Tag: Karl Marx

Commentary: The Endurance of an Ideological Paradox

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Karl Marx / "How do you do, Fellow Kids" meme

I have written about the death and rebirth of socialism periodically over the years.  But as André Gide said in another context, “Toutes choses sont dites déjà, mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer”: everything has already been said, but since no one was listening, it is necessary to say it again.

Really, the socialist impulse is a hardy perennial.  How could something so frequently and thoroughly discredited persist in the hearts of men?  Some think it has something to do with the gullibility of the human animal, some (but I repeat myself) with the persistence of the utopian dream.  I suspect there are many explanations, of which the raw desire for power plays an unedifying but also underrated role.  I also favor the explanatory power of original sin, which has profound psychological as well as theological application to many of the more farcical aspects of human experience and what is more farcical than socialism?

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Commentary: It’s Time to Treat Communist Symbols Like the Swastika

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If someone were to ask you to think of either extreme of the political spectrum, odds are you would immediately picture a swastika at one end, and a hammer and sickle at the other. Regardless of your views of the left-right paradigm, or whether you subscribe to horseshoe theory or not, we (rightfully) tend to perceive fascism and communism as the standard ideologies of the extreme.

As such, many of us would also feel rather uneasy seeing those two symbols. Upon seeing a swastika, we are immediately reminded of the evils of the Nazi regime, and are accordingly repulsed. To publicly display the logo is even a crime in many European countries. We understand how abhorrent the ideology is, and treat it accordingly with disrespect and disgust.

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Commentary: The Origins and Destiny of Critical Theory

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Karl Marx once famously commented that Hegel wrote that history repeats itself. Marx then supplemented this by noting that this happens the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. And it is perhaps ironic that this is nowhere more true than among some of Marx’s own progeny, the critical theorists. Critical theory’s first coming was as a sophisticated reappropriation of Hegel for Marxist thought in response to the tragedies of the early 20th century — the Russian Revolution, the failure of the German Spartacist uprising, and the rise of Nazism and Stalinism. Its founding fathers were deeply immersed in the Western philosophical tradition and men of substantial intellect. Its second coming — that of our own day — is as the theoretical part of the farce that is postmodern identity politics, often in a form that feminist philosopher Kathleen Stock has declared to be “adolescently, simplistically monotonic.” From tragedy to farce, as Marx would say.

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Commentary: Karl Marx’s Gravest Miscalculation

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I recently had occasion to re-read Karl Marx’s seminal Communist Manifesto. It had been nearly twenty years since my first reading of the text in graduate school and I remembered little beyond class antagonisms, Marx’s materialism, and the exploitation of the proletariat. But the ongoing crisis in Venezuela led me to once again reflect on the Socialist and Communist Philosophy underneath the unfolding crisis.

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Political Economy Research Institute at MTSU Includes Conservative Philosophy to Balance Out the Left

Chris Butler

A new program at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro will balance out academia by introducing students to right-of-center political philosophers. Usually, academia consists of left-wing professors who despise capitalism. Their lectures and their required readings reflect that hatred. At MTSU, at least, Karl Marx and other left-wing philosophers will make room for other kinds of thinkers, such as Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, among others. No, it’s not April Fool’s Day. Just Google the Political Economy Research Institute at MTSU. This is real. And, as PERI Director Dan Smith told The Tennessee Star this week, it’s not about one political philosophy reigning supreme over another at a college campus. That’s not what academia, in theory, is about. Academia, Smith went on to say, is about balance. “This is about a well-rounded perspective. For a long time the academy has chased conservative professors or libertarian professors off the campus and there are small numbers, especially in some disciplines, completely unbalanced. This is a disservice, even to the people on the left,” Smith said. “Otherwise how are you going to learn to actually believe in your own ideas unless you’re actually confronted with the best ideas on the opposing side? You…

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Commentary: How Marx Got on the Wrong Side of History

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by Richard Ebeling   Those who speak about being on the “right side of history” have, knowingly or not, adopted a central element in Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism: the idea that the capitalist system follows a particular course of historical development that is open to scientific explanation and prediction, and which presumes to be placing humanity on a road that leads to a higher and better form of society – socialism. (See: “Marxists Are Not on the ‘Right Side of History’“). Karl Marx and Frederick Engel’s Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. The first volume of Marx’s three-volume, Das Kapital (Capital), was published in 1867 (the other two volumes were edited and published after Marx’s death in 1883 by Frederick Engels). Marx was convinced that those middle decades of the nineteenth century were the twilight years of the capitalistic epoch of industrialization. His writings make it clear that he believed that the socialist revolution was right around the corner in his own lifetime. From the perspective of 2017 – almost 170 years after The Communist Manifesto went to press – his view of the nineteenth century seems as nothing more than wishful thinking by an anti-capitalist revolutionary who wanted…

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Commentary: Marxists Are Not on the ‘Right Side of History’

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by Richard M. Ebeling   One of the most common phrases to be heard from “the left” is the assertion that someone or some public policy is or is not on “the right side of history.” It has almost become a mantra by those who disagree with, hate, or are fearful of ideas and policies proposed by those generally characterized as being politically on “the right.” The notion behind it is that “history” moves in a particular direction, toward some set of specific goals and societal forms, with each step in the historical process representing a “higher” and “better” stage or level than the preceding ones at which “society” has been operating. It is also captured in the popular labeling of those, again, on the political left as being “progressives” in their outlook and proposals for social reform and change. On the other hand, opponents are declared to be “reactionary,” “conservative,” or “deniers” of some facet of reality. Under the latter heading would be those who deny or challenge or question whether “climate change” is singularly or primarily or significantly man-made, or whether America still is or is becoming a more racist, misogynist, or generally anti-“social justice” hateful society. This…

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