Marxism and the Continued Cold-War Rhetoric of the Right. . . . .

Am I the only one who is amazed by the Conservatives who condemn fairly mainstream centrists and mild leftists with epithets such as "Marxist" and "Communist" because they are vaguely critical of the extremes of neo-liberalsim and afraid of the implications of a Prime Minister who refuses to adhere to the rules of our constitution? Has the level of knowledge and discourse fallen this far, or are these just the ignorant wackos on the conservative end of the spectrum? I would like to opt for the explanation of ignorance because anyone who is twisted enough to know anything about Marxism and freely use the label to characterize Liberal Party bloggers is absolutely beyond the pale of regular political discussion.

This is not to imply that defining Marxism, for example, is an easy or uncontroversial matter. I spent years studying Marxism and still find the question to be a fairly thorny one. Some people emphasize the Sociological aspect of Marx's work, and I am somewhat sympathetic to this idea. Though he did not originate the idea, Marx was a very important promoter of the notion that people's personal a social behaviour is a result of their socio-economic context of their lives. This idea has permeated so deeply into our collective minds that it seems almost obvious today. The idea can be found to varying degrees in German and English philosophers before Marx, but his work on economics and class gave new power to the idea and it is now an inescapable part of our social and political consciousness. Even deeply conservative thinkers use such notions today.

Others emphasize the Economic aspect of Marx's work. I have never been fond of this approach for many reasons. I am fairly distrustful of the methodology of Economics for one thing. For another, it doesn't seem to me that Marx did much strictly 'economic' work. His economic ideas always seem inexorably intertwined to his politics and so, like many leftists, I don't think economics as a separate study really means much except in the way that capitalists use it to disguise the political implications of economic issues. (One could say a lot about this subject particularly in regard to the 'labour theory of value' and the notion of so-called 'surplus value,' as well as Marx's complex notion of 'Alienation.')

Some are more interested in the idea of Marx as a philosopher of history. This is indeed an interesting topic. Marx's notion of history as a motion pushed forward by conflict between social and economic classes is fascinating. I am putting this in very simple terms here because I obviously cannot discuss the complex issues of Hegelian dialects etc., but I think most people get the point. I think, whether they realize it or not, most people who are attracted to Marxian ideas are attracted to this aspect of his thinking. And as compelling as it can be, as time has gone by I lost my attachment to such a historicist notion for many reasons. Traditional rationalism has lost most of its appeal to me and this historical model seems to be a mental construct that we thrust onto historical events. History and the social order seem much more random and chaotic than this to me now.

And then there are, of course, more complex aspects of Marxist theory such as the philosophical outlooks of thinkers like Lois Althusser. We obviously cannot discuss these in this context because there is just too much to say and investigate.

Anyway, in the complex web of all of these notions of Marxism, not one of them would make any Liberal bloggers I have read, a Marxist. Because simply being influenced by the impact of Marx's thought on simple sociological analysis does not make one a Marxist. Surely to be considered a Marxist one must adhere to some degree to idea that history moves forward through class conflict, that the capitalist order is a historical phenomenon which is by no means "natural," that capitalist development leads to the possibility of a different, more cooperative social and economic order, that as a system of production capitalism begins to become a fetter on itself, that is to say at some point many aspects of Capitalist production will lose their promotion of efficiency and innovation. These are the kinds of things that make one, in any sense, a Marxist. However, the idea that one is a Marxist because one is critical of the arbitrary use of state power, the dangers of an anti-democratic tendency in our executive branch of government, etc is patently absurd. Even a commitment to a semi-socialist, mixed economy, does not make one a Marxist, or even a 'socialist' in any serious sense.

Ironically, many of those who carelessly throw labels like Marxist and Communist around as a political strategy, claim to be concerned with the power of the government and the so-called nanny-state. Of course, this is largely a fantasy. Modern right-wing governments actively overspend, consistently create larger state structures, and are fully in favour of legislating moral behaviour when it offends their particular sensibilities.


It is very unfortunate that many in this country continue to use to the inflammatory (and meaningless) discourse of the cold-war in attempting to marginalize anyone who believes in social democracy or is cautious of political groups that seem to have little regard for constitutionalism. The fact is that capitalism as it now exists is nothing like the innovative, free-market system that it was, say, a hundred and fifty years ago. Already, we have a profoundly regulated, partially socialized economy. And if a party in Canada actually ran on a strong 'capitalist' and socially right-wing agenda they would have significantly less of a chance to win than the NDP does today. The vast majority of people have accepted some 'socialism,' extensive regulation, and a progressive tax system. Thus to try to marginalize people as 'socialists' or 'Marxists' is not only usually factually wrong but deeply disingenuous.

German Ideology

I was recently reading Jerome McGann’s book Romantic Ideology and he opens it with a discussion which concentrates on the different notions of ideology outlined in Marx’s German Ideology. It prompted me to look at Marx’s book which I haven’t read in fifteen to twenty years. It surprised me how much my response has changed over time. I am not nearly so repelled by what Marx so spitefully refers to as German ideology and not nearly so convinced by his arguments. Now, to be honest, over the past twenty years I have come to realize just how biased and disrespectful Marx was in his attacks on anyone with whom he disagreed, and this has tainted my appreciation of Marx. The truth of the matter is that as much as I respect the contribution that Marx made to modern thought he was very much part of the traditional, macho driven political discourse of the West, which is highly patriarchal, combative, and often lacks discursive honesty. In fact, given Marx’s attitudes in his confrontation with the supporters of Bakunin, I think we can safely, and sadly, say that Marx would not be out of place in contemporary politics. Having said that, I don’t think my opinion about Marx the man is entirely responsible for my changing views of German Ideology. For a number of reasons I just don’t find Marx’s idea of materialist view of ideology very convincing any more.

