It’s worth noting that a lot of early liberal philosophy, especially the work of Locke, was taken up with justifying the colonial appropriation of land. Working through land could become property and why such property did not belong to the indigenous inhabitants took some intellectual ingenuity.
In fact, I’d wager old Plillsbury will produce a forthcoming apologia like that idiot Fukuyama from The Hoover Institute for the criminally insane and stupid. Last Man and the End of History. A real book burner. People talk too much and shouldn’t write at all until they have something useful to add.
Not just appropriation of land, but also chattels. The "triangle of trade" meant that early capital accumulation was aided and abetted heavily by the slave trade.
That’s like saying gravity is irrelevant because we can’t change it or entropy is irrelevant because we can’t change it. It’s not a useful way of reasoning. Relevance and an individual or collective capacity to change something are not related properties.
We need to start in kindergarten with you. You need to know the definition of capitalism. Capitalism is caring for others. If you doubt it for even a split second all you have to do is open a capitalist business and announce that you don't care about your workers and customers. Do you have the intelligence to know what would happen?
All that is sort of irrelevant now. Goes without saying that land and other property used to be exchanged by violent means. And now it is exchanged peacefully for money and for mutual advantage. Do you want to go back to doing it by violence or do you like the current peaceful exchange method?
Capitalism began when the first hunter and the first Fisher freely and peacefully decided to trade meat for fish to help each other out. Capitalism is nothing more than that. Milton Friedman was the world's greatest capitalist advocate and he wanted nothing more than that. It is based on peaceful exchange for mutual advantage and nothing else.
Er "the first hunter and the first fisher" didn't emerge to engage in "trade" like Athena from the forehead of Zeus -- they were born into families and tribes and enmeshed thereby in a web of mutual obligations.
Back to school with you for some human biology and anthropology ...
At Jamestown (1611–1614), land and harvests were initially held in common, with colonists working collectively but producing little. Facing starvation, Governor Thomas Dale allotted each man three acres for private use. Productivity soared, ensuring survival. At Plymouth (1620–1623), settlers likewise farmed communally under the Mayflower Compact. Poor yields and resentment followed until Governor William Bradford assigned private plots. With individuals free to reap their own reward, output rose dramatically. Both colonies abandoned socialism for private property and market incentives, securing prosperity and growth.
Capitalism involves peaceful voluntary exchange . socialism is when government is in control and exchange happens at gunpoint. This is a very critical thing for you to learn. If you are still not clear on it please feel free to ask questions.
How is market exchange and capitalism equivalent and why is socialism defined as government violence? Surely if violence is relevant to defining a system, in your view, it must be noted definitionally in any system.
Yes it is noted definitively that violence is the most important aspect of socialism. Socialism is government owning factories. The government doesn't make the factories it takes guns and uses them to steal the factories. This seems like a very elementary concept. Do you understand it now?
Socialism is a system managed by the government. The government manages at gunpoint. If it didn't use guns nobody would listen to it or at least most people would not. Do you understand now?
Free market exchange and capitalism are the same thing. Free people exchanging goods and services for a freely agreed-upon price. Do you understand now?
free market exchange and capitalism can't possibly be the 'same thing', as free market exchange existed millennia before capitalism. Capitalism involves the accumulation of capital, which means the wealthiest always infiltrate and eventually control the state, which skews markets toward the wealthiest (corporations).
No, capitalism can never be a free market. Corporate capture of states will ensure monopoly. See above. Free markets would be a very good thing, but markets can never be free with monopoly players and a captured state.
Classical Liberalism is figment of libertarians overactive imagination. If you think J.S. Mill is from the “classical period” you may have your chronologies mixed up. Liberalism is not an ideology, btw.
You sound British. Conservatism is not an either. Ideologies suck. Just look at the mess libertarianism has become: produces fascists.
Lord Hailsham’s explanation of conservatism is correct, but only as far as it goes:
“Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself.”
The capitalist status quo is genocidal and long has been. And yes liberalism is apology for the capitalist status quo. And, in America, establishment Democrats are the arch liberals.
Meanwhile conservatives and Trumpists, Republicans, are supremacist genocidal capitalists, even worse than liberals.
Both are terrible, as in monstrous. And both are endlessly rich and powerful and celebrated and enshrined in law, and they have a monopoly on violence.
Only a people’s revolution can change this, one that is progressive populist and socialist, at the least.
This is the world, and it ought not be. People throughout history have fought against it, for a new world, and continue to, like you. And not yet a critical mass.
