FACEBOOK DEBATES
COMMUNISM AS PSYCH-OUT

Here's what I posted to start the fun:

From the last page of David Harvey's 2010 book The Enigma of Capital:

"Communists, Marx and Engels averred in their original conception laid out in The Communist Manifesto, have no political party. They simply constitute themselves at all times and in all places as those who understand the limits, failings, and destructive tendencies of the capitalist order, as well as the innumerable ideological masks and false legitimations that capitalists and their apologists (particularly in the media) produce in order to perpetuate their singular class power. Communists are all those who work incessantly to produce a different future to that which capitalism portends. This is an interesting definition. While traditional institutionalised communism is as good as dead and buried, there are by this definition millions of defacto communists active among us, willing to act upon their understandings, ready to creatively pursue anti-capitalist imperatives. If, as the alternative globalisation movement of the late 1990s declared 'another world is possible', then why not also say 'another communism is possible'? The current circumstances of capitalist development demand something of this sort, if fundamental change is to be achieved."

I started the comment thread myself, but others soon came out to play--it is important to note that my buddy Alden is an actual socialist, and my buddy Stephen is a self-identified Tea party conservative.

Ronald Personally, I think the left should dust off the old school term "communist" because it really gets pro-establishment types nervous and off their game. I mean, it's one thing to argue with a liberal or progressive, quite another to argue with a freaking COMMUNIST!!!! Power to the people, comrades.

Michael That might be fun.

Stephen But Ron, one doesn't even have to argue with a communist. The dead, numbered well into nine figures, have already done so, and further argument is superfluous. The communist legacy is misery, and though misery loves company, company loathes misery.

Alden well, you've already contradicted yourself, stephen. or perhaps exaggerated just how superfluous such an argument might be.

Stephen Well, aren't you clever. No, there's a huge difference between hearing a case and dismissing it.

Alden you haven't made much of a case, and unless you're willing to count capitalism's dead using the same rubric, there isn't much point in continuing. (but then, i think that's generally the case for Facebook debates.)

Stephen Again, you have misunderstood. I don't have to make a case: communism is already universally discredited.

Alden and yet you persist in this thread. i guess we're both just, what? procrastinating?

Stephen Ha! Touché. (Though technically, I'm not arguing against communism. I don't have to: that ship has sailed. I'm arguing against rehashing the argument.)

Ronald Alden, Stephen, thank you for illustrating my point perfectly!

Stephen What was your point, Ron? If it was that communism isn't really the Nehru jacket of ideologies, then all I can do is shake my head. Well, no, I can do more than that, but that's what I'll do first.

Victoria Ron, it was highly amusing to find this thread at the very late end of my day today...just finished a marathon homework session with my kids, one of whom is writing a literary analysis of Catcher in the Rye...and I talked her through the process of analyzing it using Marxist theories...pulled a copy of the Communist Manifesto off the shelf to assist with concepts and quotes...It's been a lot of fun to find all of the threads and connections between the two pieces.

Ronald The point, Stephen, is that there is an entire body of literature out there, going on one hundred fifty years worth of contributions, that is so persuasive that, at one point, nearly half of humanity subscribed to those ideas in various ways. And even the people who didn't like Marx in the original had to deal with those ideas, even grudgingly implementing them from time to time, and, really, we're still dealing with them today, whether we realize it or not. Unfortunately, after a century of anti-communist propaganda, most Americans are woefully unaware of the Marxist discourse, and don't know how to effectively argue against it. When I throw a little Marx into a serious discussion about economics, I usually encounter sputtering and dismissal, without any real response--you know, "Well, communism just doesn't work!" or "Communism kills people!". Americans, most of them anyway, really don't know what to say to the elementary truism that the rich exploit the poor. That's because Americans just don't KNOW Marx, even though they're certain they do.

Stephen ‎"...so persuasive that, at one point, nearly half of humanity subscribed to those ideas..." -- at gunpoint. Those who disagreed were sent to the most noteworthy of communism's contributions to our vocabulary -- gulag, laogai, re-education camps -- or just outright killed, more than one hundred million of them. There is no benefit derived from communism to any portion of mankind to which you can point that can justify that. And only the morally bereft even try. Got that? Morally bereft.

Ronald Right, Stephen. You just continue to illustrate my point. I'm not talking about the people under regimes which described themselves as "communist." I'm talking about labor unions, social democracies, academics, rank-and-file workers in democracies, and regular ordinary people like me who have actually read some Marx and writers influenced by him. Indeed, Marx is one of, if not the, most quoted source in all printed literature after the Bible. We see his influence in Social Security, in the Wagner Act, in the American Civil Rights Movement, and on and on and on.

Being a student of anti-communist propaganda, rather than a student of Marx, you're not taking any of this into account. Instead you just jump into pre-programmed "communism bad" statements, taking the absolute worst examples of regimes that got a lot of mileage out of calling themselves "communist" but without bearing any resemblance to what Marx actually wrote: I'm sure you realize that thousands of Marxists declared the Russian revolution over when it was clear that the Bolsheviks were taking control.

Ronald MORE: I also hope you understand that Marx's writings were twofold. That is, a great deal of his writing, and the writing of others who have followed in the tradition he established, is a massive critique of capitalism--the other stuff is about establishing a fair and just economic system. I'm not going to in any way defend his economic prescriptions; I'll leave that to comrade Alden, but I will defend to the death his critique of capitalism, which is just about as accurate today as it was in the mid nineteenth century. I'm assuming you're unfamiliar with Marx's good stuff, but I'm pretty certain that criticism never killed anybody at all.

Not much more to say after that, although I can't wait to hear how Stephen replies, and I'm sure he will because he never backs down from a political argument. But I do think he performed here exactly the way I figured he would. I mean, it's totally fair, of course, desirable even, to criticize the violent regimes that have self-identified as "communist" over the decades, but Marxism is just as much of an academic discourse as it is an ideology or style of government or economics. Most Americans, particularly conservative Americans, are just unable to engage in that discourse, believing, in accordance with decades of relentless anti-communist propaganda, that anything even remotely related to Marx is tantamount to evil. In that way, they're kind of like fundamentalist Christians.

You know, that last sentence kind of sums it all up: resistance to even a fair discussion about Marxist ideas is tantamount to fundamentalism. 'Nuff said.

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