Oy vey! It's 10:30 PM here and I haven't done anything for Marxism Monday. I had originally planned to do a simplified outline of Marx's primary arguments from Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto, but I realized twenty minutes ago I hadn't done any of the prep work for that. So, let's just explore a couple basic ideas. Remember, kids, this is for those who are interested in Marxism, not already learned. So I'm assuming said hypothetical person maybe isn't too familiar with it. We'll be building from the ground up on this assumption. So, let's begin!
What is Marxism?
Marxism is a socio-economic political theory that examines societal relationships in the context of dialectical materialism (definition to come). It is most often associated with economics because of its drastically and fundamentally different economic paradigm made necessary by the explanation of social relationships within the system. It is named for Karl Marx (1818-1883) and was the base-line inspiration for the majority of socialist experiments on local and national scale for the greater part of the Twentieth Century.
Dialectical Materialism is a philosophical materialism based on the dialectic philosophy of George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), who posited that experiential truth and actualization of a manifestation of an ideal was arrived upon following a thesis + antithesis = synthesis model. An example is the development of a human's potential:
Thesis: potential + freedom
Antithesis: actual + bondage
Synthesis: actual + freedom
It's all rather complicated and could take up an entire blog, as volumes on Hegelian Dialectics have been written. Check out the wikipedia page on Hegelian Dialectics for more further exploration.
Anyway, understanding the structure of Hegelian Dialectics is important to understanding Marxian Dialectics (or dialectical materialism as we generally call it today). Marx accepted the Hegelian approach to dialectical history, but posited that it was not ideas that lurched humanity forward into different epochs but material concerns. He outlines this simply in the Communist Manifesto when he discusses the various groups of owner and slave classes through history: patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, capitalist and laborer. He says that classical economics met feudal economics, and when feudalism no longer provided for the greater amount of people, capitalism arose to take its place. Likewise, he theorizes, when capitalism no longer provides for the greater amount of people, socialism will take its place. And once socialism is no longer useful, communism will arise and create an ultimately classless society where materialist concerns are no longer governing.
To this end, Marxism posits several alterations to existing world class relationships, including economic democratization, democratic ownership of capital, the concept of world-wide revolution, and the end to capitalism-induced wage slavery. It's because of Marx's emphasis on economic relationships that Marxism is most-often viewed in purely economic terms, when it actually supports a radical redefinition of society to reflect the reorientation of economic relationships.
To further this idea, most national-level socialist experiments have initiated fundamental social reconstruction as one of their first post-revolutionary reforms. The Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Socialist Republic of Cuba, etc. have all set forth policies and programs to intentionally redirect the relationships between units within their societies. Venezuela is doing it now with the invigoration of their youth councils and labor boards.
While I apologize for the brevity of this entry, I'm hoping to expand upon individual ideas from here on out. Next week is an exploration of what Marx has to say about class relationships and how that translates into the Marxian concept of class warfare.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Saturday, December 28, 2013
What Is an Anarcho Capitalist?
Ask anyone on the left what they think of Anarcho Capitalism and they'll give you various responses. Generally, the response refers one to a picture of a neckbeard:
You know, the Fedora-wearing "nice guy" who also has a penchant for shitting on women's rights, minority rights, LGBTQ rights, and supporting an unrelentingly de-regulated free market. Oh, he also screams "statist" all the time as a pejorative insult but has a flag.
Wikipedia explains it like this:
Word salad complete. And this is all fine and dandy, but anybody who has ever read a distopian novel knows what this kind of society inevitably looks like to the average imagination. So the question becomes not what an Anarcho-Capitalist is according to his beliefs (trust me...it's not a his/her thing here), or what he looks like based on stereotyping and meme-generation, but what he looks like based on raw numbers and data. Luckily, we have that. So, what is an Anarcho-Capitalist?
A survey done on the /r/Anarcho_Capitalism subreddit provided some interesting numbers. The results can easily be looked at here in easy-to-read pie chart format. The information provided does not provide what the total estimated census size would be, but the sample size of 688 respondents is pretty good, considering the type of sample sizes informal polling tends to generate on the internet in general. The survey broke down demographic information according to age, gender, country of origin, occupation, religious affiliation, and how long one considered himself to be an Anarcho-Capitalist. The rest of the questions were divided between philosophical concerns, strategic concerns, and miscellaneous concerns (like, what your operating system is). Now that we understand the data set we're dealing with, let's start breaking things down.
