Directions

Shaping "The Antileftist Marx"

“At first you resisted but sooner or later you'll realize there is nowhere left to turn.”

---

NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, allow me to offer more insight into the trajectory of The Antileftist Marx.

The two installments you have by now received are the first entries in a projected six-part series designed to launch this endeavor. Although Marx himself will not necessarily be the exclusive focus of the antileftist Marxism developed beyond these initial articles, it is necessary to ground this project in an exploration of Marx’s antileftism, for this is both its theoretical foundation and the source of its controversy. Before I apply this perspective to a range of contemporary concerns, I must first establish what it is. And by severing the left’s attachment to Marx at the root, these early writings hit the left where it hurts, revealing that the supposed father of leftism is in fact the specter haunting it.

So while I may eventually turn my focus to other Marxists such as Lukács or to Marxist analysis of concepts like ideology, everything that follows will rest on the magic formula uncovered by this initial series: MARXISM = ANTILEFTISM.

In my announcement post, “Theses on Leftism,” I introduced the basic claims of antileftist Marxism on which I set out to elaborate, and I am now in a position to share how the installments you are reading fit into my scheme.

1. “The Anti-Marxist Arrangement” set the scene by confronting the illusion of Marx’s leftism exploited by both sides of bourgeois politics, introducing, in the process, the theses: “leftism defangs Marxism” and “Marxism demystifies the left’s habitual idealism, moralism, and utopianism.”

2. “Left/Right in Context” undermined the mythology of the left’s origins by exposing how the historical rise of the left/right dichotomy merely reflected the gradual naturalization of bourgeois parliament. In doing so, it embodied the claims: “the left is the left wing of the bourgeoisie” and “the left exists to naturalize the left/right organization of bourgeois democracy.”

3. The forthcoming “Leftism Old and New” will trace the genealogy of the left from the revolutionary bourgeois to the present in order to emphasize that “the left has not been co-opted, compromised, or corrupted.” As I will argue, this is because it has always been bourgeois and its interests have never been identical with those of the proletariat.

Together, these three pieces introducing the argument and contextualizing its terms will prepare us for the final three installments of this series, which will read the political writings of Marx and Engels as antileftism.

Although I released the initial posts in quick succession to capture your attention and prove the intellectual rigor of this project, the final pieces I’m preparing will be paced closer to the tempo that will make this undertaking sustainable in the long run, which is a couple of posts per month. As you may be recognizing, these writings are researched examinations of major theoretical problems that won’t soon expire, not extemporaneous reactions to the news of the day. As such, they require some time to construct, and if they achieve their intended effect, it will take readers some time to absorb them.

Lastly, I must express my gratitude for the engaged and growing audience that has surpassed my expectations. That readers are purchasing subscriptions without being enticed by a paywall speaks to a craving for antileftist theory, something I mean to satisfy. As I mentioned in my original announcement, my ideal reader will subscribe to The Antileftist Marx when they become convinced of its quality and necessity, not based on hype and empty promises. That quite a few of you are first signing up for free and then purchasing a subscription after evaluating an article or two makes me confident there is a future for The Antileftist Marx.