This is an excellent summary. Thank you for sharing it. The term 'social justice' has been used as a Trojan Horse for Critical Social Justice ideology. If you have the time (and inclination!) here is report I wrote last year with Dr Kirsty Miller about the politicisation of clinical psychology training courses here in the UK: https://save-mental-health.com/training-courses/
This is an amazing resource. Thank you for making it available. I will be sure to share widely. Critical Social Justice is definitely distinct from other forms of Social Justice and folks should be very clear and think critically when the term 'Social Justice' is used that we understand what is meant. I find similar thoughts on the concept of "racial equity" which I outline in my essay on Race Ideology-in-Practice: Racial Equity in American Learning Environments which is available at: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/race-ideology-in-practice
Yes, you are correct that we will not agree on Marxism. All of the organizations I mentioned can’t possibly be that misled, so maybe it’s you.
I am an artist (among other things) and am well aware of the history of patrons throughout the ages. I simply find the comparison in relation to Marx rather laughable. He ended up being financed ( and sponging off of) people he worked on theory with. This was more in the sense of a guest who refused to leave than a beneficiary of largesse from some wealthy donor. The reason I think this matters is that he envisions a governmental system which would enable a populus to do exactly that.
As far as Keynsian economics goes, that is something that is embraced by the far Left in my experience and utilizes Socialist principles ( such as “creating” jobs , printing cask and inflating the economy by large funding and welfare programs. Obama and Biden have utilized it and it has been a dismal failure.
You no doubt approach Marx from an economic standpoint because that is where your background lies. He is, however, founder of a movement that is much more than that. Transferring the means of production to “the people” never happens because the government, in his eyes, IS “the people”. Neat trick to give up one’s autonomy entirely and be deluded that you are doing a GOOD thing. That’ why when I hear words like “Imperialism”, anti-Capitalist statements and your theory that clearly ends with the Unicorns and rainbows of a one-world government (such as the World Economic Forum is trying to sell us along with replacing our meat with crickets) I truly have to wonder: if you aren’t a Marxist, what are you?
The principles of collectivism, anti-Capitalism, historical revisionism, the de-emphasizing family ties as opposed to government ties, the expectation that the State will be your Mom, Dad and Comrade, and the oppressed/oppressor model are indeed Marxist. Class struggle is Marxist. Neo-Marxists have substituted race for class but the hierarchies are the same.
You don’t have to agree with me. In the way that Marx’s personality matters not to you, Marxist theories don’t matter to me. The veil of compassion, altruism and the “better world” that we keep hearing Marx is all about is utterly useless. It’s a smoke screen. Marx and his economic theories have never made any place better. They have only enriched autocracies in brutal ways that Capitalism doesn’t—- though Socialists delight in their constant complaints about wealthy people. Greed plays a part in both economic theories. It’s just that Capitalism has historically enabled more people to rise out of poverty than Communism or Marxism ever could.
Nice discussion. We will agree to disagree. There is no possible way that everyone on the planet can reach “a high level of wealth and technological advancement.” People are too different in culture, intellect, abilities, desires and a host of other factors. Not everyone’s idea of Utopia is the same. Unfortunately, there are still megalomaniacs with a Messiah Complex out there who believe the old theories (Progressives, ironically) who think they and the government can “save” humanity. More death and destruction has been unleashed on the world by deluded do-gooders than inherent evil. We always need to be skeptical when a government entity arrives to “help.”
The absolute dismissal of the current movements that self-identify as Marxist of the core of Marxist philosophy--historical materialism--makes them as Marxist as self-identifying as female renders a man a woman. The reification of individuality, individual desires, and identities as central to justice and social change are also a slap in the face of Marxist principles, which were to apply to humanity as a whole, and never to groups divided according to their identities (self or otherwise), their race, sex, sexual orientation, or any other marker, other than their relation to the means of production: did they own the means of production, or did they have to work for a living?
