Two people in this thread say that with the internet, we can move away from “big public figures”/“big thinkers”. While I appreciate this optimism, it just sounds very anti-authoritarian, and I quote from Engels On Authority:
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority.
There are anti-government and anti-“big corp/business” tendencies in the US/West, which I will call “anti-authority” for now. The essense of “anti-authority” in capitalist countries is anti-capitalism, or anti-“dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”, but there is a gap in this logic that stops people from turning into marxists right away, as they might instead become anarchists. This gap in logic will not be closed just by having everyone have access to free information through the internet, as there is too much information to digest, and imperialists will also interfere with the propagation of marxist ideology.
“Anti-authoritarian” sentiments do have positive outcomes, like decentralized technologies (think internet, bittorrent, p2p, fediverse etc.), the open source software movement, but these only serve as tools, they are the means and not the end.
In addition to this, one of the selling points of Parenti, Woolf, Hudson, Furr(?) is that they’re accredited professionals. This isn’t to take an elitist stance on my part. But it counts to the audience that must be reached.
There is an alternative, which is to develop working class education. For us and by us. Reading groups are good, but I’d argue that a fuller program and curriculum is needed. Some examples exist. But we need to get to the stage where they’re in all our communities, wide-ranging, and not just online. Many people don’t have basic literacy or numeracy skills, nevermind a theoretical understanding of political economy.
This goes back to my first point. It’s not just that being well regarded academics means that people will listen. It’s that well regarded academics are good at explaining things and teaching. I think that’s why e.g. Parenti and Woolf are so effective.
I don’t think simply making knowledge accessible in a bourgeois world will make people radical. The bourgeoisie control the means of distribution as well as production. Most people never encounter (1) counter narratives, or (2) encouragement to learn to think critically beyond a shallow liberal sense of the phrase.
Without these, most people aren’t even aware (i) that a Marxist critique exists or (ii) what a Marxist critique can offer. This is what intellectual titans like parenti and Woolf provide. There are others, though, and more coming through every day.
I want to note that English-speaking people might be comfortable with applying “anti-authority” to everything due to their imperalist environment, but this causes a lack of awareness of socialist authorities that are in power, such as China. That is why it is important to move away from “anti-authority” to anti-capitalism.
I don’t think my perspective on it is related to “anti-authorianism” but rather accessibility and the new media landscape. Parenti and Wolff are good writers and very useful too, but at the end of the day they write only in English and their target audience is mostly North American or European. They also have to work within the constraints of capitalist academia and publishing which makes it difficult for many worldwide to even read what they have to say (i.e. copyright laws). The old forms of media (books, newspapers, TV, radio) have a very high barrier for entry and are costly to propagate whereas on the Internet getting the points across is borderline free. That is not to say that there should be no authority, but rather that in a society that is now so dependent on crowd-sourced websites like Wikipedia, that authority can be less dependent on publishing deals and available for those who would otherwise not be able to read a book from an North American economist.
For instance, I had never heard of Parenti until 2 years ago due to him only writing in English, and that is similar for most of my third world colleagues, so I wouldn’t say his authority extends that far into the world out there. This is why I jokingly said that Prolewiki is the next Marx, as most people now are on average actually literate enough to have reading binges on places like that and the MIA, if we put in the effort to develop and moderate it properly.
To be fair, I have no clue to who these people are, I don’t read the writings of any non-Chinese marxist besides Marx, Engels, Lenin (and maybe Stalin). I also don’t like the idea of linking increased literacy to willingness to learn.
Crowd-sourcing information is not a new idea, that’s how humanity has advanced, the internet does make it much easier, and with better translators it’ll be even better in future. The main issue is moderation as you mentioned, which goes back to having an authoritative person or group that most people can trust to delegate the tedious work of moderating to.
I also don’t like the idea of linking increased literacy to willingness to learn.
And never would I. But without literacy one is almost unable to educate themself independently. We’re not that far removed from a time where huge most colonised countries had less than half of their population able to read their own language. Now being able to read is basically compulsory for most professions or just living in urban areas in general. I see no point in propping up “big Marxists” if their resources don’t even have Spanish editions and people have to rely on those grifting translation editors with huge prefaces and postfaces that read like “but remember kids, communism is just a theory!”.
Again my issue is not with the concept of authority, but with conflating modern “English-language popularity” with it. Specially considering how inaccessible the “popular ones” actually are to the average world proletarian when compared to how developed the native-language capitalist propaganda machines have become. It just seems off to me to take the argument that “we should be careful about trusting individual self-proclaimed Marxists and instead should work more to propagate and organise the material that already exists” and make it about “anti-authority that leads to anarchism”.
Crowd-sourcing is not a new idea, but crowd-sourced encyclopaedias that fit on your pocket are. And there are many already-written books and articles (some written by Parenti and others) to get in there in an organised fashion, with other new resources such as hyperlinks, rather than hoping that yet another Ivy League economist (or worse, a Breadtuber) figures out new ways to say to Unitedstadians that Capitalism is a terrible system. That is work basically anyone here can do given enough free time. Capitalists have this obsession with making “the next big thing” when what we need is already there, and I don’t think we should fall for that trap too.
No ill will here, just thought my argument was being misunderstood there.
we should be careful about trusting individual self-proclaimed Marxists
I agree with this, which is why I don’t read or quote from them, but their work might be relevant to others which is why they seem popular.
and instead should work more to propagate and organise the material that already exists
marxists.org is a great resource but doesn’t actually have Xi Jinping’s work on it, or any of the past 3 Chinese leaders for that matter, even though they are available in Chinese and English from official sources. ProleWiki is what this site promotes, though more work is definitely needed.
