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(This appeared under Pham Binh's "Liquidating Lies".)
As someone who started identifying as a Marxist six months ago, I
find the state of the Marxist Left in the US to be embarrassing.
Frankly, in addition to blaming myself, I blame the absurd
sectarian squabbles for the reason I didn’t become a Marxist years
ago – because to the extent that I even knew about these tiny
grouplets (I didn’t) I probably considering them fringe groups
stuck in the past. They also have no web presence, because they
have successfully divided up into enough factions to render them
negligible in a networked world of exponential returns. It’s a
small miracle that I managed to find my way to Marxism, instead of
becoming an anarchist like everyone else my age who is radicalized
these days.
The challenge facing the Marxist left would seem to me obvious.
There aren’t enough Marxists. And there aren’t enough Marxists
because the Marxists have isolated themselves from everyone else.
These organizations seem paranoid about being diluted by those who
do not meet their purity tests, but in reality there is nothing to
dilute because they don’t even have anything approaching a
legitimate party yet alone a mass movement. And then when a mass
movement does come alone (OWS) they sit on the sidelines
criticizing it for not meeting their ideal, which becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy because they largely refuse to work with it.
In addition there seems to be a lot of personal issues with people
who would rather be a big fish in a small pond than actually see
the mass movement they sit around talking about flourish. As it
stands, these groups are mostly irrelevant by their own choosing.
I’m sure I could dig up some quotes from a historical Marxist to
back up my perspective, but I don’t give a shit, because as much
as I personally love history this obsession with historical
theoretical texts is part of the problem. Until you guys get your
act together i’ll be working with the anarchists, who frankly are
100x more enjoyable to be around.
Ben
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