☭
Actually, the authors of this are professors from that university, lmao.
They were even given some grants and awards.
Arxiv and similar services are mostly used in actual academic circles to publish pre-prints or just to get articles out there while they’re still being reviewed by actual journals, so it’s possible that this will be published in a journal at some point.
I mean, at this point, you’re just saying he didn’t answer it the way you would have answered it and that you think there’s a correct answer and that he failed you personally.
I’m not saying anything of the sort. I’m analyzing his answer in the context of the interview and the geopolitical situation today.
it was not incorrect
It was arguably off topic and not really an answer to the specific question. The whole interview is about the particular situation today, not an abstract multipolarity. Socialism is present today, especially with China which is leading the bloc of countries struggling against US hegemony.
The logical inference we can draw from Becker’s response is that more must be done to secure the revolution
The question was whether loss of US hegemony today is good, and his answer does not lead to this conclusion. What you’ve said in the rest of your comment is correct, but it cannot be inferred just from Becker’s answer as it stops short of giving an actual judgement on the loss of hegemony in question. He talks about multipolarity in abstract and not the particular multipolary we’re getting where socialist China is one of the poles.
If his takes otherwise are good, then great. Same goes for the PSL. I’m just critiquing his answer here which seems contradictory to the rest of the interview.
I agree that the question is problematic, but he doesn’t challenge it. He answers as if the assumption of an abstract multipolarity is valid. I think he should’ve answered concretely, in accordance with today’s material reality.
Again, I don’t care about Shea, I’m not defending him, and I don’t care what he’s saying. I’m commenting on the interview in question.
I don’t take anything Shea says at face value. I’ve listened to the part of the interview in question and find Becker’s answers to be weird and contradictory. As I’ve explained in another comment, he answers the question “is it good that unipolarity has been challenged?” and his answer is in essence no because it seems like he just argues against some multipolarity in general without considering the material reality of today’s world split into the west and the rest (with China on top). His answer implies that today’s multipolarity is like that of pre-WW1 which is in contradiction with his stance in general.
There’s a growing right wing opposition to NATO
But that’s not actual opposition to NATO or US wars in general. They are just opposing what the democrats are currently doing until they get elected again. These people very much want and are working towards US hegemony and open war with China, not just this proxy war against Russia. They do not want multipolarity and their appeals to Putin don’t really mean anything. They’re just part of a larger effort to be as contrarian as possible to the current democrat positions in public, while actually pursuing largely the same foreign policy as the democrats. There’s also the factor of Trump “being friends” or whatever with Putin which is nonsense, but the republicans seem to like spreading that, if nothing else, just to piss off the democrats.
this puts Democrats in a dangerous and weakened position.
I don’t really care what kind of position the democrats are in and neither should you. Both parties have the same imperialist and hegemonic policy and serve military-industrial, and other large corporation’s shareholders’ interests. The dems are not better than the republicans, and the US elections don’t really decide anything. No one in the US should be allying with democrats (or republicans or relying on elections) and expecting achieve any sort of meaningful anti-imperialist changes.
I’d be interested to see what instances you’re referring to in terms of the SU and China allying with other imperialist forces.
I’m not talking about the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, that wasn’t an act of allyship. I’m talking about the larger picture of WW2 in general. The USSR, along with the UK and US fought the Nazis in Europe, and the communists in China formed temporary alliances with capitalist/feudalist forces which were funded by US imperialists to fight against Japan.
expecting Putin to liberate us from NATO
Again, my point is that no one is actually expecting this. Maybe a few fringe voices, but its far from a real position taken by people.
He asks the question "How can we make radical change in America by saying ‘Vladimir Putin is our leader?’, which is a very salient point. He goes on to say that we should strive for socialist leadership in all of our countries. What is so off about that? Seriously?
Nothing is wrong with that in general, but who is he saying it to? Who are these people that only want multipolarity and simp for Putin? His call for socialism is good, but ignores the material reality of today’s world in which new socialist construction is not possible without first the decline of US hegemony.
I don’t like Shea and think he’s quite problematic, but your comment about what Kim is saying is, I think, not a good portrayal.
but just thinking about it for like 20 seconds, this obviously wouldn’t mean supporting reactionary states against the US for the pure sake of it. Would Kim il Sung have supported Hitler? Obviously not.
