European-American Life

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

TABOO LABELS

By Tom Kando
 
(originally written and posted on 12/14/14)


Notice some of the taboo labels in our political lexicon: Being called a “Marxist” or a “Socialist” is the kiss of death. Advocating for the “working class” is similarly unwise. One is only allowed to advocate for the middle class. Even the progressive folks at MSNBC and moderates like President Obama never speak of the “working class,” only of the “middle class.”

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with Marxism, Socialism and the idea of the working class. These things are no more wrong than are concepts such as “Capitalism,” the “ruling class,” the “military-industrial complex” and other similar constructs.

I am not a Marxist. I am eclectic. Karl Marx was one of the seminal minds of the 19th century, a giant in the history of ideas, one of history’s most important economists and philosophers. Here are a few others: Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, David Hume, David Ricardo, Herbert Spencer, G.W.F. Hegel, Thorstein Veblen, Max Weber, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter, members of the “Austrian School” such as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, and many others.

The strange thing is that, whereas ALL of these men have made enormous contributions to our understanding of society and of the economy, Americans single out Marx, and ONLY Marx, for severe opprobrium.
All great social and economic theories have flaws as well as value. There is much to be learned from Marx and there is much to be learned from Adam Smith. But in the U.S., Marx is singled out as the Anti-Christ.

Then there is that other taboo word - Socialism. Illiterate Tea Partiers use words such as Socialism, Marxism, and Communism interchangeably. To them and to the demagogues who lead them, all that “left-wing stuff” is the same.

In fact, “Socialism” includes:
The British Labor Party and former prime minister Tony Blair, who was a staunch ally and supporter of President George W. Bush;
Current French President Francois Hollande and his ruling party;
The Dutch labor party (PvdA), currently part of the ruling coalition;
The German Social Democrats;
Dozens of social-democratic parties that frequently run the governments of advanced and highly democratic countries. These countries enjoy prosperity, mixed capitalist economies, and even monarchy, as do Britain, Holland and Scandinavia.
The American Democratic Party is also a socialist party, to some extent.

It is much better to equate Socialism with social democracy, rather than with Communism. The latter was the extreme form of socialism carried out in the Soviet Union for about seventy years.

It is equally bizarre that the words “working class” have practically disappeared from our discourse. You will find no reference to the “working class” in the media any more. And we are still being told the absurdity that the “mainstream” media have a liberal bias! Just a few decades ago, the category “working class” was a key element in all professional analyses of American social stratification (see Lloyd Warner, Edward Banfield, etc.). Today, not even the Occupy Wall Street movement dares to use that label any more.

Why have such verbal taboos developed in America?

Well, for one thing, the way Socialism was enacted in the Soviet Union was an abomination. Stalinism and Communism gave Socialism a bad name, as did other atrocious perversions in places like Cambodia and North Korea. But isn’t judging Socialism on that basis the same as judging all of Christianity on the basis of the Spanish inquisition or the Salem witch burnings?

Then, there was a Cold War that lasted half a century. And even before that, since the 1920s, Americans have been taught that Communists and Marxists were the Anti-Christ. Anti-communism became a deeply ingrained part of American culture, and only American culture: Only in the U.S. was it a crime to be a communist.

There has been a wholesale flight to the right, the indoctrination of the population, the now widespread and generalized fear to do or say something that might be construed as, God forbid, un-American.

But there is much to be learned from Marx. His analysis of surplus value, the declining return on investment, external markets, capitalism in general, social class, alienation, and many other subjects remains compelling in many ways.

And there is much to be learned from the other great theorists I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

In America, Marx was singled out as the bête noire because of what happened in the Soviet Union and because of the Cold War. This cultural quirk will probably rectify itself after the brainwashed generation is gone.

© Tom Kando 2013

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9 comments:

  1. Nicely said
    Dec. 16, 2013

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  2. Tom, can't you find another dead horse to flog? This is getting tedious.
    Dec. 16, 2013

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmmm...some like it, some don't.
    I suppose I do repeat myself, although note the fine variations on a theme...
    Anyway, I'm glad that you still read us...
    December 16, 2013

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  4. The reaction to such terms, and even your own concept of "illiterate Tea Partiers" is a mechanism human beings use to classify and stereotype. Frequently, groups of people, whether political parties, TV stations, or religious organizations, use these terms to judge stick people into general categories and lable them "with us or against us."
    Of course, academic discussion should try to get beyond these labels and discuss the actual behavior or policies, and the ideals and the various merits of different strategies to reach them. December 17, 2013

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  5. I thank Gordon for his comments, and I agree with them.
    Did I call the Tea Partiers illiterate?
    Well, maybe that's premature.
    Maybe there will arise a theoretician of the Tea Party, a William Buckley or Edmund Burke-like figure. But it won't be Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin...
    December 17, 2013

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  6. Cher Ami,
    Parce que nous vivons dans cette epoque, je n'ose pas donner mon avis a l'egard du mot interdit "socialisme."
    Mais, je voudrais vous souhaiter un Joyeux Noel et une Bonne Annee.
    December 18, 2013

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  7. I thank Tom W.
    here is what he wrote:
    Dear friend:
    Because of the times in which we live, I don't dare give my opinion regarding the forbidden word "socialism."
    But I would like to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
    December 18, 2013

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  8. The government is taking your wages, taxing your property, monitoring your speech, tracking your location, restricting your travel, controlling your healthcare, and can now assassinate you without charge or trial anytime it wants by simply calling you a terrorist. As such, you should ask yourself who is going to stand up and defend your liberty from an ever growing tyrannical government? Not the politicians, for they are the perpetrators. Only the Militia is chartered by the Constitution of the United States to protect the people from the government. So please join or start a local militia, and thereby defend our constitutionally-guaranteed rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thank you, and God bless our Republic of the United States of America.
    Read more about the Militia at: http://www.militianews.com/

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  9. I guess I won’t delete this last comment, even though it’s a political ad.
    By and large, Eric Parson is utterly wrong, of course. There is some truth to his allegations - the NSA scandal, the torturing that’s gone on at Guantanamo, etc. Yes, there are totalitarian tendencies under way. But most of what Eric Parsons says is nonsense. He is an anarcho- libertarian, a pro-gun, pro-militia reactionary. His solutions are wacko and retrograde..

    ReplyDelete