You say that the left/right equilibrium “is antithetical to Marxism precisely because it is unhistorical and undialectical.” It’s true that Marxism is historical and dialectical, but it is not true that Marx never used ahistorical concepts or categories in his analysis. Logic, for example, is unhistorical. Assuming something to be constant in order to hone in on some specific variable, is not historical analysis. But if you use ahistorical concepts as a tool for historical analysis, qualifying what you are doing, then you can, like, write a history of capital.
Nevertheless, Marxism’s criticism of Utopian Socialism, its insistence that we must seek socialism vis a historical materialist analysis, leads to a bias against considering political theory in the abstract, in terms of models of what society should be like. But does that mean a Marxist shouldn’t attempt to categorise different political opinions according to the underlying values, goals, norms of these political opinions? Is this exercise, for being based on an unhistorical undialectical, categorisation, “antithetical to Marxism”?
No. It isn’t, and it shouldn’t be. This doesn’t mean this kind of analysis should displace a historical materialist one. It certainly shouldn’t be done in isolation. Quite clearly all ideas need to be understood as reflecting the class forces they are dialectically entwined with. But we can’t exclude categorisations of ideas. There are endless intra-bourgeois conflicts just as there are endless intra-proletarian conflicts. If we are to build a solidarity of a global working class we are going to have to understand many different perspectives. We shouldn’t reduce them simply to class, even if we should understand them always as shooed by class and as tools for class power. For didactic purposes analysis may well need to rely on an ahistorical categorisation. The point is that this categorisation should be grounded in historical materialism. This is in fact a strength of Marxism. Any specific use of a liberal theory can usually be taken advantage of in a Marxist analysis, with qualification.
Here, the “political compass” can be useful, so long as we are careful in how we use it. Do we not want some even approximate understanding of political ideas along a spectrum? Even if this spectrum is a historical construct, and even if we must always go further, and ask which class forces are supporting, funding, organising behind each ideology. Even as we must for further, showing that it is silly to situate the political platform of someone from a completely different historical moment to another. None of these qualifications mean that the political compass should be considered “worse than useless to the proletariat”.
But there is of course this other way of talking about left/right. As the way of discussing the necessary dynamics of the two party system in bourgeois politics. Of course, displacing a historical materialist analysis with a fetishisation of bourgeois politics would be disastrous. I love your historical outline of this left/right framing. Even here, though, what are you proposing? Should Marxism ignore intra-capitalist conflicts? It would be grossly unhistorical and undialectical if it did. If not, then won’t it need to rely critically on bourgeois categorisations to explain the contradictions of infra-bourgeois disagreement? The point is to be careful, when doing so, to ground this analysis within historical materialism.
Thank you again for so thoroughly engaging with these writings. I agree that left and right are not meaningless and that Marxists should not ignore the dynamics of intra-bourgeois conflicts. My main point in response to both of your comments is to encourage you to recognize the polemical nature of this project, which is attempting to startle its readers out of certain bourgeois common sense (Marxism=leftism, the naturalization of the left/right organization of politics, etc.). So please forgive my contentious rhetoric. I do hope that many of my readers are thinking through these articles as closely as yourself!
Amazing! Thank you. Your email was lost in the spam folder but I found it. Would you happen to also have a copy of Eric Hobsbawm's text The New Century?
I found a ton of interesting works by him on library genesis but cannot find The New Century on there, Memory of the World, or the Internet Archive!
The left/right dichotomy doesn't really exist anymore in most european multiparty parliaments. Consider the german parliament for instance which has been ruled by a grand coalition of the two major parties CDU and SPD which would have been described as "right" and "left" in the past for the last 16 years.
You say that the left/right equilibrium “is antithetical to Marxism precisely because it is unhistorical and undialectical.” It’s true that Marxism is historical and dialectical, but it is not true that Marx never used ahistorical concepts or categories in his analysis. Logic, for example, is unhistorical. Assuming something to be constant in order to hone in on some specific variable, is not historical analysis. But if you use ahistorical concepts as a tool for historical analysis, qualifying what you are doing, then you can, like, write a history of capital.
Nevertheless, Marxism’s criticism of Utopian Socialism, its insistence that we must seek socialism vis a historical materialist analysis, leads to a bias against considering political theory in the abstract, in terms of models of what society should be like. But does that mean a Marxist shouldn’t attempt to categorise different political opinions according to the underlying values, goals, norms of these political opinions? Is this exercise, for being based on an unhistorical undialectical, categorisation, “antithetical to Marxism”?
No. It isn’t, and it shouldn’t be. This doesn’t mean this kind of analysis should displace a historical materialist one. It certainly shouldn’t be done in isolation. Quite clearly all ideas need to be understood as reflecting the class forces they are dialectically entwined with. But we can’t exclude categorisations of ideas. There are endless intra-bourgeois conflicts just as there are endless intra-proletarian conflicts. If we are to build a solidarity of a global working class we are going to have to understand many different perspectives. We shouldn’t reduce them simply to class, even if we should understand them always as shooed by class and as tools for class power. For didactic purposes analysis may well need to rely on an ahistorical categorisation. The point is that this categorisation should be grounded in historical materialism. This is in fact a strength of Marxism. Any specific use of a liberal theory can usually be taken advantage of in a Marxist analysis, with qualification.
Here, the “political compass” can be useful, so long as we are careful in how we use it. Do we not want some even approximate understanding of political ideas along a spectrum? Even if this spectrum is a historical construct, and even if we must always go further, and ask which class forces are supporting, funding, organising behind each ideology. Even as we must for further, showing that it is silly to situate the political platform of someone from a completely different historical moment to another. None of these qualifications mean that the political compass should be considered “worse than useless to the proletariat”.
But there is of course this other way of talking about left/right. As the way of discussing the necessary dynamics of the two party system in bourgeois politics. Of course, displacing a historical materialist analysis with a fetishisation of bourgeois politics would be disastrous. I love your historical outline of this left/right framing. Even here, though, what are you proposing? Should Marxism ignore intra-capitalist conflicts? It would be grossly unhistorical and undialectical if it did. If not, then won’t it need to rely critically on bourgeois categorisations to explain the contradictions of infra-bourgeois disagreement? The point is to be careful, when doing so, to ground this analysis within historical materialism.
Thank you again for so thoroughly engaging with these writings. I agree that left and right are not meaningless and that Marxists should not ignore the dynamics of intra-bourgeois conflicts. My main point in response to both of your comments is to encourage you to recognize the polemical nature of this project, which is attempting to startle its readers out of certain bourgeois common sense (Marxism=leftism, the naturalization of the left/right organization of politics, etc.). So please forgive my contentious rhetoric. I do hope that many of my readers are thinking through these articles as closely as yourself!
Hmm I can't seem to find a pirate PDF of Realms of Memory: Conflicts and Divisions.
Check your email.
Amazing! Thank you. Your email was lost in the spam folder but I found it. Would you happen to also have a copy of Eric Hobsbawm's text The New Century?
I found a ton of interesting works by him on library genesis but cannot find The New Century on there, Memory of the World, or the Internet Archive!
I accessed it here:
https://archive.org/details/newcentury0000hobs_a5i5
Well well well it was on the archive. Thanks!
Always check the Archive, it is the great, forgotten 3rd pirate library.
Thank you!
The left/right dichotomy doesn't really exist anymore in most european multiparty parliaments. Consider the german parliament for instance which has been ruled by a grand coalition of the two major parties CDU and SPD which would have been described as "right" and "left" in the past for the last 16 years.