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.

A Century of Global Class Struggle

During a recent debate, an American libertarian informed me in no uncertain terms that "even when their lives are crumbling, workers have never banded together globally."

However, a cursory examination of the past century indicates certain periods are more conducive to revolutionary sentiment around the world:

1917-1923

• Successful socialist revolution in Russia (October 1917) leads to short-lived Soviet republics in Hungary and Bavaria
• Workers' councils take control in Germany (November 1918) and force an end to World War I
• Egyptian Revolution of 1919 leads to Britain recognizing independence in 1922
• Mexican Revolution ends with victory of social democratic forces
• Irish War of Independence (1918-1921) against British rule
• Revolutionary conditions in Italy with mass strikes, factory occupations, and rule by workers' councils that led to the Fascists taking power to crush the labor movement
• First Red Scare in the United States (1919-1920). Authorities were very seriously afraid of revolution after labor unrest such as the Seattle General Strike, resulting in the Palmer Raids to arrest and deport radical leftists
• Winnipeg General Strike (1919) in Canada leads to a situation of dual power between strike committees and the bourgeois municipal government

1931-1939

• Spanish Revolution; threat of the radical left in Spain (anarchists, communists) and mass labor unrest leads to military coup against the Republican government
• Germany and Italy support Franco's Fascist forces because - as I was just reading the other day in Ian Kershaw's definitive biography on Hitler - the Nazi leader was deathly afraid of Bolshevism taking root in western Europe
• Leftist volunteers from many countries, including France, Britain, the United States, Canada and Poland, go to Spain to fight for the Republican forces

1960s

• Colonial Revolution continues in the developing countries, with many countries gaining independence through anti-colonial struggle or waging war against imperialist powers (Algeria, Vietnam, Cuba) and instituting nationalized planned economies
• Civil rights movement, counterculture, antiwar protests, Black Panther Party (Marxist militants) in the United States. Domestic turmoil practically tears the country apart.
• Cultural Revolution in China. Mao was merely trying to re-assert his own power, but the spontaneous revolutionary action of millions of youth in China clearly indicated some real resentments in society (shared by confused Maoist students in the West). There were many corrupt and bourgeois elements in Chinese society at the time; Mao simply exploited that mass feeling for his own cynical ends.
• Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia (1968) - period of political liberalization calling for "socialism with a human face." Crushed by Stalinists.
• May 1968 in France. Mass protests begin with student occupations, later joined by workers. Largest general strike ever brings economy to a standstill. Government leaders literally feared civil war or revolution. Betrayed by leaders of the trade unions and French Communist Party, who sided with the de Gaulle government.

1998-2011

• Election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (1998) leads to Turn to the Left throughout Latin America
• Left-wing or left-leaning governments elected in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, etc.
• Anti-globalization movement targets World Bank and the IMF before post-9/11 reaction
  

2011-2012

• Arab Spring
• Occupy movement
• Indignados in Spain
• Anti-Putin protests in Russia

Insiders and Outsiders

Most Americans are suffering the negative effects of capitalism right now, and they're angry about it. But they don't know where to turn or what to do because the ruling class has hegemony over popular culture.

A handful of giant corporations control almost everything we hear, watch and read - and it's in their interests to say that American politics boils down to Democrats and Republicans. Nothing exists outside of that two-party duopoly for them, and since we are conditioned to consider that "the mainstream", Americans will go to the polls in November and most will vote for a Democrat or a Republican.

But what choice do they have, really? There are a myriad of institutional obstacles that the duopoly throws up for any third party candidate. The difference in resources is simply too vast for anyone to compete with the two corporately-funded parties, with one exception: the trade unions. American labor unions must break with the Democrats and put their resources into backing independent labor candidates.

Occupy Wall Street is a grassroots movement that exists because people realize the two parties walk in lockstep on behalf of corporate interests. The Tea Party is largely astroturf, and is obviously a confused bastion of reactionary beliefs, but the populist elements within it understand on some level that the government does not work in their interests. The common element in rank-and-file supporters of OWS and the Tea Party is a perception that both parties work for self-interested elites and not ordinary Americans.

This will be thrown into even sharper relief if the 2012 presidential election comes down to a race between the two corporate empty suits, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Rank-and-file conservatives don't like or trust Romney, and principled progressives realize Obama offers nothing but empty words.

Despite all the usual nationalist bromides, the rulers of the United States effectively speak a different language than the country's working class. While the ruling elite talks incessantly of deficits, "fiscal responsibility", "shared sacrifice". and endless war to defend oil interests, American workers want to hear about good jobs, education, health care, preserving Social Security, clean energy and ending the wars.

