are of course many they would aggressively reject Lenin saying quote it is absolutely essential that all authority in the factory should be concentrated in the hands of management. Could that be more explicit? I interject that quote. And the ones now to follow are offered here to augment, not prove, earlier assertions. They show that two particular Marxists, lenin and Trotsky, not known for being dumb or mechanical and often extolled as exemplary, in fact exemplify the claims made here.
Speaker 1:The article continues and they, neo-marxists would reject Lenin saying, quote any direct intervention by the trade unions in the management of enterprises must be regarded as positively harmful and impermissible. End quote. Could that be more draconian? And they would reject Lenin saying, quote large-scale machine industry, which is the central productive source and foundation of socialism, calls for absolute and strict unity of will. How can strict unity of will be ensured by thousands subordinating their will to the will of one? That is called dictatorship? No way around it.
Speaker 1:And they would reject Lenin saying quote a producer's congress. What precisely does that mean? It is difficult to find words to describe this folly. I keep asking myself can they be joking? Can one really take these people seriously? While production is always necessary, democracy is not. Democracy of production engenders a series of radically false ideas. End quote. This is his way of thinking, ruling out what he encounters, which is admirable and wise, as folly, radically false ideas. So there are indeed false ideas afoot, but not those advocating a producer's congress.
Speaker 1:And then I think such neo-Marxists would also reject Trotsky's saying about left communists, quote they turn democratic principles into a fetish. They put the right of the workers to elect their own representatives above the party, thus challenging the party's right to affirm its own dictatorship, even when this dictatorship comes into conflict with the evanescent mood of the workers' democracy end quote. And here I thought the above Lenin paragraph could not be topped, and they would reject Trotsky saying, quote we must bear in mind the historical mission of our party. The party is forced to maintain its dictatorship without stopping for these vacillations, nor even the momentary falterings of the working class. This realization is the mortar which cements our unity. The dictatorship of the proletariat does not always have to conform to formal principles of democracy. End quote. No rationalizing or denying here, just straight up authoritarian sentiment. And they would reject Trotsky saying, quote it is a general rule that man will try to get out of work. Man is a lazy animal, which is typical reactionary sentiment. And they would reject Trotsky proudly saying, quote I consider that if the Civil War had not plundered our economic organs, of all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative. We should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management much sooner and much less painfully. End quote.
Speaker 1:This is perhaps the most revealing quotation. It does not say violent opposition led to all the bad that followed. It says that opposition delayed the revolution from arriving at what it sought, which was the bad that followed. Their views violated rather than flowed from their Marxism. That would seem a bit like special pleading to me. So I think our new neo-Marxists would not waste time blaming Lenin or Trotsky's personal dispositions or ignorance for the origins of such undeniably horrible utterances and ensuing consistent outcomes the demolishing of the Soviet system, the initial Soviets but would instead look for underlying inadequate concepts that they would need to transcend.
Speaker 1:But honestly, isn't all of the above in some sense, just the fare of dead generations More important than arguing endlessly about dead man's words or even acts? Wouldn't tomorrow's neo-Marxists emphasize that utilizing hierarchical structures in economic and or political or social institutions risks ushering in coordinator rule as well as creating an environment uncongenial to widespread worker involvement or kinship, racial, political or ecological advances? If tomorrow's Marxists wanted to argue that in some difficult context, such Leninist and Trotskyist dictates may have had to be honored. Wouldn't they then be at extreme pains to also urge the need to see the structures as only temporarily imposed expedience and, in all other respects, try to pave the way for classless, self-managed social relations now and in the future? Yes, I think so, but we don't find that.