The USSR and China did ally with other capitalist and imperialist forces against Japan and Germany in WW2. And today’s world is largely split into two camps - the US and China. Critical support given to Russia (which while being reactionary still currently plays a progressive role globally in the struggle against US hegemony and is allied to the world’s socialist countries, though only out of necessity) is not the same as “supporting Hitler”. Putin and Russia today are not equivalent to Hitler and Nazi Germany.
As Losurdo puts it:
we can speak of a struggle against a new colonial counter-revolution. We can speak of a struggle between the imperialist and colonialist powers — principally the United States — on the one side, and on the other we have China and the third world. Russia is an integral part of this greater third world, because it was in danger of becoming a colony of the West.
I mean, he is still kind of saying that, no? He answers the question “is it good that unipolarity has been challenged?” and his answer is in essence no because it just seems like he argues against some multipolarity in general without considering the material reality of today’s world split into the west and the rest (with China on top). His answer implies that today’s multipolarity is like that of pre-WW1 which is in contradiction with his stance in general.
Multipolarity is coming simply as a part of the historical process of our development - just like feudalism emerged, then capitalism, then imperialism, etc. Empires also come and go and in their wake other countries rise - we have seen this numerous times throughout history. Yet it seems like these socialist anti-multipolarity people think we can stop these processes just by the actions of a few individuals or small groups. Not to mention the straw man argument presented where we apparently just want multipolar capitalism as an end goal and nothing else. Yes, all of us would prefer if every state just turned socialist right away, but that is not physically possible. We have to work with what we are given, and currently that’s multipolarity.
Thank you for the kind words, comrade!
Not to mention that the blackshirts and brownshirts of Europe were inspired by the KKK and similar groups in the Southern US.
Maybe a combination of something like the importance placed on forms while neglecting substance, and something like this:
The problem here, in short, is elitism. Unchecked, presumed to have been neutralized in some way by the adoption of a counter-cultural ethos, it festers. The way to solve it, however, is not to shy away from studying or exposing bourgeois propaganda, but to delve even deeper and radicalize our understanding of it.
I think an important distinction to make here is that between the directly oppressed who might just in the earlier stages of class consciousness and class struggle sort of replicate the form through which they are oppressed, and those who are part of the privileged groups but claim to support anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, etc.
I would also say that due to their often more privileged position, these types, due to their remaining idealism tend to think they have all the answers, and that they know better than others. A sort of western chauvinism which takes its own answers to be the absolutely correct everywhere else. Just because they proclaim, or maybe even truly believe in these causes, they cannot look past their own chauvinism and continue to absolutize their point of view.
Losurdo describes chauvinism, in regards to nationalism and internationalism, but I think his formulation can be extrapolated onto other forms of chauvinism as well:
The repression of national particularities in the name of an abstract ‘internationalism’ facilitates things for a nation intent presenting itself as the embodiment of the universal; and this is precisely what chauvinism—in fact, the most fanatical chauvinism—consists in.
Losurdo also ventures into an analysis of similar phenomena to what you describe and characterizes them as populism which stems from a reductive reading of the theory of class struggle (among other things) which limits it to just oppressed vs oppressor, and tends to lead to putting the oppressed identity on a pedestal without much analysis. He deals with it in chapter 13 of Class Struggle if you want to read it all, which I definitely recommend.
This is a further expression of populism: moral excellence lies with the oppressed who rebel and those who offer help to the oppressed and rebels. But once they have won power, the latter cease to be oppressed and rebels and forfeit their moral excellence. And the one who, by virtue of aiding them, basks in their moral excellence also finds himself in serious difficulties. This is a dialectic already analysed by Hegel in connection with the Christian commandment to aid the poor, which manifestly assumes the permanence of poverty.
Thank you!
there isn’t a great way to measure it
I agree, the answer is far from clear, and it heavily depends on which particular situations are being analyzed and by which metrics.
I also agree about the nature of the debate, but I can see it possibly stemming from the efforts to agitate and organize workers in the European cities, especially at the time and with the conditions being described as worse for the proletariat. This is a useful lens through which to view many of these Marxist texts - they were made in an effort to solve particular questions and practical problems raised at the time, but they still do contain general theory which we can apply to our situations.
