Neo Marxism

[Udo Erasmus]

Okay, to be more specific, I find Kovel very vague and unclear when he talks about a transition from capitalism to socialism, and how this will happen, I root this weakness in an unclear concept of the working class, state power, and a workers state. For the record, I think Bookchin who I find an extremely stimulating writer (and quite different to Kovel) completely useless when it comes to concrete day-to-day strategy and tactics.

Or more to the point, I just don't find his work that good a read compared to John Bellamy Foster who covers similar topics but seems more rigorous, clearer and coherent - it's just a personal opinion.

 

[chilango]

Murray Bookchin wrote some very sharp criticisms of primitivism and deep ecology that are worth checking out, his concept of social ecology that problems of nature are essentially related to the exploitation of human beings by human beings is useful.

Joel Kovel, I quite liked his earlier psychoanalytic work on racism, but to be frank I've always thought he is a bit woolly and sloppy as a writer on ecosocialism with no clear idea of class struggle and class. Much better and more rigorous is John Bellamy Foster.

Bookchin's stuff you refer to wasn't that strong imo/iirc.

I've not read much of Kovel's stuff yet.

 

[butchersapron]

Okay, to be more specific, I find Kovel very vague and unclear when he talks about a transition from capitalism to socialism, and how this will happen, I root this weakness in an unclear concept of the working class, state power, and a workers state. For the record, I think Bookchin who I find an extremely stimulating writer (and quite different to Kovel) completely useless when it comes to concrete day-to-day strategy and tactics.

Or more to the point, I just don't find his work that good a read compared to John Bellamy Foster who covers similar topics but seems more rigorous, clearer and coherent - it's just a personal opinion.

i.e he's not a trot ('workers state') and JBF is

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Kovel is certainly not a trot, hence in his political engagements as an activist he has advocated the deadend of tailing the Democrats and was a cheerleader for John Kerry in a previous presidential contest arguing there was a substantial difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Off the top of my head, an example of his woolliness is his claim that Rosa Luxemburg was more environmental than Lenin and Trotsky and this was linked to her gender.

More fundamentally Kovel argues that the working class is not the fundamental agency for change - that is to say he rejects the idea of the primacy of class struggle. Objectively this means that he is a left liberal.

 

[phildwyer]

Also how do Marxist analyses of capitalism rub up against post-modern theories, the simulacrum and the hypereal.

Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" is the key text here. He extrapolates from Marx's concept of "exchange-value" to the all-powerful rule of the image which characterizes postmodernity. Unlike his followers such as Baudrillard, he maintains strong emphasis on the labor theory of value, which permits him to make an *ethical* critique of the rule of images, which is singularly lacking from Baudrillard and co.

In my own work I try to point out the similarities between Debord's critique of the Spectacle and C16th and C17th revolutionary Protestantism's attacks on "idolatry." I believe that this provides a powerful theoretical tool for attacking postmodern capital. But as for having any practical effect, I don't think that's really possible. I think capital, being evil and essentially Satanic, will destroy the entire human race before it allows itself to be destroyed.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Bookchin's stuff you refer to wasn't that strong imo/iirc.

I reckon that's partly down to Bookchin's writing style. he sometimes seems a bit too...I don't know, "nice", maybe?

 

[chilango]

Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" is the key text here. He extrapolates from Marx's concept of "exchange-value" to the all-powerful rule of the image which characterizes postmodernity. Unlike his followers such as Baudrillard, he maintains strong emphasis on the labor theory of value, which permits him to make an *ethical* critique of the rule of images, which is singularly lacking from Baudrillard and co.

Yup.


Completely agree.

Obviously Debord's work is essential reading.

In my own work I try to point out the similarities between Debord's critique of the Spectacle and C16th and C17th revolutionary Protestantism's attacks on "idolatry." I believe that this provides a powerful theotertical tool for attacking postmodern capital. But as for having any practical effect, I don't think that's really possible. I think capital, being evil and essentially Satanic, will destroy the entire human race before it allows itself to be destroyed.

huh?

 

[chilango]

I reckon that's partly down to Bookchin's writing style. he sometimes seems a bit too...I don't know, "nice", maybe?

Wooly is the word I'd use.

Post-Scarcity Anarchism was okay though.

But his attempt at critique of Primitivism was pretty lame tbh.

 

[butchersapron]

'Wolly' and 'nice' both suprise me, virulent and agressive are terms i hear more often in descriptions of MB's writings on primitivism.

