I first heard about it through Gabriel rockhill when he was invited in the deprogram, then i kept listening to other videos he made on the topic, i didn’t read his or lusordo’s books unfortunately, but I think the idea is clear enough for me (maybe)
Basically it includes every left leaning person in the west that poses as marxists (or anticapitalists) but act anticommunist and pro western, they’re also revisionists replacing dialectical materialism with bourgeois science and bougeois ideologies,
The first time I noticed the usage of that term outside of Rockhill, was in an Instagram reel about China, then in a horrible red pen video that is also about China, it was so weird for me bc the usage was empty of all substance,
It feels like it’s used to shame people about thinking that China is revisionist more than actually serve as a valid argument, and doesn’t correlate with the actual western marxist types like zizek or varoufakis,
It quickly became synonym to Ultra-leftist or chauvinist
Rockhill has moved away from the term “Western left” and switched to “Compatible left.” (Its better to not use geographic terms for political tendencies) He uses it more of a description of institutions and schools of thought.
The western/compatible left are happy to engage in liberation theory and critique but not action and not even solidarity of those who take action against imperialism that has a chance of success. They are “as left as they come”… without it being a threat to the status quo.
Both zizek and varoufakis have engaged in imperialist accommodation. It would be more beneficial for people to use that form critique rather than just labeling other people but most internet leftists engaged in “debates” aren’t exactly careful with their words.
Not every western leftist… but always a western leftist. /s
Of course Rockhills suggested term “Compatible Leftist” is best better. It was originally invented by the CIA when they started to support and create compatible leftism. They mostly did that in imperial core countries. That’s why this very real phenomenon is mostly about about western leftists.
But don’t worry, periphery leftists can have there own problems with sometimes aligning with compradors. It’s just a completely different material background (and also scale) that’s why this distinction makes sense.
western marxism is more of a school of thought, if we want to be kind to it. It transcends geographical borders - there are western marxists in the global south, trotskyists for example.
Losurdo’s bottom line was that western marxism is a school of thought that has mostly had theoretical achievements, and eastern marxism is a school of thought that has mostly had practical achievements, because they are the only ones who have seized state power. (I haven’t read the book yet either lmao, it’s on my list. but this is what people who have read it explain it as)
So he also put the bolsheviks into that eastern marxism school. I’m sure he goes into a lot more details; even that simple differentiation leads to a whole lot of implications. One thing we can infer for example is that eastern marxism (as he put it, not sure I like the name myself lol) has to contend with the realities of running a country, and inherently gets embroiled in the global contradictions of what “running a country in the 21st century” means.
I assume he doesn’t mean that eastern marxism has not made theoretical headways of its own, because they certainly have.
I can’t speak to all uses of it, but the way I understand the term, it can be a way of describing somebody who is all theory and no practice, to put it one way. They can talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, they’re more apt to level criticisms at AES states than they are to make sacrifices and take risks toward creating one of their own.
This, in my mind, does not include everyone in the west who is lacking in practice, like it’s some kind of Revolutionary Contribution Meter you have to keep full in order to speak on matters of liberation. People can have various reasons for that, some of them to do with disability or locale, that makes it abnormally difficult to participate in revolutionary organizing.
To me, it is specifically a criticism centered around people whose notion of theory is largely derived from the purity of not having had to test it against reality. Thus it’s easy for them to call China revisionist or say Lenin good, Stalin bad, because they’re viewing the circumstances based on what they think should have happened, rather than what were the material possibilities afforded to the people making the decisions at the time.
In this meaning, it is a facet of ultra-leftist, but it’s not only that because an ultra-leftist can be elsewhere than the west. You could maybe say it is ultra-left + western chauvinism which creates the “western marxist”. “Western marxist” would mean a lot more beyond insult or criticism if the west were to produce an AES state. But “western culture” in the imperial core is deeply tied up in colonization and imperialism, so it’s hard to imagine a western AES state that is western in the cultural sense yet not compromised by chauvinism. It seems easier to imagine a successful western AES state as practicing eastern marxism with some tweaks for western conditions.
I feel like ultra+chavinistic usage of the word takes away the precision of the word, This comment explains it more than I can
You didn’t understand the basics and decided to get hung up on definitions. Sorry to be brusque!
probably, i just thought that it should be used to talk about the left intellectual industry in the west represented by ppl like richard wolff or zizek, and not just random ppl with ultra leftists tendencies
Was a bit miffed as they go out of their way to explain their issues with the terminology western left, gray areas such as Lukacs + Althusser, & clarify it, as others said in this thread which I read after posting. I would object to not engaging with the material further before asking, but I do exactly the same thing on here, even #OnMain.
If you find the material ultimately worthwhile, check out Helmut Harry-Loewen, Adnan Husain (East is a Podcast), and Justin Podur. Part of the same wider scholarly ring. Oh also Millenials are Killing Capitalism has been on EiaP frequently despite some differences or opinion. I think the show has taught me how to disagree with others better! I can’t listen to normal podcasts now. Too repetitive. I need scholars who got pissed off with their field’s stagnancy. It’s that good. They’re not trying to cast an overly wide net, they are interested in forming a wider progressive coalition.
It’s just important, paramount in doing it, to reorient those progressives’ objectives away from trying to attain meaningless concessions in a legal system that will never even maintain them when permitted (by design). We cannot form a coalition with people who have the wrong goals, & frame our most important areas of study as negative caricatures. These are at most people who could learn to mean well if willing to learn. Allies in waiting they are not lolol. It’s an ethical question, whether these people acknowledge they are dependent on the most advanced forced labor extraction system in history, but it’s also the deciding factor in whether they work towards liberation or faster accession to the inflated US asset market that is FUCKING DOOMED. They act like we’re just scolding them for getting terminology wrong!
I liked this interview on RevLeft.
horrible red pen video that is also about China
What do you mean? Why ws the video horrible? Because of the western marxist thing?
The argument pissed me off bc he quoted parenti when parenti argues against China or something like that
And? Parenti argued against China because he only had western sources available.
Not that this matters, critically assessing material means you can take useful parts from it and ignore useless stuff. Parentis analysis back then on China is frankly wrong. On left-anti-communists and so-called “western marxists”, he was spot on.
Do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