I’ll have to add that book to my reading list!
As regards Losurdo, I have nothing but praise for his writing. Class Struggle deals most closely with Marxist theory and is very illuminating in that respect, but all of his works on various aspects of the history of philosophy are excellent! I would say he is by far the best authority when it comes to the various philosophies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The only problem is that not all of his works have been translated to English, but the number is growing.
If I were to hazard a guess, that would be one of the reasons why the Settler States of Amerika managed to both pass and maintain so many explicitly racist laws
Yes, it’s a factor for sure. Another is the fact that the US was from the start designed to be a racial state, and with the genocide of the natives and the stealing of the land, the enslavement of black people, and a constant influx of white settlers from Europe who were allowed to participate in the “white democracy” at least partially, the racial lines were firmly established and persisted even long after the military defeat of the Southern states in the civil war. Similar racial states were also South Africa and Rhodesia, for example, which also managed to keep their racial regimes longer than most other former colonial states.
This article also provides an eye-opening view into the various financial practices used by western capitalists to exploit entire countries.
If that’s the case, then my point the he has the wrong syllogism still stands
I’m not arguing that the OP’s syllogism is perfectly constructed, I’m arguing against your critique of it because I don’t think it’s valid either.
Well, that’s debatable but it’s not the subject here. Consciousness being a part of material reality is more of a belief than a fact
This is plain Idealism, and it’s something that’s demonstrably, scientifically false. We as Marxists are dialectical materialist and reject Idealist interpretations of reality. That is the broader problem in your comment, which probably I should have stated directly in my first reply. Your base assumptions here lead you to argue from and for an idealist position which is not compatible with Marxism, and in many cases in general goes counter to reality.
whatever the answer is I think it’s totally irrelevant to the way we live and it’s just mental masturbation
This is also false. The philosophy we take as the basis of our entire worldview has large effects on how we live our lives, especially with regard to political theory and practice. This is the whole point of Marxism and the scientific communist movement. It’s the basis on which Marxism is uniquely differentiated from other political ideologies like Liberalism or Anarchism, and it’s the reason for it’s wide success both in theory and practice.
just the same way we placed white men above women and black people for a very long time
The reasons we did, and still do, these things are material and primarily stem from our material conditions in various historical situations. The reasons these are improving are because the oppressed classes are gaining ground through class struggle. The material reality is changing which is affecting the way our ideology changes, not the other way around. Societies don’t become less racist or sexist because they just decide it’s morally wrong, changes in the material conditions improve the social and economic standing of these groups which in turn enables the societal changes in what’s considered moral. This is achieved by the political struggle of these and related groups.
let’s not forget that we humans are emotional creatures first It’s no coincidence if every propaganda (even Marxist one) relies on emotional and not rational appeal
I would not agree that we are emotional creatures first, as that view disregards the material basis of our emotions. Our emotions are not disconnected from our material reality and we are not as irrational as you suppose. We are complex social beings and a multiplicity of factors go into forming our ideologies, however, the material conditions play a large and primary role, as is taught by Marxist theory, and demonstrated in Marxist practice. People do come to Marxism for moral reasons, but successful practice which results in long term material gain for the oppressed classes comes from a dialectical materialist understanding and analysis of concrete historical situations. The basis and substance of our movements is material, we don’t preach morality and focus on choices of individuals. Marxist propaganda, even if it incorporates emotional appeals, is still grounded in material analysis and is expressed as such.
the number of people who will be concerned for moral reasons by the exploitation of animals will grow exponentially
You cannot know what will happen in the future, especially once a communist society is achieved. In any case, this is not an argument that can affect our current reality.
since there is no material reason to support it
This is also patently not true, people that eat meat benefit from eating it, similarly how even the poor proletarians in the West still do benefit from the imperialism conducted by their countries. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, especially environmentally, our current modes of animal farming are unsustainable and destructive and need to be radically changed, but there are reasons that most people today still eat meat. No real change will come about from preaching to consumers about their individual choices, especially in the current system. We do benefit from exploiting animals as we receive food and other products fairly cheaply and abundantly, not to mention the economic benefits of the bourgeoisie which owns the meat industry. To effectively challenge and change this, we should focus on the production side with a concrete materialist analysis, and not form our strategy around the moral condemnation or praise of individual consumer choices. There is nothing wrong with being vegan for moral reasons, but it alone doesn’t inform practice and offer concrete practical solution to the problem of capitalist animal industry.