First question: How old are you?
Possible responses ranged from 0 to 66+ in predictable groupings. I would list them all but an overwhelming 86% fall between the ages of 15 and 30 (592 total). That's just old enough to be flirting with political ideology and just young enough to not have too much responsibility. (For reference, only 94 respondents answered in the 27-30 range) So we're looking at young people, the vast majority of which fall within an eleven-year range of 15-26. These include a) high schoolers who are eager to rebel and find something "different" that marks them as "special", b) college-aged students who have successfully taken their first steps in academic political discussion and found something "radical" to latch onto, and c) graduate-level or post-finals undergrads who have entered the work force and are seeing the problems faced by the world and are seeking some kind of answer. This "c" group also includes people who have never been to college but nevertheless are working and having to bear some responsibility for their own livelihoods. The numbers here shouldn't really be surprising, as this is the prime age range for political activism. Nothing really to see here, then. But we can say that Anarcho-Capitalism does seem to have a certain appeal to youth activists.
Second question: What's your gender?
Possible results: Male, Female, Other. This is an immediate red flag as modern gender theory lists Male, Female, Transgendered, Queer, and Intersex as five distinctly separate, yet inter-related genders. This all-encompassing "Other" category belies a prejudice in favor of the gender binary. And should we be surprised? 97% of respondents said they were Male. Four responded with "Other". The data set lists this as 1%, but it works out to be only slightly more than one half of one percent. It's an infinitesimally small number. Given the stereotype of Anarcho-Capitalists giving absolutely zero fucks about LGBTQ concerns, it's no wonder that it would have attracted the attention and praise of only 4 out of the "other" category. The remaining bundle? 17 women. So a total of three percent of the respondents fit somewhere other than male. Three. Obviously something isn't appealing to a non-male demographic, and it's appealing less than the GOP's war on women.
Third question: Where do you live?
Possible results include a long list of European countries and a range of geographical regions. Of all the respondents, 88% live in the United States, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, or Canada, all countries with exceptionally high standards of living. That means just 12% of respondents live elsewhere in the world. I understand reddit probably is not available in every country in the world, but many of the places hardest hit by Austerity, de-regulation, and the collapse of global capitalism including Portugal, Spain, Greece, Hungary, and Ireland had between 1 and 2 respondents, tops. South America, a region with a long and less-than-pleasant history with Capitalism, had a combined total of 5 respondents, and Central America, another Capitalist Imperialist playground, had 2. What we are seeing here is a pattern developing of a young, privileged male that probably had a very easy upbringing. Let's see if this demographic pattern holds up.
Fourth question: What is your occupation?
The results here kind of start moving around. We don't see the huge accumulation in one demographic range as we saw before, but there is some definite skewing. Knowing what we know about the current age demographic and what Anarcho-Capitalists believe, we can pick out a certain range of categories:
Student
Part-time student
Self-employed
Employed, I don't work directly or indirectly for the government
Student and employed in the private sector
These are all occupations that fulfill the Anarcho-Capitalist "acceptability" matrix (ie, what an honest Anarcho-Capitalist should seek in terms of employment versus what he should reject as possible avenues of employment). Because we are dealing with young, privileged males, I left out "retired" or "unemployed", as it can be assumed that they are probably of college age or eager, bright young people who can easily find work. Now, let's look at how large of a sample fits this profile we have created.
doo doo doo....doing math...aaaaaaand.....82%. Does anybody see a pattern emerging here? We have an overwhelming majority showing up in education settings and favoring private-sector or self-employment. This creates a bubble in this part of the occupational bubble where they can positively-reinforce their own viewpoints by being surrounded by their peer groups that already agree with them. I'm pretty sure we are developing a pattern that is holding strong and will be validated further the more we dig. But, let's continue.
Fifth question: How long have you considered yourself an Anarcho-Capitalist?
