Why MAGA Folks Should Read Marx -- WSJ

Dow Jones
01-24

By Jacob Berger

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to reform higher education, which he claims has "become dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics." As president, he is working to staff his administration with advisers to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which takes aim at a "woke-dominated system of public schools and universities" led by "Marxist academics."

But I teach the works of Karl Marx at a college in rural Pennsylvania, and I have a modest suggestion. Rather than targeting Marxists, maybe the folks who voted for Trump should read some Marx instead. The MAGA coalition might be surprised to discover how much their values overlap with his. And with the recent publication of a new landmark translation of the first volume of his masterpiece, "Capital," there has never been a better time to see the great architect of communist thinking in a new light.

On the surface, the 19th-century philosopher and 21st-century conservatives seem to hold opposing worldviews. While Marx marvels at the free market as the greatest engine of development the world has known, he argues that capitalism inevitably fails to guarantee a good life to hardworking people. The American right, on the other hand, has long championed free enterprise, viewing any intrusion by government into business as a menace.

In the Trump era, however, the ideological divide isn't so straightforward. Both Marx and today's populists aim to harness similar instincts to empower ordinary people. Of course, no mainstream politician seriously entertains Marx's proposal for the abolition of private property in favor of public or collective ownership of the means of production. But a growing movement in the GOP, led by Vice President JD Vance among others, is deeply critical of certain features of capitalism. These economic populists propose policies such as an increased minimum wage, tougher enforcement of antitrust measures and limits on foreign investment.

Still, given the history of murderous communist regimes like Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia, it is tempting to infer that Marx encouraged tyranny. But Marx did not advocate violence or political repression, and he would be appalled by the atrocities committed in his name. He pressed for revolution, but he envisioned that the ideal transition from capitalism to communism would be peaceful and democratic, like the Velvet Revolution that freed Czechoslovakia from Soviet rule in 1989.

Many conservative pundits and politicians use the expressions "Marxist" or "communist" as catchall insults for whatever they regard as contemptible. Some recent attacks target so-called cultural Marxism, presuming that the philosopher paved the way for liberal or woke policies. But Marx wrote little about identity issues, even if certain writers who claim inspiration from him put them front and center. His focus was primarily on economic class, and his critique of capitalism was based on values close to the hearts of Trump supporters.

When I ask my students to name the most significant conservative concern, they invariably say "freedom." It's ranked first, for example, on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's list of conservative principles. Marx too valued freedom, and he argued that the only way to ensure genuine personal liberty is to release human beings from the crushing demands of capitalism.

How can we enjoy life to the fullest, devote ourselves to family or pursue our dreams if we're financially insecure and compelled to spend most of our time at work? Some of the pioneers of the new right-wing economic populism are similarly alert to the demanding and limiting nature of capitalism, though they are at pains to avoid mentioning Marx in a positive way.

Crucially, Marx argues that capitalism is not only restrictive but fundamentally exploitative. He shows that the profit motive encourages owners and managers, consciously or not, to squeeze labor and drive down wages. This dynamic has been the prime factor in the export of American manufacturing jobs to countries where workers can be paid much less.

But exploitation takes place in professional contexts as well. If you've ever been asked to stay on at work for an extra hour without pay, or take on the responsibilities of someone who's just left the company with no raise in salary, you know what Marx was talking about. In this way, capitalism undermines the conservative value of fair pay for honest work.

The consequence, Marx observes, is a system that slowly but inexorably consolidates wealth and control in the hands of a small minority. Today that group includes almost 3,000 billionaires worldwide. Conservatives, too, worry about concentration of power in the hands of elites. Marx would argue that the right has simply been focusing on the wrong elites.

Despite Trump's populist message, his cabinet is already shaping up to be the wealthiest of all time. And it seeks to weaken the government's ability to rein in industry through efforts such as the Department of Government Efficiency, co-led by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. Such appointments show that, under capitalism, it is not the government that regulates capital, but the other way around.

Marx's alternative, communism, is often assumed to require a massive enlargement of government. But public ownership needn't mean centralized control. Communism is, after all, about communities -- the kind whose disintegration Vance laments in his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy." Marx thought that the people must collectively oversee their own destinies on a local level, not through an agenda forced upon them by federal bureaucrats or the leaders of major corporations (or, for that matter, a Politburo). Sounds like a conservative's dream, no?

Marx never provided a detailed proposal for an alternative to capitalism, to some readers' chagrin. But that's in part because he thought the structure of society is up to the people to decide democratically. Whatever direction we might take, reading Marx helps us better understand our situation and opens new ways of thinking about the future we truly want.

The reason conservatives hate so-called cultural Marxism is that it seems to enforce a kind of groupthink that stifles free thought and debate. But that is just what's happening with Marx. If they would only give him a chance, populists might find an ally they didn't know they needed.

Jacob Berger is a professor of philosophy at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 23, 2025 11:01 ET (16:01 GMT)

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