MARX

An old pal from my high school debate team sent me this via facebook private messaging:

Ron - I wanted to talk to you privately about something that kinda disturbs me . . . and that's about communism/marxism. I'm not going to ask you what you are - because it's not my business - - and you're still my friend, regardless. But I see communism and naziism and islamism as being one in the same: a barbaric, genocidal movement. I wanted to know what your thoughts are on that. I know that people - in the name of Christianity - have committed some barbarous acts also - - but I don't consider them having followed true Christian doctrines. Christ never forced anyone to follow Him . . . He gave them free will to choose. . . and if they choose not "come to the free banquet" - then that's their chase and let them live free. I can't say the same for communism/naziism/islamism, etc. Again - I thought it'd be best to keep this discussion private. Your thoughts?

My response:

Here's what I am: a pragmatist with specific social and economic goals. It doesn't matter how we accomplish those goals, only that we accomplish them.

Having said that, there is a lot in the writings of Marx, and those he has influenced over the last one hundred fifty years or so, that is helpful in understanding how the dominant socioeconomic paradigm in the West for the last century actually functions, sans pro-capitalist propaganda. The thing you have to understand about Marx is that, in my own view, at least, his ideas fall into two categories. One category is about the nature of and how to establish what he thought was the ideal economic system, which is also a social system, communism. You know, forces of history, dictatorship of the proletariat, the withering of the state, etc. The other category consists of an extensive analysis and critique of capitalism.

While some of the ideas in the first category are interesting and possibly helpful, it's the latter category that really excites me. That is, humanity has yet to see Marx-style communism succeed on any large scale, and usually attempts to do so fall prey to power hungry barbarians who speak in a language of Marxism, but typically murder in various ways large numbers of the workers they claim to champion. Personally, I don't understand how one can fight for workers while killing them at the same time. So I'm very skeptical of communism functioning the way it's supposed to. It seems that once you start playing on a national level, once revolutionaries gain the state apparatus, power for its own sake becomes irresistible.

Of course, our democratic republic is also plagued by men who love power for its own sake, but there is a certain check placed on that by what sense of democracy exists here, as well as a battered Constitution which continues to have some teeth. Not perfect, by a long shot, but infinitely preferable to Soviet Socialism, or Chinese state capitalism, or the Khmer Rouge.

But that doesn't destroy Marx. Not at all. I mean, it does mean that his overall ideas about how society ought to function may very well be impossible in the real world, but some of those ideas, in themselves, aren't so bad. Workers having more control over their work, for instance. Regular ordinary people having more of a say in the decisions that affect their lives is good, too. Really, at their root, some of these ideas are, in fact, very democratic in essence, taking the notion of citizens running society into the sphere of work.

But that's all about the first category. Like I said, it's the second category that I love. If you read the Communist Manifesto, you may very well find a lot of notions with which you agree. It's been a while since I've read it, myself, but in it he both praises and condemns capitalism. Praise, for instance, of its ability to throw out tradition and start anew, capitalism's "creative destruction." Condemnation, for instance, of the same thing: destroying tradition can be good much of the time, but it can also throw people into the streets, make them hungry and desperate. Really, if I recall correctly, a lot of what Marx saw in capitalism in the mid nineteenth century continues to exist today. That is, his criticisms are spot on, and because the US long ago made a choice to demonize Marx, rather than intellectually engage with him, those very valid criticisms are simply not a part of the public discourse.

And that's too bad. We don't really talk in this country about capitalism's many failures, and this is a dangerous thing. What little discussion of the nature of capitalism there actually is consists, by and large, of praise and cheerleading. This includes Democrats as well as Republicans.

That's why I've been throwing around the communist rhetoric lately. I think American capitalism has reached an impasse. It appears to be sustaining itself, but it appears to not be sharing its bounty in the way it has in the past. People are starting to see this, I think, but, because Marx has been conflagrated with the human scum who have killed millions in his name, they simply do not have a language to articulate what's wrong. But the Cold War has been over for a couple of decades now. There is no international communist threat today. It's time to dust off the writings of the intellectual who literally wrote the book on what's wrong with capitalism. I mean, I can only talk about this stuff to the people I know, but it's really all I'm capable of doing. I can only hope that people start thinking, at least, about this stuff, and maybe start talking about it, too.

Because if we can't talk about what's wrong with capitalism, then we have no hope of repairing so that it once again serves society rather than sucking it dry as it appears to be doing today. Like I said, it's about the goals, not how we get there.

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