"I don't consider myself an anarcho capitalist" garnered 10% of respondents. So 90% do, and so far, we have a demographic population that fits within that self-identification. The fact that 10% didn't consider themselves part of that demographic should be enough to pause and wonder if the overall demographic picture applies to the Anarcho-Capitalist. In any other setting, this would tend to be the case. But the fact that our demographic fits within the 90th percentile almost even-handedly gives you a greater reason to think that there is a correlation here rather than a false causal relationship. So, for the benefit of this particular question, we're going to be dealing with totals of self-identified Anarcho-Capitalists rather than total respondents. What we find isn't too surprising.
78% of self-identified Anarcho-Capitalists say they have considered themselves as such for less than five years. All the numbers skew heavily to the six-month to two years range anyway, but overall the numbers skew heavily downward, with few to none reporting in the categories above two years. Again, due to the age-ranges we're dealing with, this shouldn't be too surprising. But when you look at the age-range of all respondents and compare it to the length of time Anarcho-Capitalists have considered themselves such, you see a disturbingly high turnover rate. This is not an ideology with staying power, or else you should see it skew a little closer to the 5-10 year range, given that most appear to have been exposed to this ideology in high school. So, obviously, education is partly involved in one's acceptance of Anarcho-Capitalism, but it looks like continued education and/or real-world applicability provides education enough to show that Anarcho-Capitalism has deeply inherent flaws and make people jettison this ideology fairly early on, which doesn't give a lot of time for Anarcho-Capitalists to really develop their theories the way Marxists have been able to develop theoretical approaches and applications over the course of a lifetime.
The sixth question involves religion. I'll let you infer what you will based on the (largely confirmed) stereotype what 71% of respondents gave as a single answer to "Do you consider yourself religious?"
In summation, what we are dealing with when we encounter the Anarcho-Capitalist is a young, privileged male, principally between the ages of 15-26, who lives in the First World, has had some education, and has a predilection for private-sector or self-employment. This is the epitome of the "I am special" spoiled suburban demographic. The fact that the overwhelming majority of self-identified Anarcho-Capitalists have been such for less than five years, with a large majority of those only having considered themselves Anarcho-Capitalists for less than two years, means that there is something happening to the Anarcho-Capitalist the longer they try and defend the ideology and underlying philosophies or else apply them. Some transformative element is causing them to jettison the ideology at around the time they should be developing a mature understanding of it. By contrast, I have been a self-identified Marxist since I was 14. Twelve years later, I am writing a blog about a United Left. In the time I have been studying Marxism, I could have earned a bachelor's degree and four post-graduate degrees. Most Anarcho-Capitalists have not been studying their ideology long enough to even be close to finishing a bachelor's degree.
The final line is that when we on the Left accuse Anarcho-Capitalists of being petulant children, we aren't exactly being unfair. And to add insult to injury, consider the fact that they represent everything we seek to overthrow and you realize they are ultimately the enemy. In a hypothetical revolutionary situation (violent, of course) their guns will be aimed at us. So when we call them petulant children, we get to do so with our tongues sticking out because we have demographic proof that what we say isn't name calling; it's an observable fact.
Wikipedia explains it like this:
Anarcho-capitalism...is a political philosophy which advocates the elimination of the state in favor of individual sovereignty in a free market. In an anarcho-capitalist society, law enforcement, courts, and all other security services would be operated by privately funded competitors rather than centrally through compulsory taxation. Money, along with all other goods and services, would be privately and competitively provided in an open market. Therefore, personal and economic activities under anarcho-capitalism would be regulated by victim-based dispute resolution organizations under tort and contract law, rather than by statute through punishment and torture under political monopolies.
Word salad complete. And this is all fine and dandy, but anybody who has ever read a distopian novel knows what this kind of society inevitably looks like to the average imagination. So the question becomes not what an Anarcho-Capitalist is according to his beliefs (trust me...it's not a his/her thing here), or what he looks like based on stereotyping and meme-generation, but what he looks like based on raw numbers and data. Luckily, we have that. So, what is an Anarcho-Capitalist?