Speaker 1:Finally, despite some crucial flaws, do I agree that there is quite useful wisdom and moving eloquence in Marx, and also in many subsequent Marxist writers and activists, that tomorrow's Marxists should rightly retain? Of course I do not only capitalist property relations, but also market central planning and a coordinatorist division of labor, as well as elevate attention to patriarchy, racism and authoritarianism as much as they elevate attention to economy to avoid fulfilling Marx's own commentary that, quote the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. That seems like a good back-to-the-beginning spot to end this whole argument. Yet, at the risk of belaboring, I don't think I will To reject a framework we have been taught, a framework we have quoted, a framework we have taken our identities and battle slogans from a framework we have believed in, a framework we have advocated and have previously deemed critical to achieving a better world, all so that we can get beyond traditions of dead generations is no simple path to navigate, especially when many highly learned, compelling, committed, courageous and accomplished allies, friends and teachers and not just or even mainly sectarian numbskulls repeatedly tell us that for us to do that would leave us ignorantly ill-suited to winning change. So at the risk of going still further and of some redundancy as well, I want to give the issue a little more very explicit and even aggressive attention.
Speaker 1:The point of activists becoming familiar and facile with such long-lived frameworks as Marxism or Marxism-Leninism or any other long-lived framework as they move leftward should of course be to find in such frameworks insights and methods that can usefully aid, and certainly not subvert, current and future practice. To decide whether it would be a wise choice to immerse oneself in Marxist or any other long-lived tradition, shouldn't we then ask will that tradition's proposed concepts and practices not hinder but instead help us to comprehend all the main conditions we will encounter when we combat injustice? Will its proposed concepts and practices help us to conceive and to attain a desirable new world? If our answer is yes, then we should certainly seek to learn from that collection of proposed concepts, albeit using our own words. But if our answer is no, shouldn't we be roused to try to arrive at better concepts and embark on better practice.
Speaker 1:To that end, and at the risk of horrifying some, here are some additional summary judgments, offered quite provocatively but meant quite seriously, about Marxist tradition. I interject For want of space. These are put briefly here, more assertive than demonstrated. Some Marxists will think that makes them straw complaints, ignorable because inaccurate. There are Marxists who do better. They will say Well, yes, there are. That's what Robin and I were trying to be to urge when we wrote on Orthodox Marxism, and what I have hypothesized is possible here too. But over the decades I have found that as an argument to attend to the whole heritage, even pointing to the best of it, falls short. Even pointing to the best of it falls short. Pointing to all of it, to the whole tradition, well, that is what can I say? Nonsense. So, going beyond the two main claims I have focused on thus far economism and class understanding if for some reason that I don't get they aren't enough to indicate a need for transcendence, here are eight claims succinctly put in favor of that conclusion.
Speaker 1:One Marxist talk about dialectics is a substantively empty, obstructionist drain on people's confidence, creativity and range of perception. It too often mostly makes people feel ignorant or even dumb. If you doubt that, okay, ask even a well-read Marxist what dialectics means and especially, ask what dialectics helps Marxists understand which, if he or she hasn't learned dialectics supposing there is even something there to learn they wouldn't understand. To put it bluntly, ask what makes dialectics other than useless and pointless rhetoric that only elevates its owners above those who fail to successfully borrow that same vocabulary from dead generations. Two historical materialism's claims have some validity, to be sure, but when real, existing people utilize the concepts of historical materialism, base is fundamental superst relations of gender, political, cultural and ecological origin and impact, not to mention the breadth of human emotions and motives.
Speaker 1:Historical materialism says there is reality, which is of course true. There is material reality, which is also true. We can't ignore material relations or do without economics. That's true. They impact us in everything, also true. But then it says we must a priori prioritize economics above all else, and that doesn't follow. And then it tacks on If you don't accept economic prioritization, then you don't believe in and attend to reality, and that is utter nonsense.
