Setting our present–day loyalties off to the side, now may be the time for a socialism without borders. Marxism–Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, council communism, and autonomism—as previous projects in scientific socialism—are studied. However, they can, one might expect, also be transcended. We would certainly benefit from previous currents of scientific socialism and the Marxist thinkers of the past. They might be Leninist or otherwise. Nevertheless, at the same time, we should be anxious to learn much more and progress even further. Not to advance is falling behind or, essentially, moving backwards. And the prospects for humanity must improve. As universal Marxists, we embrace the latest findings on scientific socialism while repudiating the domination of partisanship in Marxist thought. Cults of the personality and charisma must be divorced from all the sciences. Bigotry between scientific socialists of diverse tendencies is unscientific. Communism here, unless qualified otherwise, pertains to libertarian communism or Maoism–Third Worldism, not to some communisms–in–practice which have at times been carelessly equated with communism–in–tōtō. Critiques of communism, even if well–intentioned, often ignore untested types.

Each of the necessary subjects which were referred to above, among a host of others, shall occupy our attention in this book.  Our revised scientific socialism—or Marxism—will be designated as Dialectical metaRealism (DmR™). DmR shall spotlight Roy Bhaskar’s (1944–2014) critical realism. The redacted scientific socialist DmR, is, as we stated above, always critically open to the gamut of Marxian socialist currents from one end to another. DmR’s libertarian communism, as contrasted with more antiquated libertarian communisms, emphasizes liberty from the capitalist world–system, which includes: racism, sexism, ageism, and Islamophobia. Additionally, the schematic diagram, as depicted immediately below, provides readers with a bare–bones illustration of the five foundational components or sources of the new Marxian tendency of DmR. Considering the points made in the previous paragraph, perhaps, however, a counter–tendency would, while tongue–in–cheek, be more apropos. DmR, along with each of its elements, might be regarded as a multi–generational successor to Marxism as originally conceived. Necessarily, any genuine missteps within some of those generations must be acknowledged and corrected.

Reflecting upon both the Pentad and its subsequent elaborations, provided throughout this treatise, is earnestly recommended by the author:

Here now is a brief elaboration of the Pentad:

• Bhaskarian critical realism (MP3), which I embraced after abandoning my post–Marxist reconstruction of Pitirim A Sorokin’s (1889–1968) integralism in the theory of Structural Dialectics I developed, is the metatheory and socialist or communist methodology, from philosopher and libertarian Marxist Roy Bhaskar ([MP3] 1944–2014), for implementing Marxist socialism.
• Socialism from below–Third Worldism, a heterodox Maoist perspective more commonly referred to as Maoism–Third Worldism, asserts that a socialism which opposes the American Empire must occur, below the bourgeoisie, by the agency of those sectors of the Proletariat and the Fourth World (or the Subaltern), initially at least, in those sections of the Third World with sufficient dialectical potential. (Like Immanuel Wallerstein’s world–systems analysis, Maoism–Third Worldism is strongly influenced by the dependency theories.)
• Intersectional Marxism, a far–left transformation of intersectionality, should not be confused with the original, progressive intersectionality from legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw ([MP3] née 1959), sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (née 1948), and many other American Black feminists.
• Kyriarchy (MP3) is a vital expansion of intersectionality, and intersectional Marxism in particular, to incorporate the global dynamics of: imperialism, colonialism, and cultural hegemony.
• Antifa (MP3) is an activist and antifascist praxis of libertarian Marxist communism, which, in DmR, intersectionally shifts its center from the imperialist and authoritarian domination of the First World—the (American) Empire or the capitalist world–system—to the Third World and the Fourth World (or the Subaltern) and also shifts its center from capitalism and its oppressions to emancipation.

The Leninisms, now divided into numerous tendencies, obviously constitute the largest single genealogy of Marxist socialism. Yet, as a respectful critique of some modern Leftist thought, the assertions of certain dogmatists notwithstanding, Leninism and Marxist socialism are neither interchangeable nor commensurate. It should go without saying that Vladimir Lenin was never annointed as an heir to a station of covenantal authority by either Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels. Nevertheless, even if they had done precisely that, so what? Marx and Engels were not the founders of a line of priestly succession. There were also Marxist socialisms preceding Leninism: Socialist Industrial Unionism (De Leonism) continues as an organized body of originally pre–Leninist socialists. Henry M. Hyndman’s (1842–1921) Social Democratic Federation was pre–Leninist, as well. They shall both be incorporated into the extensive classification scheme presented in the final chapter. No single individual must ever be invested with undisputed authority in the lineages of Marxism. Knowledge is multi–paradigmatic. Marxists, moreover, are scientific socialists. We are not the congregants of divines or the subjects of monarchs.

One issue to bear in mind, however, is that Maoism is not about Mao. Marxism is not about Marx or Engels. Leninism is not about Lenin. Each of these men was a flawed, often a profoundly flawed, human being. Marx, a genealogically Jewish antisemite, erroneously predicted that revolutions would begin in Europe by the end of the 19ᵗʰ century. One must immediately reject his proposition. If one wishes, one may dissect his oversight: He never acknowledged that most First–World workers were lumpenproletarians—not to be confused with the Subaltern. One simply moves on. Current material conditions must count, not those of the 19ᵗʰ century. Marx himself did not even like the term Marxism. Why? Because he did not want Marxism, or whatever we call it, to focus upon him. He recognized his limitations as an ordinary human being. How many among us would wish our views to be designated after our last names followed by ism? One would be setting up one’s entire lifework for conceivable failure. Even a single error might be catastrophic. Speculatively, an admission of the simultaneous existence of different Marxisms should have been acceptable to Marx. Still, Engels’ term, scientific socialism, may be preferable.

Lenin himself, in his writings, may have differed with certain propositions in the theoretical frameworks from his line of successors. How many people will ever completely consur with one another on every subject? Each of these three men were, ostensibly, simply regular individuals like you and I. Nevertheless, many modern–day iterations of Marxism–Leninism, or Stalinism, have become joined at the hip to Putinism. This fact can best be explained by the idiom, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Most Trotskyist tendencies, with their many inadequacies, reject Putinism. That alone does not make one tendency superior to the other. Indeed, this writer’s number one rule is to discount personalities, especially of the earliest socialist leaders, and the historical conflicts between them. Focus, instead, on building theory and engaging in praxis. Our socialism will bypass succumbing to a lackluster sterility and staleness, welcome the multiplicities in theory and praxis, and fend off all traces of petty infighting. DmR is neither politically partisan nor politically activist. Our activism is nonpartisan and apolitical. Revolutions, galvanizing a socialist world–system of unity in diversity, will, we hope, occur all over the Third World.

Socialism is literally in my blood. My late father, Harold Lawrence Foster (né Harold Lawrence Feigenbaum, 1919–2008), loved his union, the now–defunct Distributive Workers Union or District 65. It was the only pro–socialist union in New York City. District 65 was expunged from the AFL–CIO for refusing to sign an anti–socialist manifesto during the infamous Army–McCarthy Hearings in the 1950s. He was a floor leader at the union’s headquarters on Astor Place in Manhattan. My late maternal uncle, Ralph Lawrence Kleinman (né 1927–2014), who oddly shared my father’s middle name, was a socialist organizer in New York City. They were not unusual. The American socialist movement was substantially built by dedicated Jewish men. Their hard work and commitment, which were often the subject of antisemitic memes, should never be forgotten. They were, through their multiple sacrifices, fulfilling the medieval Jewish prayer, repairing the world (Hebrew, תִּקּוּן הַעוֹלָם [MP3], tiqqūn hạ•ʿôlām). Although this writer is no longer an adherent of the religion of Judaism per se, he owes to it his present–day ethical monotheism and yearning to repair the world. He has also continued to adore his ancestral religion.

Do I talk about my religion in the context of DmR? The answer is either carefully or no. Do I talk about DmR in the context of my religion? Again, the answer is carefully or no. Have I engaged in political partisanship or belonged to a political party? Here, the answer is unreservedly no. In my public discourse, I usually do my best to compartmentalize DmR from my religion. That is where they belong—in separate compartments. By the same token, I would never recant my religion or deny my Marxist communism. Is that a difficult balancing act? Certainly. Yet, however difficult compartmentalizing DmR, in its revolutionary specifics or implications, from my religion may become from time to time, that practice is, in the view of this writer, necessary. Mingling religiosity and politics can cause genuine social problems. One need only look at world history. The fact that the overwhelming majority of my co–religionists are not Marxists or communists, a truism which does not trouble me at all, might be first and foremost among them. Freedom of agency, and the separation of religion from political divisiveness, is vital for the continuing solidarity of any religious organization.

And furthermore, autobiographically, since 1968, one personal socialist intellectional conversion has supplanted, or more accurately supplemented, another. As all academics know, most things are gray. They are rarely black or white. I appreciate all of the tendencies with which I have been associated in my life. Not only have I learned from my many and varied experiences in them. I continue to learn from them. Without those currents, I would not have arrived at the intellectual space which I now gratefully inhabit. Fanaticism is among the greatest of human imperfections. Fundamentalism, used in the broadest sense of that term, is far from virtuous. Indeed, the fundamentalisms, in virtually every arena of human thought, should be intentionally shunned and avoided. Despite the present popularity of the fundamentalisms in reactionally circles and, to coin a term, a rigidity of reflection, the wide array of fundamentalisms can, upon reflection, best be described as spiritually toxic to the human intellect. Become an open–hearted scientific socialist instead.

As I moved from tendency to tendency, I continued to recognize, until this day, some value in each of them. Embracing a new one never resulted in a complete rejection of any from the past. Each contributed to my overall base of knowledge. Below is a cursory synopsis of my own Marxist genealogy. It, notably, excludes Bhaskar’s critical realism, discussed in the following chapter. Doing otherwise, chronologically, would be problematic. Beginning with Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Third Worldism, the first time around, critical realism has been the foundation for my entire sequence of currents throughout my life as a Marxist. I also accepted International Socialism, later Maoism–Left Refoundationism (Liberation Road), and then third campism. Nevertheless, the tendency with which I identified the longest was Marxism–Leninism–Titoism—an illustration of the ingenius Marxist–Leninist theory of socialism in one country. The former Yugoslavia had a self–managing variation of the somewhat problematic market socialism. I was not yet a critical realist. Stalin, a bit like myself at this time, differed with Tito’s market socialism, Nevertheless, Stalin tolerated it. Since he proposed socialism in one country, he really had no alternative.