I very much enjoyed this review of Pilkington’s book. Thanks. It’s worth bearing in mind the geospatial dimensions of capitalism which make it a truly global system of exploitation and oppression. Imperialism, settler colonialism and the rapacious plunder of resources from what we now call the Global South were central to the rise of capitalism and remain just as important in the modern era. Marx touches on this insightfully albeit intermittently in ‘Capital’. Jason Hickel’s recent book ‘The Divide’ explains it brilliantly.
Liberalism in its deep support for capitalism is leading to staggering wealth inequality and an immiserated population - at least in the US. We are now seeing competition between elites and counter - elites (those powerful with strong beliefs on how the world should work who aren't explicitly ruling). This is the recipe that Turchin points to that historically has led to (usually bloody) revolutions.
In the US the final death of liberalism may come at the hands of an autocracy. Ironic because it will be the core beliefs of liberalism that have fostered monopolies, centralized power between the state and those monopolies and pulled government away from the people. Just look at the ideology that Peter Thiel, a fan of Curtis Yavin, advocating for an American CEO. It's just a nicer way of saying dictator.
As you eloquently demonstrated in your book "Vulture Capitalism," the so-called "free market" ideology is pure decoy. Moreover, this "death of ideologies" thing is the funniest, if it wasn't tragic in its effects. Neoliberalism is much more than an ideology, it's a veritable religion, so much so that, even after decades of failure, there are still those who believe in it blindly—aside, of course, from those who pretend to believe in it because they profit from it.
A superb article once again by the inimitable Grace Blakeley.
I think the way the term "liberalism" is used today is a bastardization of original liberal ideals that stemmed from the Enlightenment. Enlightenment Liberalism, of the Wilhelm von Humboldt type, viewed humans as not only having equal moral worth, but also as fonts of inquiry and creativity, as searching and exploring beings. The idea that human beings had evolved to create, to search, to inquire, free from any external supervision or force, was fundamental to liberalism. As Humboldt so memorably put it, "when a man works under command, we may admire what he does but we despise what he becomes" and "the art advances, but the artist recedes". Therefore, fundamental to liberalism was the preservation and fostering of the inherent nature of man: creative freedom and the development of human potential in its richest diversity.
Adam Smith concurred. Everybody cites the early passage glorifying the "division of labour" in the Wealth of Nations, but nobody talks about Smith's scathing denunciation of the division of labour later on, when he writes," the man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations, whose effects too are always or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to be". He goes on to advocate government intervention to prevent this despicable state of affairs as this is what so called "improved, civilized" societies would tend towards. John Stuart Mill, the other patron saint of liberalism, was of the view that, "The form of association, however, which if mankind continues to improve, must be expected to predominate, is the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers electable and removable by themselves". This is John Stuart Mill, not Karl Marx!
The great thinkers whom I have cited were pre-capitalist and couldn't have foreseen the attack on liberalism through the emergence of giant corporations that would be accorded "personhood" and associated legal rights through judicial activism (not democratic legislation). But some of them, like Adam Smith, were quite astute and already saw the tendencies of the "architects of state policy", whom he called the "masters of mankind", to cleave to " the vile maxim: all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else".
Enlightenment Liberalism was essentially socialism, its promise of unleashing human creativity under conditions of equality and freedom achievable only by a socialist society. It took a lot of propaganda to bastardize "liberalism" and make it amenable to capitalism. Noam Chomsky famously said," Liberalism was wrecked on the shoals of capitalism".
As Grace notes trenchantly, this was done by upholding the market as the final arbiter of fairness in matters of exchange but completely ignoring the goings on in the realm of production. Theories such as Ronald Coase's theory of firms were developed to justify the existence of market distorting firms. And this was accompanied by a recasting of human nature as essentially a selfish, greedy and individualistic rush to acquire more and more, tempered and channelled by "free markets" to mediate the greater common good. And this indispensability of "free markets" was core to "bastardized liberalism". It defends the class structure of society and concomitant social relations, where a tiny opulent class dictates terms to a massive "wage-slave" class. The liberalism of today is essentially "soft fascism". And it is no wonder that so called liberal societies should be so susceptible to full blown fascism. I always keep coming back to Rosa Luxemburg: the choice has always been between socialism and barbarism.
Thanks for the citations and the context central to understanding the development of ideas and of how we see ourselves today. I think this is essential for de-masking and deconstructing the neo-liberal reasoning and attraction.