A survey done on the /r/Anarcho_Capitalism subreddit provided some interesting numbers. The results can easily be looked at here in easy-to-read pie chart format. The information provided does not provide what the total estimated census size would be, but the sample size of 688 respondents is pretty good, considering the type of sample sizes informal polling tends to generate on the internet in general. The survey broke down demographic information according to age, gender, country of origin, occupation, religious affiliation, and how long one considered himself to be an Anarcho-Capitalist. The rest of the questions were divided between philosophical concerns, strategic concerns, and miscellaneous concerns (like, what your operating system is). Now that we understand the data set we're dealing with, let's start breaking things down.
First question: How old are you?
Possible responses ranged from 0 to 66+ in predictable groupings. I would list them all but an overwhelming 86% fall between the ages of 15 and 30 (592 total). That's just old enough to be flirting with political ideology and just young enough to not have too much responsibility. (For reference, only 94 respondents answered in the 27-30 range) So we're looking at young people, the vast majority of which fall within an eleven-year range of 15-26. These include a) high schoolers who are eager to rebel and find something "different" that marks them as "special", b) college-aged students who have successfully taken their first steps in academic political discussion and found something "radical" to latch onto, and c) graduate-level or post-finals undergrads who have entered the work force and are seeing the problems faced by the world and are seeking some kind of answer. This "c" group also includes people who have never been to college but nevertheless are working and having to bear some responsibility for their own livelihoods. The numbers here shouldn't really be surprising, as this is the prime age range for political activism. Nothing really to see here, then. But we can say that Anarcho-Capitalism does seem to have a certain appeal to youth activists.
Second question: What's your gender?
Possible results: Male, Female, Other. This is an immediate red flag as modern gender theory lists Male, Female, Transgendered, Queer, and Intersex as five distinctly separate, yet inter-related genders. This all-encompassing "Other" category belies a prejudice in favor of the gender binary. And should we be surprised? 97% of respondents said they were Male. Four responded with "Other". The data set lists this as 1%, but it works out to be only slightly more than one half of one percent. It's an infinitesimally small number. Given the stereotype of Anarcho-Capitalists giving absolutely zero fucks about LGBTQ concerns, it's no wonder that it would have attracted the attention and praise of only 4 out of the "other" category. The remaining bundle? 17 women. So a total of three percent of the respondents fit somewhere other than male. Three. Obviously something isn't appealing to a non-male demographic, and it's appealing less than the GOP's war on women.
Third question: Where do you live?
Possible results include a long list of European countries and a range of geographical regions. Of all the respondents, 88% live in the United States, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, or Canada, all countries with exceptionally high standards of living. That means just 12% of respondents live elsewhere in the world. I understand reddit probably is not available in every country in the world, but many of the places hardest hit by Austerity, de-regulation, and the collapse of global capitalism including Portugal, Spain, Greece, Hungary, and Ireland had between 1 and 2 respondents, tops. South America, a region with a long and less-than-pleasant history with Capitalism, had a combined total of 5 respondents, and Central America, another Capitalist Imperialist playground, had 2. What we are seeing here is a pattern developing of a young, privileged male that probably had a very easy upbringing. Let's see if this demographic pattern holds up.
Fourth question: What is your occupation?
The results here kind of start moving around. We don't see the huge accumulation in one demographic range as we saw before, but there is some definite skewing. Knowing what we know about the current age demographic and what Anarcho-Capitalists believe, we can pick out a certain range of categories:
Student
Part-time student
Self-employed
Employed, I don't work directly or indirectly for the government
Student and employed in the private sector
These are all occupations that fulfill the Anarcho-Capitalist "acceptability" matrix (ie, what an honest Anarcho-Capitalist should seek in terms of employment versus what he should reject as possible avenues of employment). Because we are dealing with young, privileged males, I left out "retired" or "unemployed", as it can be assumed that they are probably of college age or eager, bright young people who can easily find work. Now, let's look at how large of a sample fits this profile we have created.
doo doo doo....doing math...aaaaaaand.....82%. Does anybody see a pattern emerging here? We have an overwhelming majority showing up in education settings and favoring private-sector or self-employment. This creates a bubble in this part of the occupational bubble where they can positively-reinforce their own viewpoints by being surrounded by their peer groups that already agree with them. I'm pretty sure we are developing a pattern that is holding strong and will be validated further the more we dig. But, let's continue.
Fifth question: How long have you considered yourself an Anarcho-Capitalist?