My odyssey, going back to the beginning, is, as delineated in this Marxist genealogy, dated from 1968–1969. At that time, I was 12–13 years old, in the 7ᵗʰ grade, and an activist in the U.S. New Left. Presently, I define my socialist tendency as Bhaskarian critical realism. Following considerable reflection, I do so, truthfully, out of a degree of personal agency to avoid partisan political disputes. I also decided to express my views with greater humility and without the litany of divisive condemnations. I have also, hopefully, profited from my mistakes or errors in judgment. My last turn—referred to beginning on January 14ᵗʰ, 2024, as socialism from below–Third Worldism—I previously called Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Third Worldism or, simply, Maoism–Third Worldism. The latter two designations are the most common. My new expression for that Third Worldist turn or current, socialism from below–Third Worldism, is, to the best of my knowledge, original to this book. Nevertheless, to be entirely aboveboard, I chose to display one of the turn’s customary names, Marxism–Leninism–Maoism–Third Worldism, in both places of the diagram:

For linguistic clarification, the socialist alias, and the Jewish name (Hebrew, שֵׁמוּת בְּיַהֲדוּת [MP3], šēmūṯ bə•Yạhăḏūṯ), of this writer shall be transliterated in this monograph as Mōšẹh ʾẠhărōn hạ•Lēwiy bẹn Hẹʿrəšẹʿl (Hebrew and Yiddish, מֹשֶׁה אַהֲרֹן הַלֵוִי בֶּן הֶערְשֶׁעל [MP3]) or Məšəh ʾẠhərən dēʿr Lēʿviyṭəʿ zūn p̄ūn Hẹʿrəšẹʿl (Yiddish, מְשְְׁה אַהְרְן דֵּער לֵעווִיטְע זוּנ פֿוּן הֶערְשֶׁעל [MP3]). The Hebraic–Yiddish proper noun is enunciated using a modern Israeli accent. Still, on the other hand, the pronunciation provided for the Yiddish version of that name attempts to follow an Ashkenazi (Hebrew, אַשְׁכְּנַזִּי [MP3], ʾẠšəkənạzziy; or Yiddish, אַשְׁכְּנַזִישׁ‎ [MP3], ʾẠšəkənạziyš, “from sprinkles of fire”) inflection. As the eldest child of two Ashkenazi Jews, I learned Hebrew while preparing for my bar mitzvah (modified Hebrew, בַּר מִצְוָה [MP3], bạr miṣəwāh, “son of commandment”), as I attended Joel Bernstein’s Hebrew School in Bayside, Queens, at 13–years old. Furthermore, as to my particular Jewishness (Yiddish, יִידִישְׁקַײַט [MP3], Yiyḏiyšəqạ͡yṭ or Yiddishkeit; or Hebrew, יְהוּדִיּוּת [MP3], Yiyhūḏiyūṯ), I am a Levite (Hebrew, לֵוִי [MP3], Lēwiy, “joined” priestly tribe) and a brit milah (Hebrew, בְּרִית מִילָה [MP3], bəriyṯ miylāh, “covenant of circumcision”).

In much of the modern world, Jews are among the Subaltern (MP3) or the marginalized Fourth World. That marginalization has, unfortunately, only been on the rise. Incidents of persecution, especially toward Jews who wear traditional attire, are increasingly common. Some Israelis, with many Jews soundly standing against them, have been marginalizing Palestinians before the founding of the State of Israel, so the problem is certainly not a one–way street. Israeli Jews, as largely European colonizers, belong to the First World. One might say, however, that the oppressed Palestinians of West Asia reside, simultaneously, in the Fourth World and the Third World. Ostensibly, religious, ethnic, and racial persecution is not limited to Palestinians and Jews alone. Individuals of conscience must stand up against social and cultural “othering” whenever and wherever it appears. No acts of discrimination, against human populations, can be condoned by a civil society nor should any compromises, concerning human rights, ever be tolerable. Notwithstanding, in the capitalist world–system, in which imperialism is the principal dialectical contradiction, resolving these deep–seated problems is like shooting for the moon.

I must plainly acknowledge that, as a genealogical Ashkenazi Jew in the United States, I benefit from white privilege. Living here in South Texas, at the same latitude as Miami, I generally wear shorts and t–shirts. But if I dressed like many Hasidic (Hebrew, חָסִידִי [MP3]), Ḥāsīḏiy, “pious”) Jews, I would be singled out and could, in some social contexts, face prejudice or discrimination. It is precisely because I experience the privileges of whiteness that I refuse to define myself as white. I reject, in principle, the unearned “racial” privileges I receive. Furthermore, if Arabs are commonly referred to, in the United States, as brown people, then why not Ashkenazi Jews? That distinction literally makes no sense to me. We are Semitic cousins. Nevertheless, life is permeated by dialectical contradictions. I can accept my white privilege, repudiate the identity politics which all too often accompanies that privilege, and simultaneously define myself as a person of color. For me, my brownness is not an issue of identity politics but, rather, of honesty and compassion. Indeed, whiteness, which should be tossed into the trash by all so–called white people, originated, historically, as a hateful assertion of superiority over Black slaves.

In the speculative libertarian socialist world–system of the future, the Proletariat and the Subaltern, marginalized from the Proletariat, must be liberated from intersectional capitalism (IC)—a reference to capitalism’s disentangled and disenchanted state of affairs. On the other hand, so–called right libertarianism and its ghastly motto, “Don’t tread on me,” mask narcissism as liberty. Right libertarianism includes Murray Rothbard’s (1926–1995) anarcho–capitalism. Indeed, Rothbard was among the founders of right libertarianism. That classically American ideology is comparable to, even overlaps with, Objectivism—from the controversial Russian–American novelist, an understandable Jewish cynic who had witnessed nazism from afar, Ayn Rand (1905–1982). Those anomalies aside, outside of the United States, libertarianism refers, more often than not, to its original left–wing versions. The perplexing difference in terminologies between diverse systems with the libertarian label has resulted, and continues to result, in considerable semantic confusion.

Indeed, a century before right–wing libertarianism was initiated in the United States, including by Rothbard, a libertarianism, of quite a different sort, had already been inaugurated on the Left. Certain early, as well as present–day, iterations of left libertarianism simultaneously incorpotated both Marxism (Sanskrit, मार्क्सवाद [MP3], Mārksavāda; or Arabic, مَارْكِسِيَّةٌ [MP3], Mār°kisiyyaẗuṇ) and anarchism (Sanskrit, अराजकतावाद [MP3], arājakatāvāda; or Arabic, فَوْضَوِيَّةٌ [MP3], faw°ḍawiyyaẗuṇ) or anarchy (Sanskrit, अनैक्यम् [MP3], anaikyam; or Arabic, فَوْضَى [MP3], faw°ḍaỳ). Yet, others are strictly one or the other. The following sequence of quotations, written from various perspectives, will offer elaborations on those points:

At the end of the [nineteenth] century in France, Sébastien Faure took up a word originated in 1858 by one Joseph Déjacque to make it the title of a journal, Le Libertaire [The Libertarian]. Today the terms “anarchist” and “libertarian” have become interchangeable [a weak claim given the variety of usages for both terms].

〜 Daniel Guérin. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 2009. Page 8.

The aim of this article is to reexamine the ideological composition of the “Chicago Idea” movement of the Haymarket Martyrs. Following the “morphological” approach of Michael Freeden, I will argue that the evolution of the revolutionary labor movement in Chicago 1876–1886 exhibits conceptual features common to both the Marxist and anarchist traditions—which deeply impacted its radical praxis and outlook—in what might be regarded as an early “libertarian communist” formulation. The intellectual trajectory of the Chicago Idea will be contextualized with reference to key developments in the international and American socialist milieu, showing both similarities and differences with its state socialist, insurrectionary, and individualist contemporaries. The Chicago Idea remains an important ideological configuration, especially in light of more recent efforts to forge a common ground between social anarchisms and revolutionary marxisms. Viewed in this light, an analysis of what [Andrej] Grubačić and [Staughton] Lynd have recently called the “Haymarket Synthesis” and its legacy shows that an anarchist/Marxist synthesis has deeper historical roots than most left historians have previously acknowledged and might provide one point of departure on which to reconceptualize a contemporary anarchist/Marxist synthesis.…

… In the opening pages of his historical treatment of the anarchist movement Daniel Guérin, perhaps one of the clearest advocates of a “libertarian communist” or anarchist/Marxist formulation, quotes Haymarket Martyr Adolph Fischer in his assertion that “every anarchist is a socialist but not every socialist is necessarily an anarchist.” Guérin’s reading of the anarchist tradition through the twentieth century emphasizes the ideas as well as the “spontaneous actions of popular revolutionary struggle” which he regarded as having commonality with elements in the revolutionary Marxist milieu. Indeed, one of the remarkable features of the theory and practice of the Chicago Idea militants is the absence of heated polemics between class struggleoriented Marxist socialists and direct action-oriented anarchists—a perennial and familiar theme evident in most major studies of left and labor history. Chicago’s social revolutionaries had, after 1880, used the terms “anarchist” and “socialist” interchangeably and had openly drawn inspiration from both anarchist and Marxist sources.

〜 Saku Pinta, “Anarchism, Marxism, and The Ideological Composition of The Chicago Idea.” WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society. Volume 12, issue 3, September 2009. Pages 421–450.

The massacres of June 1848 brought him [Joseph Déjacque] not only to a rejection of exploitation and economic privilege, but equally to a rejection of all forms of authority. In exile in the States he produced a journal in French, Le Libertaire [The Libertarian], the first recorded use of the term libertarian as an alternative to that of anarchist.

〜 Nick Heath. Joseph Déjacque. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 2017. Page 1.

A thousand daggers, for the moment, are raised a thousand times a day against the dictatorial slavery. Whoever would accept a similar role would not have two minutes to live. But he would not accept it seriously, he would have his coterie, all the men scrabbling for gain who will squeeze around him, and would be for him a consecrated battalion of manservants in order to have the left-overs of his authority, the crumbs of power. Then perhaps he can indeed command in the name of the people, I do not deny it, but without fail, against the people. He will deport or have shot all those who have libertarian impulses. Like Charlemagne or whatever other king, who measured men by the height of his sword, he would decapitate all the intelligences that surpassed his level, he would forbid all progress which goes further than him. He will be like all men of public safety, like the politicals of 93, followers of the Jesuits of the Inquisition, and he will propagate the general dumbing–down, he will crush individual initiative, he will make the night of the dawning day, cast shadows on the social idea. He will plunge us back, dead or alive, into the charnel house of Civilization, and will make for the people, instead of intellectual and moral autonomy, an automatism of flesh and bone, a body of brutes. Because, for a political dictator as for a Jesuit director, what is best in man, what is good, is the corpse!

