Re: <nettime> Was cultural Marxism the leading force behind the new worl

'Cultural Marxism' is a conspiracy theory propagated by the extreme right. The article posted by Ico above is good and I think it's fair game to bundle anyone who openly promotes or subscribes to it with the likes of Breivik. The European New Right have been reading Gramsci since the 70's afaik.

In pointing to the vague terrain of culture as the territory in which today's wars are fought what can be missed is the material organisation and strategic historical positioning of the far right.

As you mention Rothbard and the Anarcho Capitalists this article below is highly relevant as it maps the organisational splits between euro-centric and euro-sceptic branches of the neoliberal / libertarian movements. The strategy is simple - make such a mess of democratic politics that people will reject democracy in it's entirety in favour of rule by markets.

https://braveneweurope.com/quinn-slobodian-and-dieter-plehwe-the-neoliberals-who-opposed-europe

On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 10:47 PM Flick Harrison <[email protected]> wrote:

I always thought Cultural Marxism was a fine term and it doesn't hit me as a right-biased word in itself, though it gets used since its origin that way. I mean the first law teacher I had in University was a Marxist-Feminist, who completely believed this radical notion that righties hate: there's a superstructure that constructs the social narrative, and the social narrative is the source for all concepts of right, wrong, law, etc, which are not absolutes but socially determined; and that as we live in a patriarchy, the narrative is all about what men need, want, love and desire. Thus the patriarchal power structure and the narrative reinforce and reproduce one another.

The objective of the Marxist-Feminist is seizing the means of production of this narrative (culturally, in the workplace, in the control of capital whether for industry or communications, in politics, in the home etc).

Now if you extrapolate to include intersectional politics, you get Cultural Marxism, or maybe Identity Marxism. What's not to like about this term? What's incompatible with our ideals?

By using the word Marxist you're already implying socialism and internationalism, it would be hard to be a Marxist-Feminist who isn't a radical socialist too.

So for all the awfulness of Anders Breivik, this nomenclature dispute isn't the angle from which I'd critique him. The problem is his (perhaps mental-health or socially-conditioned) fear of the other, leading to violent outburst. The problem is his fear of dialogue and engagement. The problem is the amplifying echo-chamber of violent, unhinged narcissists with nothing but contempt for any difference of opinion, where bad-faith actors team up with honest ignoramuses and budding lunatics.

Now a term I really suspect is the bogeyman term "Anarcho-Capitalism:" this seems to be almost an alt-right Trojan Horse, meant to lure beginner Left thinkers of the "Bernie-or-Trump" variety. To me Libertarian Capitalism seems like a term that more readily describes people like Trump, Paul Ryan, Margaret Thatcher, Andrew Scheer, Sarkozy etc. "Capital is born free, yet everywhere it is in chains!" Oh crap, there's Rousseau again, but I swear I know nothing about him.

By using "Anarcho-" that way, it sounds to me like an attempt to muddy our image of the villains: "Anarchism" evokes the left, whereas the most radical white supremacist kleptocrats are more likely Libertarian. Why try to make Anarchism sound bad by tying it to Capitalism?? Because the alt-right talking points assert that "globalism" and "identity politics" and "socialism" are something that "elites" do, i.e. the big bad "oligarchs." Lump these elites (Hillary! Oprah! Michelle Obama!) together with capitalists ((Soros!)) and you get "Anarcho-Capitalists??"

Libertarian Capitalism, on the other hand, gets away scot-free because Crypto nerds think libertarianism is cool and they want Undermine the Elites!! They get to avoid Paying Taxes for the Globalist Wars! Libertarian Capitalism is for rebels and futurists and you just want to suck up to the Government!!

Maybe I'm stretching it. But the more I dive in, this decision - whether to villainize "Anarcho-Capitalism" or "Libertarian Capitalism" seems more and more important.

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