The Neo-Marxists Have Tunnel Vision

When I teach about social change or social class at Kennesaw State University, I always include a segment about Karl Marx.  Contemporary sociology cannot be understood without recognizing how he shaped present-day thinking.

The same applies to our larger society.  Liberalism, progressivism, social democracy, and social justice are all variations on a Marxist theme.  As a result, contemporary politics cannot be understood without identifying its neo-Marxist underpinnings.

The trouble is that few Americans see through the moralistic smokescreen thrown up by left-wing activists.  This is certainly true of my students.  As naïve idealists, many are convinced that elementary decency can only be guaranteed by a government that dictates economic equality.

Marx himself believed that economics determines how societies operate.  Everything else is secondary to who controls the means of production.  Because the capitalists, who, in his day, were in charge, were irredeemably selfish, they had to be overthrown.  A government run by the people obviously needed to take over.

There are many problems with this idea—notably that government bureaucrats can be as corrupt as business owners—yet there is a more fundamental difficulty.  We humans are much more than economic creatures.  We also have spiritual, artistic, family, and moral dimensions.

Let me concentrate on the moral aspect of our condition.  It is crucial that we do so because shouldering this facet aside to focus exclusively on economics has resulted in raging immorality.  Our current climate of political corruption owes, in large part, to ignoring this component of who we are.

The neo-Marxists are convinced that we humans are basically good.  They assume that once they wrest economic control from the grip of egotistical capitalists, ordinary people will share the wealth.  They will cooperate with one another such that everyone benefits.

Marx’s disciples further believe they have a right to tell lies in the service of their ideals.  Because the rich are so unprincipled, those who oppose them have a duty to defeat them.  They may therefore justifiably resort to any means of doing so—be this via violence or verbal deception.

If morality has no existence apart from what those who dominate the means of production say it is, once the liberals and socialists take over, they can rectify our definitions of good and bad.  Hence, if, in the meantime, they need to tell noble lies in order to achieve ascendancy, this is in everyone’s interest.

From this it follows that FBI agents have a right to manipulate the FISA courts in order to stymy the political ambitions of those who oppose them.  It likewise follows that IRS agents have a duty to deprive their enemies of funding.  As for reasonable journalists, they have an obligation to present the news so that it protects liberal politicians.

Lies, it develops, are not lies when they further the Marxist agenda.  Similarly, omissions of fact are not mendacious when they advance deeper truths.  Since morality is relative, it must be manipulated in the service of those who facilitate the inevitable triumph of collectivist institutions.

And yet morality is not whatever the neo-Marxists say it is.  If we are more than economic creatures, morality has an independent existence.  Some might say—and I would be one of them—that economic justice cannot exist without a prior foundation of moral principles.

If we are not honest, for instance, we cannot have the social cohesion necessary to sustain a massive society.  Without a widespread commitment to truth telling, strangers would not be able to trust one another.  They could never be sure as to who might stab them in the back.

The same applies to economics.  When people are dependent on strangers for the food on their plates and the clothes of their backs, they must feel confident that they are not being swindled.  Anything less would drive a wedge between them and result in social fragmentation.

Isn’t that what we are seeing today?  Don’t, for instance, fervent partisans nowadays have difficulty speaking to one another?  Don’t they try to deceive others in order to gain a political advantage? 

What may not be appreciated, however, is the degree to which neo-Marxist doctrines encourage this chaos.  By making morality entirely subservient to economic considerations, these ideologues have corrupted us all.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University