- Joined
- Jun 21, 2012
- Messages
- 2,655
- Reaction score
- 942
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- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
I do not believe so.
I am essentially a Marxian without the -ist; I subscribe more or less fully to the dialectic without also taking on the teleology of orthodox Marxist theology.
In the dialectic, more or less, capitalism is imagined as an eternally dynamic social arrangement that must perpetually revolutionize itself to continue to exist: the printing press must be replaced by the laser printer or society will reach an overcapacity of presses and the market for them will collapse.
I believe the same holds true for the cultural expression of these social arrangements. Capitalism as a fully realized, wholly integrated world system has been realized in the United States, by my reckoning, only since the election of 1896 (a symbolic marker rather than a literal one), putting the capstone on a project of building that began with the Civil War and was presaged by earlier revolutions, both industrial and political.
Since then we have seen the creation and destruction of new and old arrangements without historical precedent. The Civil Rights movement - feminism - gay liberation - Chicanoism - industrial unionism - the Counterculture.
I hold these are not the products of liberalism, as capital's self-proclaimed champions hold, but are, rather, deeply embedded in capitalism as a revolutionary force.
And that is why I am a libertarian.
I am essentially a Marxian without the -ist; I subscribe more or less fully to the dialectic without also taking on the teleology of orthodox Marxist theology.
In the dialectic, more or less, capitalism is imagined as an eternally dynamic social arrangement that must perpetually revolutionize itself to continue to exist: the printing press must be replaced by the laser printer or society will reach an overcapacity of presses and the market for them will collapse.
I believe the same holds true for the cultural expression of these social arrangements. Capitalism as a fully realized, wholly integrated world system has been realized in the United States, by my reckoning, only since the election of 1896 (a symbolic marker rather than a literal one), putting the capstone on a project of building that began with the Civil War and was presaged by earlier revolutions, both industrial and political.
Since then we have seen the creation and destruction of new and old arrangements without historical precedent. The Civil Rights movement - feminism - gay liberation - Chicanoism - industrial unionism - the Counterculture.
I hold these are not the products of liberalism, as capital's self-proclaimed champions hold, but are, rather, deeply embedded in capitalism as a revolutionary force.
And that is why I am a libertarian.