〜 Joseph Déjacque. Down with the Bosses! Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 1859. Page 3.

Flogger of woman and absolute serf of man, [Pierre–Joseph] Proudhon …, you use your words for a lash. Like a slave–driver you seem delighted to disrobe your beautiful victims (on paper) and flagellate them with invectives. Moderate anarchist, liberal, but not libertarian, you want free exchange of cotton and candles and you seek to protect man against woman in the exchange of affectional human passion. You cry against the great barons of capital, and you would rebuild a proud barony of man on vassal–woman. Logician with misfit eyeglasses, you are unable to read the lessons of the present or the past; you can discern nothing that is elevated or at a distance or in the perspective of the future.

〜 Joseph Déjacque. On the Human Being, Male and Female. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 1857. Page 3.

The anarchists are frequently accused of professing the doctrine of “all or nothing.” In this accusation there is some truth, but only some. For it is exact that the Libertarians will not declare themselves satisfied and won’t be so until they will have forever smashed all the social obstacles that oppose themselves to their motto: well–being for each and for all; liberty for all and for each. From this point of view it is perfectly true they will fight until not even one stone remains on another of the authoritarian fortress that must be totally destroyed, so that no vestige remains. If it is thus that the doctrine of “all or nothing” is conceived, then it is true, I don’t deny that such is the libertarian doctrine. But it doesn’t at all follow from this that the anarchists don’t take account of the blows that can be delivered, in the efforts that can be accomplished, in the goal of attacking the fortress that they intend to bring down. And even less does it follow that they don’t appreciate the value of these efforts and blows which have as a goal, and could have as a result, the weakening of the solidity, and the diminution of the force of resistance of this fortress. The anarchists are reasonable people with a practical sense. They want 100 and that’s all. But if they can only have 10 they pocket this down payment and demand the rest. They note that the improvements toward which reforms tend are only agreed to by the capitalist and bourgeois rulers on condition that they don’t fundamentally infringe upon the authority of the rulers and the profits of the capitalists.

〜 Sébastien Faure. Reformism. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 1934. Page 1.

Sad, very sad is the life lived by the current generations. And yet, the motive force of all human actions is the search for some kind of satisfaction, and society’s ideal is the realization of the greatest amount of happiness for all.…

The remedy has been found: libertarian communism.

〜 Sébastien Faure. Libertarian Communism. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 1903. Page 2.

Comrades, I explained … the first part of libertarian Communism, the critical, negative part and, I hope that I managed to convince you that misery, ignorance, hatred, repression, suffering in all its forms, is the fatal result of the social background in which we live.

〜 Sébastien Faure. The Revolutionary Forces. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 1921. Page 3.

The simultaneous mention of [Peter] Kropotkin [Russian, Пётр Кропо́ткин, Pëtr Kropótkin] and [Karl] Marx points to the kind of libertarian Marxist thinking she [Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob a.k.a. Claude Cahun] shared with André Breton and Benjamin Péret.…

After the war [World War II], Claude Cahun reestablished contact with her Surrealist friends; she corresponded with André Breton and Jean Schuster and considered returning to Paris. She wrote several notebooks on her experiences during the war as well as a few poems, one of which, from 1952, is dedicated to Benjamin Péret. In June 1953 she visited Paris and took part in the meetings of the Surrealist group at the Café de la Mairie, where she saw André Breton, Benjamin Péret, Meret Oppenheim, Toyen [Marie Čermínová], and her other friends.

A fascinating and enigmatic figure, Claude Cahun occupies a unique place in the burning black constellation of Surrealist revolutionary spirits. By her thought and her action, she lived and fought at the extreme point of the needle.

〜 Michael Löwry. Morning Star: surrealism, marxism, anarchism, situationism, utopia. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 2009. Pages 79–80.

Reconstruction for [Nestor] Makhno was based upon his philosophy of anarcho–libertarianism, a philosophy that he had acquired from his friendship with Peter Arshinov. A libertarian society meant that the peasants and workers were to be allowed to control their own factories, establish their own schools (teaching in the language that they wanted), and an end to food requisitioning.

〜 Heather–Noël Schwartz. The Makhnovists & The Russian Revolution: Organization, Peasantry & Anarchism. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 1998. Pages 7–8.

The scholarship of University College London Institute of Education of University of London Marxist philosopher Roy Bhaskar is one of the principal inspirations for the present work and for its writer. Bhaskar identified his own philosophical school of thought as a contemporary expansion of radical egalitarian libertarianism. His Marxist libertarianism, with its focus upon universal emancipation, is a non–traditional perspective. According to Bhaskar, among that philosophy’s figures, aside from himself, are the following eminent scholars: Karl Marx (1818–1883), Jean–Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873):

Inner peace may … be the key to outer peace and the salvation of the planet. In thinking therefore of a topic of the rise and fall of the West, it may be not so much a question of thinking of the overreaching of the Western economies and societies by geographically Eastern ones, as the infusion of world hegemonic Western and capitalist ways of thinking and being with ideas traditionally associated with the East. If I am right, however, in the narrative of this book, these ideas and ways of being are not the prerogative of the East. They are equally consonant with both the teaching of the Christ and the whole thrust of the radical egalitarian libertarian tradition that incorporates both [Jean–Jacques] Rousseau and [Karl] Marx. A new synthesis is what is required; and it is this new synthesis which this book attempts to initiate. Such a synthesis will see a partial rapprochment of the best insights of the New Age and the New Left movements, but such insights will be set in a context of a global philosophy which resonates with themes traceable back to the dawn of the great world civilisations (and perhaps even beyond).

〜 Roy Bhaskar. From East to West: Odyssey of a Soul. London and New York: Routledge imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa PLC business. 2002. Page 69.

A … radically empiricist and libertarian … approach was elaborated in Britain by J. S. [John Stuart] Mill ….

〜 Roy Bhaskar. Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation. London and New York: Routledge imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa PLC business. 2009. Page 243.

… I had a kind of love relationship with the Kennedy family—this was about the time John F. Kennedy came to power—who seemed to be trying to bring about change in some way. The Kennedys were popular figures at that time in the West; my heroes included people like Pope John, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I kind of moved away from Marxism a bit at this second level. It wasn’t that I became anti–Soviet, but I became pro–radical–libertarian or radical–liberal, pro–Bobby Kennedy; I was also pro–CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and went on marches and things like that. But much of this was before Fidel Castro and Che Guevara came to power in Cuba, and there weren’t any similarly charismatic figures on the left within the world scene.

〜 Roy Bhaskar. Reality and Its Depths: A Conversation Between Savita Singh and Roy Bhaskar. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020. Page 13.

… the only state at which you can actually achieve your objectives—the only objectives you can really achieve as a human being are to come into unity or consistency with your ground state or your transcendentally real self, your higher self. And this of course for most people would be an anathema. We would regard the inconsistent or bad part of ourself as being what we really enjoy in life, but it suggests a dialectic of improvement or self perfection, which was an aspiration of Buddha, for example. You could argue that if the model is right, then what we should always do is to try to come into unity with those bits of ourselves, which we can’t lose. And you could also argue that this bit of yourself, of your transcendentally real self, that you can’t lose has to be understood in the context of four–planar social being [relations with: nature, society, others, and self]. So, such a person who was in such a state of self–consistency would also be acting consistently on all the other planes of social being. They would be acting in terms of social structure and producing a more egalitarian society, or a more just society. So, you could imagine that we might have a universal aspiration for the species.

〜 Roy Bhaskar in David Scott with Roy Bhaskar. Roy Bhaskar: A Theory of Education. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland imprint of Springer Science+Business Media. 2015. Page 39.

Gentlemen? Do not be deluded by the abstract word Liberty! Whose Liberty? Not the liberty of one individual in relation to another, but the liberty of Capital to crush the worker.

Why should you desire farther to sanction unlimited competition with this idea of freedom when the idea of freedom itself is only the product of a social condition based upon Free Competition?

〜 Karl Marx. The Poverty of Philosophy: Being a Translation of the Misère de la Philosophie (a Reply to “La Philosophie de la Misère” of M. Proudhon). Harry Quelch, translator. Chicago: Charles E. Kerr & Company. 1913. Page 225.

… not only was education made accessible to all, but science itself freed from the fetters which class prejudice and governmental force had imposed upon it.

〜 Karl Marx. The Paris Commune. Eleanor Marx, translator. New York: New York Labor News Company. 1920. Page 75.

I should not have chosen to live in a republic of recent institution, however excellent its laws; for fear the government, being perhaps otherwise framed than the circumstances of the moment might require, might disagree with the new citizens, or they with it, and the State run the risk of overthrow and destruction almost as soon as it came into being. For it is with liberty as it is with those solid and succulent foods, or with those generous wines which are well adapted to nourish and fortify robust constitutions that are used to them, but ruin and intoxicate weak and delicate constitutions to which they are not suited. Peoples once accustomed to masters are not in a condition to do without them. If they attempt to shake off the yoke, they still more estrange themselves from freedom, as, by mistaking for it an unbridled license to which it is diametrically opposed, they nearly always manage, by their revolutions, to hand themselves over to seducers, who only make their chains heavier than before. The Roman people itself, a model for all free peoples, was wholly incapable of governing itself when it escaped from the oppression of the Tarquins. Debased by slavery, and the ignominious tasks which had been imposed upon it, it was at first no better than a stupid mob, which it was necessary to control and govern with the greatest wisdom; in order that, being accustomed by degrees to breathe the health–giving air of liberty, minds which had been enervated or rather brutalised under tyranny, might gradually acquire that severity of morals and spirit of fortitude which made it at length the people of all most worthy of respect. I should, then, have sought out for my country some peaceful and happy Republic, of an antiquity that lost itself, as it were, in the night of time: which had experienced only such shocks as served to manifest and strengthen the courage and patriotism of its subjects; and whose citizens, long accustomed to a wise independence, were not only free, but worthy to be so.

〜 Jean–Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract & Discourses. G. D. H. Cole, translator. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. 1913. Pages 158–159.

All men begin with weak souls that are vulnerable and subject to the shocks inflicted upon them from without. All are victims. [Jean–Jacquess] Rousseau, however, meant to go beyond this generalized oppression to its specific social forms. Again, he felt well qualified. Not only had he experienced greater hardships, but he felt these more intensely than other men. He adored liberty and could endure no constraint, no discomfort and no subjugation whatever. Moreover, all society was a form of enslavement for him, since it inevitably forced him to do something he did not feel like doing. At all times it affiicted and discomfited him.