"I don't consider myself an anarcho capitalist" garnered 10% of respondents. So 90% do, and so far, we have a demographic population that fits within that self-identification. The fact that 10% didn't consider themselves part of that demographic should be enough to pause and wonder if the overall demographic picture applies to the Anarcho-Capitalist. In any other setting, this would tend to be the case. But the fact that our demographic fits within the 90th percentile almost even-handedly gives you a greater reason to think that there is a correlation here rather than a false causal relationship. So, for the benefit of this particular question, we're going to be dealing with totals of self-identified Anarcho-Capitalists rather than total respondents. What we find isn't too surprising.
78% of self-identified Anarcho-Capitalists say they have considered themselves as such for less than five years. All the numbers skew heavily to the six-month to two years range anyway, but overall the numbers skew heavily downward, with few to none reporting in the categories above two years. Again, due to the age-ranges we're dealing with, this shouldn't be too surprising. But when you look at the age-range of all respondents and compare it to the length of time Anarcho-Capitalists have considered themselves such, you see a disturbingly high turnover rate. This is not an ideology with staying power, or else you should see it skew a little closer to the 5-10 year range, given that most appear to have been exposed to this ideology in high school. So, obviously, education is partly involved in one's acceptance of Anarcho-Capitalism, but it looks like continued education and/or real-world applicability provides education enough to show that Anarcho-Capitalism has deeply inherent flaws and make people jettison this ideology fairly early on, which doesn't give a lot of time for Anarcho-Capitalists to really develop their theories the way Marxists have been able to develop theoretical approaches and applications over the course of a lifetime.
The sixth question involves religion. I'll let you infer what you will based on the (largely confirmed) stereotype what 71% of respondents gave as a single answer to "Do you consider yourself religious?"
In summation, what we are dealing with when we encounter the Anarcho-Capitalist is a young, privileged male, principally between the ages of 15-26, who lives in the First World, has had some education, and has a predilection for private-sector or self-employment. This is the epitome of the "I am special" spoiled suburban demographic. The fact that the overwhelming majority of self-identified Anarcho-Capitalists have been such for less than five years, with a large majority of those only having considered themselves Anarcho-Capitalists for less than two years, means that there is something happening to the Anarcho-Capitalist the longer they try and defend the ideology and underlying philosophies or else apply them. Some transformative element is causing them to jettison the ideology at around the time they should be developing a mature understanding of it. By contrast, I have been a self-identified Marxist since I was 14. Twelve years later, I am writing a blog about a United Left. In the time I have been studying Marxism, I could have earned a bachelor's degree and four post-graduate degrees. Most Anarcho-Capitalists have not been studying their ideology long enough to even be close to finishing a bachelor's degree.
The final line is that when we on the Left accuse Anarcho-Capitalists of being petulant children, we aren't exactly being unfair. And to add insult to injury, consider the fact that they represent everything we seek to overthrow and you realize they are ultimately the enemy. In a hypothetical revolutionary situation (violent, of course) their guns will be aimed at us. So when we call them petulant children, we get to do so with our tongues sticking out because we have demographic proof that what we say isn't name calling; it's an observable fact.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
On the Rehabilitation of Chairman Mao
I am ill-equipped to comment on the legacy of Chairman Mao Zedong, so for those who are really interested in a well-written, well-researched biographical review of his life and legacy, check out this writeup based on a speech by Carlos Martinez: Monster or Liberator? On the Legacy of Mao Zedong. I will, however, address a phenomenon that has led me to some interesting thoughts that may or may not be correct, but are nonetheless prescient for us as Marxists of the modern age.
Communism is a dirty word in the American political lingo. Just Google it. Or, let me do it for you: Obama is a Communist googlesearch. Also, I won't bother looking them up, but anyone who pays any attention to reddit, Facebook, any news aggregator, or Fox News directly knows that the Republican establishment routinely calls Obama a Communist. It matters little that he isn't a Communist, the term is pejorative enough for them to believe it to hold the same weight as calling someone a witch in 17th Century Puritan New England. There should be a trial. A conviction. An execution.
