New York Times: "Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!"

I used to support the Democrats in US politics, back in the day of Carter and Reagan. I have changed and so, even more, have they.

I stopped being a Democrat after Bill Clinton had been in office a few months but I was neutral in 2000, strongly backed Gore in 2004 and hesitantly backed Obama, despite his being a European-style Social Democrat and his enthusiasm for horrible things like partial birth abortion, because of his colour, but also because of anger at the way Republicans had ruled since 2000 and because John McCain seemed like another George W. Bush.

I used to read the New York Times and Washington Post, via the foreign vehicle they published, the International Herald Tribune, without the faintest feeling that the news they published was biassed. Now not much news in those papers, and none about Donald Trump and the right, is worth reading.


But not only have those papers moved a long way left but so have the Democrats and American left of centre opinion formers - and academics.

As evidence see this disgraceful article in the New York Times by Jason Barker praising Karl Marx and his relevance for today's politics. 

Hitler is still out of fashion, but Marx is back.

I quote:

"Racial and sexual oppression have been added to the dynamic of class exploitation. Social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, owe something of an unspoken debt to Marx through their unapologetic targeting of the “eternal truths” of our age. Such movements recognize, as did Marx, that the ideas that rule every society are those of its ruling class and that overturning those ideas is fundamental to true revolutionary progress. 

"We have become used to the go-getting mantra that to effect social change we first have to change ourselves. But enlightened or rational thinking is not enough, since the norms of thinking are already skewed by the structures of male privilege and social hierarchy, even down to the language we use. Changing those norms entails changing the very foundations of society."

You might think that since readers of the NYT live in a democracy and one which has all sorts of liberal laws providing for a welfare state, free education, affirmative action, non discrimination and much else, there would be no need for a revolution.

The fact, if it is one and I doubt it, quoted in the article from the left wing ginger group Oxfam, that 82 percent of the global wealth generated in 2017 went to the world’s richest one percent, disguises the interesting fact that 32 percent, fewer than one third, of people on the Forbes 400 list of America's richest billionaires grew up rich.

But what struck me most is that I found myself agreeing with Mr Barker and Karl Marx

"that the ideas that rule every society are those of its ruling class and that overturning those ideas is fundamental to true revolutionary progress.”

And this despite the fact or rather because of the fact that, unlike Mr. Barker, I think social hierarchy necessary, inevitable and a very good thing.

The liberals have now captured the state and society and form the ruling class. They are therefore no longer interested in freedom (which means freedom from the state). It is now the task of true conservatives (not Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Boris Johnson or people like that) to overthrow the ideas of the liberal ruling class. 

I do not normally approve of revolutions, and certainly not in the sense of overthrowing legal governments, but I do think we need a root-and-branch revolution in thinking carried out democratically. And quickly. 

An article today in Quillette suggests a possible solution to the painful divisions in American society caused by the leftward drift of the left.

If the massive divide between America’s left and right is ever to be narrowed, it will be through something resembling an implicit grand bargain, according to which both sides rediscover the common roots of their respective creeds in classical liberalism. For progressives, this would mean putting aside the fixation on assigning moral value on the basis of political group identity—race, gender, or sexual orientation. For conservatives, this would mean coming to terms with the common humanity we share with those in other nations, along with an acceptance of the modern pluralistic welfare state.

This sounds hopeful and would be a good thing if it happened, but this is not what I want. I'd very much prefer conservatism based on the belief in the necessity of social hierarchy and tradition, not any kind of liberalism. This is of course impossible in the USA where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are Whig documents and everyone is some sort of liberal except the Communists, fascists and perhaps the palaeo-conservatives.