Rousseau traced these emotions back to his childhood. Until adolescence he had lived in perfect equality and affection with his elders. Apprenticeship had been a terrifying shock. It gave him an intense sense of the difference between “filial dependence and servile slavery.” He could now only see the privileges and freedom of the master, and the deprivation and enslavement that he himself had to endure.

〜 Judith N. Shklar. Men & Citizens: A study of Rousseau’s social theory. London: Cambridge University Press. 1969. Page 43.

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history witli whicli we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Eome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the Government. By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The rulers were conceived (except in some of the popular governments of Greece) as in a necessarily antagonistic position to the people whom they ruled. They consisted of a governing One, or a governing tribe or caste, who derived their authority from inheritance or conquest, who, at all events, did not hold it at the pleasure of the governed, and whose supremacy men did not venture, perhaps did not desire, to contest, whatever precautions might be taken against its oppressive exercise. Their power was regarded as necessary, but also as highly dangerous; as a weapon which they would attempt to use against their subjects, no less than against external enemies. To prevent the weaker members of the community from being preyed upon by innumerable vultures, it was needful that there should be an animal of prey stronger than the rest, commissioned to keep them down. But as the king of the vultures would be no less bent upon preying on the flock than any of the minor harpies, it was indispensable to be in a perpetual attitude of defence against his beak and claws. The aim, therefore, of patriots was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.

〜 John Stuart Mill. On Liberty. Third edition. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green. 1864. Pages 7–9.

Civil libertarianism is a well–known form of moderate left libertarianism. Along with right libertarianism, which was previously introduced and critiqued in this chapter, civil libertarianism is one of the most recognizable tendencies of libertarianism in the U.S. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), established in 1920, the UK’s Liberty, later inaugurated in 1934, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), subsequently founded in 1964, present three cases, out of many, of the international civil libertarian current. To expand upon that subject, here are a few discussions largely on the ACLU. It is the best–known organization in the U.S., possibly even throughout the globe, which was normatively established upon a civil libertarian foundation:

The ACLU is an organization of people who believe in the power of action. Whether in the courts, statehouses, or Congress, we fight to defend the rights that the [U.S.] Constitution guarantees to all of us — regardless of who we are, where we come from, whom we love, or what we believe. Together we take up the toughest civil liberties challenges of our time. We seek to be the place where people can come, no matter their political affiliation, to courageously take action. We seek to inspire those who want change to become the ones who make change.

〜 Jason Jude Chan et al. This is the ACLU Design Handbook. New York: ACLU. 2007. Page 5.

The American Civil Liberties Union is the nation’s premier guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws of the United States. It is nonpartisan and nonprofit, with headquarters in New York, a legislative office in Washington, D.C. and more than 300 chapters nationwide.…

The ACLU is the nation’s largest public–interest law firm, with staffed affiliates covering the 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. More than 100 ACLU attorneys at the national and affiliate offices collaborate with approximately 2,000 volunteer attorneys in close to 6,000 cases annually. The ACLU appears before the U.S. Supreme Court more than any other organization except the U.S. Department of Justice.

〜 American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU Facts and Figures. New York: ACLU. Undated. Pamphlet.

When the framers of … [the U.S.] Constitution insisted on Freedom of Speech rights, one of their aims was so that all Americans — no matter their social class or position in our society — could vigorously examine and criticize our government. These rights have throughout our history nurtured our democracy and made us a beacon to the whole world. But, as history has played out, they’ve been hard–won rights that we have to continually fight for and renew. Take the case of John Blair. When he mounted his solitary vigil some winter night a few years ago to protest an appearance by Vice President Dick Cheney, local cops first tried to shunt him aside. They tried to position him 500 feet away from the site of the event. Authorities at the local and federal levels became adept in recent years of using security concerns to create the so-called “protest zones” far away from official events. Both Democrats and Republicans used them at their most recent political conventions.

〜 American Civil Liberties Union. Defending First Amendment Rights. New York: ACLU. 2005. Pamphlet.

Although specific First Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution] standards change in response to social circumstances and can be the subject of some dispute, scholars working within … [the civil] libertarian tradition see the foundations of the argument for free speech as timeless, transcending the particular intellectual fashions of any era. [Zechariah] Chafee[, Jr.] declared that the same basic principles “motivated each phase of the struggle” for expression rights. The leading proponents of civil libertarianism believe that uninhibited debate on matters of public importance primarily serves the interests of the audience rather than the speakers. They believe that social policy will neither be wisely made nor accurately reflect public sentiment unless citizens enjoy the full benefits of an unrestricted (or relatively unrestricted) freedom of expression. Judicial activism on behalf of free speech is usually justified by a more general judicial obligation to police the democratic process. Advocates of broad interpretations of the First Amendment believe that courts can only tolerate regulating opinions that are “the unmediated cause of fairly immediate improper action.” Thus, they propose such standards of judicial protection as “clear and present danger,” “incitement,” “absolute protection,” and “the speech/conduct distinction.”

〜 Mark A. Graber. Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. 1991. Page 5.

No ethical surgeon would contemplate performing an operation before engaging in a rigorous study of human anatomy. Similarly, focusing one’s efforts upon denouncing and then toppling capitalism is, quite frankly, a complete exercise in futility if, like a nominalist (Sanskrit, अपोहय [MP3], apohaya; or Arabic, اِسْمِيَّةٌ [MP3], ʾis°miyyaẗuṇ), one misapprehends, from the outset, capitalism’s multifaceted particularity and complex ontology. Therefore, vulgar marxism, or simplistic economism, must be thoroughly repudiated by any true Leftist. Many, but certainly not all, Marxist–Leninists oppose social justice movements as counter–revolutionary. Libertarian Marxists, embracing liberation globally, continue to welcome reforms on the pathway to revolution.

To put the subject another way, all principled libertarian Marxists should remain resolutely intolerant of the multiple permutations of domination or oppression. For many non–libertarian Marxists, on the other hand, devoting even a negligible portion of one’s time and effort to fighting injustice would regrettably be disparaged with the meme of social justice warfare. Their opponents or combatants might, correspondingly, be negatively portrayed as social justice warriors (SJWs). This letter to President Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), given to Ambassador Charles Francis Adams (1907–1886), may defeat the attacks waged by some Marxists on the issue of supporting battles for human rights in capitalist societies. Thus, Karl Marx and his comrades graciously addressed Lincoln:

Sir:

We congratulate the American people upon your re–election by a large majority. If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re–election is Death to Slavery.

From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star–spangled banner carried the destiny of their class. The contest for the territories which opened the dire epopee, was it not to decide whether the virgin soil of immense tracts should be wedded to the labor of the emigrant or prostituted by the tramp of the slave driver?

When an oligarchy of 300,000 slaveholders dared to inscribe, for the first time in the annals of the world, “slavery” on the banner of Armed Revolt, when on the very spots where hardly a century ago the idea of one great Democratic Republic had first sprung up, whence the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century; when on those very spots counterrevolution, with systematic thoroughness, gloried in rescinding “the ideas entertained at the time of the formation of the old constitution,” and maintained slavery to be “a beneficent institution,” indeed, the old solution of the great problem of “the relation of capital to labor,” and cynically proclaimed property in man “the cornerstone of the new edifice” — then the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes for the Confederate gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slaveholders’ rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of property against labor, and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic. Everywhere they bore therefore patiently the hardships imposed upon them by the cotton crisis, opposed enthusiastically the proslavery intervention of their betters — and, from most parts of Europe, contributed their quota of blood to the good cause.

While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white–skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single–minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

Signed on behalf of the Central Council of the International Workingmen’s Association.

〜 Karl Marx et al., “Address of the International Working Men’s Association to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America: Presented to U.S. Ambassador Charles Francis Adams.” January 28ᵗʰ, 1865. The Bee–Hive Newspaper. Number 169, November 7ᵗʰ, 1865. Web.

Needless to say, any one–dimensional or flat view of capitalism may have real–life and long–lasting consequences. Only a faux socialist would say, “Forget about racism and sexism for now. We’ll deal with them later.” Libertarian communism, not standard communism, demands an ongoing and a multifaceted struggle, not a quixotic pipe dream of castles in the sky. One must, while serving the poor, embrace proletarian democracy—as the crowning success of a radical praxis—and reject bourgeois democracy—as seen in the Keynesian bourgeois capitalist Welfare State. Although suffering matters, the oppressive systems, or causal mechanisms, which sustain capitalism must be dismantled. That revolutionary dismantlement will be limited to, or perhaps simply be initiated in, the Third World. A dialectical push and pull between reform and revolution might, one can speculate, be extraordinarily arduous.

History is never “behind” us, and we must not forget how the white man has used the rape of “his” women as an excuse to act against black men. But today the incidence of actual rape combined with the looming spectre of the rapist in the mind’s eye, and in particular the mythified spectre of the black man as rapist to which the black man in the name of his manhood now contributes, must be understood as a control mechanism against the freedom, mobility and aspirations of all women, white and black. The crossroads of racism and sexism had to be a violent meeting place. There is no use pretending it doesn’t exist.

〜 Susan Brownmiller. Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. New York: A Fawcett Columbine Book imprint of Ballantine Books. 1975. Page 255.

Susan Brownmiller’s discussion on rape and race [in Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape] evinces an unthinking partisanship which borders on racism. In pretending to defend the cause of all women, she sometimes boxes herself into the position of defending the particular cause of white women, regardless of its implications. Her examination of the Scottsboro Nine case is a revealing example. As Brownmiller herself points out, these nine young men, charged and convicted of rape, spent long years of their lives in prison because two white women perjured themselves on the witness stand. Yet she has nothing but contempt for the Black men and their defense movement—and her sympathy for the two white women is glaring.

〜 Angela Y. Davis. Women, Race & Class. New York: Vintage Books imprint of Random House Inc. 1983. Archive.org edition.

U.S. social democracy, or progressivism, has been a failed project. Two crucial factors might be considered: First, the base of the Democratic Party is dominated by African Americans. By and large, however, these African American Democrats are political moderates, not progressives. It should not be stunning that recent Democratic presidents—Bill Clinton (né 1946), Barack Obama (né 1961), and Joe Biden (né 1942)—have been centrists or, arguably, even right centrists. Second, capitalism cannot be progressively reformed. It must be thoroughly eradicated. The United States, in spite of its status as the wealthiest country in the world, has immense rates of poverty and unacceptable levels of malnutrition. Meanwhile, many plutocrats pay little or no taxes.