 

[kyser_soze]

"Society of the Spectacle"

Recommended then? I've seen it a couple of times and thought 'OOOO, that title speaks to me'

 

[chilango]

'Wolly' and 'nice' both suprise me, virulent and agressive are terms i hear more often in descriptions of MB's writings on primitivism.

When I read it, I was pretty soft on Primitivism rolleyes. As I read it it was all a bit "meh", seemed to just re'hash fairly fluffy ideas, almost "Freedom" (of old) style.

Was a while ago mind, and I never botherd re/reading it.

 

[chilango]

"Society of the Spectacle"

Recommended then? I've seen it a couple of times and thought 'OOOO, that title speaks to me'

Yeah...

some people don't like it, and its worth a few reads at least imo.

Vaniegem's "Revolution of Everyday Life" is a more fluid read from the same group.

 

[butchersapron]

More fundamentally Kovel argues that the working class is not the fundamental agency for change - that is to say he rejects the idea of the primacy of class struggle. Objectively this means that he is a left liberal.

He argues that class is the fundamental and 'prior' contradiction that capital accumulation is built on and thus class struggle has practical 'priority' in moving beyond capital.

 

[butchersapron]

When I read it, I was pretty soft on Primitivism rolleyes. As I read it it was all a bit "meh", seemed to just re'hash fairly fluffy ideas, almost "Freedom" (of old) style.

Was a while ago mind, and I never botherd re/reading it.

I honestly think you may have the wrong writer here. He was absolutely merciless in his criticims of primitivisms, violently personalising the issues, attacking them left right and centre. i.e

These trendy posturings, nearly all of which follow current yuppie fashions, are individualistic in the important sense that they are antithetical to the development of serious organizations, a radical politics, a committed social movement, theoretical coherence, and programmatic relevance. More oriented toward achieving one's own 'self-realization' than achieving basic social change, this trend among lifestyle anarchists is particularly noxious in that its 'turning inward,' as Katinka Matson called it, claims to be a politics -- albeit one that resembles R. D. Laing's 'politics of experience.' The black flag, which revolutionary social anarchists raised in insurrectionary struggles in Ukraine and Spain, now becomes a fashionable sarong for the delectation of chic petty bourgeois.

One of the most unsavory examples of lifestyle anarchism is Hakim Bey's (aka Peter Lamborn Wilson's) T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchism, Poetic Terrorism, a jewel in the New Autonomy Series (no accidental word choice here), published by the heavily postmodernist Semiotext(e)/Autono'media group in Brooklyn.[8] Amid paeans to 'Chaos,' 'Amour Fou,' 'Wild Children,' 'Paganism,' 'Art Sabotage,' 'Pirate Utopias,' 'Black Magic as Revolutionary Action,' 'Crime,' and 'Sorcery,' not to speak of commendations of 'Marxism-Stirnerism,' the call for autonomy is taken to lengths so absurd as to seemingly parody a self-absorbed and self-absorbing ideology.

Today's reactionary social context greatly explains the emergence of a phenomenon in Euro-American anarchism that cannot be ignored: the spread of individualist anarchism. In a time when even respectable forms of socialism are in pell-mell retreat from principles that might in any way be construed as radical, issues of lifestyle are once again supplanting social action and revolutionary politics in anarchism. In the traditionally individualist-liberal United States and Britain, the 1990s are awash in self-styled anarchists who -- their flamboyant radical rhetoric aside -- are cultivating a latter-day anarcho-individualism that I will call lifestyle anarchism. Its preoccupations with the ego and its uniqueness and its polymorphous concepts of resistance are steadily eroding the socialistic character of the libertarian tradition. No less than Marxism and other socialisms, anarchism can be profoundly influenced by the bourgeois environment it professes to oppose, with the result that the growing 'inwardness' and narcissism of the yuppie generation have left their mark upon many avowed radicals. Ad hoc adventurism, personal bravura, an aversion to theory oddly akin to the antirational biases of postmodernism, celebrations of theoretical incoherence (pluralism), a basically apolitical and anti-organizational commitment to imagination, desire, and ecstasy, and an intensely self-oriented enchantment of everyday life, reflect the toll that social reaction has taken on Euro-American anarchism over the past two decades.

