So, I’m a Marxist. I’m also a socialist, a liberal, a progressive, and a Democrat.
What of it? I also am an American…
One of the great advantages of living in an open society is that no matter what you believe, sooner or later, you’re going to run across someone who believes the exact opposite. As an unrepetentant leftist, I’ve been blessed with a surfeit of that advantage over the last few years, as I’ve seen policies and political ideals that look like moderate, even conservative proposals decried as marxist, socialist, anti-american claptrap. I keep encountering people who come at the theory of good government and, in particular, fiscal policy from a very different point of view from mine, and it really is a blessing because it has given me the opportunity to sharpen and flesh out what it is that I believe. Opposition is good for that.
What opposition is not so good for is problem solving. In the face of Occupy Wall Street, I am already hearing the early refrains of an old song about the dangers of marxism and international socialism. Frankly, I don’t think that’s going to get us anywhere useful, no matter what you believe.
So me? I’m a Marxist. I’m also a socialist, a liberal, a progressive, and a Democrat. What of it? First and foremost I’m an American and I care about the future of my nation and my people. And I believe that the same is true for those people who disagree with me and who reflexively recoil at that long list of labels I just tagged on myself. And because of that, I believe that if we can just get the name calling out of the way, we ought to be able to have a reasonable conversation.
What do all of those labels mean anyway? To me, a Marxist is just someone who accepts, in some form, Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism. The fundamental idea is that, over time, wages will tend to stagnate, as those who own the means of production increase in wealth by extracting profit from the market through the conversion of surplus value in the form of uncompensated labor. Whether you agree with anything else about Marxist ideology or not, that this has happened over the last 30 or so years in the United States is empirical fact. All you have to do is look at a chart of income inequality since 1950 to see it. At this point in history we can either recognize that there was some measure of truth in Marx’s diagnosis of the problems with capitalism, or we can willfully blind ourselves to reality.
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Now, having said that, just because someone sees the soundness of Marx’s diagnosis, it doesn’t follow that the right cure is the one he prescribed. There is a lot that is wrong with the Marxist view of history, religion, and social class. Governance is about finding solutions to problems, however, and that’s what the rest of those labels mean. They identify the sorts of solutions that I prefer. And that’s it. They should not get in the way of us generally agreeing that we should do something to counteract the features of market capitalism that tend to cause social distortions.
But beyond that, and more importantly, there are real values that I think most of us share regardless of the labels of our politics. I think we all agree that our infrastructure should be maintained and improved. I think we would all like to see a resurgence of the American manufacturing sector brought about through a reversal of some of our experiments in trade over the last 20 years. I think we all want to see effective and efficient use of our resources in the provision of necessary governmental services that keep us secure in our homes, help us educate our children, and allow us the basic civic comforts of post-industrial life.
And I believe that even though we are bound to disagree about the methods to solve them, we can recognize that we share a set of problems that disturb us all. We all agree that no child in America should go hungry, and that the solutions currently in place to address that problem are inadequate. We all agree that any person who wants to work should be able to find a job that will pay him or her a living wage. We all agree that the state should stay out of our private lives, our personal affairs, and the dictates of our consciences. We all agree that there is value in our natural resources and that we can do a better job of stewardship in order to conserve them for future generations. We are Americans, and this stuff is in our blood.
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I would like to see American politics turn in a direction where there is greater recognition of the places where we fundamentally agree, toward less animosity and more good-faith dialog about solutions. I propose that while you may not be a left wing, Marxist, socialist, liberal, progressive Democrat like me, even if you are on the diametrically opposite end of the political spectrum, we should still be capable of having a political dialog that is civil and productive. I propose that this is what it means to live in a republic that honors the democratic values that we share. And I propose that if we spend less time trying to tear down the other side and more time trying to find agreement on core problems and then compromise on policies to address those problems, in the end we will all get more of what we want to see out of government. The alternative is to allow our political discourse to languish in its current state, little more than a childish schoolyard game of petty one-ups-manship and blame-shifting.
It is easy to forget that in a republic whose sovereignty is founded on the consent of the governed that we are our government, and that our political leaders reflect us and who we decide to be, not the other way around. To me, that is what both the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements are ultimately about. They reflect our decisions to try to be better than who we have been, and to try to come to real solutions that reflect the best of who we think we are. It remains to be seen how any of this will unfold in the realm of policy and government in the coming political seasons, but at the very least it serves to remind us that in the end we are all in this together, left and right alike. I think ultimately that is what being the other 99% has to mean.