In addition, progressivism and social conservatism are, for the most part, ontologically idealist, not ontologically realist, perspectives. That is to say, rather than considering social problems based upon the real relations of production and reproduction, idealists—whether found on the progressive or the conservative side of the conventional U.S. ideological spectrum—tend to formulate real–world problems in terms of reprehensible beliefs or propositions. Drifting between progressivism and conservatism is, accordingly, only a matter of changing one’s mind. One may have second thoughts by listening to a lecture or reading a book. Although realism recognizes the mind–independent world; idealism reduces reality to either subjectivist idealist individual minds or the alleged objective idealist universal mind. The latter is particularly prevalent in the nonsensical mental magic of Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science and its similarly preposterous offshoot, New Thought.

The various policy options available on a given issue can be roughly plotted on a spectrum of public acceptability, from unthinkable, to fringe, to acceptable, to common sense, to policy. The Overton window, named after Joseph Overton [1960–2003], a staffer for the center–right Mackinac Center for Public Policy, designates the range of points on the spectrum that are considered part of a ”sensible” conversation within public opinion and/or traditional mass media.

The most important thing about the Overton window, however, is that it can be shifted to the left or the right, with the once merely “acceptable” becoming “popular” or even imminent policy, and formerly “unthinkable” positions becoming the open position of a partisan base. The challenge for activists and advocates is to move the window in the direction of their preferred outcomes, so their desired outcome moves closer and closer to “common sense.”

〜 Paul Krassner et al., “Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window.” Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution. Joshua Kahn Russell et al., editors. New York and London: OR Books. 2012. Pages 200–2001.

A realist considers the human being with her power for thought “from sideways on,” as an object that is “out there” to be investigated, among various other objects. But, … idealists insist, this is a fantasy: there is no stepping outside thought; thought can be understood only “from within.” Thought is not some power among others; nor does it fall under any other ontological category, because those categories are themselves categories of thought. Eventually, this recognition leads to the apparently paradoxical insight mentioned above—that thought is not in reality, because thought is reality. Thinking is being. And yet idealists see fit to speak of a “power of thought,” borne by concrete, living, mortal beings—by you and me.

〜 Jesse M. Mulder, “Absolute Idealist Powers.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy. June, 2021. Creative Commons. Pages 1–14.

The standpoint I am in now … is realist in the minimal sense that it still defends the idea of an absolutely mind–independent reality, and idealist in the minimal sense that it avoids attributing absolute mind–independence to any fact, and also avoids ascribing any necessary feature of the phenomenon to the noumenon [a thing in itself] just in virtue of the fact that we are not able to properly conceive of something real lacking the feature in question.

〜 Mirja Pérez de Calleja. A First approximation to the realism/idealism debate about the external world. M.A. thesis. University of Barcelona. Barcelona, Spain. 2007–2008. Creative Commons. Pages 21–22.

Marxism, to the contrary, demands a real transformation, in theory and praxis, from false consciousness to class consciousness. There are some class–conscious workers, or proletarians, in the imperialist First World. However, their numbers are, in modernity, insufficient to establish communism or socialism. The First World is, additionally, overshadowed by the principal contradiction of capitalism: imperialism. Revolutions, should they occur, will begin with the disenfranchised Third World, not with the First World. Any revolutionary must consciously disavow the Overton window of cultural normativity, bourgeois conventionality, and social acceptibility. Violating social norms, rules, or standards may certainly have real–life consequences. Nevertheless, one should live as a class conscious creative deviant by struggling against, and undermining, capitalism, including the false consciousness produced by it. From a Marxian perspective, the end of ideology is the end of false consciousness:

… on the level of consciousness, as [Friedrich] Engels said, there would be an “end of ideology,” for ideology, the deceptive images of “false consciousness,” would be fused with the material world, the structural source of reality.

〜 Daniel Bell. The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 2000. Page xvi.

For the most part, the end of ideology is associated with the concept of ideology as false consciousness which started from recognizing the fact that there was in ideology some minor part of irrational and indefinite.…

Ideology defined by K. [Karl] Marx as false consciousness distorted by social interest is not valued half as high as non–ideological knowledge free from any class interest and equaled to scientific knowledge.

〜 Yury Grigoryevich Volkov, Rashid Dumalichevich Khunagov, Auyes Mukhamedovich Kumykov, Svetlana Ivanovna Imgrunt, and Denis Yevgenyevich Gribov, “Images of Ideology: Social and Cognitive Sense.” Creative Commons. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education. Volume 11, number 16, 2016. Pages 9573–9585.

[Karl] Marx and [Friedrich] Engels used the term “ideology” to refer to distorted and unreal beliefs intellectuals hold about society. According to them, those who formulated ideologies suffered from false consciousness; they were mistaken about their own beliefs and the power of their ideas.

〜 Ghulam Ghous, “Classical Marxism to Postmodern Marxism: Theorization of Social Conflict and Ideology as a Determinant.” Creative Commons. Journal of Politics and International Studies. Volume 6, number 2, December 2020. Pages 141–156.

The current paper attempts to enrich current social psychological understandings of social class with one core theoretical construct derived from the Marxist tradition: the idea of class consciousness, or the extent to which individuals acknowledge and situate themselves within class relations. This construct is of central theoretical and political importance: It is only when individuals acknowledge their (typically lower) status within class relations that revolutionary change is possible.

〜 Lucas A. Keefer, Chris Goodeb, and Laura Van Berke, “Toward a Psychological Study of Class Consciousness: Development and Validation of a Social Psychological Model.” Creative Commons. Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Volume 3, number 2, 2015. Pages 253–290.

For [Karl] Marx, class consciousness (and associated activism) is an achievement of workers, who come to realize their shared social status and mutual interest in changing society.… Class consciousness involves awareness of one’s position as a worker within capitalism and the exploitative relations in which one is enmeshed. For the working class, class consciousness involves the notion that the workers as a group have shared interests, and that these interests conflict with the interests of capitalist employers. As class consciousness grows, workers may come to feel that they should collectively organize and struggle for greater control over their workplaces, work processes, and the economic and political levers of society in general. Ultimately, class consciousness may also entail strategic analysis of the class struggle and envisioning a post–capitalist society in which no hierarchy of social classes exists.

〜 Jeremy E. Sawyer and Anup Gampa, “Work Alienation and its Gravediggers: Social Class, Class Consciousness, and Activism.” Creative Commons. Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Volume 8, number 1, 2020. Pages 198–219.

Socialism will never be established through electoral politics or by supporting the right candidates—whoever they may be. When the time arrives, and the contradictions of capitalism have rotted away the present world order, no one will, or should, care about tendencies or currents. They are, of course, useful as organizing tools and platforms for developing social theory. Rather, people residing in the Third World will try to find others, tendencies or currents be damned, who can work alongside them to create a new and better society. The Proletariat and the Subaltern shall, one might hope, eventually attain a sufficient degree of spiritual transcendence or excellence, at least in the Third World, where unwarranted domination by statal power élites will, ultimately, become antiquated and superfluous:

The doctrine of the state serves to justify social privilege, the existence of exploitation, the existence of capitalism—and that is why it would be the greatest mistake to expect impartiality on this question, to approach it in the belief that people who claim to be scientific can give you a purely scientific view on the subject. In the question of the state, in the doctrine of the state, in the theory of the state, when you have become familiar with it and have gone into it deeply enough, you will always discern the struggle between different classes, a struggle which is reflected or expressed in a conflict of views on the state, in the estimate of the role and significance of the state.

〜 Vladimir I. Lenin. The State: A Lecture Delivered at the Sverdlov University. Pacifica, California: Marxists Internet Archive (Marxists.org). 2002. Ebook edition.

… there is a fundamental difference between a social organization based on self–government from the bottom up and one based on top–down, centralized power held by a minority. The latter has what has always been rightly termed a state and its structure has evolved precisely to exclude the majority from decision making. The former is not a state as it empowers the many to govern themselves. This can be seen under “primitive communism.” Tribes practiced communal decision making and used delegates to form federations to co-ordinate their joint interests (“legislative conferences”). They had war bands to fight their enemies (“armed detachments”) and defended their liberty by force (“banned authority with which they disagreed”). … [Friedrich] Engels and [Karl] Marx acknowledged that these were not states. States came later when the masses were subjected to minority rule, a rule which required a state to impose.

〜 Anarcho. On the Bolshevik Myth. Berkeley, California: The Anarchist Library imprint of Open Guild Organization. 2008. Ebook edition.

… I treat seriously the anarchist claim that in the course of maintaining its monopoly on the use of force and protecting everyone within a territory, the state must violate individuals’ rights and hence is intrinsically immoral.

〜 Robert Nozick. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1974. Page xi.

As to the intermediary and preliminary workers’ world super–state—socialism or the dictatorship of the Proletariat—it has been systematically explained in a variety of fashions:

Middle–class liberals nowadays – and the reformist socialists and Stalinists who trail in their wake and mimic their ideas – believe in the existence of a state that stands as an impartial arbiter above the selfish contention of classes and deals justly with the respective claims of diverse “interest groups.” This exalted notion of a classless state presiding over a pure democracy, based on the consent of the people, rather than engaged in the defense of the property, rights of the ruling class, is the core of bourgeois–democratic ideology.

〜 Ernest Mandel. Marxist Theory of the State. New York: Pathfinder Press. 1971. Ebook edition.

It is true that socialism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, or China was not the form of socialism [Karl] Marx and [Friedrich] Engels described. Many Marxists in the United States and Western Europe had been aware of that for decades. Ever since the show trials in the Soviet Union in the mid–1930s, it was clear to them that the Soviet Union had become a bloody dictatorship. But even Marxists who understood that remained confident that these early failed attempts at a socialist order would evolve toward democratic control of the economy and toward the classless state. The hope was that as the originally underdeveloped countries attained a higher standard of living and improved universal education, workers would demand the democratic rights and participation withheld from them by the ruling bureaucracies. Bureaucratic socialism would transform itself into democratic socialism. This democratic socialism would continue to be as productive as the Soviet Union had been in the period between the two World Wars and thus eventually would challenge the capitalists on their home territory. Socialism would spread to Europe, the Americas, and all around the globe.

〜 Richard Schmitt. Introduction to Marx and Engels: A Critical Reconstruction. Second edition. Bowlder, Colorado: Westview Press imprint of the Perseus Books Group. 1997. Pages 42–43.

By qualitative change is in part meant the efficiency and thoroughness with which socialism performs its task and these occur sometimes simultaneously with quantitative ones. From the simple to the complex and then to the much eulogized plural and hypothetical classless state occasioned by communism.

〜 Kalu Peters, “From Socialism to Capitalism: An Antithesis to the Synthesis of Communism.” International Journal of Contemporary Applied Researches. Volume 5, number 10, October 2018. Pages 1–15.

