There’s a small subsection of debate occurring about which term best describes the dominant ideology we live under, either neoliberalism or cultural Marxism. Both of these terms are used pejoratively to describe the current establishment, and almost nobody self-identifies as a neoliberal or a cultural Marxist. The term neoliberalism tends to be used by both ends of the political spectrum; basically anyone that opposes the economic status quo.
The term ‘cultural Marxism’, by contrast, is used exclusively by conservatives, except the alt-right, which leads many people to believe the alt-right are a subversive Trojan Horse faction. Jordan Peterson brought this term into the mainstream, along with the corresponding term ‘postmodernist’. Both neoliberalism and cultural Marxism are used in nonchalant and negligent ways, so it is worthwhile giving proper explanations of both terms.
Neoliberalism
This term derives from the world being in the second era of liberalism, in contrast to the pre-Soviet era of liberalism in the 19th century. This second era of liberalism started as a reaction against the collectivism and socialism of the Soviet Union; theorised mainly by the Austrian School, notably Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, along with others like Milton Friedman. Its political influence emerged in the Thatcherite era of the 80’s and has been with us ever since, especially considering most left-wing parties dropped their radicalism and moved to the neoliberal centre-left.
Everything we see today is just a becoming of the theories devised in the Austrian School. The fundamentals of these economic theories later morphed into a cultural theory. For example, just as individualism is the basis of this capitalistic economic theory, individualism should then also be the basis of our culture.
Therefore, as two people exchanging goods without any government interference is the highest moral value, so too is a husband or wife deciding to have a no-fault divorce without any government interference. This individualistic spirit of Capitalism explains why we now have an individualistic culture. The axioms of economics were transferred over to the social realm. This is why some use the term ‘cultural Liberalism’ or ‘cultural Capitalism’ to explain this effect. To a large extent, Libertarianism is defined in near similar terms to Neoliberalism.
The decline of religiosity could also be explained away by this ‘cultural Capitalism’, as people pick and choose which product they want, so too do they pick what denomination or religion they want. They may even pick no religion, if they so choose. If they have the ability to choose which denomination or religion they like, they will inevitably favour the denomination that isn’t as hard on their vices. Thus, Christianity and all other religions become progressively more liberal as the decades go by.
These two points about Liberalism leading to lax social values and apostasy, are generally only used by conservatives as to why Neoliberalism is destructive. The point used by everyone that uses the term neoliberal is the inequality caused by the corporations ruthlessly pursuing profit. And emphasis must be placed on profit being the only motive corporations have. The reason that every corporation’s twitter account is flooded with LGBT or BLM activism is only because they are trying to align their social values to those of the consumer.
The same can be said for the music industry and the media industry. They are continuously doing market research on what the consumer wants and molding their content to suit their needs. The consumers are molding the corporations, not the other way around. This is a very important point as it contrasts massively with what the people that use the term cultural Marxist think.
Another central theme of Neoliberalism is that it is just the logical conclusion of believing in free-market economics. There was no concerted effort by a few rich and powerful people to impose this on the world. The CIA were only engaged in their anti-communist crusade to protect the American way of life; capitalists only use the World Bank to attain more money; the cultural revolution that occurred was only an unexpected by-product of the capitalists’ lust for money; capitalists are indifferent to what the culture is, they only care about profit.
Cultural Marxism
Just as Neoliberalism was devised in the Austrian School, cultural Marxism has its own school where it was theorised: the Frankfurt School. The Frankfurt School, along with Antonio Gramsci, were disgruntled Marxists who were baffled as to why their proletariat revolution was a failure in the proletariat West, but a success in the peasant East. Marx promised them that the proletariat would unite throughout the world to overthrow their governments and install them as their dictators. Instead they saw the proletariat stick to their national ties and fight against each other twice in WW1 and WW2.
What people need to understand about Communism is that it was a sophisticated plan for domination by man over man. All their ideas about equality and liberation were just a scheme to trick the disgruntled worker to hand all power over to them. The plan was very simple: enflame the passions of a downtrodden group (proletariat), in order to turn them into a revolutionary class that would overthrow their current ruling-class (bourgeoise) and install the vanguard party (Communist Party) as their new ruling-class.
Once the revolution is successful, measures must be undertaken to prevent this new (Marxist) ruling-class from being overthrown. A strong intelligent and cohesive populace would be a danger to the ruling-class, therefore, a society full of deracinated godless degenerates needed to be created so that they would be too weak and stupid to ever overthrow their new masters.
After every successful communist revolution: religion was suppressed; the family destroyed through the normalisation of abortion, sodomy, divorce, illegitimate children etc.; having ethnic loyalty was designated as racist. Family, religion, and nation were supposedly bourgeoisie inventions, and being for them meant being an anti-revolutionary, how convenient.
What’s interesting about Marx’s plan for societal decay is that he is pretty open about it. He explicitly states in his Communist Manifesto that he advocates for the abolishment of the family, religion, and the nation. This can all be seen by the keen eye if you just look past all the economic autism expounded by Marxists.
It took a lone communist, Antonio Gramsci, rotting in prison in fascist Italy, to explain how Marxism had failed in Western Europe and how it can be reworked to suit the West. At his trial in 1928, the official prosecutor ended his peroration with this famous demand to the judge: “We must stop this brain working for twenty years!”. The irony is that being in jail gave him the perfect conditions – excessive amounts of time to think and write – to solve this conundrum of Marxist theory. In total he wrote 2,848 pages on an array of topics. Gramsci died shortly after leaving jail, but luckily for him he was able to smuggle out these essays.
Contemplating in jail, Gramsci realised that Marxism had failed in capitalist countries as their basic material needs had already been met. Only in peasant countries like Russia, where there was widespread abject poverty, could enough envious passions be aroused in the lower-class to produce a revolution.
Gramsci’s main contribution to redesigning Marxism for industrialised countries was in his theory of ‘cultural hegemony’. He realised Capitalism not only had an economic system, but also promoted a capitalistic culture along with it. This ‘cultural Capitalism’ hindered any Marxist culture from forming, which Gramsci deemed as an essential prerequisite if the revolution was ever to be attempted.
Marx proposed overthrowing the ruling-class to gain control of the economic base, from there one would have control over the ideological superstructure. Gramsci proposed reversing this order, hijacking the ideological superstructure first, and only then could usurping the economic base be attempted. Gaining control over the culture couldn’t be attained by a violent revolution in the West, therefore, a slow march through the institutions was needed.
Seeing all the good work Gramsci had done, the Frankfurt School used his ideas but emphasised the cultural revolution more, and completely dropped the economic ‘class struggle’ part of Marxism. The liberal establishment hired the intellectuals of the Frankfurt School at Columbia University and gave them ample opportunity to promote their subversive ideas. Joseph McCarthy was right, America was being subverted by communists, what he didn’t realise was this was a state of affairs orchestrated by his superiors.
What is crucial here is that the cultural revolution Gramsci and the intellectuals in the Frankfurt School planned on implementing was exactly the same cultural revolution implemented by the orthodox Marxists. This is why the modifier ‘cultural’ is used, so as to distinguish it from the orthodox Marxism of Lenin and Mao. This belief in cultural degeneracy is keeping with Marxist tradition. Marx declared that the natural state of man was a “promiscuous horde”, and that the family was just a product of Capitalism. Engels himself wrote that “the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male”.
The same Marxist formula for domination would be used, except the new downtrodden group would be based on identity not economics. Instead of the capitalists oppressing the proletariat, the dynamic would be men oppressing women, heterosexuals oppressing homosexuals, settled Irish oppressing travellers, etc.
The liberal establishment didn’t see the need for a revolutionary class to actually overthrow them, so therefore, only part two of the Marxist formula was needed, to create a society of deracinated godless degenerates. The Frankfurt School was a perfect fit for this as they focused exclusively on the ‘cultural’ aspect of Marxism while discounting the economic theories. The liberal establishment could continue with their predatory scheme of international finance and their ordering of the elite through their secret societies. This partnership of Marxists and capitalists is actually keeping with tradition. To name one example, the German-Jewish banker Jacob Schiff had infamously funded the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
Under this new cultural Marxist regime, women that kill their unborn babies and raise illegitimate children will be glorified as victims worthy of our sympathy; while the women that pertain to the natural law (and keep society together) will be derided as prudes and people that have internalised their oppression. The fact that Travellers are disproportionately in prison is not because they commit more crime, no it’s only because the settled Irish are mean and racist towards them. A transvaluation of values needed to occur, whatever led to societal decay would be labelled liberation, whatever led to a strong society would be labelled a system of oppression.
What’s more, this new empowered faction in society will ferociously attack anyone that wants to promote virtue again, as they know this new regime has given them all this undeserved status. If the new regime fails, they know they will fall back down to the bottom rungs of the social ladder, everyone will once again find the fact that they shaved their head and didn’t shave their armpits revolting and pay them no attention. Their articles about how cities are sexist because skyscrapers look like massive penises will never be published. These lumpenproletariat are equivalent to the white blood cells of the cultural Marxist regime, they will attack anything that threatens their social position with great aggression.
Soviet leaders tried to convince their people that religion was just make-believe and was propagated by the capitalist class as a way to control the populace. The same propaganda point is made today, except it’s the Church, not Capitalism, that uses it as a means to supposedly control us poor Irishmen.
When it comes to Nationalism, the Soviet Union pushed to get everyone to discard their ethnic identities and embrace the new deracinated identity of being a Soviet. What this resulted in was the Soviet officials persecuting ethnic minorities for behaving nationalistically in their geographical homeland. They persecuted ethnic minorities in the name of anti-racism.
To create a more perfect deracinated identity today, governments import millions of immigrants into the country so that a large chunk (a future majority) of the citizenry have no ties to any geographical area. This step couples up well with the cultural revolution as the depleted birth-rates the natives now have is generally cancelled out by the ‘new Irish’ imported in, thus, stopping any massive fluctuations in population (which may alert us poor proles as to what is going on). Just like in the Soviet Union, the cultural Marxist regime of today persecutes the native ethnic population for showing any signs of nativism or ‘racism’ (objecting to the intentional ethnic displacement of their own nation).
This conspiracy played out during the latter half of the 20th century. Through their cultural institutions (Hollywood, music industry, media etc.) they successfully implemented a Marxian cultural revolution in the 1960s. Once they attained control of the ideological superstructure, they could finally solidify their control of the economic base, which is what happened in the 1980s with Reagan and Thatcher.
Is it a coincidence that every economic crash or pandemic results in a massive transfer of wealth to the capitalist class? Or the fact that about 8 companies produce all of the food in the world, why approximately 6 companies own the US media, and why Irish media is controlled by the State? A culmination, or one could say a bragging, of the regime’s success in monopolising all assets is in an article on the World Economic Forum’s website where they claim that by the year 2030, you won’t own a car, house, appliances, or even your own clothes.
Gramsci is probably looking up from hell now with glee at what he helped create in our modern world. To some extent you have to hand it to him and the Frankfurt School for their brilliance. Very few people have even heard of the Frankfurt School, even if they have, they probably think the end goal is a communist revolution, which is at this point ludicrous. These are the same people who would identify themselves as capitalists and pro-free-speech.
Is Cultural Marxism just a Conspiracy Theory?
The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is just a pejorative used against anyone that threatens regime power by highlighting that certain changes in society were orchestrated and intentional. The word conspiracy, on the other hand, is a legal term used to describe ‘a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal’. Isn’t that exactly what happened though? The liberal establishment conspired with the intellectuals of the Frankfurt School to achieve ideological domination. On Wikipedia alone, you’ll find that half of the intellectuals had ties with some globalist entity.
The thing is, academia have always acknowledged the concept of ‘cultural Marxism’ for decades, but they instead use the colloquial term ‘Western Marxism’. The reason they use the descriptor ‘Western’ is to identify that this new fork of Marxist theory is designed to work in the West. The phrase ‘New Left’ is also used by academia and explains the same change in Marxist thought; i.e. the Old Left only care about class struggle, while the New Left care about cultural revolution. The fact that it was made for the West is not that important, the word ‘cultural’ is the better descriptor because that’s the only part of Marxist theory that these Neo-Marxists keep. The economic side of it, class struggle and all the baggage that goes along with it, are completely abandoned.
The terms ‘Western Marxism’ and ‘New Left’ eventually fell out of favour for being too overt; a more subversive term was needed. They ended up calling themselves liberals (even though they knew they weren’t) so as to shake off their Marxist origins. The even more vague and subversive term ‘progressive’ superseded ‘liberal’, further obfuscating the reality of their movement. It is a vague word like ‘conservative’, which can be defined by anyone that has enough influence. The roots of these vague words go back thousands of years. The Ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles hypothesized the physical world exists as a tension between ‘love’ and ‘strife’; today we are told our politics exist as a tension between ‘progress’ and ‘conservation’.
Is Marxism a Dead Ideology?
Many consider Marxism just to be some dead ideology of the 20th century. What is left is just neoliberalism and neoconservatism. If this is so, then why is academia littered with Marxist paraphernalia. And this is quite significant as academia tends to be the origin of every cultural movement. This same affinity they have for Marx is not even comparable to how they view the Austrian School. If you were to poll them, I’d say they have a negative view of the School. Feminists and BLM still use Marxist symbolism; they seem to have kept to the tradition of using the power fist. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
This notion that the culture we have today is just a logical consequence of liberalism needs to be discarded. Liberal theorists like Spinoza, Adam Smith, or Voltaire would be horrified to think that in the future, drag queens reading story-hour to children would be called liberal. This distinction must be acknowledged if we are to make any advancements in describing our world. We are not just in a culture war, but a war of words; and as the old adage goes, ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’.
Great article, but i think there should have been more emphasis on the power of the media
Yeah I was saying this for a long time, basically that what I call “Neo lefties” are a composite of ideologies, beginning with the population within traditionally marxist circles, existing in a capitalistic individualistic environment, from which comes the other ingredients.
The resulting mix is not fit to be called Marxism, and they know it (those who have studied the texts).
Originally an economic struggle with an ideal of a totalitarian utopia, its descendant modern presence subordinates idealism and utopianism to the base passions of humanity, and a primitive throwing off of all conditions and restrictions and structures.
The original required structure, and was inseparable from a massive state bureaucracy, and while the urge to use established power structures in the name of ideology remains, the sentiment motivating their use is decidedly anti-social.
This modern presence does not seek a utopian aim of raising individuals to their Aristotelian best, instead, it rages and thrashes against all higher orders of thought, tearing down conventions and sciences and social calm.
The mentality is the mentality of the riot, the robber, the mugger, the assassin, and power structures are intended by them to be bombastically hijacked in the name of the volatile mob, from whom no one is safe.
Fear, terror, violence, is all done openly and without much purpose other than gratification,
and study groups of Marx and Engels pouring over texts have fallen into obsolescence and stigma.
The core of the ideology that the average Marxist held has been supplanted by the latest evolution from circles on the fringe whose independence and sovereignty from wider society was based on their refusal to accept the legitimacy of the state.
What has supplanted it is a new belief and enthusiasm in the newly recognized legitimacy of the capitalist system, and of the utility of its creature comfort ideological bourgeois niceties like individualism, celebrity, religiosity, and a machiavellian predatory gaze at all the soon to be pawns in the general public and a coveting of society’s narrative.
The lust for power is still there, but it seems that in the time in which that particular community went without power, their lust for power became simply un-elucidated lust, their refusal to accept authority led them to delegitimize the sciences and eons old social conventions, and their fantasies about executing the aristocracy just took on a more vulgar primitive form where the hater could only see the color of the persons skin. In place of universalism was bone after bone thrown to the only people present who possessed a natural aptitude for the emergency and desperate measure of these circles to riot like it was the end of the world who, while doing so, were distancing themselves from “contamination” by society and coagulating into a distinct group.
The bones thrown morphed into a moral act, and then into a moral duty, and then into adoration, and while the left became the circles that collected the ones unwilling to be social in society, their nature personified perversions, lusts, taboo fetishes that would sicken the average person, and the square plug for a round hole of the new arrivals, who themselves were utilizing a community that began as philosophical utopianism and idealism, and reducing it to an unstable volatile violent mob whose only purpose from then on was to hate whitey and bang white hoes, while pathetic attempts to justify it from the few among those circles who like to feign intellectualism try to explain it all away as phenomenological class warfare and anti-imperialism, despite the obvious irony in everything they do. Anti social socialists. Anti racist anti whites. Anti class discrimination black and queer celebrity elevators. Anti imperialism Anti colonialism except when its the whites on the victim end, then theyre for it. Anti war except if its against Russia Belarus or Hungary or Poland. Pro choice except when it comes to mandatory lockdowns, masks, untested vaccines etc. Instead of house the homeless its deprive the Irish homeless but spend lavishly on anyone who is brown.
Theyre not the left anymore, what you see is a mutant unworthy of its own ancestors.
The only ones carrying the true authentic left are to be found in the alt-right, where their fringe status together with a repelling effect of the woke establishment upon the alt-right succeeded in keeping those circles as an environment in which authentic philosophical seeking could be done by the idealists attracted to it, and without the toxifying mental inhibitors as glorified lust, porn, perversions, violence, crime, urge to riot etc.
The philosophical individuals have no place else to go in a society of state sponsored orthodoxy than the alt right.
Anyone who thinks honestly about anything will end up there. Even you.
– written by a former communist party member
And if any present neo lefty reads this – in my opinion you are all traitors against your own ideology.
Splendid article, one of your best! I really like how you properly dissect both ideas in full and complete detail to examine whether they truly fit the truth. I quite agree, even though at first I didn’t tend to. I also think it’s worth noting that Fascism is not necessarily anti-Marxist – in fact, both Mussolini and Hitler considered themselves Socialist.