“Are you a Marxist?” she asked me. “I… don’t know” I replied. Why the hesitation? What would I have said if I’d had the chance to think it over? Well, I guess I would have said “I’m a theorist”, or maybe given a less pretentious shrugging of the shoulders. As it turned out, she was SWP and it therefore, necessarily, a priori, followed that she immediately became far less interested in speaking to me. It struck me that I’d unwittingly walked into a den of reverse-McCarthyism. If you aren’t with us you’re against us. Exterminate all rational thought. Cake or death?
Of course, orthodoxy to a particular party line isn’t really that intimidating in the flesh – it just seems a bit childish and cliquey. It demonstrates either a self-limiting of thoughts based on emotional preference or, as is often the case with conservatives, a fully-fledged state of denial. It’s why I’ll probably never join a political party no matter how much I’m in favour of their particular policies. There’s too much of the ideological fuzziness. Calling the SWP a Marxist Party is surely just as much a mixing of philosophical jurisdictions as calling the Tories a Keynesist Party, or the Lib Dems a Millist Party?
That was a little misjudged comedic hyperbole for you there, my sumptuous imaginary reader, but I think you get where I’m coming from. Oh, you don’t? Well, allow me to continue. It’s my contention that Karl Marx was a theorist, not a politician. Where other theories of society begin with the sacred notion of the individual, Capital begins with the exchange of commodities. It’s a philosophical building-up from first principles as sound (if not moreso) as Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding or Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason – the arguments are even structured relatively similarly. The revolutionary point being that societies aren’t collections of individuals, individuals are formed by societies. Marxist argument, from these principles, can safely do away with epistemological speculations as the singular human understanding has little significance when we regard society as a whole. The point of all this, that which carries Marx beyond my conception of him as a philosopher into other’s conception of him as a politician, is the fact that the epistemological “what people think” is inherently ideological and must be seen as such.
Now this is where Marxism draws its strength, but where manifold variants of leftism fall flat. We see it when we argue that education is a right; art and culture are worthwhile for their own sake; the forests are what make our country great; the NHS is a wonderful tradition; bankers and MPs are crooked liars and cheats; libraries and post offices are pillars of the community; the police ought to be respectable. As lovely as these things are, these arguments are the same arguments used by reactionaries since time immemorial. The high, clear air of sweet-smelling, creamy old England. “But isn’t this just the language of politics?” you ask, my phantasmic friend. You’re very pretty you know, and may be right...
The right have stopped playing this game though. “Duty” and “honour” and all that bollocks have been steamrollered under the ideological imperative to privatise. It’s not just luck that it’s worked either. Try telling, as I have, some drunken old landlord that education is a right when it’s what “my ‘ard earned taxes done paid for” – he doesn’t give a shit about Milton. No, we must defend society through our superior thought. Privatisation will not improve the economy, it will damage it, and the reason they want it is that deregulation places power in the hands of owners over citizens. Their NHS plans will not only add to this evil “bureaucracy” that they pretend to hate so much, but will also be more expensive and less effective. The arguments are simple. The tories are wrong because they make no economic sense. Having an ideology of the free market does not equate to an understanding of economics – it actually hampers that understanding.
And in case there’s anyone left who really believes that politics is anything but economics, then I’d ask them to look to Egypt. If we fought a war in Iraq to bring “democracy” to the Middle East – costing us billions in cash and thousands of human lives – why are we so reticent to accept democracy when it’s given to us for free? The West does not believe in democracy, it avoids it at all costs. The West actively installs and supports dictators around the world whilst giving only the bare resemblance of power to people in its own countries. But then I’m anti-humanist, so it doesn’t matter much to me either way. The people must have the power because it is logical. All domination and exploitation is inherently self-contradictory and massively flawed. The highest ethical impulse is that against hypocrisy. If these thoughts are Marxist then call me a Marxist. If not then just call me “anarchist”, everyone else does…
Of course, orthodoxy to a particular party line isn’t really that intimidating in the flesh – it just seems a bit childish and cliquey. It demonstrates either a self-limiting of thoughts based on emotional preference or, as is often the case with conservatives, a fully-fledged state of denial. It’s why I’ll probably never join a political party no matter how much I’m in favour of their particular policies. There’s too much of the ideological fuzziness. Calling the SWP a Marxist Party is surely just as much a mixing of philosophical jurisdictions as calling the Tories a Keynesist Party, or the Lib Dems a Millist Party?
That was a little misjudged comedic hyperbole for you there, my sumptuous imaginary reader, but I think you get where I’m coming from. Oh, you don’t? Well, allow me to continue. It’s my contention that Karl Marx was a theorist, not a politician. Where other theories of society begin with the sacred notion of the individual, Capital begins with the exchange of commodities. It’s a philosophical building-up from first principles as sound (if not moreso) as Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding or Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason – the arguments are even structured relatively similarly. The revolutionary point being that societies aren’t collections of individuals, individuals are formed by societies. Marxist argument, from these principles, can safely do away with epistemological speculations as the singular human understanding has little significance when we regard society as a whole. The point of all this, that which carries Marx beyond my conception of him as a philosopher into other’s conception of him as a politician, is the fact that the epistemological “what people think” is inherently ideological and must be seen as such.
Now this is where Marxism draws its strength, but where manifold variants of leftism fall flat. We see it when we argue that education is a right; art and culture are worthwhile for their own sake; the forests are what make our country great; the NHS is a wonderful tradition; bankers and MPs are crooked liars and cheats; libraries and post offices are pillars of the community; the police ought to be respectable. As lovely as these things are, these arguments are the same arguments used by reactionaries since time immemorial. The high, clear air of sweet-smelling, creamy old England. “But isn’t this just the language of politics?” you ask, my phantasmic friend. You’re very pretty you know, and may be right...
The right have stopped playing this game though. “Duty” and “honour” and all that bollocks have been steamrollered under the ideological imperative to privatise. It’s not just luck that it’s worked either. Try telling, as I have, some drunken old landlord that education is a right when it’s what “my ‘ard earned taxes done paid for” – he doesn’t give a shit about Milton. No, we must defend society through our superior thought. Privatisation will not improve the economy, it will damage it, and the reason they want it is that deregulation places power in the hands of owners over citizens. Their NHS plans will not only add to this evil “bureaucracy” that they pretend to hate so much, but will also be more expensive and less effective. The arguments are simple. The tories are wrong because they make no economic sense. Having an ideology of the free market does not equate to an understanding of economics – it actually hampers that understanding.
And in case there’s anyone left who really believes that politics is anything but economics, then I’d ask them to look to Egypt. If we fought a war in Iraq to bring “democracy” to the Middle East – costing us billions in cash and thousands of human lives – why are we so reticent to accept democracy when it’s given to us for free? The West does not believe in democracy, it avoids it at all costs. The West actively installs and supports dictators around the world whilst giving only the bare resemblance of power to people in its own countries. But then I’m anti-humanist, so it doesn’t matter much to me either way. The people must have the power because it is logical. All domination and exploitation is inherently self-contradictory and massively flawed. The highest ethical impulse is that against hypocrisy. If these thoughts are Marxist then call me a Marxist. If not then just call me “anarchist”, everyone else does…
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