Saturday, August 22, 2026

Who would ever misunderstand Marx?

 Post is presenting a sociological work critiquing Marx, Engels, Lenin and others who maintain that imperialism created a conservative layer on the industrial working class in the imperialist core countries. Called the "labour aristocracy," it acts as a corrupting influence on the working class and a brake on their radicalization.


I like Post's essays. Nothing is more natural in Marxist theory than critiquing marxist theory, and particularly the greats. Post's model was internal to a national working class, however, but Zak Cope critiqued it from the standpoint of a solemn defender of Marx and Engels, neither of whom he seems to understand
https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/43130

Marx an Engels, 15. August 1857

"Es ist möglich, daß ich mich blamiere. Indes ist dann immer mit einiger Dialektik zu helfen. Ich habe natürlich meine Aufstellungen so gehalten, daß ich im umgekehrten Fall auch Recht habe."

MEW a.a.O. 29, 161., Rotbuch S. 115

It is possible that I could disgrace myself. But there's always a bit of Dialectic to help out. I have naturally expressed my statements so that I am also right if the opposite thing happens.

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Two cheers for demcracy

 Anarchs might express broad brush stroke support for democracy for the same reason they might praise planetary economist Keynes now and the...