The biggest problem, the way I have come to see it, is that even if Marx was right, he was still wrong. Let’s imagine that Marx was correct in his formulation that almost everything about how we see and understand the world is a kind of superstructural edifice built up upon the material conditions in which we live. If so, then ideologies are, in the simplest terms, ephemeral constructs that pass away as material conditions change. As William Jameson said in his remarkable book, The Political Unconscious, even Marxism itself is a passing ideology that interprets the world according to its historical time and place. Or as Althusser, one of Jameson’s mentors put it; Everything is Ideology. But if this is so, then our thoughts have no transcendent capabilities. The problem is that, in the end, this is not a very useful philosophy. It would be as though we had conclusively proven the case for determinism. But then what? If we learn that all our acts are determined by material conditions and there are no emergent properties to consciousness, what can we possibly do with this knowledge? It is, in essence, utterly useless information. Similarly, if Marx’s approach to ideology is correct, what usefulness could we generate from this supposed wisdom? It is just a kind of ultimate disenchantment of our psyche.
Now, keep in mind that I do not believe that one must necessarily adopt Marx’s notion of ideology in order to accept a number of his other important political and economic ideas. I think that, despite what one may think, you could, for example, accept the idea that history is a motion propelled forward by a dialectic of class conflict without adopting an entirely materialist conception of ideology. And I am certain that parts of Marx’s analysis of Capitalism make a lot of sense regardless of whether our consciousness is entirely historical or may partly consist of emergent properties. In the final analysis, I think that this dilemma, like the problem of determinism, is indeterminable anyway. I just don’t think that human reason, if such a thing really exists, is capable of solving such a problem.

In the end I find that I have begun to harbour a kind of instinctual objection to Marx’s notion of ideology. I am certain that we are, at least in part, prisoners of history. However, I can’t help but suspect that, at some level, we can access transcendental ideas, or at least transcendental feelings. The problem is that I think that these transcendental ideas are not necessarily accessible by processes of rational thought or discourse. And if this is so then we must look for other kinds of experiences in order to gain the greatest insights of humanity. Unfortunately Marxists, being children of the Enlightenment, are stuck in a rationalist paradigm and therefore give little credit to such Romantic ideas.

The breakdown of Marxism

I made a fairly comprehensive study of Marxism for many years and there is much that I appreciated and took from that study. In fact, it seems to me that there is an important degree to which we are all Marxists in important ways. Certain aspects of Marx’s thought have crept into our basic background beliefs about individuals and society. The idea that people are, in essential ways, products of socio-economic conditions is an idea that doesn’t seem radical to us today but is, in large part, a result of Marx’s philosophical endeavours. Marx’s ideas of history also have been very influential and even a thinker like Francis Fukuyama, a professed non-Marxist, could not have written his book on the end of history if not for Marx. In the 90s Jacques Derrida, one the most interesting and important philosophers of the 20th century, and by no means a Marxist in any traditional sense, wrote The Spectre of Marx, which was a panegyric to the importance of Marx in his own thought and in philosophy in general.

In Search for a Method, Jean-Paul Sartre argued that there exists, in society at large, only one living philosophy at any given time, and he further contends that Marxism is that living philosophy. But Search for a Method was written a long time ago now and even if Sartre’s claim about one living philosophy is true, it would be difficult to contend today that that living philosophy is Marxism. Certain fatal blows were rendered against Marxism in the past generation, not the least of which were Farwell to the Working-class by Andre Gorz, The Mirror of Production by Baudrillard, and The Accursed Share by Georges Bataille. The attack on Marxism, in the final analysis, came from many directions and many of the critiques were analytically devastating for a philosophy that seemed to pride itself on its analytic power. Bataille and Baudrillard, for example, both made remarkable demonstrations of the problems with making production the primary defining element of human endeavour. While their arguments are far too complex to review here, whether you agree or disagree with what they said, their work had a shattering impact on traditional Marxist notions. However, in the end, it was not any one particular critique of Marxism that undermined its status; rather it was a fundamental change in our ideas toward traditional rational critique in general that changed how we look this important philosophy. With the influence of Continental philosophy, many thinkers have abandoned any idea of meta-theories that explain the world with huge overarching ideas that attempt to impose an order on the world and its history. It was as a theory of history that Marx had originally gained a great deal of its power and it is precisely as a theory of history that more and more people abandoned Marx’s work. This failure was, I believe, already showing its first signs back in the twenties, and Gramsci’s work on Capitalist Hegemony is a noble attempt to shore up the cracks that were beginning to show. In the final analysis, the idea that history is driven by a continual conflict between classes whose ideology is formed by their place in a system of production was simply not believable to most people. But more than this, most philosophers in general have abandoned the idea that history has any demonstrable order or that our ideological beliefs have any primary source, least of all the system of economic production.


The biggest problem with the breakdown of Marxism is that we now live in a vacuum in which there is no clear way forward for radicals. Unfortunately, the forces of capitalism have taken the breakdown of Marxism as an opportunity to discredit practical goals of socialism which have often been, but are not necessarily, connected to Marxism as a philosophy. The real challenge now becomes finding a way out of the Capitalist trap which will eventually turn the earth and the human soul into wastelands of lifeless solitude. Marxism has now formed part of the background of general ideas, but we need certain fundamental ideas that can live in the foreground and that are more than the pure relativism that forms the backbone of so much of what passes for ‘post-modernism.’