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Sure, I can definitely see a Marxist-like critique in his writings, but such a critique can be used to point to variety of alternative solutions, including a pu

Sure, I can definitely see a Marxist-like critique in his writings, but such a critique can be used to point to variety of alternative solutions, including a purer form of democracy than we currently have in the US.

netcan 17y ago
A purer form of democracy is in fact what many more contemporary American (or Western) socialists such as social libertarians have advocated. Again, I can't think of any instances where Zinn proposes a "solution" other then enlightenment (eg' understand that we, the readers and writers of books have mostly been the jailers'[1]) so I wouldn't charecterise him as part of any of those movements. I think that you would classify his work as a part of the Marxist family of intellectual endeavour for other reasons. Since the most obvious effects of Communist thought were the political-economic systems inspired by it, we tend to think of Communism as being purely focused on these. But, an approach to historical analysis is as much a part of Marxist thought as economic analysis. Howard Zinn was a historian. [1] Quoted roughly & ineloquently from memory.
- viggity 17y ago
  "American Socialists such as social libertarians" What? I see that as a contradiction in terms.
  - netcan 17y ago
    A contradiction between which of those two word pairs ;) Seriously though, if you think of Socialism as a group of ideas across different fields, you find a lot of diversity once you get to the applied level. You can get anarchy (the aforementioned social libertarians and others tend towards anarchism) or totalitarianism. Direct democracy or dictatorship. Say you accept Marx's characterization of history as a struggle between classes, you are moved to rage by The Communist Manifesto,^ it describes the brutal no-nonsense history of civilization in a way that makes sense. There are lots of directions you can go from there. Obviously marx had some pretty specific applications which I read as leading to something not that far from bolshevism, but you don't have to agree with everything. ^I suggest that you read it. For most people, I suspect you'll quibble with bits and pieces that have since (it's been 150 years, after all) been subject to more trial and scrutiny. As a narrative, it is not without predictive power.
  - rms 17y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
- rgrieselhuber 17y ago
  I think that's the right distinction to make. Often times, in discussions such as these, people will associate Marxist-type critiques with an immediate conjunction to Communism (almost in knee-jerk fashion), because of the historical reasons you mention. I think that's unfortunate because as a critical model, there are valuable insights to be gained from Marxist thought, even if you reject (as I do) the idea of Communism.
  - netcan 17y ago
    Sure. Hopefully we will be able to see it in historical context by the 200 year anniversary of The Manifesto. As a model for describing history, its not hard to see the attraction to Marx. He was, after all, a very smart guy.
kaens 17y ago
I'm fairly certain Zinn was an anarchist. He was certainly heavily influenced by anarchist philosophy.
- rjurney 17y ago
  But he was the nice kind :)
swannodette 17y ago
His rhetoric was simpler than that. He was anti-money-grubbing-indian-killing-black-people-killing-chinese-killing-immigrant-killing-worker-killing-racist-corporate-capitalist-unregulated-opportunist. I'm not totally sure what that has to do with marxism or communism.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  He was only against Indian-killing when white people did it. He described Indians as "innocent" before white people came to America. I guess Indian-killing is ok when other Indians do it.
  - swannodette 17y ago
    Wow, upvotes on this? You're trying to compare local tribal warfare to continent spanning state-condoned genocide. Did you actually read any Zinn?
    - yummyfajitas 17y ago
      Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that there actually was continent spanning state condoned genocide? (Hint: there wasn't. There were all sorts of local wars of conquest. They amounted to diddly squat, however, in comparison to smallpox, which was completely unavoidable.)
      - swannodette 17y ago
        Spoken like a true revisionist imperialist. "Since the Indians are dead anyway lets monetize this land which was never monetized before and lets get our government to back us up."
jessejmc 17y ago
The United States is not a democracy, it is a republic. Democracy is mob rule and is something the founding fathers were very much against.
- balding_n_tired 17y ago
  Ochlocracy is mob rule. As for democracy, it depends very much on which founding father you choose..
- rgrieselhuber 17y ago
  That's funny, because the countries highest on the Democracy Index seem anything but governed by mob rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    The democracy index does not measure democracy. It measures a weighted average of electoral process/pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. A true measure of how democratic a nation is would exclude civil liberties, functioning of government and political culture.