… the true communist principle [is]: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” But how are “needs” to be determined? Since inequality has, on the Marxian premise, provoked all class struggles, the answer must be that the “classless” state will be one in which there is nothing to struggle for. The communists are driven to the notion that only if worldly possessions were “equally” distributed would men cease to struggle for more than their allotted share.

〜 Walter Lippmann. An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1938. Page 75.

… [Karl Marx] insisted that the socialist revolution would … culminate in a dictatorship of the proletariat and ultimately a classless state.

〜 David B. Grusky, “The Past, Present, and Future of Social Inequality.” Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective. Second edition. David B. Grusky, editor. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. 2001. Pages 3–51.

Extrapolating [Karl] Marx’s statements, [Vladimir] Lenin characterized the revolutionary transition as a non–state state. This compound of contradictions made it possible to describe a paradox: strengthen state power to shatter bourgeois positions and start the transition to a communist association of producers. It referred to a revolutionary institution: the “Soviet” or workers’ council that existed across Europe. Even if Lenin’s invention never came into effect, we can assume that the non–state state continues to describe the essence—and the difficulty—of any transition beyond structures of social domination.

〜 Étienne Balibar, “A Socialism for the 21ˢᵗ Century: Four Assumptions.” Why and Which Socialism. Gegensatz Translation Collective, translators. Berlin: Rosa–Luxemburg–Stiftung. 2019. Creative Commons. Pages 42–43.

One of the more noteworthy dialectical contradictions of early 21ˢᵗ–century American capitalism can be witnessed in the accelerating culture war between predominantly rural segments of the lumpenproletariat and practically everyone else. When recontextualized from the 19ᵗʰ into the 21ˢᵗ century, the following quotation from Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto distinguishes the first two camps—“the existing social and political order of things” or “all existing social conditions”—from the Proletariat itself. Moreover, Marx’s clarion call to “support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things” is a fatal blow to Marxists, and to revolutionary socialists overall, who decry “social justice warfare.”

The extract will be provided in both the original German and four English translations (including the one supervised by Engels himself):

Mit einem Wort, die Kommunisten un­ terstützen überall jede revolutionäre Be­ wegung gegen die bestehenden gesellschaftlichen und politischen Zustände.

In allen diesen Bewegungen heben sie die Eigenthumsfrage, welche mehr oder minder entwickelte Form sie auch an­ genommen haben möge, als die Grund­ frage der Bewegung hervor.

Die Kommunisten arbeiten endlich überall an der Verbindung und Verständigung der demokratischen Parteien aller Länder.

Die Kommunisten verschmähen es, ihre Ansichten und Absichten zu verheimlichen. Sie erklären es offen, daß ihre Zwecke nur erreicht werden können durch den gewaltsamen Umsturz aller bisherigen Gesellschaftsordnung.Mögen die herrschenden Klassen vor einer kommunistischen Revolution zittern. Die Proletarier haben nichts in ihr zu verlieren als ihre Ketten. Sie haben eine Welt zu gewinnen.

Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!

〜 Karl Marx. Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei [Manifesto of the Communist Party]. Hohenstaufenallee, Germany: Die Falken, Landesverband Nordrhein–Westfalen. 2017. (Written in 1847.) Pages 33–34.

In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Workingmen [German, Proletarier, “Proletarians”] of all countries unite!

〜 Karl Marx. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Samuel Moore with Friedrich Engels, translators. English translation authorized, edited, and annotated by Friedrich Engels. New York: New York Labor News Company. 1908. Page 48.

In a word, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements they foreground the property question as the fundamental question for the movement, no matter its degree of development.

Finally, the communists labour everywhere for the solidarity and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their objectives can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social orders. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. In it proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.

Proletarians of all lands unite!

〜 Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto. L. M. Findlay, translator and editor. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Editions imprint of Broadview Press Ltd. 2004. Page 94.

In short, communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against extant social and political conditions.

In all these movements, communists bring the property question to the fore, regarding it as fundamental, no matter in what phase of development it may happen to be.

Finally, communists work everywhere to promote mutual understanding among the democratic parties of all lands, and to bring about their unification.

Communists scorn to hide their view and aims. They openly declare that their purposes can only be achieved by the forcible overthrow of the whole extant social order. Let the ruling classes tremble at the prospect of a communist revolution Proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains They have a world to win.

PROLETARIANS OF ALL LANDS, UNITE!

〜 Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto. Eden Paul and Cedar Paul, translators. Calcutta (Kolkata): Radical Book Club. 1980. Page 72.

In short, the communists everywhere support each revolutionary movement against the existing state of affairs, social and political.

In all these movements, they endeavour to emphasize the property question as the foremost question in each, regardless of the degree of development at the time.

Finally, the communists work everywhere for the unification and alliance of the democratic parties of all countries.

The communists display contempt for concealing their views and aims. They openly declare that their goals can be reached only by forcefully overthrowing all social conditions that have so far been in existence. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution! The proletarians have nothing to lose in it, save their chains. In fact, they have a world to win.

Proletarians of all countries, unite! [also known as “Workers of the world, unite!”]

〜 Karl Marx. The Manifesto of the Communist Party. Daniel Deleanu, translator. Toronto: LogoStar Press. 2012. Page 51.

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2. The Critical Realist Heart

To introduce the new tendency (Sanskrit, अभिषङ्गः [MP3], abhiṣaṅgaḥ; or Arabic, نَزْعَة [MP3], naz°ʿaẗ) of Dialectical metaRealism, the philosopher Roy Bhaskar has referred to critical realism as a current (Sanskrit, मन्दाक [MP3], mandāka; or Arabic, مَجْرَى [MP3], maǧ°raỳ). Dialectical metaRealism, the topic of this book, is a tributary of that current. Bhaskar was, by temperament, a libertarian Marxist. In his current, he describes the metatheory, or methodology as we prefer, for creating a cosmopolitan society. Critical realism itself focuses upon his original approach to libertarian Marxist socialism and the qualities, including spiritual virtues, of a truly compassionate socialist society.

A critical realist current exists. But a generally dichotomous character persists. Issues which should have been long settled still split the human, and, to an extent, the natural, sciences: between realism and irrealism, positivism and hermeneutics, individualism and collectivism, structuralism and historicism, between qualitative and quantitative and large–scale and micro research (this last in physics as much as in sociology); and the fact/value and theory/practice shibboleths remain for the most part entrenched. Irrealist positions have their own repercussions. Thus positivism inevitably generates in its wake interactionist and/or reductionist regresses. Hermeneutics splits into neo–Kantian (Weberian) or dichotomized (Habermasian) and pure (Gadamerian and/or Winchian) wings. And so on.

〜 Roy Bhaskar. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London and New York: Routledge imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa PLC business. 2008. Page 345.

… while biology, personal history and social conditions matter, they crucially underdetermine the subjective course and resulting outcomes of human reflection. No matter how well we know a human subject’s biological constitution, personal history and networks of relations in which she or he engages, predicting the outcome of personal reflections is fraught with difficulty, except on trivial matters that require little reflection. While biological, historical and social conditions bear causal effects, the reflexive powers of human subjects are irreducible to the former for at least two reasons that have been extensively studied by leading authors of the [Bhaskarian] critical realist current … as a suitable meta–theoretical framework.

〜 Dirk Lindebaum, Virginia L. Brown, and Ismael Al–Amoudi, “‘Murder They Said’: A Content Analysis and Further Ethical Reflection on the Application of Neuroscience in Management.” Organizational Neuroethics: Reflections on the Contributions of Neuroscience to Management Theories and Business Practices. Joé T. Martineau and Eric Racine, editors. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland. 2020. Pages 47–66.

This section will describe the foundations of Dialectical metaRealismᵀᴹ, DmRᵀᴹ, Hetuvijjāyatta Dvaitabhedādvaitābheda Vedāntavāda (Sanskrit, हेतुविज्जायत्त द्वैतभेदाद्वैताभेद वेदान्तवाद [MP3]), or Ǧadaliyyaẗ ẖāriǧa ʾal•Waqiʿiyyaẗ (Arabic, جَدَلِيَّة خَارِجَ الوَاقِعِيَّة [MP3]) in the critical realist current. DmR was, in the main, inspired by the philosophies formulated by Roy Bhaskar, including critical realism. Still, the substantive content of DmR should only be attributed to, or perhaps blamed on, this writer. Even though the outline is intended to be principally heuristic and exploratory, it may tentatively approach speculative hierarchies or pyramids of metaphysical and epistemological dimensions. In DmR, as in Bhaskarian critical realism more broadly, metaphysics, including ontology, must never be confused with epistemology. Critical realism examines both the dynamics of metaphysical grounding and the processes of epistemic perception for DmR. Ostensibly, the early generations of Marxism–Leninism had their share of problems. Chief among them was the absence of both a spiritual ontology and an epistemology. DmR attempts to dialectically absent that binary absence.

Many of the translations, utilized throughout the treatise, are, for better or for worse, this writer’s own. In surveying the framework, each higher plane (Sanskrit, लोक [MP3], loka; or Arabic, مُسْتَوَى [MP3], mus°tawaỳ)—beginning with Actuality and culminating in Unity—could be reflectively visualized as reflexively wrapped up within, or perhaps enveloped by, the plane or planes which may be phenomenologically disclosed immediately above Actuality, Duality, Demireality, and Nonduality.

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3: Socialism from Below–Third Worldism

The Leninist movement of old has been struggling to survive. The original Marxism–Leninism largely collapsed with the end of the U.S.S.R. and the transformation of Mainland China into a capitalist rival to the West. Politically, Trotskyism has proven to be a profound failure as a Leninist alternative to Marxism–Leninism. Satirically, Trotskyism has had more splits than all the gymnastics teams at the Olympics combined into one. An overemphasis on theoretical orthodoxy combined with an intolerance of theoretical diversity are the major determinants. Communist currents from the past must, when warranted, be reevaluated, reformed, or even rejected. Not a single communist system attempted has, regrettably, resulted in the beautiful efflorescence, the communization, of planet Earth. The consequences of living in a world dominated by capitalism and anti–communism are ubiquitous. Marxism has been surpassed by a series of revisions one by one. Classical Marxism–Leninism ended a few generations back. Trotskyism was never even a player. Their substantiated findings and productive insights should be retained. But scientific socialism, in order to remain scientific, must respond to our ever–changing material conditions.