Fifth Estate's beguilingly 'ecstatic' paean to 'anarchy,' so bereft of social content -- all its rhetorical flourishes aside -- could easily appear as a poster on the walls of a chic boutique, or on the back of a greeting card. Friends who recently visited New York City advise me, in fact, that a restaurant with linen-covered tables, fairly expensive menus, and a yuppie clientele on St. Mark's Place in the Lower East Side -- a battleground of the 1960s -- is named Anarchy. This feedlot for the city's petty bourgeoisie sports a print of the famous Italian mural The Fourth Estate, which shows insurrectionary fin de si'cle workers militantly marching against an undepicted boss or possibly a police station. Lifestyle anarchism, it would seem, can easily become a choice consumer delicacy. The restaurant, I am told, also has security guards, presumably to keep out the local canaille who figure in the mural.

Safe, privatistic, hedonistic, and even cozy, lifestyle anarchism may easily provide the ready verbiage to spice up the pedestrian bourgeois lifeways of timid Rabelaisians. Like the 'Situationist art' that MIT displayed for the delectation of the avant-garde petty bourgeoisie several years ago, it offers little more than a terribly 'wicked' anarchist image -- dare I say, a simulacrum -- like those that flourish all along the Pacific Rim of America and points east'ward. The Ecstasy Industry, for its part, is doing only too well under contemporary capitalism and could easily absorb the techniques of lifestyle anarchists to enhance a marketably naughty image. The counterculture that once shocked the petty bourgeoisie with its long hair, beards, dress, sexual freedom, and art has long since been upstaged by bourgeois entrepreneurs whose boutiques, caf's, clubs, and even nudist camps are doing a flourishing 'business, as witness the many steamy advertisements for new 'ecstasies' in the Village Voice and similar periodicals.

 

[kyser_soze]

I have to say they're some choice paragraphs, but the last 2 especially bring to mind a fire and brimstone preacher who came to our church for a couple of weeks and constantly went off on one about Xtians who gave lip service to the beliefs but had no real meat of faith in them!! Also, his comment about the counterculture seems strange - surely he was/is aware that the 60s counterculture was a creation of the bourgeoise, a kind of growth on it, and that in only a few of the hearts of the time were the real principles he's talking about actually held, which is why it's so easy for bourgeoise society to re-appropriate the images, language etc of revolution...

 

[phildwyer]

huh?

Yes, that's the usual reaction I get. I take it you find it absurd to introduce metaphysical concepts like "Satan" into a critique of capital? Can you explain why you find it so? For surely Marx's whole point regarding exchange-value was that it is metaphysical in nature. I think the materialist wrong-turn taken by socialism in midst of the nineteenth-century fetishization of "science" was a disastrous mistake, and also the explanation for socialism's failure to either take power or, where it did take power, to construct a viable alternative to capital.

I often wonder how much longer the Left will cling to materialism. Clearly the right is now just as, if not more, materialist as the Left. The days when being a materialist implied that you were a socialist, or when religion or other forms of metaphysics were used as an effective tool of repression by the right, are long gone. And materialism as a philosophy is pretty much discredited--it survives only as the ideology of late capitalism, and of course in the doctrinaire blatherings of "scientists."

Why this loyalty to what is surely a deeply counter-intuitive and historically very rare mode of thought, as well as one which has demonstrably damaged the enivronment and, I'd argue, the psychology of the C21st? Why this dogmatic, irrational clinging to materialism? Why? Why?

 

[treelover]

"Society of the Spectacle"

Recommended then? I've seen it a couple of times and thought 'OOOO, that title speaks to me'
Reply With Quote

KS, surely you are being ironic, an adman who hasn't read TSOTS, I would have thought that would have been on every adv/marketing, etc university course or at the very least passed around. Not to promote Marxism,etc, of course, but to gain insights into capitalism and its iconography.

 

[DotCommunist]

Yes, that's the usual reaction I get. I take it you find it absurd to introduce metaphysical concepts like "Satan" into a critique of capital? Can you explain why you find it so? For surely Marx's whole point regarding exchange-value was that it is metaphysical in nature. I think the materialist wrong-turn taken by socialism in midst of the nineteenth-century fetishization of "science" was a disastrous mistake, and also the explanation for socialism's failure to either take power or, where it did take power, to construct a viable alternative to capital.

I often wonder how much longer the Left will cling to materialism. Clearly the right is now just as, if not more, materialist as the Left. The days when being a materialist implied that you were a socialist, or when religion or other forms of metaphysics were used as an effective tool of repression by the right, are long gone. And materialism as a philosophy is pretty much discredited--it survives only as the ideology of late capitalism, and of course in the doctrinaire blatherings of "scientists."

