[Carecup]

(Original post by chefdave)
It's easier to appreciate the dangers of Cultural Marxism when you're free from it's ideological clutches. But for the 'useful idiots' on the inside I can quite understand why they question the accuracy of the term as their worldview has been tainted by it: they can no longer see the wood from the trees. Here are some of symptoms someone may display if they've been infected with the Culturally Marxist disease:

1) They abhore freedom of speech in case the population start using this freedom to express 'insensitive' ideas they're uncomfetable with.
2) They're economic socialists and believe the 'immoral' marketplace is inferior to the angelic and selfless public sector
3) They advocate the banning 'offensive' words
4) They instictively badmouth the British Empire and generally take into account all the bad things white people have done while ignoring their positive contributions to mankind
5) They're pro multiculturalist
6) They're usually moral relativists
7) They blame poverty in Africa on European meddling.
8) They generally support the 'victim' in every political conflict, hint, the victim is never white, male, Christian or western.
9) They reject the genetic basis for race and instead attempt to present it as a social construct.
10) They advocate the use of 'positive discrimination' (i.e discrimination against white males)
11) They believe in man made global warming


I don't know what their main objectives are however my instincts tells me that they have no truck for outdated ideals such as peace, liberty, free trade and reason.

[doggyfizzel]

I'm not anti Thatcher as such, but for me the privatisation was unforgivable. I'm a believer in a free market but in certain situations you have a natural monopoly, as is the case with utilities. The selling of these was not influenced by the usual arguments for privatisation, only with the generation of money though the selling of government assets. This trend continued with privatisation of British Rail which was a distaster. These decisions left us in a situation where things vital to our economy are controlled by private companies. Its not a normal situation where the free market drives competition as these are essential, supply and demand are irrelevant, in a situation where demand is always constant and unavoidable. Services like the rail network, the water system, the telecommunications network, are all effectively without competition, horribly underfunded, massively expensive, and out of our control yet turn profits year on year as we have no option but to use them. The very infrastructure of our economy, fundamentals that any economy needs, are some of the worst run businesses in the country.

[catoswyn]

(Original post by nicknick1)
I've clarified it:

Wouldn't it be a good idea for opponents of cultural Marxism to push Thatcherism as a political strategy to stop the decline of both society and the economy?

The Conservative party still have a 'Thatcherite' wing who attempt to do just that. They also have a one nation wing, a Christian wing etc. Details of who is in which bit are all available on-line and its possible to work out which wing is currently most in favour. I think the one nation people are currently a bit in the doldrums though Cameron might consider himself to sit somewhere close to that position. In fact Cameron tried to make a new definition calling himself a 'compassionate Conservative'. George Osborne is quite Thatcherite. To give an indication: Ian Duncan-Smith is a christian Conservative, Ken Clark a one-nation Conservative as was John Major, I think Liam Fox was a Thatcherite as obviously Norman Tebbit and John Redland are... .

So Thatcherite ideas are still represented in government. They just fight for position with many other Conservative ideas. The current dissatisfaction among many Tory MP's rests on the fact that they feel their ideas are currently under-represented in the cabinet or in policy.

[lambert1]

I think it is pretty obvious what cultural Marxism is in basic terms. Economic Marxism is about people of country all having equal wealth. From this I deduced that Cultural Marxism means all cultures in a country are equal.

[nicknick1]

(Original post by lambert1)
I think it is pretty obvious what cultural Marxism is in basic terms. Economic Marxism is about people of country all having equal wealth. From this I deduced that Cultural Marxism means all cultures in a country are equal.

It's a view that society should be reshaped and rebalanced upon the theory that groups of people are equal. This includes gender, races, ages, sexualities, religions and cultures.

[anarchism101]

(Original post by nicknick1)
Denial of cultural Marxism is just a tool used by some people so they can perpetuate their denial of facts and justify this denial. It is a denial of the platform that highlights that people are making up facts and revising history to suit their political ends. For example that New Labour handled the state finances well because handling state finances has no relation to the way private finances work. Or blanket statements like "immigration is good for Britain".

I was hoping for an answer to my question, but if you just want to write more paragraphs of whatever you like and then stick the words 'Cultural Marxism' in then go ahead.

[anarchism101]

(Original post by chefdave)
New Labour are "neoliberal" eh? Next you'll be telling me that it's all Thatcher's fault!

Yes, New Labour are neoliberal.

Thatcher herself said she considered New Labour one of her greatest legacies. To call it 'her fault' is a far too simplistic a way of putting it.

I can understand those who say Labour moved to the right after dropping clause 4 but it's a tad disingenuous to associate them with the American right because you didn't identify with Tony Blair.

Who do you mean by the 'American right'? Both major American parties are on the right as, like in Britain, they have both largely accepted neoliberalism since the 1970s. Yes, British parties aren't quite as neoliberal as American ones, but that's largely because the UK had a larger welfare state than the US in the first place.