But at the same time, the New York Times, South China Morning Post, Deutsche Welles, and CNN are all reporting on the celebrations of Chairman Mao's 120th birthday (Happy Birthday, Chairman Mao!). And, strangely, while they cite the same tired statistics concerning his "mistakes...[including] the persecution and deaths of millions of people in political campaigns" (New York Times) and acknowledge that President Xi Jinping "conceded the founding father of the People's Republic of China made 'mistakes'" (Deutsche Welles), the attitudes in the pieces are all generally neutral. They certainly don't go on and on about all the good he did, but the vitriol that has historically been reserved for Communists and Communist leaders has evaporated from the press concerning Chairman Mao. The South China Morning Post posits two "different" positions that aren't really all that different.
Their "pro" Mao states the obvious, and something that has already been said by Carlos Martinez and President Xi, that the current economic growth would not have been possible without the Communist revolution and 1949 establishment of the People's Republic. Their "anti" Mao states another obvious truth: his praise should be weighted with an honest critique of his mistakes. But this draws me back to Martinez. Mao was unapologetic in his own admission of his mistakes. What I mean by that is that he did not try and cover up the fact that mistakes happened or were happening. He did not try to dampen the fallout. He freely and openly admitted that things had gone wrong, but balanced the facts with the truth: things for the greatest amount of people possible were getting better (Seek truth from facts!).
This is where it gets weird. I understand the historically hypocritical relationship the United States has had with Communism. We fought Chinese troops in the Korean and Vietnam wars. We politically isolated the regimes of Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh. Yet we openly engaged China politically, economically, socially, etc. We aided in the Sino-Soviet Split. Tito's Yugoslavia was a willing recipient of Western loans, including American aid, because he defied our eternal foe: the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. And we openly supported Nelson Mandela even as he spoke ardently about the destruction of Capitalism in South Africa. Of all of these figures, only two enjoy American praise today. Nelson Mandela (divorced of his association with the Left, of course) and Mao Zedong. Now, you are asking, why Mao Zedong?
China is one of our "friends". She represents a regional power that opposes our interests in East Asia, but at the same time, we enjoy a friendly political and economic relationship with the PRC. Americans have been allowed to create an anti-Communist narrative concerning China because we appreciate the "New" China that came about because of Deng Xiaoping. But now, as our relationship with "New" China sours, we have opened the door to discuss the rehabilitation of Mao Zedong. While no overt praise has come forth from Americans in general, CNN's and the Times' neutral assessment of his legacy is something to pay attention to. It legitimizes a revolution that we have had a strange and difficult history with. While "opening" China, Nixon was able to praise contemporary Chinese policy without praising what had come before it. As a politically strategic move against the Soviet Union, China was alright. Without the Soviet Union, a friendly relationship has remained, but the official narrative has continued to be that pre-Deng China was bad bad awful. And now it's not so bad.
Again, I can't really explain this. Foreign Policy Magazine has become critical of China because of their "air security zone" that extends over Japanese sovereign territory (claimed by China). Much of the US foreign apparatus seems to be raising some highly critical accusations concerning China's behavior. A lot of the American public is critical of the amount of American debt China currently holds. The majority of America's qualms with China are precisely the result of Post-Mao China. So as this attitude starts to creep through, what are the odds that America's hypocritical relationship with Communism will do an about face in regards to China? Is Mao, who urged his country to industrialize and become self-sufficient as a guard against Western Imperialism, is to be rehabilitated as the "friendly" China we once knew?
All I know is that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both admitted to having read Maoist theory in college. The degree to which they were influenced by it is up for debate, because they've never been forthcoming with how much they read, what they read specifically, or whether any of it really affected them. But I have to wonder if our country's current leadership isn't in some way sympathetic to Mao, and somehow giving the nod to China that they would rather deal with a Mao than a Xi?
Communism is a dirty word in the American political lingo. Just Google it. Or, let me do it for you: Obama is a Communist googlesearch. Also, I won't bother looking them up, but anyone who pays any attention to reddit, Facebook, any news aggregator, or Fox News directly knows that the Republican establishment routinely calls Obama a Communist. It matters little that he isn't a Communist, the term is pejorative enough for them to believe it to hold the same weight as calling someone a witch in 17th Century Puritan New England. There should be a trial. A conviction. An execution.