netcan 17y ago

A purer form of democracy is in fact what many more contemporary American (or Western) socialists such as social libertarians have advocated. Again, I can't think of any instances where Zinn proposes a "solution" other then enlightenment (eg' understand that we, the readers and writers of books have mostly been the jailers'[1]) so I wouldn't charecterise him as part of any of those movements. I think that you would classify his work as a part of the Marxist family of intellectual endeavour for other reasons. Since the most obvious effects of Communist thought were the political-economic systems inspired by it, we tend to think of Communism as being purely focused on these. But, an approach to historical analysis is as much a part of Marxist thought as economic analysis. Howard Zinn was a historian. [1] Quoted roughly & ineloquently from memory.

viggity 17y ago
"American Socialists such as social libertarians" What? I see that as a contradiction in terms.
- netcan 17y ago
  A contradiction between which of those two word pairs ;) Seriously though, if you think of Socialism as a group of ideas across different fields, you find a lot of diversity once you get to the applied level. You can get anarchy (the aforementioned social libertarians and others tend towards anarchism) or totalitarianism. Direct democracy or dictatorship. Say you accept Marx's characterization of history as a struggle between classes, you are moved to rage by The Communist Manifesto,^ it describes the brutal no-nonsense history of civilization in a way that makes sense. There are lots of directions you can go from there. Obviously marx had some pretty specific applications which I read as leading to something not that far from bolshevism, but you don't have to agree with everything. ^I suggest that you read it. For most people, I suspect you'll quibble with bits and pieces that have since (it's been 150 years, after all) been subject to more trial and scrutiny. As a narrative, it is not without predictive power.
- rms 17y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
rgrieselhuber 17y ago
I think that's the right distinction to make. Often times, in discussions such as these, people will associate Marxist-type critiques with an immediate conjunction to Communism (almost in knee-jerk fashion), because of the historical reasons you mention. I think that's unfortunate because as a critical model, there are valuable insights to be gained from Marxist thought, even if you reject (as I do) the idea of Communism.
- netcan 17y ago
  Sure. Hopefully we will be able to see it in historical context by the 200 year anniversary of The Manifesto. As a model for describing history, its not hard to see the attraction to Marx. He was, after all, a very smart guy.

kaens 17y ago

I'm fairly certain Zinn was an anarchist. He was certainly heavily influenced by anarchist philosophy.

rjurney 17y ago
But he was the nice kind :)

swannodette 17y ago

His rhetoric was simpler than that. He was anti-money-grubbing-indian-killing-black-people-killing-chinese-killing-immigrant-killing-worker-killing-racist-corporate-capitalist-unregulated-opportunist. I'm not totally sure what that has to do with marxism or communism.

yummyfajitas 17y ago
He was only against Indian-killing when white people did it. He described Indians as "innocent" before white people came to America. I guess Indian-killing is ok when other Indians do it.
- swannodette 17y ago
  Wow, upvotes on this? You're trying to compare local tribal warfare to continent spanning state-condoned genocide. Did you actually read any Zinn?
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Do you have any evidence to back up the claim that there actually was continent spanning state condoned genocide? (Hint: there wasn't. There were all sorts of local wars of conquest. They amounted to diddly squat, however, in comparison to smallpox, which was completely unavoidable.)
    - swannodette 17y ago
      Spoken like a true revisionist imperialist. "Since the Indians are dead anyway lets monetize this land which was never monetized before and lets get our government to back us up."

jessejmc 17y ago

The United States is not a democracy, it is a republic. Democracy is mob rule and is something the founding fathers were very much against.

balding_n_tired 17y ago
Ochlocracy is mob rule. As for democracy, it depends very much on which founding father you choose..
rgrieselhuber 17y ago
That's funny, because the countries highest on the Democracy Index seem anything but governed by mob rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  The democracy index does not measure democracy. It measures a weighted average of electoral process/pluralism, civil liberties, functioning of government, political participation and political culture. A true measure of how democratic a nation is would exclude civil liberties, functioning of government and political culture.