Marx And Stuff

I keep seeing comments online to the Frankfurt School of sociology. These comments usually refer to some radical Marxist conspiracy first hatched here in the 1920s that seeks to undermine capitalist societies.

I can't say I'm an expert on Marx or the Frankfurt School but this is what I understand so far. Marx thought originally that it was inevitable that the working class would rise up and overthrow the capitalist owners and create a utopia where everybody was equal and everything was in common ownership by "the People". The Frankfurt School seems to have updated his ideas to take into account the advent of the mass media (there's quite a good essay here).

The key point is that Marxists gave up believing that the worker's revolution would happen by itself (see the reference to H M Hyndman in this article) and that instead they would have to make it happen by their own efforts. They would have to develop some tactics. This is not saying that there is some shadowy network of Marxists working behind closed doors to bring down societies but just that this type of thinking was intellectually seductive and became dominant in intellectual circles. The effect was often unconscious causing people to unintentionally propagate them without realising their full purpose or effects. So what are those tactics? I will tell you what I suspect.

During the 1980s they started to realise that their biggest problem was that their intellectual right wing opponents could easily identify them and argue against them. So a key tactic has been to create non-political groups that do not explicitly promote any political ideas. Common Purpose was founded by somebody high up in the Labour Party. When challenged it will always argue that it is non-political and, strictly speaking, this is true. It does not donate to, or receive money from, any political party and it stays out of explicit political discussions. That's all part of the trick.

Another tactic has been to infiltrate the media, hence the founding of the Media Trust by the same person as Common Purpose. This matches the Frankfurt School's awareness of the impact of the mass media. Another example is how the Revolutionary Communist Party officially disbanded, robbing their opponents of a target, and instead formed a series of groups that specialise in engaging with the media.

All these groups appear benign to unsuspecting media, science and corporate types but they all have an ultimate, ulterior motive. They are trying to weaken national identity, undermine law and order, undermine business and commerce, undermine the financial system and undermine democracy. They do this in the belief that this would lead to a socialist utopia where everybody is equal and happy. It wouldn't be like that though. It would be a one party, poverty-stricken, authoritarian hellhole.

If you feel that there's a conspiracy going on against you, this time you may just be right...

Marx And Stuff