—Photo shankbone/Flickr
—Photo derek_b/Flickr
The problem with comparing the Tea Party to the Occupy movement is that really the only thing the people who identify with the two groups have in common is a recognition that the system is no longer working for working Americans. The birth of the Tea Party, as well as the recent surge in the Libertarian Party, can both be traced to a small cadre of extremely rich Industrialists who have bankrolled them because they will profit from the anti-government policies the groups espouse. Occupy and its associated groups, like Anonymous, are genuine mass movements of the people. Where the… Read more »
Keep up the great work Jason. The truth upon which all but a very small minority can agree is the status quo is not working.
There are so many things wrong with this analysis that I do not know where to begin. First off, the Marxist critique is fundamentally wrong. It’s premises are wrong (the labor theory of value was debunked by David Ricardo 50 years before Marx wrote anything). It’s conclusions are wrong (Marx did not account for human capital, from 1973 to 2006 people with college degrees saw income gains of nearly 20%, people with advanced degrees saw income gains of nearly 30%, the number of degrees awarded has increased during the entire period, suggesting human capital accumulation over a broadening population, something… Read more »
Again, this is the sort of divisive, pointless theoretical argument that I’m not interested in having. However, I do feel it’s my responsibility to correct your errors of fact. 1. Ricardo endorsed the labor theory of value, and his work on that according to Marx was the best among political economists at the time of Capital’s publication. Ricardo’s view of value as a measure of labor forms the basis of Marx’s, and their consistency was further demonstrated by Sraffa in the synthesis that led to the neo-ricardian school of political economy. 2. I don’t follow what your point is about… Read more »
Great article Jason. Thank you for bringing these matters up to see more clearly. I am concerned with the Tea Party since they appear to be very pro-oil and seem to be far-right in much of their platform, not too distant from the Bush perspective but in more casual clothing. There is also a wave of religious fundamentalism on the horizon as well that makes the US . I’m concerned with civil liberties, women’s rights, environment and education. I can see some of these areas being very minimized in a fundamentalist political party. My idea for consideration is this: what… Read more »
Meant to say, “makes the US vulnerable for a political takeover”.
Great idea to focus on what we agree on! Below is an expanded version of what I submitted to NPR’s Talk of the Nation the other day and which they read on the air. The goals of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street line up very well together. Both are fed up with corruption in government and everywhere. Both are determined to stop the control of government by special interests. Both want politicians to do the right thing for the country instead of doing whatever is necessary to stay in office. We need jobs created by big business and… Read more »
“If you think Socialism and Marxism are compatible with what the Founding Fathers had in mind, then you should reexamine the finer points of Democracy”. Neither socialism nor Marxism is incompatible with Democracy OR what the Founding Fathers had in mind, in fact. Socialism is an economic system. Democracy is a political system. What Marx had in mind was Democratic socialism. It’s capitalism– or rather, what US Americans think is capitalism but which is probably making Adam Smith turn over in his grave if he could see what his idealistic dream has become: Corporate Oligarchy– that had destroyed much of… Read more »
If you think Socialism and Marxism are compatible with what the Founding Fathers had in mind, then you should reexamine the finer points of Democracy and what it means to live in a Republic. Socialism and Marxism try to make life fair by engineering a level playing field. I was that is was my responsibility to help those less fortunate than I, and I have embraced this, but that doesn’t mean I want it (or appreciate it) rammed down my throat. Socialism and Marxism are just extensions of feudal rule, it does not carry out what it contends and has… Read more »
This is precisely the sort of argument that I don’t think is at all useful or productive, and as a result, I’m not interested in having it. You believe what you believe. I believe what I believe. Arguing about it is only going to prevent us from having a functioning republic. You’re welcome to mischaracterize my beliefs as much as you like, but I’m not going to get drawn into correcting you because it doesn’t accomplish anything. My point in writing this op-ed is to invite people like you who disagree with me to stop worrying about this sort of… Read more »
It’s strange, because I’ve felt the same way for so long, but I always was afraid to come out and admit that I hold these values. I think the feeling that somehow it made me anti-American was a big part of that. I appreciate you cutting through some of the nonsense and making all of this so clear.
How about Ron Paul?
What about him specifically?