Caterpillar Closes Electro-Motive Plant

One of the big labor issues here in Canada is the U.S.-based Caterpillar corporation locking out workers at its Electro-Motive plant in London, Ontario, and threatening to move the factory unless workers took a 50% pay cut.

There was a massive demonstration in London a couple weeks ago. Some of my comrades from Toronto went in solidarity, along with masses of union workers from all over North America. But apparently, it was all for naught: the company just voted to close down the plant.

From the Toronto Star:

The timing of Caterpillar Inc.’s decision to close its locked-out London locomotive plant was no accident.

On Wednesday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a so-called right-to-work bill making his state the first in the U.S. industrial north to directly take on private-sector unions.

Two days later, Caterpillar — which is based in next-door Illinois — closed its unionized London plant.

Since it locked out 460 Canadian workers in January, the giant U.S. firm had made little secret of its intent to move their jobs to Muncie, Indiana.

All it was waiting for, apparently, was a signal that the state government there was serious about crippling trade unions.

The London plant closing is not an isolated event. It is part of a coordinated attack across North America on unions and wages.

So now Indiana is a "right-to-work" state? Bad news for unions in the northern states.

Workers everywhere need to stand firm together against the aggression of the bosses and their servants in government. I agree with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP): the government "should seize the Caterpillar assets in London and ensure that all community and worker obligations are fully met."

Of course, that'll never happen under the Harper regime. But it's still a good sign that the union is advocating such measures.

Unemployment Blues

Recently got involved with a staffing/recruiting agency that's been getting me temp jobs, mostly in data entry. I worked for a couple days at a hospital last week. This week I had an interview for a two-week (!) position at a mining company, but didn't get it.

Temp jobs make me much more conscious of my existence as a wage slave. It's like, "no, you can't make a living here or anything, but we're happy to buy your labour-power for a week!"

Sometimes I feel like I'd like to go back to school and get my PhD, but the prospect of going thousands and thousands of dollars into debt, only to come out and face renewed unemployment, makes me think twice.

A third year English student from my alma mater called me tonight to ask for money on behalf of the university. My response was a no-brainer: "As you know, I was an English major, and am therefore 'between jobs' right now."

Lame and predictable

Looks like the union-backed drive to recall Republican politicians in Wisconsin and replace them with Democrats has failed. It was a predictable result, but even success for the Dems wouldn't have changed the fundamental issues at stake.

As soon as the energy and activism of the Wisconsin protests was diverted into harmless electoral channels, this movement stopped being about anything but the Democrats' political interests. When the workers of Wisconsin were leading the protests, there was a genuine Egypt-like quality to it, of the people getting pissed off enough to take their destiny into their own hands. The logical next step should have been a general strike.

Unfortunately, no matter how many times the Democrats piss on the interests of the rank-and-file union members (and the working class in general), the corrupt union leadership is only too willing to make recalling Republicans and electing Democrats the entire focus of the movement - as if that would make any difference whatsoever to the push for austerity and the attack on collective bargaining rights.

I've said that the American political system won't really change until progressives, the left and the working class unshackle themselves from the anchor of a corrupt, corporatized Democratic Party. But one of the biggest problems is that the leaders of the union are still perfectly cozy with the current arrangement. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter to the union bureaucrats if the Dems break all their promises and spit on unions by neglecting things like the Employee Free Choice Act; all that matters is that THEY get to retain their privileges and hefty salaries. It's the predictable outcome of bureaucracy in all its forms - bureaucrats that raise themselves above the rank-and-file forget who they represent and become consumed only with preserving their own interests and perks.

The working class needs to fight against the Democratic Party as much as against the Republican Party, but there's one massive obstacle that unions (the most organized workers) need to get past - the corrupt leadership that continues to tie them to the Democrats.

In Defence of Marxism

From a recent exchange on Facebook.

A Facebook-friend of a friend made the following remark during a discussion about the Greek debt crisis:

Marxist theory is hopelessly shallow in its perception of how people see themselves. Very few identify as "working class" or "bourgeois" but many would escribe themselves as "Canadian" or "humanist" or "young," "Muslim" or "father." Class identity is important but not all-important.

My response:

Marxists explained a long time ago that there is no final crisis of capitalism - the bourgeoisie will always find a way out until the working class takes power into its own hands.

Please excuse the Marxian terminology (you might say jargon), but it's the most accurate way for describing the broad movements of the economy in terms of who actually produces the wealth (workers). Marxism is actually much more complex than the simple dichotomy of "bourgeoisie/proletariat". It allows for the petty bourgeoisie (small business owners and professionals), lumpen-proletariat (swindlers, criminals, beggars, those on the margins of society), peasants if there are any. And that's just in recent history - in earlier times there were different classes - freeman/slave, lord/serf, etc. As a way of sketching out the broad class formations in social relations, Marxist theory is indispensable.