At the start of the Trump era I vowed not to contract TDS, not to hate those who did, and to listen to everyone. I detested Trump, but was relieved that he defeated Clinton. This rinse cycle was repeated with Kamala Harris.
I had most luck finding common ground with MAGA people by saying “We have something important in common. We both loathe liberals”. That got a laugh and often an interesting conversation.
I’m with you ultimately Grace, Pilkington’s position is rooted in conservatism, perhaps from his education with the Christian Brothers. But I did find The Collapse of Global Liberalism very interesting and thought provoking, e.g. the chapter ‘Blood and Steel’ on militarism under liberalism and the chapter on mental health …
I love this topic! It's interesting, Slavoj Zizek has started to call Trump a "liberal fascist," which I think complements well the argument you've made here. Liberalism (in America & beyond) has existed as a sort of authoritarian force in itself, insofar as any other ways of organizing society (socialism, populism, etc.) are cast as extremism. Trump exploited people's frustrations with this and added his own sort of authoritarian flair, but crucially, he still upholds liberalism's pillars of capitalism, private property, and individualism. Thus, we've landed in a very strange place, where the problem (liberalism's limits) has been laid bare, which I think is a good thing; however, the solutions are, in many ways, even worse. My problem with the liberals is that they cannot and will not admit failure under their watch, so we are left with the far right getting to own this by default.
Yes I think that's a good way of putting it - though I don't think we can expect liberals to admit to failure. Historically, only an organised working class has been capable of forcing them to the negotiating table - and that's how we got social democracy!
"Schumpeter was so convinced of Marx’s arguments that he believed, wrongly, that capitalism was destined to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions."
Wrongly indeed: for had Marx himself held such an unimaginatively narrow materialist-inevitabilist worldview; then he could have enjoyed a far quieter life as purely a prophet-commentator, instead of devoting himself headlong into implacably and indefatigably fighting within and constantly evolving this - even now, still-raging - battle of ideas which our still-unreconciled material relations have thrown up.
Thank you once again for yet another thought-provoking article Grace! 😊
As a liberal minded Independent who grew up in a “Barry Goldwater Conservative” family, I find I am interested in the “-isms” that are prevalent in our current paradigm, primarily because I want to understand how the outcomes of policies that emerge from these positions and how they impact the economy and the social order. I have been developing my own critique of the current system and have seen some thoughtful and not so thoughtful reviews of “liberalism”. It seems that if you are targeting a specific demographic of readers, then one can supply plenty of red meat for an audience that wants to hear about the failings of one side or the other, without any real exploration of why and how these isms/policies have come about, or what practical approaches to problem solving might look like. I also find that it is challenging for many to see past their own presumptions and seem unable to grasp the many obscured and ubiquitous “givens” that exist and persist beneath the layers of what is generally accepted as defined: Money, economy, market, liberal, conservative, growth etc
I think I’m trying to say that we have defined many of these terms based on how they are used in our given/preferred media ecosystems and our cultural and social environments (it’s all about context). So these incongruences are fundamental issues that seem to get in the way of the pursuit of a universal understanding of “politics” and the issues, and the powers that be are not only fine with that, they engineer that. I want to avoid circular arguments but that seems inevitable due to the extent that controversy and outrage “gets clicks” and garners attention. Is there ever really any “getting to the bottom of it” when we can’t even agree on the definitions of words, or if we do, that we spin the meanings to bend to our worldview. I won’t include a link to my own post from last night (unless you will allow me) about liberalism and Teleology but it seems to be a synchronicity that this article of yours caught my attention and it’s much appreciated and insightful. Please check it out if you have a chance!
It’s worth noting that a lot of early liberal philosophy, especially the work of Locke, was taken up with justifying the colonial appropriation of land. Working through land could become property and why such property did not belong to the indigenous inhabitants took some intellectual ingenuity.
V true!! Honestly, I could turn this essay into a book, if I wasn't already writing another one
Indeed! I mean “working” the land meant you owned it but then your labour in a factory meant you owned nothing. There’s a whole book right there.
Antonio Malchik's next book No Tresspassing should cover this subject. Her blog On The Commons is on this site too
Oh I live for this.
In fact, I’d wager old Plillsbury will produce a forthcoming apologia like that idiot Fukuyama from The Hoover Institute for the criminally insane and stupid. Last Man and the End of History. A real book burner. People talk too much and shouldn’t write at all until they have something useful to add.
Not just appropriation of land, but also chattels. The "triangle of trade" meant that early capital accumulation was aided and abetted heavily by the slave trade.
