Post by NFA on Feb 17, 2021 17:54:11 GMT 8
Conservatives Must Read Marx
Popular conservative thinkers warn of the dangers of class warfare and everything-is-political thinking.
But they can’t advise a subordinate class how to climb out of a pit.
By Mark Bauerlein February 13, 2021
Yes, conservatives, Karl Marx, the Manifesto, The German Ideology, Capital, The Eighteenth Brumaire . . . the lot of it.
Close your Hayek and Friedman, forget the Invisible Hand for a while, Reaganism is history, Edmund Burke won’t help you, the Revolution is here and you’re in it.
Start reading, now, not Marx on private property or money, commodity fetishism, or the labor theory of value.
Start reading, now, not Marx on private property or money, commodity fetishism, or the labor theory of value.
Read him for one thing: class relations, for you are a class whether you like it or not.
When the populists among you started to talk about politicians as a “class” that crossed party lines, composed of Democrats and Republicans both, you made one important mistake.
When the populists among you started to talk about politicians as a “class” that crossed party lines, composed of Democrats and Republicans both, you made one important mistake.
Not that legislators and high officials weren’t a distinct group with their own interests—that was clearly correct.
Rather, you didn’t follow out the implication that the political class’s class behavior put conservatives into a class, too.
The elite has marked you as a collective problem, and they’re busy dealing with you.
The Culture War Is Over, Comrade
It’s not a culture war, not anymore.
It’s not a culture war, not anymore.
There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out.
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Conservatives don’t like to think of themselves as a class.
They reject Marx’s definition of history as class struggle.
Life isn’t 100 percent economic and human beings have souls that transcend politics.
OK—but the Woke don’t care.
They treat you as a class, and it works.
They target your livelihood, so you better start thinking about a better response than “That’s not right.”
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