Why this loyalty to what is surely a deeply counter-intuitive and historically very rare mode of thought, as well as one which has demonstrably damaged the enivronment and, I'd argue, the psychology of the C21st? Why this dogmatic, irrational clinging to materialism? Why? Why?

god is fucking dead and he aint about to be resurrected by your interpretation of marxism mate.

No one wants him, and he stands as a symbol for patriarchal dominance.

 

[kyser_soze]

Yes, that's the usual reaction I get. I take it you find it absurd to introduce metaphysical concepts like "Satan" into a critique of capital? Can you explain why you find it so? For surely Marx's whole point regarding exchange-value was that it is metaphysical in nature. I think the materialist wrong-turn taken by socialism in midst of the nineteenth-century fetishization of "science" was a disastrous mistake, and also the explanation for socialism's failure to either take power or, where it did take power, to construct a viable alternative to capital.

I often wonder how much longer the Left will cling to materialism. Clearly the right is now just as, if not more, materialist as the Left. The days when being a materialist implied that you were a socialist, or when religion or other forms of metaphysics were used as an effective tool of repression by the right, are long gone. And materialism as a philosophy is pretty much discredited--it survives only as the ideology of late capitalism, and of course in the doctrinaire blatherings of "scientists."

Why this loyalty to what is surely a deeply counter-intuitive and historically very rare mode of thought, as well as one which has demonstrably damaged the enivronment and, I'd argue, the psychology of the C21st? Why this dogmatic, irrational clinging to materialism? Why? Why?

OK, you know I don't dismiss your concept out of hand, but still don't see why you have to make it metaphysical - Capital exists only as Satan to a specific mindset (much as communism was equated with Satanist atheism in the 1950s), so where's the need to bring a wholly religious piece of iconography into an philo-ideological system that in some forms is a materialist creed - and has been easily twisted into the form of centralised religion in almost every attempted application of it.

As for your regular rubbishing of materialism...get over it; were we in a land of Marxian based materialism instead of the cap variant you'd be singing a completely different tune.

 

[phildwyer]

god is fucking dead and he aint about to be resurrected by your interpretation of marxism mate.

No one wants him, and he stands as a symbol for patriarchal dominance.

Right, you're aware I suppose that none of this makes any sense. If "God is dead" then He must once have been alive, a proposition I take it you'd scorn. "No-one wants him" is obviously, visibly untrue--the only people who don't want him are dogmatic Leftist materialists, who have some sort of vague impression that "he stands as a symbol for patriarchal dominance."

What on earth do you mean by "God" anyway? The reason I ask is that whenever I have these conversations with materialist Leftists (and I have them a lot) the first thing I discover is that they know *nothing*--and I mean literally nothing, zero, zilch, zip about any kind of theology. Don't you think that's a rather large gap in anyone's knowledge?

I suppose what I don't understand is how obviously intelligent and well-read people such as yourself can blithely state "God is dead" without having the faintest idea of what theologians at any stage of history have meant by "God." It's just silly to dismiss concepts about whch you know nothing--especially when, as you must admit, most of the best minds in human history have been rather preoccupied with God and His doings. Was everyone just stupid before the Englishtenment or what?

 

[kyser_soze]

KS, surely you are being ironic, an adman who hasn't read TSOTS, I would have thought that would have been on every adv/marketing, etc university course or at the very least passed around. Not to promote Marxism,etc, of course, but to gain insights into capitalism and its iconography.

Arses, I replied to this, but will have to do it again...

Nah, not too much high level philosophy or behavioural stuff beyond Freud and Maslow for most, and don't forget I was a media buyer, not a creative, so my process was based on consumption patterns and audience response analysis rather than imagery, myth making and iconography.

Can't believe you thought I did a fucking marketing degree tho...grrrr...

 

[phildwyer]

OK, you know I don't dismiss your concept out of hand, but still don't see why you have to make it metaphysical - Capital exists only as Satan to a specific mindset (much as communism was equated with Satanist atheism in the 1950s), so where's the need to bring a wholly religious piece of iconography into an philo-ideological system that in some forms is a materialist creed - and has been easily twisted into the form of centralised religion in almost every attempted application of it.

No, the connection between Satan and capital is historically direct and logically demonstrable. It's not just a metaphor, as it was for the anti-communists of the 50's. To reduce the argument to its barest bones, the influence of Satan on earth is manifested through the efficacious power of signs. This was the point established in the European "witch-craze" of the C16th and C17th, when to attempt to use symbols, rituals etc to acieve objective effects was said to constitute a pact with Satan.