That’s like saying gravity is irrelevant because we can’t change it or entropy is irrelevant because we can’t change it. It’s not a useful way of reasoning. Relevance and an individual or collective capacity to change something are not related properties.
We need to start in kindergarten with you. You need to know the definition of capitalism. Capitalism is caring for others. If you doubt it for even a split second all you have to do is open a capitalist business and announce that you don't care about your workers and customers. Do you have the intelligence to know what would happen?
Donald Trump? Junior?
What about Donald Trump Junior. You clean forgot to tell us. You organize your thinking and writing the way one I would expect a left-winger to do
All that is sort of irrelevant now. Goes without saying that land and other property used to be exchanged by violent means. And now it is exchanged peacefully for money and for mutual advantage. Do you want to go back to doing it by violence or do you like the current peaceful exchange method?
Why is it irrelevant? And why is the choice between capitalism and violence? Capitalism is violent.
Capitalism began when the first hunter and the first Fisher freely and peacefully decided to trade meat for fish to help each other out. Capitalism is nothing more than that. Milton Friedman was the world's greatest capitalist advocate and he wanted nothing more than that. It is based on peaceful exchange for mutual advantage and nothing else.
Er "the first hunter and the first fisher" didn't emerge to engage in "trade" like Athena from the forehead of Zeus -- they were born into families and tribes and enmeshed thereby in a web of mutual obligations.
Back to school with you for some human biology and anthropology ...
At Jamestown (1611–1614), land and harvests were initially held in common, with colonists working collectively but producing little. Facing starvation, Governor Thomas Dale allotted each man three acres for private use. Productivity soared, ensuring survival. At Plymouth (1620–1623), settlers likewise farmed communally under the Mayflower Compact. Poor yields and resentment followed until Governor William Bradford assigned private plots. With individuals free to reap their own reward, output rose dramatically. Both colonies abandoned socialism for private property and market incentives, securing prosperity and growth.
Capitalism involves peaceful voluntary exchange . socialism is when government is in control and exchange happens at gunpoint. This is a very critical thing for you to learn. If you are still not clear on it please feel free to ask questions.
How is market exchange and capitalism equivalent and why is socialism defined as government violence? Surely if violence is relevant to defining a system, in your view, it must be noted definitionally in any system.
Yes it is noted definitively that violence is the most important aspect of socialism. Socialism is government owning factories. The government doesn't make the factories it takes guns and uses them to steal the factories. This seems like a very elementary concept. Do you understand it now?
This isn’t socialism.
Socialism is a system managed by the government. The government manages at gunpoint. If it didn't use guns nobody would listen to it or at least most people would not. Do you understand now?
Funnily enough, currency itself developed as a means through to pay soldiers.
Free market exchange and capitalism are the same thing. Free people exchanging goods and services for a freely agreed-upon price. Do you understand now?
free market exchange and capitalism can't possibly be the 'same thing', as free market exchange existed millennia before capitalism. Capitalism involves the accumulation of capital, which means the wealthiest always infiltrate and eventually control the state, which skews markets toward the wealthiest (corporations).
Actually people exchanging things freely based on needs feels kinda communist. Welcome, comrade.
No, capitalism can never be a free market. Corporate capture of states will ensure monopoly. See above. Free markets would be a very good thing, but markets can never be free with monopoly players and a captured state.
The past is irrelevant because we can't change it. 1+1 = 2
Land and other property?”
Not sure what you are trying to say there. Why not try again in better English
What’s early liberal philosophy?
Classical Liberalism is figment of libertarians overactive imagination. If you think J.S. Mill is from the “classical period” you may have your chronologies mixed up. Liberalism is not an ideology, btw.
You sound British. Conservatism is not an either. Ideologies suck. Just look at the mess libertarianism has become: produces fascists.
Lord Hailsham’s explanation of conservatism is correct, but only as far as it goes:
“Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself.”
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v24/n11/ian-gilmour/the-other-side-have-got-one
the depth of your knowledge/analysis never ceases to amaze me, grace. banger essay
😭 tysm ♥️♥️
The capitalist status quo is genocidal and long has been. And yes liberalism is apology for the capitalist status quo. And, in America, establishment Democrats are the arch liberals.
Meanwhile conservatives and Trumpists, Republicans, are supremacist genocidal capitalists, even worse than liberals.
Both are terrible, as in monstrous. And both are endlessly rich and powerful and celebrated and enshrined in law, and they have a monopoly on violence.
