Has anyone ever wondered why modern Western societies seem to have an unhealthy fixation on leftist ideologies? Where does this obsession come from? After all, anyone with a bit of intellect can quickly point out the obvious flaws in socialism as an economic model. One major aspect of this doctrine remains largely ignored, though: socialist ideologies pose a quiet and harmful threat to our psycho-social environment, which might in turn leave the door open for a centrally planned economy in the not too distant future.
I happen to be familiar with this doctrine, and what I see today in the Western world gives me a strange sense of déjà vu. Behind the latest woke absurdities that keep making headlines, the tactics being used feel dangerously close to strategies established not so long ago behind the Iron Curtain.
In terms of ideas and knowledge, leftists and progressive liberals are often seen as illogical and socially awkward cretins with little practical sense and a weak grasp of how the economy functions in the real world. These so-called activists often serve as the useful idiots of a greater, supposedly ideal future. Without realizing it, they help advance a harmful agenda set in motion many years ago.
Socialism is divided into many schools of thought. The most famous example is probably Marxian socialism. I will not go too deeply into Marxist ideas, since they often turn into a tangled mess of theories, a perpetual work in progress if you like, especially if you read Karl Marx's books such as The German Ideology, The Manifesto, Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy, or his major work, Das Kapital, which is largely ignored anyway.
I will also refrain from commenting on Johann Karl Rodbertus' accusations of plagiarism against him.
To put it simply, Karl Marx (1818–1883) believed that social relations arise from the economic base. Material reality determines ideology, which is what he meant by Materialism. In other words, productive forces determine social relations. These relations then develop and evolve, eventually coming into contradiction with the original ones, creating tensions. These tensions are usually resolved through cycles of social revolutions.
Under the capitalist mode of production, this appears as a class struggle between the oppressor, meaning the bourgeoisie who own the means of production, and the oppressed class of productive workers, the proletariat, who produce goods and services.
According to Marx, this class struggle must eventually push capitalism into its final phase, setting the stage for a proletarian revolution that would lead to communism, meaning the abolition of private property as a means of production and its replacement with cooperative ownership. This would in theory end the division of labor, social classes, and the state. I will not digress into his critique of capitalism, as that is not the point of this post.
One question remains:
why has it been so difficult to promote or bring about a revolution in Western Europe?This question was raised by a prominent Italian Marxist figure, Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), who emphasized one fundamental Marxian distinction between:
-1. An ideological superstructure (art, family, culture, religion, philosophy, law, media, politics, science, education)
-2. The economic base of a society.
There is a reciprocal relationship between the superstructure, meaning ideology, and the base, meaning the economy. Each part maintains and shapes the other. According to Gramsci, this superstructure determines how society as a whole reacts to economic and political changes. It is important to note that Marx argued the opposite, claiming that the economic base shapes the ideological superstructure and not the other way around.
Furthermore, Gramsci saw a difference between coercion and consent. No state, he argued, could rely only on coercion to maintain its position and power. The political aspect of consent was largely ignored by traditional Marxists, who focused almost entirely on the economic base.
But how exactly was consent supposed to be cultivated in an oppressive capitalist system? Gramsci answered by saying that the upper classes do not rule only through economics but through what he called Cultural Hegemony. Ideas, values, norms, and moral frameworks are promoted by the upper classes as natural and beneficial to the working class, leading the proletariat to accept this worldview as simply the way things are. As a result, the proletariat remains bound by socially constructed and invisible restraints and does not develop the mindset it would need to advance its own class interests and improve its political and economic position within capitalist societies. This is why, according to Gramsci, it has been so difficult to spark a revolution.
With this argument, he challenged Marx’s idea of the inevitable revolution associated with scientific socialism. His proposed solution was a passive revolution through the creation of a counter hegemonic force, which would undermine and dismantle existing Western ideas, values, and moral foundations and replace them with new cultural norms. Oppressed groups would, in effect, produce their own intellectuals and generate their own culture, media, rituals, and so on.
See where I am going with this?
Gramsci rejected the usual distinction between subject and object. For him, there were no inherent natural laws shaping human beings or societies and no essential human nature. Everything was formed by history and shaped by social relations and roles. In other words, nothing is fixed, and anyone can choose their identity, behavior, values, and even how nature should be understood.
In the modern world, one possible way to push counter hegemony is through the creation of many oppressed minorities. Imagine a large group of victimized people aggressively confronting their supposed oppressors, meaning Western societies, by challenging and defying Western ideological and moral foundations.
Sounds familiar? Feminism, LGBT-whatever movements, claims about toxic masculinity, narratives of historical racial victimization, gender ideologists, trans movements, so called oppressed minor attracted people, climate activists, neurodiversity (mental disorders are normal) and so on. Essentially, an entire group loudly declaring that they can do as they please and do not have to conform to what they see as the oppressive norms of a traditional, hardworking, white heterosexual society. The nuclear family becomes a prime target for this kind of cultural attack.
Gramscian movements began gaining ground in the 1950s through the 1970s. From 1992 to 2007, Joseph Buttigieg, who was Pete Buttigieg's father, translated and edited the four volumes of Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks in English. He was also a founding member and president of the International Gramsci Society.
I don't know about you, but I feel that a quiet revolution meant to dismantle and rebuild the superstructure, meaning our ideologies, through the creation of a counter hegemonic force, which represents the consensual part of the Marxist equation, combined with deep economic reforms and growing authoritarianism, which reflects the Marxist idea of coercion, sets the stage quite well for ideas like “You will eat the bugs” and “You will own nothing and be happy,” along with intrusive digital currencies and controlled allowances.
Sorry for the long-ass post.