Speaker 1:3. Marxist class theory has obscured the importance of a class between labor and capital, has underappreciated that class's antagonisms in capitalist economies with the working class below and with capital above, has long obstructed class analysis of Soviet, eastern European and other post-capitalist economies and has especially obstructed understanding the failings of tactics, strategies and organizations that have consistently attained coordinatorism, rather than what most activists have sought. Coordinatorism rather than what most activists have sought Does what Marxism sheds revealing light on outweigh all that, so there is no need to correct the problems. 4. The Marxist labor theory of value, taking a brief foray into even more obscurity, ironically misunderstands its own subject the determination of wages, prices and profits in capitalist economies. More broadly and however unintentionally, it also tends to turn activist thoughts away from a needed social relations bargaining power view of capitalist exchange. It tends to direct its advocates away from seeing that the dynamics of workplaces are largely functions of the differential empowerment effects of work, of bargaining power and of forms of social control, rather than being solely functions of ownership relations. It tends to suggest that all workers will wind up earning the minimum wage they need to reproduce themselves, which is honestly ridiculous and reduces attention to why wages for different wage earners differ so markedly. So perhaps point four was not so obscure.
Speaker 1:Five Marxist crisis theory in virtually all its variants distorts understanding of capitalist economies and anti-capitalist prospects, by seeing intrinsic cataclysmic collapse as inevitable and even imminent where no such prospect exists, and by in that way orienting activists away from seeing the importance of their own sustained, vision-guided and ethically attuned organizing as a far more promising basis for desirable change. Six regarding visions of desirable societies, the Marxist tradition has been particularly obstructive of activist needs. First, there has been Marxism's general taboo against utopian speculation, which taboo manages to literally reject trying to conceive an institutional vision we could hope to and desire to attain. Second, marxist economism has presumed that if economic relations are made desirable, then other social relations will fall into place, making institutional visions for other than economy redundant and therefore, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly absent from Marxist texts. Third, marxism, even at its best, has been confused about what constitutes an equitable distribution of income, from each according to ability, to each according to need.
Speaker 1:However, nice sounding is not a viable economic guide, since for each of us to provide society according to our ability would mean we would each work as much as our ability allows, which is typically a whole lot more than it makes sense for us to each work. And likewise, for each of us to receive according to our need would either let us all have anything we say we need, a ridiculous impossibility. Or, if not, it would require that someone or something decides our needs for us. In the other case, would it reveal or respect information that indicates how much people want or need any particular thing, and not just what they do want, need a particular thing, and that would in turn prevent determining relative costs and benefits of different possible workplace choices? More, the norm that Marxists sometimes propose instead, from each according to personal choice and to each according to contribution to the social product, is not even a morally worthy maxim, since it rewards productivity, which includes genetic endowment, luck, access to better equipment and not just effort and sacrifice.
Speaker 1:And fourth, marxism approves hierarchical relations of production, that is, it approves a corporate division of labor for workplace organization and it approves central planning or even markets as a means of allocation. Because while Marxism recognizes the need to eliminate the causes of capitalist economic rule, it does not even recognize the existence of, much less the need to eliminate, the causes of coordinator economic rule 7. Taken cumulatively, marxism's injunctions regarding economic goals amount to advocating what we call a mode of production that elevates administrators, planners and all structurally empowered workers, collectively called coordinators, to ruling class status. The Marxist economic goal, then uses the label socialist for its aim to appeal to all other employees, that is, workers, that the Marxist proposed economy is the best they can hope for, but at the same time it structurally demolishes socialist ideals, just as the political goal of bourgeois movements uses the label democratic to rally support from diverse sectors, but structurally demolishes full democratic ideals. Eight, finally, if all that isn't enough and I would argue that each point is alone more than enough Leninism and Trotskyism are not gross deviations but natural outgrowths of Marxism as it is employed by actual people in actual capitalist societies. And Marxism-Leninism, far from being a theory and strategy of the working class, is instead, by its focus, concepts, values, methods and goals, and despite most of its advocates' desires, a theory and strategy for the coordinator class.