Nowadays, for example, we largely condemn antisemitism and have laws in place against it, however that wasn’t the case throughout even much of the 20th century. The USSR, at the time of its foundation, was the first country to effectively challenge antisemitism and its practices which were common throughout Europe at the time. Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders made many speeches condemning it and educating the population, in addition with enacting laws against it. Their arguments were focused on the material basis of antisemitism, its roots and effects. The change in attitude in large sections of the entire Western population, not just that of the USSR, was ultimately the result of concrete policies and laws, and the spread of education to counter the material realities of antisemitism which was primarily done in the socialist world, but spread to the capitalist West in certain ways. Similar things happened with many other social aspects we now take for granted. With the current decline of material conditions in the West we see a resurgence of antisemitism, and especially sinophobia, which is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. The point is that it is very difficult, if not impossible to change peoples’ positions on issues which align with their material interests with moral arguments alone.
Well, calling that chauvinistic is needlessly aggressive, especially in the abscence of any kind of argumentation.
It’s not aggressive, I’m not calling it chauvinistic as a personal attack against you, it’s just my critique of your statement with, in fact, argumentation provided. Equating the positions of oppressed human groups with our treatment of animals and subsequently preaching, on equal ground, that all are absolutely bad is the definition of chauvinism, especially when those human groups are still oppressed with disastrous consequences in many situations. In my view this is sort of similar to the “all lives matter” arguments. Expanding on the argument - taking our western views and morality (which is largely influenced by our privileged material position in the world) and supposing that it’s the clearly correct solution everywhere and that everyone should abide by our standards is by definition chauvinistic. A widespread example are the excuses provided for the “human-rights” imperialism perpetrated by the West all over the world. Socialists are, of course, not a priori removed from this, as evidenced by conflicts between socialist states and the chauvinistic views taken in such cases by the stronger socialist powers in relation to the weaker ones, informed by national interests while ignoring the specificity of each country’s conditions. This again highlights the weakness and small scope by which the moral arguments against any such position are limited. If we instead use material analysis of concrete situations in their proper context, we can identify problems particular only to specific situations and find local solution to them. A one size fits all solution is not the answer, as demonstrated, for example, by the differences in socialist construction in different countries around the world.
There were some forms of slaves getting their freedom individually though
Certainly, but I don’t think these played nearly as much of a role as class struggle and legal abolishment of slavery, even if the condition of recently freed slaves was on average hardly better than while they were slaves. In the US especially, they were still barred from owning property and were more or less forced into indentured servitude or similar relationships.
I admit, I don’t have much knowledge on specific circumstances of slaves in colonies other than the US. The US did have lots of white indentures servants, but they were still treated better than black slaves or even free black people. Even with their contradictory talk of liberty while holding slaves, the laws the US enacted in fear of slave uprisings sometimes ended up limiting what the slave owners themselves could do with their slaves. Not only were free black people prevented from organizing in all ways - even talking on the street among free black people was dangerous at times, education of black people, slave or free, was forbidden because it was seen as dangerous - even when slave owners wanted to educate their slaves, they couldn’t. Other laws also affected slave owners limiting what they could do with their slaves and enforcing certain things as mandatory, especially when it came to harsh punishments. Laws forbidding race mixing also prevented slave owners from recognizing any children they had with slaves which they might’ve wanted to recognize and limits were placed on individual slave owners from freeing their slaves. In their panic and fear of slave uprisings, the “liberty loving” slave owners created a society where even their own freedoms were limited.
I don’t think your analysis of the slave-proletariat comparison is quite what is meant by Engels here. Individual slaves that managed to escape did not have a good time, and in most cases did not make it very far. In the US, there were laws in place that mandated all free citizens to aid in the capture and return of escaped slaves and even if someone wanted to be an innocent bystander, they could be charged as helping the slaves escape. Slave relation were very much class relations - take a look at the Santo Domingo/Haiti revolution for example.
