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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30120 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.

I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.

California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.

It all adds up.

I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.

I would question Marxism being more socially acceptable than racism. Maybe in a blue tribe bubble, but there’s also bubbles which are the opposite.

I think the real question, instead, is ‘why are the blue tribe pinkos’, and that’s because 1) the Soviet Union spent decades and millions of dollars on infiltrating the western intelligentsia and 2) because Marxism is just uniquely designed to appeal to intellectuals lacking in specific knowledge, particularly intellectuals who don’t themselves work very hard. That’s what Marx was, basically, and it’s more or less an oversystematization of the view of someone in that position- workers(who produce things) work for owner-men who provide access to capital, so wouldn’t it make more sense to just do away with the owner-men and have the workers as a collective own the capital? That’s a nice idea, if you’ve never been on either side of that relationship. And if you have it’s probably tough to explain how the workers benefit from not owning their own capital. And, you know, the blue tribe mostly does things which might be valuable, but which are at remove from actual production. Hence Marxism feels true to an HR lady or a college professor or a journalist in a way it doesn’t to a mechanic or a farmer or a plumber.

This doesn't really account for Marxism being extremely popular with manual laborers in Europe for decades.

You're probably already familiar with the Orwell quote but for those who might not be, in 1936 George Orwell declared that "socialism draws toward it with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist and feminist in England."

Which would suggest that socialism has not fundamentally changed it's 'magnetic force' over the last century away from manual labor and toward the sandal-wearers, sex-maniacs, and fruit-juice drinkers it continues attracting today.

The Marxist parties (communist and social democratic together) commanded a solid majority of working class support in most European countries up through the middle of the 20th century.

Double posting but your response seemed to be, frankly, in bad faith. By all means put up a quote from a prominent early 20th century socialist that purports it's a magnetic force for every lugnut, troglodyte, hardheaded, menial laboring, 9 to 5, factory man in England or at least some data on party registration by demography. "But ackshually it was working class" has negative probative value. Better not to have responded at all.

For the French Communist Party, see for instance this:

In Meurthe-et-Moselle, all the members of the governing body of the party(secre´tariat fe´de´ral) from 1944 to 1979 came from blue-collar classes, with theexception of a teacher and an industrial draughtsman promoted at the end ofthe 1950s.4The predominance of workers increased in the higher echelons ofparty hierarchy: the higher the level of the organisation, the higher the numberof militants from blue-collar backgrounds. In 1962, blue-collar militants madeup 53 per cent of the comite´fe´de´ral in Loire-Atlantique, and 60 per cent in thebureau fe´de´ral and the secre´tariat fe´de´ral overall. The dominant position ofworkers from heavy industries and of those with a protected status (railwayworkers, civil service workers, gas and electrical operators and so on) in theparty hierarchy can be observed everywhere, including in rural regions likeAllier. In this area, where rural populations – notably peasants – stronglysupported the PCF, Party leadership was in fact composed mostly by militantsfrom urban industries (who are often from peasants families).

Or this:

Their survey took these results further. The right-wing vote was higher among people who practiced a religion. The left-wing vote increased depending on the degree of integration in the working class as measured by the number of working-class connections or attributes possessed (being a worker oneself, having a working-class father or spouse, etc.). It went from 18% amongst women who were without any connection to 55% for workers whose fathers were also workers. The effects of “objective” social class were seen to combine with those of the “subjective” social class, i.e. the class individuals feel they belong to.12 Identification with the working class increased with the number of working class attributes.

For Finland, check this long study, specifically page 60 (printed numbers). Here's the specific table showing that in 1948 and 1966 70-75% of worker voters voted for Social Democrats (SDP) and Communists (SKDL) combined, with over 30 % of this vote going the SKDL. A table below shows that ca 80% of SKDL voters were workers in those elections, and as late as 1988 SKDL's support base was almost 70% worker.

This doesn't conflict with the Orwell quote - the European big communist parties still attracted freaky-deaky types, but they only formed a small minority in those parties compared to blue-collar lugnut jockeys, while they were considerably more important internally for Anglo Communist parties that lacked a similar mass base of worker support.

Thank you very much for this! Always happy to learn something new. Particularly enjoying poking through that Finnish study

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