Might I be a Marxist?
I am facing up to the fact that I may be a Marxist
It’s astonishing the people you find yourself agreeing with
What they mean by this is what others among us might call ‘good old-fashioned common sense’: looking at the world as it really is, rather than as it ought to be; forming policies on the basis of what will actually work, rather than by trying to force square pegs into round holes; working with human nature, not against it. As far as Fox and her crew are concerned — most of them either met at the Revolutionary Communist Party or were taught by its founder Furedi — this is a Marxist position. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a traditional Tory position. Whichever is true, doesn’t much matter. What counts is that we’re engaging with the big ideas about truth, liberty and the role of the state in our lives, in a way that our main political parties are not.
Who is doing most to articulate the case against the overzealous regulation governing adults who want to work with children? The Manifesto Club. Who — apart from our own Rod Liddle — has proved most eloquent in exposing the absurdity and mendacity of the government’s attempts to police every aspect of our social lives? Mick Hume. Which journal is most consistent in its stance against scientific dishonesty, global warming hysteria, and the tyranny of cant and vogueish emotionalism? Spiked Online. Which Question Time panellist, other than Claire Fox, would dare speak so unashamedly for elitism? Search me.
Of course I’m glad that my old mate Dave Cameron is doing so well in the polls. But I suspect that this has rather more to do with the public’s hatred and distrust of Gordon Brown, and Osborne’s handy inheritance-tax titbit, than it does with any of the fluffy things he’s said about healing society or greening the world.
What worries me is that if the Tories do get elected faute de mieux — as I suspect they probably will — they will never be forced to confront any of the deadly important issues they’ve so far striven to avoid for fear of being thought too right-wing.
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Suresh Dogra
November 10th, 2007 5:01pmI fully agree with you.I believe that radicals and revolutionaries do very serious damage to society.Great social change and happiness are brought about by those people who do their work quietly and honestly within the space provided to them by society.The discontented lot is always kicking up one row or the other,disturbing society and making normal activity difficult.
CS Ferguson
November 19th, 2007 1:01pm"Why can't all schools belike Eton? Because state education was destroyed by socialism. Why can't the NHS be the most performant in the world? Because the most performing health system was destroyed by the socialist NHS." All schools can't be like Eton because there isn't upwards of £20,000 per pupil available to the state sector, and because it isn't possible to take all pupils out of their family environment and immerse them entirely in an intensive scholastic culture. Moreover, conservatives would be screaming from the rooftops about profligate public spending and state undermining of family life if it were tried. If anyone believes that all schools were like Eton prior to 'socialism', they're living in a fantasy world, unless they propose to go so far back that Eton and its ilk were the only schools that existed and all but a miniscule elite were denied any form of formal education. The NHS isn't the best performing healthcare system in the world because Britain spends a smaller proportion of its GDP on healthcare than any other industrialised nation. Again, that anyone believes that healthcare provision was superior before the establishment of the NHS, where no form of healthcare beyond the most basic variety was available to large sections of the populace. An 'excellent' health or education system may make take many potential forms, but a situation where an excellent service is available to a tiny propotion of the population and where the rest can hang, is not one of them.
Susanne
December 8th, 2007 1:26amTre has never, inmy opinion, been much difference between the Marxist and old school Tory ideologies. This is perhaps why you found you had similar views to Claire Fox.
David Silverman
May 12th, 2008 4:13amYou've neglected to mention most of the basic tenants of Marxism, if you had, you could have hardly sustained an argument that there is no difference between you and a marxist. Just because you can pick out a debate about education or the environment and find common ground, doesn't mean there is no difference between left and right anymore (or that Marxism is irrelevant).