Speaker 1:Is this text awfully long for an article, and, I add, augmented with interjections, perhaps even for a podcast episode? Even if we remove all the interjections? It certainly is. My fingers and eyes hurt from typing and working over it, but please don't blame me for that. Blame the whole libraries of Marxist texts and the century plus of Marxist practice that have together included not only insights but also so many faults that we need to address. And so now, finally, really, here is the last, last point, to get a little personal about all this and to add a crucial caveat, since I, at the time and way earlier, believed all the above claims, albeit my reasons are presented only summarily here I had hoped that the demise of the patriarchal, nationalist, authoritarian, of the patriarchal, nationalist, authoritarian, ecologically suicidal Soviet system would have ended allegiance to Marxism and Marxism-Leninism taken as whole traditions, since those whole traditions aimed in their principles, concept, thought and vision, though not in the deepest aspirations of many of their advocates, at the Soviet model that they implemented.
Speaker 1:I interject, the related slogan Robin Honell coined about the demise of the Soviet Union was one down one to go. I like that too. The article continues. So what's the problem? Out with the model, out with the concepts and strategies that led to it. That makes sense, doesn't it? Well, yes, but and here comes the caveat only to a point when theories fail to sufficiently explain reality or to successfully guide sought practice, they certainly do need to be refined and corrected, or sometimes even jettisoned and replaced.
Speaker 1:And in the case of Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, the false disgust above, and also often critiqued by feminists, anti-racists, anarchists, councilists and even a great many Marxists, are demonstrably intrinsic to certain Marxist core concepts, so that correcting those concepts is not just modestly tinkering with the still intact intellectual framework, the tradition, but value. Marxism's constricted understanding of class, most of the heart of Leninist strategy, all the defining features of a coordinator-elevating economic vision and, finally, marxism's still insufficient attention to, and too often lack, of institutional aspirations for kin. Gender, sex, race, ethnic, political and ecological vision won't, whatever emerges, reject enough from the Marxist tradition to require us to also find a new name for a new tradition. Maybe, but maybe not. But I would suggest that either way, it is time, and actually that it is way past time, to get on with something new.
Speaker 1:My caveat, however, that I don't want to get lost in the critical shuffle, is that it is also true that when theories fail to sufficiently explain reality to guide needed practice, it does not fallow that we must jettison every claim they ever made, reject every concept they ever offered and dismiss every analysis they ever undertook. Quite the contrary, it is more likely that much will still be valid and can even be retained, though perhaps recast and reformulated more accessibly, in any new and better intellectual framework that does jettison the harmful stuff. In any new and better intellectual framework that does jettison the harmful stuff. So, in 2025, as crises abound and momentum for change grows, for activists to learn some things from past traditions can certainly help us, but we should recognize that to immerse ourselves in past traditions can also crowd out our need to explore and adopt essential new insights in place of flawed ones that we have heretofore, way too often and inflexibly borrowed from dead generations. And now, geez Louise, this is sure running on, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I have an addendum. It is that I hope to hear from those who agree with this podcast and the essay it is drawn from, and even more so from those who disagree with all, or even just with some of its many controversial sentiments, via the Znet Discord channel that was set up for conversation and debate and that you can reach from znetworkorg, or, even more so, via counter-articles, etc. If the claims offered here are immaterial, misled, nonsense, then it ought to be quite possible and even easy to demonstrate its countless inadequate, illogical assertions and magical leaps. If the claims are straw, fine. That should be easy to show as well. If the claims here are instead thoughtful and provocative, but still wrong, it may be harder, but still possible to show their flaws.
Speaker 1:The Discord, again, is linked from znetworkorg, or you can, of course, just append comments to the article on Znet or offer your own counter-article on another site, for example Jacobin, I hope, in other words, to provoke, engage in and learn from constructive debate. Indeed, I'd like to be able to do another episode on these topics which presents and reacts to concerns that you raise, questions you have and outrage you may feel about my words, this time around, and all that said, this is Michael Albert, finally signing off for Revolution Z. Until next time.