But at the same time, the New York Times, South China Morning Post, Deutsche Welles, and CNN are all reporting on the celebrations of Chairman Mao's 120th birthday (Happy Birthday, Chairman Mao!). And, strangely, while they cite the same tired statistics concerning his "mistakes...[including] the persecution and deaths of millions of people in political campaigns" (New York Times) and acknowledge that President Xi Jinping "conceded the founding father of the People's Republic of China made 'mistakes'" (Deutsche Welles), the attitudes in the pieces are all generally neutral. They certainly don't go on and on about all the good he did, but the vitriol that has historically been reserved for Communists and Communist leaders has evaporated from the press concerning Chairman Mao. The South China Morning Post posits two "different" positions that aren't really all that different.
Their "pro" Mao states the obvious, and something that has already been said by Carlos Martinez and President Xi, that the current economic growth would not have been possible without the Communist revolution and 1949 establishment of the People's Republic. Their "anti" Mao states another obvious truth: his praise should be weighted with an honest critique of his mistakes. But this draws me back to Martinez. Mao was unapologetic in his own admission of his mistakes. What I mean by that is that he did not try and cover up the fact that mistakes happened or were happening. He did not try to dampen the fallout. He freely and openly admitted that things had gone wrong, but balanced the facts with the truth: things for the greatest amount of people possible were getting better (Seek truth from facts!).
This is where it gets weird. I understand the historically hypocritical relationship the United States has had with Communism. We fought Chinese troops in the Korean and Vietnam wars. We politically isolated the regimes of Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh. Yet we openly engaged China politically, economically, socially, etc. We aided in the Sino-Soviet Split. Tito's Yugoslavia was a willing recipient of Western loans, including American aid, because he defied our eternal foe: the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. And we openly supported Nelson Mandela even as he spoke ardently about the destruction of Capitalism in South Africa. Of all of these figures, only two enjoy American praise today. Nelson Mandela (divorced of his association with the Left, of course) and Mao Zedong. Now, you are asking, why Mao Zedong?
China is one of our "friends". She represents a regional power that opposes our interests in East Asia, but at the same time, we enjoy a friendly political and economic relationship with the PRC. Americans have been allowed to create an anti-Communist narrative concerning China because we appreciate the "New" China that came about because of Deng Xiaoping. But now, as our relationship with "New" China sours, we have opened the door to discuss the rehabilitation of Mao Zedong. While no overt praise has come forth from Americans in general, CNN's and the Times' neutral assessment of his legacy is something to pay attention to. It legitimizes a revolution that we have had a strange and difficult history with. While "opening" China, Nixon was able to praise contemporary Chinese policy without praising what had come before it. As a politically strategic move against the Soviet Union, China was alright. Without the Soviet Union, a friendly relationship has remained, but the official narrative has continued to be that pre-Deng China was bad bad awful. And now it's not so bad.
Again, I can't really explain this. Foreign Policy Magazine has become critical of China because of their "air security zone" that extends over Japanese sovereign territory (claimed by China). Much of the US foreign apparatus seems to be raising some highly critical accusations concerning China's behavior. A lot of the American public is critical of the amount of American debt China currently holds. The majority of America's qualms with China are precisely the result of Post-Mao China. So as this attitude starts to creep through, what are the odds that America's hypocritical relationship with Communism will do an about face in regards to China? Is Mao, who urged his country to industrialize and become self-sufficient as a guard against Western Imperialism, is to be rehabilitated as the "friendly" China we once knew?
All I know is that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both admitted to having read Maoist theory in college. The degree to which they were influenced by it is up for debate, because they've never been forthcoming with how much they read, what they read specifically, or whether any of it really affected them. But I have to wonder if our country's current leadership isn't in some way sympathetic to Mao, and somehow giving the nod to China that they would rather deal with a Mao than a Xi?
Inaugural Address
This blog is the result of a series of discussions on Facebook concerning the rampant sectarianism of the radical left. I hope to encourage a discussion of a united left, what it means, what we have to do as revolutionary leftists, and what strategies we have to secure a pan-Left solidarity in the United States.