Only a people’s revolution can change this, one that is progressive populist and socialist, at the least.
This is the world, and it ought not be. People throughout history have fought against it, for a new world, and continue to, like you. And not yet a critical mass.
I very much enjoyed this review of Pilkington’s book. Thanks. It’s worth bearing in mind the geospatial dimensions of capitalism which make it a truly global system of exploitation and oppression. Imperialism, settler colonialism and the rapacious plunder of resources from what we now call the Global South were central to the rise of capitalism and remain just as important in the modern era. Marx touches on this insightfully albeit intermittently in ‘Capital’. Jason Hickel’s recent book ‘The Divide’ explains it brilliantly.
Very good points Nick, I touch on all this in the book I mentioned in the piece, Vulture Capitalism.
You’ll be pleased to know I’ve got your book with me as I go on holiday today!
Legend! Have fun
Excellent review- you have said it all. Time to bury Capitalism.
And what then?
Use your imagination🤦♀️ Research indigenous ways of living. Ffs, humans are stupid.
Liberalism in its deep support for capitalism is leading to staggering wealth inequality and an immiserated population - at least in the US. We are now seeing competition between elites and counter - elites (those powerful with strong beliefs on how the world should work who aren't explicitly ruling). This is the recipe that Turchin points to that historically has led to (usually bloody) revolutions.
In the US the final death of liberalism may come at the hands of an autocracy. Ironic because it will be the core beliefs of liberalism that have fostered monopolies, centralized power between the state and those monopolies and pulled government away from the people. Just look at the ideology that Peter Thiel, a fan of Curtis Yavin, advocating for an American CEO. It's just a nicer way of saying dictator.
As per usual, your clarity and razor-sharpness are a force to behold. Wonderful reading!
Thanks Paul!
As you eloquently demonstrated in your book "Vulture Capitalism," the so-called "free market" ideology is pure decoy. Moreover, this "death of ideologies" thing is the funniest, if it wasn't tragic in its effects. Neoliberalism is much more than an ideology, it's a veritable religion, so much so that, even after decades of failure, there are still those who believe in it blindly—aside, of course, from those who pretend to believe in it because they profit from it.
👏👏
Excellent review thanks
Thanks Brian!
A superb article once again by the inimitable Grace Blakeley.
I think the way the term "liberalism" is used today is a bastardization of original liberal ideals that stemmed from the Enlightenment. Enlightenment Liberalism, of the Wilhelm von Humboldt type, viewed humans as not only having equal moral worth, but also as fonts of inquiry and creativity, as searching and exploring beings. The idea that human beings had evolved to create, to search, to inquire, free from any external supervision or force, was fundamental to liberalism. As Humboldt so memorably put it, "when a man works under command, we may admire what he does but we despise what he becomes" and "the art advances, but the artist recedes". Therefore, fundamental to liberalism was the preservation and fostering of the inherent nature of man: creative freedom and the development of human potential in its richest diversity.
Adam Smith concurred. Everybody cites the early passage glorifying the "division of labour" in the Wealth of Nations, but nobody talks about Smith's scathing denunciation of the division of labour later on, when he writes," the man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations, whose effects too are always or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to be". He goes on to advocate government intervention to prevent this despicable state of affairs as this is what so called "improved, civilized" societies would tend towards. John Stuart Mill, the other patron saint of liberalism, was of the view that, "The form of association, however, which if mankind continues to improve, must be expected to predominate, is the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers electable and removable by themselves". This is John Stuart Mill, not Karl Marx!
The great thinkers whom I have cited were pre-capitalist and couldn't have foreseen the attack on liberalism through the emergence of giant corporations that would be accorded "personhood" and associated legal rights through judicial activism (not democratic legislation). But some of them, like Adam Smith, were quite astute and already saw the tendencies of the "architects of state policy", whom he called the "masters of mankind", to cleave to " the vile maxim: all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else".
Enlightenment Liberalism was essentially socialism, its promise of unleashing human creativity under conditions of equality and freedom achievable only by a socialist society. It took a lot of propaganda to bastardize "liberalism" and make it amenable to capitalism. Noam Chomsky famously said," Liberalism was wrecked on the shoals of capitalism".
