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Not quite. BLM in particular is called Marxist because the people who actually organize that movement have called themselves "trained Marxists" and the British

Not quite. BLM in particular is called Marxist because the people who actually organize that movement have called themselves "trained Marxists" and the British BLM website for a while claimed their goals involved overthrowing capitalism and the nuclear family. If you don't think BLM is Marxist that's understandable because those facts didn't get much attention, but, they definitely are. Adopting a clenched fist as a logo should be another hint. At any rate, it's mostly because Marxism is not really an economic ideology, even though communism is often presented as an alternative to capitalism. Communism is arguably not an economic system at all given the absolutely minimal detail Marx provided about how a communist economy was actually meant to work. Marxism is best understood as a packaged set of views about the current state of the world and human nature, the correct/perfect state of the world and human nature, and a plan for how to get from here to there. A key component of Marxist thought is that the current state of the world is one of "alienation" (today we would say oppression), in which a small minority subtly oppress the majority in such a way that the majority don't realize they're oppressed. But if they were to realize, they could rise up and via a revolution overthrow their oppressors. This would establish a transient state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) that would eventually, once society was finished being transformed, sort of melt away leaving communism as a kind of superior form of existence in which there's no oppression, human nature has fundamentally changed and as a consequence everyone is equal. It's that last bit that gets the bulk of the attention because, firstly, the rest is kind of vague, and secondly, the socialist revolutionaries were expected to deliver obvious, real-world benefits for their revolution and focused on the "everyone is economically equal" bit as something that could be achieved via large scale government action. But to Marx that was only one part of it. The rest was about human nature. The modern left, especially in Silicon Valley, is easily identifiable as a new variant of this basic ideology: - Society is split into oppressors (white men) and everyone else (women, other races). People are always one of these groups and cannot move between them. Many oppressed people don't believe they're oppressed, but that's because they've been deceived and it's very important to make them realize that white men are oppressing them. - People are either really good, or really bad, and people who are really bad (anyone who doesn't subscribe to this ideology) need to be suppressed, expelled, or silenced in various ways. - The world is suffering under vaguely defined oppressive forces (Marx: imperialism, the Woke: patriarchy/systemic racism). If these forces are defeated, humanity will be elevated to a superior form of existence. - Exceptionally aggressive "with us or against us" tactics are legitimate and even required to reach this state. There are a bunch of other similarities, but that's the gist.

silexia 5y ago
Wow, both the parent comment and grandparent comment here are the best of HN - extremely well reasoned thoughts with different perspectives. Thank you for sharing!
- permo-w 5y ago
  it continues haha
permo-w 5y ago
To start, I appreciate the long and thought out answer. You’ve put some effort in, and it was a pleasant and interesting read However, I think you’ve misunderstood BLM at its core. BLM is not a specific group like the GOP or the NRA. Maybe it was originally, and maybe it nominally still is, but BLM is a slogan. It’s a label. It’s more like calling yourself left-wing, or right-wing. If I say I’m left-wing, do you assume I have the same views as the people who sat in the left wing of the French parliament all those years ago? So if I say “Black Lives Matter”, should you assume that I believe the same as some nameless, faceless founder that I don’t know? Just to add a bit of real life evidence to that, I don’t know if you’ve met the kind of people that associate themselves with black lives matter, but being a student, I have, a lot. They have no interest in Marxism, let me tell you And in regards to your comment that Marxism isn’t economic: I don’t like to directly call people wrong, because it’s abrasive and rarely changes anything, but no, you’re completely wrong. Marxism is primarily about the distribution of wealth in society. The name of the book is ‘Das Kapital’. It’s not ‘Das Identity’, or ‘Das Oppressors’. It’s ‘The Capital’. It’s a book analysing who holds the money and means of production in society and how that capital is distributed amongst the classes. Marx was an economist. and I take your point that if you extrapolate some of Marx’s views outwards, they could be applied to what blm people stand for. However, that is not marxism. That is one aspect of Marxism, extrapolated outwards and applied to something different. Look at it this way: Plenty of right-wing anti-semites believe that the world is secretly oppressed by a small minority of jews. Would you call them Marxists, or neo-marxists? Now finally, onto your parallels between the silicon valley ideology that’s risen up and Marxism. First of all, there’s an inherent extremely obvious contradiction. Silicon valley is full of massive capital holding corporations, who aggressively crush any attempts to unionise, who are the antithesis of marx’s primary goals. Even if the ideology shares some vague themes with communism, in my opinion, that is easily enough to scratch off a Marxist label. Easily. Onto your actual parallels: 1. this is just a repeat of above. Sure it’s true, and sure it’s a parallel, but it’s nowhere near enough to start throwing round the word marxist 2. that may have been an aspect of communist societies, but it’s also an aspect of fascist societies, and basically any society who had something to hide. Besides, we’re talking about Marxism, not in-practice communism 3. First, Marx’s feud wasn’t with imperialism, it was with the class system. I’m sure he didn’t like imperialism either, but that wasn’t his primary enemy. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I’ve never heard anything like that from a BLM or new left/silicon valley type. They’re very interested in short term aesthetic wins (pulling down statues, apologies from politicians etc etc) and I really don’t think many of them have considered their long-term goals. This is a conversation I’ve had a few times. I posit that surely the end-goal should be to, outside of practicalities, forget race/gender/sexuality even exists in the first place, and they aren’t really sure and don’t seem to have thought about it Additionally, achieving your goals and converting the world to your mindset is not an invention of Marx, and not even remotely exclusive to marxists 4. this also is hardly unique to the ideology, or to Marxism, or any group. the Nazis were the same. So are the Westboro baptist church. Are they Marxists? To take the WBC point further, look at those parallels again. How many of them apply to the Westboro Baptist Church, or the Nazis, or most cults? You may think that’s against my argument, but it’s not. I’m not here to defend the new left or BLM. They do share some themes with cults and bad groups from history, and I think their ideology is borderline madness. (read up on critical race theory). That doesn’t make them Marxists though. It just doesn’t