For an understanding of the problem, all you have to look at is any post on Facebook by a self-identified Socialist showing solidarity with a Communist or Communist group. The responses aren't in favor of solidarity. The responses question the dedication of the poster to Socialism. This problem is endemic on the Left and prevents us formulating any real, tangible solutions to the problems facing the American people. So the solution I am proposing is a broad, consensus-based, theoretical baseline to operate from, paired with evangelical approaches to anti-Capitalism, and coalition building among the disparate groups of the Left to build popular support for a revolutionary shift away from Capitalism.
To this end, it is my goal to illustrate various theorists on "Theoretical Thursdays" and compare and contrast them to other theorists. My ambition is to break down the arguments of an entire piece (if I can, I will do an entire body of work by a theorist) and pull out what is accepted across the board for the Left and anti-Capitalists in general, while simultaneously highlighting some aspects that may not be accepted across the board but are important to keep in mind or contemplate nonetheless.
"Fresh Fridays" will highlight theoretical contributions of myself and other Leftists I am in contact with or read. This feature will try to pinpoint the entrenched attitudes of many Leftists in theories that have become divorced from their historical/material context that aid in continued sectarianism while bridging the gap to modern theorists which satisfy current historical/material contexts of our present situations. The ultimate goal is to utilize "Fresh Fridays" as a means of illustrating a satisfactory, contemporary approach to dialectical materialism so we can leave historical sectarianism behind where it belongs and build a broad consensus of the now.
Our history as Leftists is important and we should learn about it and understand it. But what is rooted in the Russian Revolution of 1917 should stay rooted in that revolution. We should, however, tease out of Lenin and Trotsky what is universally applicable and retain it while shedding what was contextually unique to their specific experience. What is rooted in the Anarchist struggles of the Spanish Civil War should stay rooted in the Spanish Civil War. But, again, what is universally applicable should be retained. What is not universally applicable should be shed.
And, for basic Marxist theory for those who are new to the whole thing, there will be Marxism Mondays where basic Marxist theory is explored and presented.
I will begin regular posting this upcoming Monday December 30. I will spend the weekend writing up some outlines. Until then, Solidarity is the watchword!
For an understanding of the problem, all you have to look at is any post on Facebook by a self-identified Socialist showing solidarity with a Communist or Communist group. The responses aren't in favor of solidarity. The responses question the dedication of the poster to Socialism. This problem is endemic on the Left and prevents us formulating any real, tangible solutions to the problems facing the American people. So the solution I am proposing is a broad, consensus-based, theoretical baseline to operate from, paired with evangelical approaches to anti-Capitalism, and coalition building among the disparate groups of the Left to build popular support for a revolutionary shift away from Capitalism.
To this end, it is my goal to illustrate various theorists on "Theoretical Thursdays" and compare and contrast them to other theorists. My ambition is to break down the arguments of an entire piece (if I can, I will do an entire body of work by a theorist) and pull out what is accepted across the board for the Left and anti-Capitalists in general, while simultaneously highlighting some aspects that may not be accepted across the board but are important to keep in mind or contemplate nonetheless.
"Fresh Fridays" will highlight theoretical contributions of myself and other Leftists I am in contact with or read. This feature will try to pinpoint the entrenched attitudes of many Leftists in theories that have become divorced from their historical/material context that aid in continued sectarianism while bridging the gap to modern theorists which satisfy current historical/material contexts of our present situations. The ultimate goal is to utilize "Fresh Fridays" as a means of illustrating a satisfactory, contemporary approach to dialectical materialism so we can leave historical sectarianism behind where it belongs and build a broad consensus of the now.
Our history as Leftists is important and we should learn about it and understand it. But what is rooted in the Russian Revolution of 1917 should stay rooted in that revolution. We should, however, tease out of Lenin and Trotsky what is universally applicable and retain it while shedding what was contextually unique to their specific experience. What is rooted in the Anarchist struggles of the Spanish Civil War should stay rooted in the Spanish Civil War. But, again, what is universally applicable should be retained. What is not universally applicable should be shed.
And, for basic Marxist theory for those who are new to the whole thing, there will be Marxism Mondays where basic Marxist theory is explored and presented.
I will begin regular posting this upcoming Monday December 30. I will spend the weekend writing up some outlines. Until then, Solidarity is the watchword!
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