But Marxism doesn't JUST talk about class. That's an understandable misconception. Like any good method of analysis, it takes into account as much information and facts as possible, including gender, race, nationality, and so on. At the same time, it realizes that class is ultimately the determining factor when it comes to actual change of the social order. What we think of as "the middle class" is actually the working class that is enjoying the benefits of past struggles - for the 8-hour work day, overtime pay, pensions, collective bargaining rights. All these are now being taken away from us. Why? Because capitalism is in crisis worldwide.

It's only a Greek problem? Wrong. (Just ask the Wall Street Journal.) When Greece defaults - and it will, no matter what austerity measures are put in place - we'll get defaults in Ireland and Portugal, followed by a financial crisis in Spain, dragging the whole of Europe and the United States into it. French and German banks have the most to lose from a Greek default, which is why their governments are pushing for bailouts of the debtor nation.

The problem is, these kinds of periodic crises are endemic to the capitalist system, and even its most ardent defenders will admit that. Duh - boom and bust, right? Everybody knows a capitalist economy will have recessions and depressions. BUT: It's only the people who win under capitalism that are cushioned from the effects. The working majority always lose out.

Why is there massive unemployment that just seems to get worse all the time? Why are people with jobs being forced to work longer hours for less pay and benefits? Why are governments cutting social services everywhere? I live in Toronto and our mayor wants to cut the budget of all departments by 10%, including the fire department. Why is all this happening? Because this kind of thing always happens when the capitalist party ends and the working class gets the hangover ("Wall Street got drunk" - George W. Bush). Bankers blew a hole in the global economy. They, along with other corporations and the wealthy, control our governments (the Golden Rule - "he who has the gold makes the rules"), and now they want to make the working class pay for a crisis they caused.

The media constantly chirp about a recovery. In truth, the long postwar economic boom has been pushed far past its shelf life through increased debt. A little fast history: capitalism was effectively pulled out of the Great Depression by World War II, which served as an artificial stimulus to a massive armaments boom. The technologies that emerged from the war and the new markets opened up to the United States led to a long economic boom that started to plateau in the late 60s and stagnated in the 70s. As a reaction, the deregulation of the 80s and development of ever more exotic financial securities led to the ever-increasing financialization of the economy and to a large extent de-coupled financial markets from the "real" economy. (Stocks numbers are great right now, employment figures not so much.)

Over the last 30 years of reaction, workers' wages stagnated while the bosses' have skyrocketed (this was partly masked by greater consumer debt). Income inequality is worse than ever, and there seems to be no real recovery in sight. This is not a matter of me reading a Marxist book and thinking about rrrrrevolution! It's about being sick of a system that's left our world a stinking impoverished mess. I'm sick of the wars, inequality, the hunger, the environmental degradation, the national rivalries and racism - and the system of private profit at the root of it all.

People react strangely to the term "dictatorship of the proletariat", because they associate the first word with individual tyrants. In fact, it just means power, and it makes a lot more sense if you consider that right now we live under the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Ever get the feeling that your vote doesn't matter? In some ways, it doesn't - not when the game is rigged and the same people are pulling the strings no matter who gets elected to office. If you want to describe who those people are, bourgeoisie is as good a term as any.

One last point I want to make, and I congratulate anyone who's made it this far. I used to think that the idea of two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, duking it out was an antiquated 19th century notion. I hope I've absolved you of any confusion there. When Marxists talks about the "working class", people tend to think about workers in factories. But it's really about producing surplus value (i.e. goods and services), and the tools and machines you use to make those (if any) don't really make a difference. So that includes service jobs, like working at Wal-Mart or being a waitress. It includes white collar office jobs and blue collar industrial jobs. Basically, it's anybody who earns a wage for a living.

Marxists don't back the working class because of some romantic idea of what it means to be a worker or because we think they're great people. We support them because they are the only class capable of transforming society - in the first place, by shutting it down.

If Richard Branson or Bill Gates goes on strike for a year...who cares? But if there's a general strike for just one day, everything stops. Nothing can get done, nothing can be produced. You'll notice that in Egypt, it was only when the Egyptian working class mobilized - when we saw strikes in factories, among unionized workers of all kinds - that Muburak was finally pressured to step down. Essentially, if you're sick of the world we live in right now, there's only one group in society that can change that: the international working class. Workers in Egypt have more in common with workers in Canada than either of us have with our elected national "leaders".