Marxist Nutter

This blog is a little more light hearted than most of my contributions. It also comes from the feeling that i have not written a blog in ages and so the time is right.

The time is right

The time is right for a number of reasons.
1. It appears the neo-liberal hegemony of the last 30years is at death's door.
2. We now have the most left wing President (elect) of the USA in history (as far as I can see from his policies and voting record)
3. The Conservative...

II

The history of all hitherto society is the history of antagonisms. These antagonisms have taken many shapes. They are historical and contingent articulations of discourse but are no less ‘real’ for it. The frontiers of antagonisms that separate ‘us’ from ‘them’ can be moved, displaced, deconstructed. It is not one class against the other. Class is but one articulation. The nature of the groups that oppose themselves antagonistically, their very identity is resultant of these frontiers....

Preface

What should the left mean today? A well known question, one that has been asked repeatedly, especially since the collapse of the USSR. A question for which, I contend, there is no single answer. Much of the left have retreated into the safe haven of the academy. This has been positive, as left wing ideas have been developed and have become more sophisticated than ever. This has however been to the determent of the left as a political...

There is perhaps a need to clarify where I stand in relation to the history of Marxism and Socialism. Calling myself 'Marxist Nutter' has led to some understandable confusion on the matter. I will attempt to remedy this with a very brief sketch of the Marxist tradition with which I empathize.

Marx's thought is contested and arguably inconsistent. His superb critiques of capitalism were offset by his lack of clarity with regard to what a communist system would look like - especially...

This post got pretty much ignored in the Forum and perhaps more properly belongs in a blog:

Many debates I have had on this forum about socialism, tend to drift very quickly to national concerns. Now avoiding the obvious and unhelpful puns we could make about national socialism, I would like to pose a question.

Does socialism mean caring only about the working class in your own country? Surely questions of poverty and fairness apply outside national boundaries. Marx was...