“Heterodox,” a term relevant to this text’s usage of “Maoism,” should never be mistaken for “unorthodox.” The prefix hetero–, also found in heterosexuality and heterogeneity, points to “the other,” much as homo–, as in homosexuality and homogeneity, points to “the same.” Accordingly, heterodoxy is the literal term for “other doctrine,” not for wrong doctrine, and should be proudly regarded as an appropriate description of socialism from below–Third Worldism. Heterodoxy might be most commonly used in connection with the field of “heterodox economics.” It is a designation for an expansive array of economic alternatives to academic and orthodox apologiæ, or defenses, of so–called classical free–market capitalism. That fact, indeed, should not be surprising. Normatively, economics, as usually practiced, was itself historically grounded in the capitalist world–system. Maoism, parallel to many Marxist frameworks, is more diverse than normative economics. Nevertheless, only Máo•Zédōng Thought, the Maoism of Mao (Mandarin, 毛泽东 [MP3], Máo•Zédōng; or Cantonese, 毛泽东 [MP3], Mou4•Jaak6dung1), 1893–1976, has, arguably, attained the status of communist orthodoxy or, etymologically, “correct doctrine.”

There is now a yoking of two ages (Sanskrit, युगे, yuge). The circumstances which succeed the great unraveling of IC remain unknown. The dialectic shall destroy capitalism, but communism is not inevitable. However, by the persistent application of TMSA, the long–awaited eudaimonia (Ancient Greek, εὐδαιμονία, eu̓daimonía, “flourishing, positive spirituality, or, literally, good spirit of fortune”), anticipated by some religions, can become a reality. Even so, before that virtuous and judicious eutopia of equity and equanimity can materialize, the Pollyannish distortions of our rose–colored glasses should be absolutely rejected. Eudaimonia demands restructuration (or agency), not simply the formulation of new ideas, no matter how beneficial. That restructuration will, we hope, be administered in the Third World (MP3). The future, we hope, belongs to the Third World; but small pockets of survivors from the catastrophic end of the capitalist world–system in the First World could also remain. Although human agents of the times, possibly appearing along multiple horizons, may fashion communities which could, in due course, be securely established, their attributes lie mainly outside the purview of our present understandings.

The late–2023 hip hop song, Harbu Darbu (MP4 video), from the Israeli group Ness and Stilla, illustrates the sadism currently pivotal in Israeli society. In Israel’s war, all Gazans are now evil. I have been frequently amazed that almost no one, especially in the mass media, has been speaking out against an ever–increasing tragedy. Then I witness so many people being persecuted and prosecuted. All at once, it makes sense. A rapidly disintegrating First World has transformed into a vast assemblage of dystopian societies. Although no easy answers are readily available, neither great men nor great women can, alas, become the matrix of our collective salvation. The actions by the Houthis (Arabic, الحُوثِيُّونَ, ʾal•Ḥūṯiyyūna) against ships headed to Israeli Ports can certainly be understood. Through intersectionality, particularly the intersectional Marxism which will be incorporated into DmR throughout the following chapter, the beloved Third World must, epistemologically, be steadfastly and passionately shifted to the center of our thinking with the First World, no matter how dire is the suffering of so many of its inhabitants, placed, at least for the time being, onto the mere periphery of our thinking:

… exclusionary thinking has been increasingly challenged by scholars and teachers who want to include the diversity of human experience in the construction and transmission of knowledge. Those who ask us to think more inclusively want to open up the way the world is viewed, making the experience of previously excluded groups more visible and central in die construction of knowledge. Inclusive thinking shifts our perspective from the white, male–centered forms of thinking that have characterized much of Western thought. Thinking inclusively means putting the experiences of those who have been excluded at the center of thought so that we can better understand the intersections of race, class, and gender in the experiences of all groups, including those with privilege and power.

To the intersectionality of epistemologically shifting the center of our thinking must be added, to our heterodox Maoism and intersectional Marxism, the more significant priority of ontologically shifting the center of our being. In DmR, we all divvy and partake of our shared beingness in Copresence, an existential condition of Nonduality. Though in the ontological state of Duality, you and are are unique beings, with our own distinct perspectives and experiences, we are never, on the plane of Nonduality, genuinely separated from one another. Accordingly, we are both one and many. It is, however, that oneness which, through the intentionality of Copresence, can be realized in the lives of each one of us. Without striving to remain in a perpetual state of Copresence, we are something less than human. More particularly, the reality of beingness can, ultimately, only be realized in the Third World. It is, therefore, to the Third World, and the socialism or communism we hope will be established there, that we must recenter our very course. Nothing short of such a dialectical transformation in humanity and a reorientation to the lands of forgotten peoples can suffice. I reside in the First World. I center on the beings of the Third World.

As shown in this revolting MP4 video, the Third World is currently dominated by the First World. The video is so disgusting that the viewer may understandably question its authenticity (MP4 video). Would children, ages 6 to 12, actually recite such filthy lyrics? The answer, sadly, is “yes.” The video was recorded in late 2023 during the Israeli activities in Gaza. Nevertheless, the children should not be chided for their actions. They are, indeed, children. Rather, the adults who composed the song and recruited the children as participants are the actual culprits. I would go even further. Those adults emotionally abused the children placed under their supervision. I cannot imagine how the children, years from now, will survive with the gruesome memory of serving as talent for this immoral performance. Intersubjectively, I suspect that the spectacle would haunt me for my entire lifetime. Hopefully, these children will someday recover from this act of inhumanity. If, on the other hand, they have been genuinely indoctrinated into the false hopes of political zionism, perhaps they will feel nothing at all. Such a trully heartbreaking outcome would, when all is said and done, be but a single tragedy totally consumed by yet another tragedy.

As any fair–minded Leftist can distinctly observe, without effort, most of the Earth has remained mired in some decadent form of capitalism or another. Substituting the dominant capitalist world–system with an international system of grassroots, classless communism is, however, all that should really matter to us. By the same token, socialism from below–Third Worldism has not gained much independent traction. If the people’s struggle for communism or socialism, in the former Third World, follows a global calamity, a revolutionary movement for human renewal might involve a small and widely scattered remnant. Even finding other human communities may, at times, appear hopeless. Speculatively, hundreds, even thousands, of years may elapse before the dawn of a new socialism or communism. Given a perfect world, the Subaltern, also called the Fourth World, in the First World should also survive, but a barrage of nukes makes no distinctions. The Subaltern in the Third World will more likely endure. However, the future is not yet written whether in dust or stone. Nothing, short of the dialectical destruction of the capitalist world–system and the disempowerment of the First World, can be guaranteed.

At this point, the heterodox theory of Maoism–Third Worldism, will be systematically employed, utilizing the writer’s perspective. It shall be designated here as socialism from below–Third Worldism—a hybrid of socialism from below and Maoism–Third Worldism. We consider it as the hopeful future chapter of scientific socialism and believe in its generalized isomorphism with reality. DmR is structured around Bhaskarian critical realism. It was discussed and analyzed earlier. The approach we take to Third Worldism is, accordingly, based on this author’s nuanced reading of the critical realism of Roy Bhaskar. We have referred to the paradigm as Dialectical metaRealism. For those readers unfamiliar with it, chapter 3 and the first several paragraphs of chapter 8 provide a detailed introduction. The writer would never pretend to be a seasoned expert on the subject. He instead takes the posture of a humble student. Substantially more sophisticated expositions are presented by Jason Unruhe on this page. His perspective on anti–colonialism has then been explored on yet another page. He is, in my view, the preeminent global expert on Maoism–Third Worldism. Few other scholars even come close.

As a brief introduction to one of the guiding polestars of this book, the principal thesis of our own Third Worldism is that the Third World may, at some point, become the staging area for communist activity. The Global South is a more common, and arguably depoliticized, designation. However, the First World, unlike Iraq and Mexico with other but not all places in the Third World, has insufficent revolutionary potential. The termination of First–World dominance, amidst rapidly accelerating dialectical contradictions, is inevitable. Only the date remains a mystery. The Third World might one day become the matrix of social transformation. I currently promote the Proletariat as well as the Subaltern in the First World and the Third World. Although I always empathize with the Third World, I will not politically support particular countries. There is no need to do so. The post–Apocalyptic future has not yet arrived. Partisanship is, by definition, divisive, but, more importantly, why waste one’s time on unattainable objectives? Indeed, to be honest with the reader, it seems highly unlikely to me, based upon my lifelong residence in the First World and the seniority of my age, that I shall ever witness the great revolutions of the future.

In its simplest terms, Third Worldism is a trend within Marxism which upholds that class analysis is as crucial as ever to the communist movement today. Third Worldists believe that without a clear understanding of who our real enemies and friends are, without uncovering the concrete relations to the forces of production that people really hold, then the communist movement in the First World will continue to stagnate. Namely, we believe that the vast majority of the world’s people — the masses of workers in the Third World along with a minority of people in the First World — are exploited and/or ground down by capitalism and imperialism to the point of being unable to flourish. On the other hand, we also believe that the vast majority of workers in First World nations have been “bought off” by imperialist super-profits. Monopoly capitalists in imperialist states glean most of their profits from exploitation of Third World labor, and they make such a killing on Third World exploitation that they can afford to pay their “own” workers in the First World a value well above what those workers themselves produce, while still maintaining average profit rates. In other words, high wages in the First World are supplemented with profit extracted from Third World workers. This means that class struggle has been largely deadened in the First World, because most workers in the imperialist core depend upon imperialism to sustain their current living standards. The contradiction between the working class in the imperialist nations and the bourgeoisie has become a non–antagonistic one. What this means for communist praxis in the First World is still somewhat of an open question.

However, Third Worldists stress that the main contradiction globally today is that between imperialism and the oppressed nations, and within the First World itself, the principal contradiction is that between oppressor nations — such as the euro–amerikan nation — and the oppressed nations within the First World, e.g. the Captive Afrikan nation, Xican@ nation, and the Onkwehón:we nations within Occupied Turtle Island. Thus, we whole–heartedly support national liberation struggles in the oppressed nations, and we believe this is key for the First World communist movement, as we work “behind enemy lines” within the territories occupied by imperialist powers. Additionally, we seek to build a broad united front against imperialism where we live, and to engage in struggles which merge the long–term interests of First Worlders with the immediate, material interests of the proletariat at large.

〜 Morton Esters. “Introduction.” The Weapon of Theory: A Maoist (Third Worldist) Reader. No publication information. 2014. No pagination.

