> On Jan 1, 2026, at 12:18, Les Schaffer via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > anyway, more discussion of the book??? >
I couldn't get much from the X/Twitter posts, but MP provided a Monthly Review link that I read and the 90 minute video that I didn't watch. What I read put me off. I am no expert, but I don't think it was conspiracy but history that shaped postwar "Western" Marxism like the professorial Frankfurt School. Here is the historical background beyond nefarious plotting by the CIA and others: 1. Western capital partnered with the western industrial working classes to rebuild Europe and Asia during the first quarter century after WW II. 2. Western capitalism raised the standard of living for industrial workers in key industries of the leading imperialist countries. 3. The industrial working class in those countries had begun to shrink in numbers, strength and influence with automation (e. <http://e.bg/>g. dock working) and the loss of industries, e.g. US shipbuilding. 4. Western higher education expanded and many academics both embraced Marxism and developed it for academic, rather than specifically political, purposes. Either correctly or incorrectly, I think of "western Marxism" as an academic discipline that was largely divorced from the struggle during a period when the industrial proletariat became politically dormant and the struggle moved to the colonial independence struggles and the oppressed sectors of imperialist countries who shared little of the postwar posterity. Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39973): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39973 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117027542/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