New Labour are Cultural Marxists, they're not classic socialists, but this still makes them a party uniquivocally on the left.

More just throwing the term around wherever you like. Once again, can you provide me with some evidence that what you're calling 'Cultural Marxism' is actually so?

New Labour were to the right of where the Tories were in the 1950s and 1960s.

[chefdave]

(Original post by doggyfizzel)
I'm not anti Thatcher as such, but for me the privatisation was unforgivable. I'm a believer in a free market but in certain situations you have a natural monopoly, as is the case with utilities. The selling of these was not influenced by the usual arguments for privatisation, only with the generation of money though the selling of government assets. This trend continued with privatisation of British Rail which was a distaster. These decisions left us in a situation where things vital to our economy are controlled by private companies. Its not a normal situation where the free market drives competition as these are essential, supply and demand are irrelevant, in a situation where demand is always constant and unavoidable. Services like the rail network, the water system, the telecommunications network, are all effectively without competition, horribly underfunded, massively expensive, and out of our control yet turn profits year on year as we have no option but to use them. The very infrastructure of our economy, fundamentals that any economy needs, are some of the worst run businesses in the country.

Despite being an ardent free marketier and a bit of a Thatcherite I totally agree with this. Both the left and right makes basic economic errors when it comes to privatisation and the free market and it leaves their respective ideologies sorely lacking. I'm talking about the naturally occuring monopolies such as the ones you've highlighted. The driving force of capitalism is of course competition, without that basic element the whole thing collapses in on itself and descends into parasitic renterism, yet many on the right havn't grasped the fact that privatisation doesn't always equal free market. In many cases it does but in utilities for example this vital competitive element is missing. Lefties on the other hand make the unforgiveable mistake that all privatisation amounts to monopolistic rent seeking so they seek to ameliorate this by, erm, allowing the state to monopolise everything.

Where natural monopolies do occur I generally advocate some sort of government licencing to keep rent seeking in check, where the free market is able to reign supreme I always advocate privatisation. Sadly Thatcher -despite her enormous intellect- wasn't able to tell a genuine free market from a state backed cartel, this was her major weakness that very few have grocked.

[anarchism101]

Alan Greenspan in his autobiography explained that he was a little nervous at the prospect of no federal debt because the buying and selling of Treasury Bills is one of the main ways the Federal Reserve manipulates interest rates, but I don't remember anything in there about this alone leading to a collapse of the system.

It was actually the abundance of debt that caused the crisis, reducing indebtedness is the cure. Cutting state debt will not crash the system, on a practical level it would leave us with the option of a £50bn tax cut or £50bn extra to spend on public services each and every year.

The money system runs on debt - money is created as debt. Old debts can only be paid off by creating new ones. In other words, for the state to reduce its debt, it has to either take it out of the economy, damaging growth, or someone else has to take the debt (almost certainly with interest stuck on the top).

[chefdave]

(Original post by anarchism101)
The money system runs on debt - money is created as debt. Old debts can only be paid off by creating new ones. In other words, for the state to reduce its debt, it has to either take it out of the economy, damaging growth, or someone else has to take the debt (almost certainly with interest stuck on the top).

This is simply not true. While you're correct in saying that money is created as debt it's quite wrong to conclude that we need to create new debts in order to pay off the old ones.

An example: I purchase a lovely new car from you with 100 hot off the press chefdave IOUs that I created out of thin air, I now have a car worth 100 (an asset) you have a claim on my labour (an asset) and I owe you 100 tokens' worth of work (my liability). Over the course of a year you redeem your IOUs by popping into my restaurant and ordering dinner. At the point where the last IOU has been handed over the debt has been extinguished and we're all equal.

This is a simplified scenario but it's more or less how the 'fiat' money system works. I don't create new debts to pay off the old ones, that's cheating, I labour in the real economy and deal with liabilities the hard way.

If the government paid down their debts they'd simply be less money in the economy. But as money is debt anyway I see this as a good thing.

[chefdave]

(Original post by anarchism101)
I was hoping for an answer to my question, but if you just want to write more paragraphs of whatever you like and then stick the words 'Cultural Marxism' in then go ahead.

That's exactly the sort of thing a Cultural Marxist would say

[anarchism101]

(Original post by chefdave)
That's exactly the sort of thing a Cultural Marxist would say

All I could think of when I read that was

(Original post by Monty Python)
Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!

Of course, wanting my questions actually addressed is obviously 'Cultural Marxism', isn't it?

Is it really such a difficult request? To provide me with some actual evidence that 'Cultural Marxism' has anything to do with what you're on about? Any at all?