Two people in this thread say that with the internet, we can move away from “big public figures”/“big thinkers”. While I appreciate this optimism, it just sounds very anti-authoritarian, and I quote from Engels On Authority:
There are anti-government and anti-“big corp/business” tendencies in the US/West, which I will call “anti-authority” for now. The essense of “anti-authority” in capitalist countries is anti-capitalism, or anti-“dictatorship of the bourgeoisie”, but there is a gap in this logic that stops people from turning into marxists right away, as they might instead become anarchists. This gap in logic will not be closed just by having everyone have access to free information through the internet, as there is too much information to digest, and imperialists will also interfere with the propagation of marxist ideology.
“Anti-authoritarian” sentiments do have positive outcomes, like decentralized technologies (think internet, bittorrent, p2p, fediverse etc.), the open source software movement, but these only serve as tools, they are the means and not the end.
In addition to this, one of the selling points of Parenti, Woolf, Hudson, Furr(?) is that they’re accredited professionals. This isn’t to take an elitist stance on my part. But it counts to the audience that must be reached.
There is an alternative, which is to develop working class education. For us and by us. Reading groups are good, but I’d argue that a fuller program and curriculum is needed. Some examples exist. But we need to get to the stage where they’re in all our communities, wide-ranging, and not just online. Many people don’t have basic literacy or numeracy skills, nevermind a theoretical understanding of political economy.
This goes back to my first point. It’s not just that being well regarded academics means that people will listen. It’s that well regarded academics are good at explaining things and teaching. I think that’s why e.g. Parenti and Woolf are so effective.
I don’t think simply making knowledge accessible in a bourgeois world will make people radical. The bourgeoisie control the means of distribution as well as production. Most people never encounter (1) counter narratives, or (2) encouragement to learn to think critically beyond a shallow liberal sense of the phrase.
Without these, most people aren’t even aware (i) that a Marxist critique exists or (ii) what a Marxist critique can offer. This is what intellectual titans like parenti and Woolf provide. There are others, though, and more coming through every day.
I want to note that English-speaking people might be comfortable with applying “anti-authority” to everything due to their imperalist environment, but this causes a lack of awareness of socialist authorities that are in power, such as China. That is why it is important to move away from “anti-authority” to anti-capitalism.
I don’t think my perspective on it is related to “anti-authorianism” but rather accessibility and the new media landscape. Parenti and Wolff are good writers and very useful too, but at the end of the day they write only in English and their target audience is mostly North American or European. They also have to work within the constraints of capitalist academia and publishing which makes it difficult for many worldwide to even read what they have to say (i.e. copyright laws). The old forms of media (books, newspapers, TV, radio) have a very high barrier for entry and are costly to propagate whereas on the Internet getting the points across is borderline free. That is not to say that there should be no authority, but rather that in a society that is now so dependent on crowd-sourced websites like Wikipedia, that authority can be less dependent on publishing deals and available for those who would otherwise not be able to read a book from an North American economist.
For instance, I had never heard of Parenti until 2 years ago due to him only writing in English, and that is similar for most of my third world colleagues, so I wouldn’t say his authority extends that far into the world out there. This is why I jokingly said that Prolewiki is the next Marx, as most people now are on average actually literate enough to have reading binges on places like that and the MIA, if we put in the effort to develop and moderate it properly.
To be fair, I have no clue to who these people are, I don’t read the writings of any non-Chinese marxist besides Marx, Engels, Lenin (and maybe Stalin). I also don’t like the idea of linking increased literacy to willingness to learn.
Crowd-sourcing information is not a new idea, that’s how humanity has advanced, the internet does make it much easier, and with better translators it’ll be even better in future. The main issue is moderation as you mentioned, which goes back to having an authoritative person or group that most people can trust to delegate the tedious work of moderating to.
And never would I. But without literacy one is almost unable to educate themself independently. We’re not that far removed from a time where huge most colonised countries had less than half of their population able to read their own language. Now being able to read is basically compulsory for most professions or just living in urban areas in general. I see no point in propping up “big Marxists” if their resources don’t even have Spanish editions and people have to rely on those grifting translation editors with huge prefaces and postfaces that read like “but remember kids, communism is just a theory!”.
Again my issue is not with the concept of authority, but with conflating modern “English-language popularity” with it. Specially considering how inaccessible the “popular ones” actually are to the average world proletarian when compared to how developed the native-language capitalist propaganda machines have become. It just seems off to me to take the argument that “we should be careful about trusting individual self-proclaimed Marxists and instead should work more to propagate and organise the material that already exists” and make it about “anti-authority that leads to anarchism”.
Crowd-sourcing is not a new idea, but crowd-sourced encyclopaedias that fit on your pocket are. And there are many already-written books and articles (some written by Parenti and others) to get in there in an organised fashion, with other new resources such as hyperlinks, rather than hoping that yet another Ivy League economist (or worse, a Breadtuber) figures out new ways to say to Unitedstadians that Capitalism is a terrible system. That is work basically anyone here can do given enough free time. Capitalists have this obsession with making “the next big thing” when what we need is already there, and I don’t think we should fall for that trap too.
No ill will here, just thought my argument was being misunderstood there.
I agree with this, which is why I don’t read or quote from them, but their work might be relevant to others which is why they seem popular.
marxists.org is a great resource but doesn’t actually have Xi Jinping’s work on it, or any of the past 3 Chinese leaders for that matter, even though they are available in Chinese and English from official sources. ProleWiki is what this site promotes, though more work is definitely needed.