The concept of the Third World is relevant in the post–Cold War era. The ten principles articulated at the Bandung conference especially “the five principles of peaceful coexistence” grounded the “cooperation among newly independent States stressing mutual respect and mutual benefit.” The structure of the contemporary international political economy is different from that which prevailed during the Cold War era. “The current international political economy has given rise to a situation in which all three segments are found in both the North and the South, and where their difference lies only in their relative proportion.” It is as a result thereof that the counter–hegemonic force that was created at the Bandung Conference by Third World states cannot remain confined to Third World countries. This is a new brand of Third Worldism that should aim to include non-state actors in the subaltern and the excluded segments of the Trilateral regions. Despite the political-economic eradication of the borders dividing the North and the South, the North/South divide is not filled. Thus, there is need for revival of the concept “Third Worldism”.

〜 Sangit Sarita Dwivedi. The Emergence of the Third World. Delhi: University of New Delhi. Undated. Page 21.

Rather than creating a theoretical fad, the introduction of the Global South concept represented a strategy to depoliticize the meaning of Third Worldism. The Global South is not defined by a positive agenda, but by a negative one because, after all, the North is also global, is it not? Thus, according to the new concept there is no sense in the existence of the Group of 77 [a coalition of 134 developing countries] or the Non–Aligned Movement. All Southern States would be diluted in globalization, and the largest nations would enjoy the status of “emerging markets.”

〜 Paulo Fagundes Visentini, “Editor’s Note: Third World or Global South?” Austral: Brazilian Journal of Strategy & International Relations. Volume 4, number 8, July/December 2015. Pages 7–8.

The idea of the Third World, which is usually traced to the late 1940s or early 1950s, was increasingly used to try and generate unity and support among an emergent group of nation–states whose governments were reluctant to take sides in the Cold War. These leaders and governments sought to displace the “East–West” conflict with the “North–South” conflict. The rise of Third Worldism in the 1950s and 1960s was closely connected to a range of national liberation projects and specific forms of regionalism in the erstwhile colonies of Asia and Africa, as well as the former mandates and new nationstates of the Middle East, and the “older” nation–states of Latin America. Exponents of Third Worldism in this period linked it to national liberation and various forms of Pan–Asianism, Pan–Arabism, Pan–Africanism and Pan– Americanism. The weakening or demise of the first generation of Third Worldist regimes in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with or was followed by the emergence of a second generation of Third Worldist regimes that articulated a more radical, explicitly socialist, vision. A moderate form of Third Worldism also became significant at the United Nations in the 1970s: it was centred on the call for a New International Economic Order (NIEo). By the 1980s, however, Third Worldism had entered into a period of dramatic decline. With the end of the Cold War, some movements, governments and commentators have sought to reorient and revitalise the idea of a Third World, while others have argued that it has lost its relevance. This introductory article provides a critical overview of the history of Third Worldism, while clarifying both its constraints and its appeal. As a world–historical movement, Third Worldism (in both its first and second generation modalities) emerged out of the activities and ideas of anti–colonial nationalists and their efforts to mesh highly romanticised interpretations of pre–colonial traditions and cultures with the utopianism embodied by Marxism and socialism specifically, and “Western” visions of modernisation and development more generally. Apart from the problems associated with combining these different strands, Third Worldism also went into decline because of the contradictions inherent in the process of decolonisation and in the new international politico–economic order, in the context of the changing character, and eventual end, of the global political economy of the Cold War.

〜 Mark T. Berger, “After the Third World? History, destiny and the fate of Third Woridism.” . Third World Quarterly. Volume 25, number 1, 2004. Pages 9–39.

An Exploited Nations’ Online Library of Marxism Third–Worldism is a mass project aimed at archiving Third–Worldist/Marxist works & promoting Third–Worldism.

Anonymous. The Online Library of Marxism Third Worldism. Location unknown: Arm Exploited Nations, MTW Library. April 10ᵗʰ, 2015. Web.

… disjointed events—all, it is true, pointing in the same general direction—triggered a tremendous amount of ideological rethinking among Third Worldists. Much of this radical reassemnent came from outside the Third Worldist universe, yet so much came from within. For ideologies can be casualties of more than external assault alone. They can be victims of their own internal structure of argument, their expectations, their gauges of success. Third Worldism harbored dreams of a Utopian state, an impeccable embodiment of the national interest. Its standards of political purity were those of popular government, perfect equality and economic development. And yet, inequalities persisted, development stalled, poverty endured.

〜 Robert Malley, “The Third Worldist Moment.” Current History. November 1999. Pages 359–369.

The creation of the Third World was not simply about colonial conquest and incorporating these territories into European colonial empires. Rather (and especially), it had also to do with their active “underdevelopment” by the colonial metropole through the extraction of raw natural resources and labour for the exclusive benefit of the metropole, and with devastating consequences for local economies, polities and societies.…

It cannot be emphasized enough thus that the idea of Third World is inseparable from the emergence of global capitalism via colonial conquest and exploitation. The integration of colonial societies into capitalist circuits has permanently changed and restructured local economies with tremendous consequences both for the short term and, more importantly, for the long term.

〜 Alina Sajed, “ E–International Relations. July 2020. Pages 1–6.

Third Worldism, which is sometimes called Marxism–Third Worldism, can promote a comprehensive anti–imperialist program of transformations in power. It was back in the oughts that I began referring to myself as a Third Worldist. As with many of us, my worldview has broadened over time. Substantively, however, I could never honestly reject Third Worldism. That notwithstanding, specifically returning to the posture of a committed Third Worldist, beginning in June of 2023, required retracing my steps to a previously held anti–colonial framework. But I thoroughly accepted Third Worldism until only about a decade earlier. I truly adore the heterodox Third Worldism in a manner I could never feel about the heterodox Trotskyist third campism which occupied my thoughts during the previous decade. My partial change of heart to third–camp Trotskyism started at a time when I somehow held hope, for reasons uncertain, that revolutions in the Western world were currently possible. Still, as with my numerous other experiences, I have, truthfully, learned a fair amount from my expeditions into third campism, as well. Life experiences are learning experiences. They should always be appreciated and never depreciated.

As any fair–minded Leftist can distinctly observe, most of the Earth remains mired in some decadent form of capitalism or another. Replacing the dominant capitalist world–system with an international system of grassroots, classless communism is, moreover, all that should truly matter to us. And yet, the heterodox scientific socialist tendency concerning the Third World has not gained much independent traction. If the people’s struggle for communism or socialism, in the former Third World, follows a global calamity, a revolutionary movement for human renewal might involve a small and widely scattered remnant. Even finding other human communities may, at times, appear hopeless. Speculatively, hundreds, even thousands, of years may elapse before the dawn of a new socialism or communism. Given a perfect world, the Subaltern, also called the Fourth World, in the First World should also survive, but a barrage of nukes makes no distinctions. The Subaltern in the Third World will more likely endure. However, the future is not yet written whether in dust or stone. Nothing, short of the dialectical destruction of the capitalist world–system and the disempowerment of the First World, can be guaranteed.

Centuries to come, if the First World has largely perished, members of the once Third World or developing world, as a new race of humanity, may constitute the bulk of survivors of a nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) holocaust and, hopefully, the builders of communism. Localism will, out of sheer necessity, become the rule. Local networks may then become assimilated into the communist world–system. At this time, in a rapidly declining pre–cataclysmic world, given its dire shortage of revolutionary potential, fighting demireality and cultivating Copresence, even on a relatively small scale, can, I think, be genuinely worthwhile tasks. Although it is always good to do good for others, the capitalist world–system, given the regrettable absence of socially transformative alternatives, has become little more than a liberal do–gooder’s dream. By the same token, since we are now living on a planet dominated by the bourgeois First World, practicing the stop–gap measure of progressivism or social democracy, should, to any clear–thinking person, be better than nothing. Admitting the value of temporary procedures of reform must never be confused with an advocacy of progressivism or social democracy as an end in itself.

Centuries to come, if the First World has largely perished, members of the once Third World or developing world, as a new race of humanity, may constitute the bulk of survivors of a nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) holocaust and, hopefully, the builders of communism. Localism will, out of sheer necessity, become the rule. Local networks may then become assimilated into the socialist world–system. At this time, in a rapidly declining pre–cataclysmic world, given its dire shortage of revolutionary potential, fighting demireality and cultivating Copresence, even on a relatively small scale, can be genuinely worthwhile tasks. Although it is always good to do good for others, the capitalist world–system, given the regrettable absence of socially transformative alternatives, has become little more than a liberal do–gooder’s dream. By the same token, since we are now living on a planet dominated by the bourgeois First World, practicing the stop–gap measure of progressivism or social democracy, should, to any clear–thinking person, be better than nothing. Admitting the possible value of temporary procedures of reform must never be confused with an advocacy of progressivism or social democracy as an end in itself.

Pragmatically, however, one can do even more. The Portugese term conscientização (MP3), anglicized as conscientization (MP3), is taken from the critical pedagogy. of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (MP3), 1921–1997. That coinage is based upon the French word “conscience” (MP3) which can be rendered as either “conscience” or “consciousness”. This French word acknowledges that discernment is informed by one’s moral compass and vice–versa. For historical reasons unknown to the writer, not trained in linguistics, no French cognate for the English–language consciousness exists. In the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s, conscientization was usually referred to as “consciousness raising.” Those of us residing in the First World, but especially individuals in the Third World, can engage in conscientization as a Socialist from Below–Third Worldist praxis. On a personal level, one of the ways in which I regularly immerse myself in that important praxis is through podcasting. These podcasts can be viewed around the globe. Perhaps each of us might reflect upon some of the ways in which we could apply our specialized talents and interests to the social dynamics of conscientization.

In many Third–World societies, the rulers, frequently without any actual power themselves, are economically and politically compelled to aimlessly follow the dictates of the leaders of the First World or industrialized world. In other instances, Third–World tyrants often oppress the masses within their own societies. Briefly, it is a lose–lose situation for the average residents of Third–World societies. For Third Worldist socialists from below, the praxis of conscientization must be accelerated. Time may be short before the dominant First World begins crashing down. Most people appear to be completely unaware of the process of dissolution and, as entire communities and societies begin tumbling down, will be gripped by shock. That ignorance must be regarded as a tragedy. Conscientization may be the only instrumentality and agency available for preparing Third Worlders, primarily by other Third Worlders but secondarily by each of us, for that possibly imminent onslaught of capitalist devastation. Simply waiting around and absorbing the latest news headlines—which chronicle the ongoing daily process of social fragmentation and personal demoralization—helps no one. Conscientization is vital.

Similar to conscientization, in the consciencism (MP3) or, in effect, conscience–ism of Kwame Nkrumah (MP3). An emphasis is placed upon pan–Africanism (universal Africanism) based upon common experiences, history, and culture. Colonialism and slavery are opposed by socialism.