[Kibalchich]

(Original post by chefdave)
It's easier to appreciate the dangers of Cultural Marxism when you're free from it's ideological clutches. But for the 'useful idiots' on the inside I can quite understand why they question the accuracy of the term as their worldview has been tainted by it: they can no longer see the wood from the trees. Here are some of symptoms someone may display if they've been infected with the Culturally Marxist disease:

1) They abhore freedom of speech in case the population start using this freedom to express 'insensitive' ideas they're uncomfetable with.
2) They're economic socialists and believe the 'immoral' marketplace is inferior to the angelic and selfless public sector
3) They advocate the banning 'offensive' words
4) They instictively badmouth the British Empire and generally take into account all the bad things white people have done while ignoring their positive contributions to mankind
5) They're pro multiculturalist
6) They're usually moral relativists
7) They blame poverty in Africa on European meddling.
8) They generally support the 'victim' in every political conflict, hint, the victim is never white, male, Christian or western.
9) They reject the genetic basis for race and instead attempt to present it as a social construct.
10) They advocate the use of 'positive discrimination' (i.e discrimination against white males)
11) They believe in man made global warming


I don't know what their main objectives are however my instincts tells me that they have no truck for outdated ideals such as peace, liberty, free trade and reason.

Leaving aside the absurdity of most of those statements for a moment...

Can you show how any of that is related to Marxism? Ta.

[Kibalchich]

(Original post by lambert1)
I think it is pretty obvious what cultural Marxism is in basic terms. Economic Marxism is about people of country all having equal wealth. From this I deduced that Cultural Marxism means all cultures in a country are equal.

What do you mean by "economic Marxism"? Do you mean Marxist-Leninism? Marx himself mostly wrote about capitalism.

[Kibalchich]

(Original post by nicknick1)
It's a view that society should be reshaped and rebalanced upon the theory that groups of people are equal. This includes gender, races, ages, sexualities, religions and cultures.

Where did Marx say that?

[Kibalchich]

(Original post by anarchism101)
The money system runs on debt - money is created as debt. Old debts can only be paid off by creating new ones. In other words, for the state to reduce its debt, it has to either take it out of the economy, damaging growth, or someone else has to take the debt (almost certainly with interest stuck on the top).

Hmmmmm....problem with this "money as debt" theory is that it completely ignores production and value creation.

[WharfedaleTiger]

(Original post by chefdave)
It's easier to appreciate the dangers of Cultural Marxism when you're free from it's ideological clutches. But for the 'useful idiots' on the inside I can quite understand why they question the accuracy of the term as their worldview has been tainted by it: they can no longer see the wood from the trees. Here are some of symptoms someone may display if they've been infected with the Culturally Marxist disease:

1) They abhore freedom of speech in case the population start using this freedom to express 'insensitive' ideas they're uncomfetable with.
2) They're economic socialists and believe the 'immoral' marketplace is inferior to the angelic and selfless public sector
3) They advocate the banning 'offensive' words
4) They instictively badmouth the British Empire and generally take into account all the bad things white people have done while ignoring their positive contributions to mankind
5) They're pro multiculturalist
6) They're usually moral relativists
7) They blame poverty in Africa on European meddling.
8) They generally support the 'victim' in every political conflict, hint, the victim is never white, male, Christian or western.
9) They reject the genetic basis for race and instead attempt to present it as a social construct.
10) They advocate the use of 'positive discrimination' (i.e discrimination against white males)
11) They believe in man made global warming


I don't know what their main objectives are however my instincts tells me that they have no truck for outdated ideals such as peace, liberty, free trade and reason.

So basically its a group of ideas you don't agree with to which you've then affixed the term 'marxism' without any understanding of what Marxism is actually is? And you've then found some similarly high brow concepts (eg. The Enlightenment, liberty, reason) and decided that they most be against them for some abitary reason.

Right. Now I understand.

Its a conspiricy theory for idiots.

[tamimi]

Okay, but just because you like Mrs Thatcher and agree her policies - Doesn't mean everyone else has to.

I have nothing for or against her, but I think you can't call the shots on whether others should have the same opinion as you, as you impose, saying "Let's face it". Let's not.

[Post]

FFS, deleted my post by accident..

anyways.

I think a number of you are missing a few crucial points here. These thinkers, these "cultural marxists" are writing for a very specific reason. They are normative theorists. They are trying to find a way to further revolutionary theory and thus help socialists in other countries.

When a writer like Gramsci calls for alternative cultural institutions based on class, there is a reason. These writers aren't writing primarily to understand the world, but to change it. Likewise with Lukacs when he thinks about art, or Marcuse when he thinks about repressed sexual urges.

There are two reasons for this that I can see from my reading:

1. Once deciding that you're going to make a completely new society, you have to build a completely new culture. Marxists were definitely aware of this, look up the God-builders or the various cultural institutions (Lukacs was Minister of Culture in Hungary).

2. Marxists needed to find a new working class. The working class just weren't pulling their end of the bargain. Lots of people blamed things like embourgeoisement, but at the end of the day marxists needed a new strategy.

[gagaslilmonsteruk]

This thread is very strange considering I heard the other day that Mrs. Thatcher regrets the penalty to her personal life caused by her prime ministerial role.