Capital is an efficacious sign. It works in precisely the same way that Satanic magic was held to work. Thus we see that belief in witchcraft and Satan dies out when capital becomes a normal part of social life. Thus we also see that in societies that are currently being integrated into the global capitalist economy there is a massive rise in witch-hunts, and witchcraft is once again widely practiced throughout Africa, Asia and South America.

I don't want to take credit for these ideas, which are pretty much orthodox among anthropologists. Are you familiar for instance with Michael Taussig's "The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America?" Should be required reading for materialists on the Left.

 

[bluestreak]

I'm coming to this late I know, but is there really a Marxist academic called Boring van Loon? Or are we being wagged?

 

[kyser_soze]

To reduce the argument to its barest bones, the influence of Satan on earth is manifested through the efficacious power of signs.

So as soon as we started drawing in the sand we were being influenced by Satan? Bollocks, and also a conceptualisation of humanity that, if it's really comes via anthropology, is horribly Judeo-Christian centric and that surprises me greatly. I presume you mean 'widespread' belief in Satan and witchcraft as well - also something I'd take issue with, since there are plenty of theists out there who still believe in Satan and hell, and indeed in witches!!

 

[phildwyer]

So as soon as we started drawing in the sand we were being influenced by Satan?

No, of course not. Satanic magic is the attempt to achieve objective effects through the manipulation of symbols. As when a witch thinks that sticking pins in a kewpie doll will hurt the person the doll represents. Or as when a banker believes that transferring completely metaphysical signs from one bank account to another has objectively effected the relative wealth of the parties involved.

 

[phildwyer]

Bollocks, and also a conceptualisation of humanity that, if it's really comes via anthropology, is horribly Judeo-Christian centric and that surprises me greatly.

And you're right to be surprised, because it isn't Judeo-Christo-centric at all, in fact anthropologists guard against this with something approaching paranoia. Obviously Christianity has become syncretized with traditional beliefs in many places, but the point made by people like Peter Geschiere or John and Jean Comaroff is that societies that are coming to terms with a money-based, capitalist economy often have recourse to traditional understandings of magic--the kind that the West abandoned three hundred years ago--as a way of understanding what is going on.

And what is going on is that their traditional social structures are being undermined by an invisible, metaphysical, but extremely powerful force whose effects violate existing morality and kinship structures, bring power and wealth to individuals who deal with it by non-traditional means, and generally appear to cultuvate an anti-social selfishness and lust for material goods. They call such people "witches," as did Europeans at a similar stage of their economic development.

If you want a non-philosophical, readily comprehensible introduction to these ideas, you could do worse than take a look at Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's novel, "Devil on the Cross."

 

[Luther Blissett]

I'm coming to this late I know, but is there really a Marxist academic called Boring van Loon? Or are we being wagged?

He's an illustrator, not an academic. He drew the pictures in the 'Introducing Sociology' book. It's quite basic. I'm sure a 2:1 social anthropologist graduate would have covered neo-marxian theopry (e.g. critical theory, structural marxism, agency, etc) as part of their core theory for their degree course, so I'm quite surprised by Shevek's thread, tbh.

 

[chilango]

Yes, that's the usual reaction I get. I take it you find it absurd to introduce metaphysical concepts like "Satan" into a critique of capital?

Absurd isn't the word I'd have used. No.

Surprised, maybe.

Can you explain why you find it so? For surely Marx's whole point regarding exchange-value was that it is metaphysical in nature.

Hmmm.

I don't often deal with term meta-physical tbh. Spiritual, yes. materialist, yes. But meta-physics? Confuses me a touch.

I think the materialist wrong-turn taken by socialism in midst of the nineteenth-century fetishization of "science" was a disastrous mistake, and also the explanation for socialism's failure to either take power or, where it did take power, to construct a viable alternative to capital.

I am used to seeing this argument in a Green variant.

 

[chilango]

He's an illustrator, not an academic. He drew the pictures in the 'Introducing Sociology' book. It's quite basic. I'm sure a 2:1 social anthropologist graduate would have covered neo-marxism (critical theory, structural marxism) as part of their core theory for their degree course, so I'm quite surprised by Shevek's thread, tbh.

Dunno.

I did more Marxism and "neo-marxism" in my Art degree than I have in my anthro masters.

 

[Crispy]

moved to theory