I made a comment on the cross-posted version of this post which includes some discussion of the slave-proletarian comparison which you can check out: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/925271
I’ll give some of my own thoughts and then add to some of yours.
Principles of Communism was a fun re-read for me, and I found the text much better and more informative than I remember it being from when I first read it during my initial introduction to Marxism. I read it together with the Manifesto and it didn’t really stay in my mind as that much of an important work - it was overshadowed by the Manifesto, I guess. Now, I would definitely say it doesn’t deserve that fate and has a firm place of its own in Marxist theory.
It clearly defines certain important terms and concepts and compares them to similar ones present and even prevalent at the time of its writing, and talks about many thing which we still see today, for example, the periodic crises of capitalism and the realities of class struggle. I certainly see it being a beneficial read for workers organizing in 1847 and can see why it still remains a staple Marxist text, especially one that’s recommended to people newer to Marxism.
As for some of its faults, the big thing that jumps out to me is the talk of labor as a commodity, which is to be expected since this is a text from 1847 and Marx didn’t complete his critique of political economy by then. The commodity which the proletarian sells is later corrected to labor-power which is a change in texts from 1859 onward, and which Engels explains in his Introduction to Wage Labour and Capital quite nicely.
I found the bit about proles potentially being worse off than slaves strange.
This was a quite common assessment in those times. Whether it was correct or not isn’t that clear. Slaves, while not free and, as such, not treated as people but property, were still given food, water, and shelter by the slave owners who has some interest in maintaining them as their property. Of course they were still slaves, and were treated horribly as such, especially in the US South. On the other hand, especially the early proletariat, while recognized as more human than the slaves, was largely just treated as mere labor machines, working longer than 12 hours per day for very small wages and even being worked to death in some cases. They mostly lived in horrid, overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. If they had lost their job, they had no guarantees or social safety nets and would lose their housing and be unable to afford food. Practices of jailing and then basically enslaving through workhouses of people without jobs were quite common. The condition of the proletariat improved massively when it started to organize and gain some ground through class struggle. So, while from our modern perspective a statement like that is clearly absurd, things weren’t so clear back then. The slaves, while their position is clearly worse in general, could have had some better outcomes than the early proletarians.
The way he described the ‘civilized’ Europeans spreading technology to the ‘barbarous’ nations is definitely problematic in its framing.
This is a feature that oscillates back and fourth somewhat in Marx and Engels, although they seemed to form a good anti-colonial line by the end. They mostly - and by Engels’ own admission, perhaps erroneously - focused on the economic side of class struggle, especially in Europe. In terms of solid theory, this is a problem solved by Lenin who fully expands the theory of class struggle to encompass all aspects, and not just the binary of proletariat-bourgeoisie which is dominant in the West. The seeds of this are present already in Marx and Engels, but aren’t conclusively worked out. For a full discussion on this I would recommend checking out Losurdo’s Class Struggle, specifically chapters 4, 5, and 6 - although the entire book is an amazing read.
P.S. - The link to the Principles of Communism in your post just leads to this post and not to the text itself.
I wouldn’t say anyone here is attacking the moral route to veganism, especially on an individual level, but I think we as Marxists shouldn’t rely on it. The materialist argument is much stronger and more widely applicable. Moral veganism can also turn into a form of chauvinism directed towards various societies, especially in the third world, which do consume some animal products but aren’t part of the capitalist meat industry and get all those products from animals they keep or hunt locally.
That to me forms a big distinction. On the one hand, denouncing all animal products as bad and, on the other, focusing the problem on the capitalist meat/animal industry. The moral argument doesn’t lead to useful practice because it implies problems in individual choices of consumption and not systemic issues stemming from the production side. Many of us do come to communism for moral reasons initially but then we learn the proper materialist arguments for it which turn communism from utopian to scientific and inform practice.
Yes, to reach people we need to be where the people are, and nowadays a lot of people are online. Of course, this shouldn’t and can’t replace real life organizing, but it should supplement it.
From Roderic Day’s ‘The Virtual Factory’: