Marxism, Ideology and Media "Objectivity"

"Having an ideology is not a sin but a sign of principles."

- Julian Benson

Marxism, like any analysis, assembles the available facts, draws connections, notes contradictions and tries to recognize patterns. But I would argue that as an analytical method, it is more rigorous than most.

One of the greatest myths of establishment media is that it is somehow objective. No one can be objective when unique life experiences inevitably shape and influence our views, yet corporate media figures continue to proclaim their status as "objective journalists" when they are anything but. Media bias is a common complaint from all ends of the political spectrum. The logical fallacy lies in the belief that media can ever be truly objective.

What do you think of as "objective" media? Probably what's in the newspapers, right? The Associated Press. I read AP stories every day. On one hand, it provides the blandest possible account of the relevant facts. On the other, there are scores of hidden biases surrounding each story that the reader rarely dwells upon. Why are they reporting on this story instead of that one? Why do they give more weight to official sources in our country than in the designated "enemy" country? Why are they painting this guy as the good guy and the other as the bad guy?

Our newspapers talk about human rights abuses in China or in Russia or Iran. Our politicians, they say, are so very concerned about human rights. But they never habitually mention the human rights abuses of our own governments as they do in stories about China or Iran. They don't talk about the disastrous effects of our wars of aggression or CIA torture camps.

Even so, the facts eventually get out. It's no big secret, the information is out there. Everybody knows the Iraq War was based on lies. People knew about the firebombing of Dresden and the bombing of Hiroshima. The question is why people accept these things. We're told by politicians, by the media, that state crimes were either necessary (in the case of destructive large-scale military actions) or aberrations (such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse). And then we move on. The message is clear: we're still fundamentally good people and our governments represent us.


We might have political disagreements with our fellow citizens. The liberal point of view criticizes the excesses of big business, but never seriously challenges it. The conservatives worship big business, or want to reverse history and go back to a utopia of small businesses (libertarians). But this is the spectrum of acceptable political thought in the United States.

In America you can go pretty much as far right as you want, so long as you're not an actual fascist, neo-Nazi or KKK. Fox News will demonize liberals (which basically translates to "not conservative"), but otherwise you're pretty solidly in the mainstream. Social democrat - discouraged but tolerable. Socialist...hmm, okay, you're getting a little out there. You might even be "destroying America". But full-on Marxist? You're kidding! Are you crazy? Don't you know that communism doesn't work? "Everyone tells me that communism is evil, and after reading The Communist Manifesto once that's enough for me!"

It doesn't matter to such individuals if Karl Marx produced the most detailed analysis of the capitalist mode of production ever written. In terms of how he changed the way we look at ourselves, I can only compare him to Charles Darwin. Darwin revolutionized the way we looked at the natural development of species, including the evolution of humans. Marx revolutionized how we looked at the historical development of humanity and the evolution of societies.

We live in a capitalist economy. Everyone knows that, but Marxists think outside the box (as do anarchists, the Zeitgeist Movement and other anti-capitalists, though I would argue Marxism provides a superior theoretical framework). Mainstream economists are great at explaining what went wrong after the fact, not so great at predicting the future. The more successful ones are those who can keep the boom cycle going. People like Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan. These economists win Nobel Prizes. When capitalism is in a boom period, they're feted as the Masters of the Universe.

But in an economic crisis, suddenly, there's nothing they can do. They're helpless to provide any solutions to the problems of capitalism within the framework of the current system. Unemployment in the United States today is a national emergency. So is the wave of home foreclosures. But this is not a priority of the government, which is all about more war and lower corporate taxes while somehow cutting the deficit and paying back the bankers. It's insane, and the inevitable result of such insane policies is that the debt has to be paid off on the backs of workers through massive cuts and layoffs.

You won't hear that explicit view in the mainstream media. They don't provide any real solutions to the crisis. This is the central contradiction in class society: between the desires of the masses and the desire of a tiny elite. And you never hear about it in ruling class media, at least until the Occupy movement forced the issue.


You will hear it in Marxist tracts. And yet somehow, the Marxists are criticized for not being objective? The so-called "objective" news sources can't paint an objective picture of how the world economy really works?

I make no pretensions to objectivity. As a Marxist, I advocate a specific point of view: for the interests of the working class. And those interests are very concrete: good housing, well-paying jobs, education, pensions, health care, free time and yes, consumer goods. Doesn't everybody want these things?

Yet workers more and more have to fight to fulfill those basic needs, because under the wage system, they are a) always at the mercy of their employers, b) shortchanged in pay which accrues as profit to the capitalist, and c) far more likely to suffer in an economic downturn.

If I link to an article from the International Marxist Tendency, I do not claim it to be "objective". I merely think it correct from the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism.

People need to get past the view that ideology is bad, because there is a sharp difference between merely having an ideology and being an ideologue.

Rob Ford and the Efficacy of Mass Protest

Toronto's new mayor took the oath of office yesterday. I was originally going to attend some inaugural anti-Ford protests, but in the end decided not to. The main reason was likely going to bed too late the night before and opting to sleep in. But the deeper reason was that my reading of Death of the Liberal Class had left me feeling momentarily skeptical about the effectiveness of mass protest as a means of fighting bourgeois policies.

40-50 years ago, the protest as a form of mass resistance was still able to send a chill down the spine of the elite. They remembered the agitation of workers in the 1930s and feared the power of a mobilized working class. We saw the effect of mass protest in the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the eventual American withdrawal from Vietnam. But the elites learned from their experience during the counterculture, and in the decades that followed, as media ownership was concentrated more and more in the hands of a few vast conglomerates, the corporate interests that owned the press learned that it was relatively easy to ignore or ridicule popular movements if they interfered with elite goals. The worldwide 2002 protests against the impending invasion of Iraq were the largest organized protest in human history, yet failed to prevent the Bush administration's rush to war. The election of Barack Obama largely neutralized the American anti-war movement, although as casualties continue to mount in Afghanistan a more concerted push from below may take shape again.

Chris Hedges' pessimistic take on protest should not be mistaken for a disinclination to use it. Rather, his glass half-empty view is predicated on a sober, honest assessment of working class strength today and is part of a larger argument advocating resistance for its own sake. Nevertheless, it was the more superficial version of this lesson that I used to justify my decision to sleep through Rob Ford's inauguration.

Ultimately, this protest in particular was a great example of protest for its own sake, because there was literally no chance it was going to affect anything on this day - other than, of course, further raising public awareness of Ford's reactionary nature. But it was never as if the new mayor was going to see people protesting what for him was the high point of his career and immediately decide to renounce the new office.

I'm all for new subway lines, and while critics of his idea to literally sweep the homeless off the street in winter have some merit in describing the tactic as "fascistic", preventing Toronto's homeless from freezing to death on sewer grates does have its merits, no? But in my view, the main danger from Ford has always been severe cuts to social services under the guise of Stopping The Gravy Train - that, and the assumption that as a right-wing faux-populist he would more ruthlessly execute the agenda of Big Business than any of his competitors. Right now Ford is still a lively, bubbling novelty, a living caricature as good for entertainment value as anything. Time will tell exactly how concerned we should be, but regardless of who holds the mayor's seat, our immediate task and central focus is organizing the workers, the poor and unemployed of Toronto to fight for their own interests.