As Grace notes trenchantly, this was done by upholding the market as the final arbiter of fairness in matters of exchange but completely ignoring the goings on in the realm of production. Theories such as Ronald Coase's theory of firms were developed to justify the existence of market distorting firms. And this was accompanied by a recasting of human nature as essentially a selfish, greedy and individualistic rush to acquire more and more, tempered and channelled by "free markets" to mediate the greater common good. And this indispensability of "free markets" was core to "bastardized liberalism". It defends the class structure of society and concomitant social relations, where a tiny opulent class dictates terms to a massive "wage-slave" class. The liberalism of today is essentially "soft fascism". And it is no wonder that so called liberal societies should be so susceptible to full blown fascism. I always keep coming back to Rosa Luxemburg: the choice has always been between socialism and barbarism.
Thanks for the citations and the context central to understanding the development of ideas and of how we see ourselves today. I think this is essential for de-masking and deconstructing the neo-liberal reasoning and attraction.
At the start of the Trump era I vowed not to contract TDS, not to hate those who did, and to listen to everyone. I detested Trump, but was relieved that he defeated Clinton. This rinse cycle was repeated with Kamala Harris.
I had most luck finding common ground with MAGA people by saying “We have something important in common. We both loathe liberals”. That got a laugh and often an interesting conversation.
Haha very good way of approaching it!
I’m with you ultimately Grace, Pilkington’s position is rooted in conservatism, perhaps from his education with the Christian Brothers. But I did find The Collapse of Global Liberalism very interesting and thought provoking, e.g. the chapter ‘Blood and Steel’ on militarism under liberalism and the chapter on mental health …
Agree! I really enjoyed the book - perhaps that didn't come across enough in the review
I love this topic! It's interesting, Slavoj Zizek has started to call Trump a "liberal fascist," which I think complements well the argument you've made here. Liberalism (in America & beyond) has existed as a sort of authoritarian force in itself, insofar as any other ways of organizing society (socialism, populism, etc.) are cast as extremism. Trump exploited people's frustrations with this and added his own sort of authoritarian flair, but crucially, he still upholds liberalism's pillars of capitalism, private property, and individualism. Thus, we've landed in a very strange place, where the problem (liberalism's limits) has been laid bare, which I think is a good thing; however, the solutions are, in many ways, even worse. My problem with the liberals is that they cannot and will not admit failure under their watch, so we are left with the far right getting to own this by default.
Yes I think that's a good way of putting it - though I don't think we can expect liberals to admit to failure. Historically, only an organised working class has been capable of forcing them to the negotiating table - and that's how we got social democracy!
Good point :) I guess if there is a silver lining it seems like this moment is ripe for that.
A fascinating read. Love your work!
"Schumpeter was so convinced of Marx’s arguments that he believed, wrongly, that capitalism was destined to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions."
Wrongly indeed: for had Marx himself held such an unimaginatively narrow materialist-inevitabilist worldview; then he could have enjoyed a far quieter life as purely a prophet-commentator, instead of devoting himself headlong into implacably and indefatigably fighting within and constantly evolving this - even now, still-raging - battle of ideas which our still-unreconciled material relations have thrown up.
Thank you once again for yet another thought-provoking article Grace! 😊
As a liberal minded Independent who grew up in a “Barry Goldwater Conservative” family, I find I am interested in the “-isms” that are prevalent in our current paradigm, primarily because I want to understand how the outcomes of policies that emerge from these positions and how they impact the economy and the social order. I have been developing my own critique of the current system and have seen some thoughtful and not so thoughtful reviews of “liberalism”. It seems that if you are targeting a specific demographic of readers, then one can supply plenty of red meat for an audience that wants to hear about the failings of one side or the other, without any real exploration of why and how these isms/policies have come about, or what practical approaches to problem solving might look like. I also find that it is challenging for many to see past their own presumptions and seem unable to grasp the many obscured and ubiquitous “givens” that exist and persist beneath the layers of what is generally accepted as defined: Money, economy, market, liberal, conservative, growth etc
I think I’m trying to say that we have defined many of these terms based on how they are used in our given/preferred media ecosystems and our cultural and social environments (it’s all about context). So these incongruences are fundamental issues that seem to get in the way of the pursuit of a universal understanding of “politics” and the issues, and the powers that be are not only fine with that, they engineer that. I want to avoid circular arguments but that seems inevitable due to the extent that controversy and outrage “gets clicks” and garners attention. Is there ever really any “getting to the bottom of it” when we can’t even agree on the definitions of words, or if we do, that we spin the meanings to bend to our worldview. I won’t include a link to my own post from last night (unless you will allow me) about liberalism and Teleology but it seems to be a synchronicity that this article of yours caught my attention and it’s much appreciated and insightful. Please check it out if you have a chance!