silexia 5y ago

Wow, both the parent comment and grandparent comment here are the best of HN - extremely well reasoned thoughts with different perspectives. Thank you for sharing!

permo-w 5y ago
it continues haha

permo-w 5y ago

To start, I appreciate the long and thought out answer. You’ve put some effort in, and it was a pleasant and interesting read However, I think you’ve misunderstood BLM at its core. BLM is not a specific group like the GOP or the NRA. Maybe it was originally, and maybe it nominally still is, but BLM is a slogan. It’s a label. It’s more like calling yourself left-wing, or right-wing. If I say I’m left-wing, do you assume I have the same views as the people who sat in the left wing of the French parliament all those years ago? So if I say “Black Lives Matter”, should you assume that I believe the same as some nameless, faceless founder that I don’t know? Just to add a bit of real life evidence to that, I don’t know if you’ve met the kind of people that associate themselves with black lives matter, but being a student, I have, a lot. They have no interest in Marxism, let me tell you And in regards to your comment that Marxism isn’t economic: I don’t like to directly call people wrong, because it’s abrasive and rarely changes anything, but no, you’re completely wrong. Marxism is primarily about the distribution of wealth in society. The name of the book is ‘Das Kapital’. It’s not ‘Das Identity’, or ‘Das Oppressors’. It’s ‘The Capital’. It’s a book analysing who holds the money and means of production in society and how that capital is distributed amongst the classes. Marx was an economist. and I take your point that if you extrapolate some of Marx’s views outwards, they could be applied to what blm people stand for. However, that is not marxism. That is one aspect of Marxism, extrapolated outwards and applied to something different. Look at it this way: Plenty of right-wing anti-semites believe that the world is secretly oppressed by a small minority of jews. Would you call them Marxists, or neo-marxists? Now finally, onto your parallels between the silicon valley ideology that’s risen up and Marxism. First of all, there’s an inherent extremely obvious contradiction. Silicon valley is full of massive capital holding corporations, who aggressively crush any attempts to unionise, who are the antithesis of marx’s primary goals. Even if the ideology shares some vague themes with communism, in my opinion, that is easily enough to scratch off a Marxist label. Easily. Onto your actual parallels: 1. this is just a repeat of above. Sure it’s true, and sure it’s a parallel, but it’s nowhere near enough to start throwing round the word marxist 2. that may have been an aspect of communist societies, but it’s also an aspect of fascist societies, and basically any society who had something to hide. Besides, we’re talking about Marxism, not in-practice communism 3. First, Marx’s feud wasn’t with imperialism, it was with the class system. I’m sure he didn’t like imperialism either, but that wasn’t his primary enemy. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I’ve never heard anything like that from a BLM or new left/silicon valley type. They’re very interested in short term aesthetic wins (pulling down statues, apologies from politicians etc etc) and I really don’t think many of them have considered their long-term goals. This is a conversation I’ve had a few times. I posit that surely the end-goal should be to, outside of practicalities, forget race/gender/sexuality even exists in the first place, and they aren’t really sure and don’t seem to have thought about it Additionally, achieving your goals and converting the world to your mindset is not an invention of Marx, and not even remotely exclusive to marxists 4. this also is hardly unique to the ideology, or to Marxism, or any group. the Nazis were the same. So are the Westboro baptist church. Are they Marxists? To take the WBC point further, look at those parallels again. How many of them apply to the Westboro Baptist Church, or the Nazis, or most cults? You may think that’s against my argument, but it’s not. I’m not here to defend the new left or BLM. They do share some themes with cults and bad groups from history, and I think their ideology is borderline madness. (read up on critical race theory). That doesn’t make them Marxists though. It just doesn’t