So no, sorry, just because a group self-identifies as Marxist or even post-Marxist, does not mean that they actually embrace Marxist analysis. Because Marxism was, first and foremost, a perspective from which to understand the way societies worked that was based on understanding their ECONOMIC structures, and nothing about the so-called critical theories of today that are based on group identities, even remember that there is a thing called "the economy".
even in economic terms, Marxism has always been constructed on an "Oppressed vs. Oppressor" basis. today race is just substituted for economic hierarchies. These hierarchies were also groups ("proletariat", etc.) and not individuals. An inherent part of Marxism, which Marx himself saw as an introduction to full-blown Communism, was the process of constant self-criticism. (Hence, Critical race theory and the famous Struggle Sessions that Mao used as a tool of repression. I find great similarity between these and sessions in which employees have been forced into examining their 'White Privilege". There is no redeeming answer for which a white person can give up his or her "oppressor" role. Unfortunately, leaders from Stalin to Castro to Chavez always promise to make a better, more "equal", more robust and ultimately compassionate society. They do this by completely ignoring human nature, whether the perceived inequalities are based on economics, biology, race, ability, or any other categories which are ultimately used to designate victims and their victimizers. In the end, human nature loves freedom and individuality which foils any dreams of Utopia through forced conformity. That's when the killing starts. So, yes, BLM , DEI and "Diversity" programs, Cancel Culture, media censorship is cultural Marxism and it aligns perfectly with historical Marxism. If it continues to follow history, we will certainly all be "equal" as in equally miserable while an elite ruling class dictates the entire scope of our lives--first through guilt and emotional manipulation via fear tactics (COVID, Climate CHange) and via outright tyranny when the populus pushes back. It's what the World economic Forum (Hey, there's that "economic" thing again....) means when they tell us "You will own nothing and you will be happy".
On a side note, Marx himself didn't work for a living. He was a parasite, haunting coffee shops and sponging off of his friends while avoiding bathing as much as possible. He was the first "slacker." This may have a lot to do with his philosophy and those who continue to follow him, wittingly or unwittingly. You will never hear that from your college professor.
Marx did not work for a living, yes. He lived from what Engels and other friends, who regarded themselves as his patrons, gave him. He wrote and analyzed and thought, and his patrons paid him, which was not as uncommon in the 19th century as it is now, such kind of patronage of a person considered a great artist or a great intellectual who needed to not have a "day job" in order to use his skills and talent in what he was good at, which was writing. He lived in relative poverty and his kids suffered for this. But my post was not about Marx the man, or Marxist-Leninist parties, Stalinism, or Maoism, but of the root of Marxist philosophy, historical materialism. It wasn't about "oppressors versus oppressed" in general, it wasn't something that could be applied in that way, because the center of the analysis was economic. In fact, that is one of its weaknesses, that it does not regard other inequalities as important in comparison to the economic division between owners of capital and the proletariat; orthodox Marxist philosophy was oblivious to cultural differences, racial issues, historical construction of meaning, national identity, etc.
I am not a Marxist because I think that patriarchal relations and historical relations based on ethnic/racial/national inequalities matter, and because I think that elements of human psychology, particularly tribalism, were ignored by Marx and other communist/socialist thinkers (those who agreed with him and those who postulated rival communist/socialist models, and anarchist models of "utopian" communities). But identitarianism is anathema to Marxism, because, again, Marxist communism only "works" if it addresses and encompasses all of humanity. It ignores, and in fact, rejects as negative and "false consciousness", the relevance of racial, cultural, ethnic, national, and sexual differences.
I assume that you use the notion of "historical Marxism" to mean the economic, political and social systems set in place in non-capitalist societies that embraced socialism, such as Cuba, China, North Korea, the USSR, etc., and, more generally, Marxist-Leninist parties (perhaps Trotskyites too, even though they and Leninists regard each other as the epitome of opposition, the two ends of a "spectrum" of socialist belief, the two sides of the ideological binary of the Left, etc.). But Marxism was not an applicable philosophy, just like Adam Smith's theoretical capitalism is inapplicable. Which is not to say that these regimes did not adopt Marxist principles--they did, and they failed horribly. Marxism, like any philosophy and any political ideology, does not have "the whole truth" about how economies and societies work, but it is very useful for understanding capitalism, and that was what Marx intended to study. Not human identity, not racism, not culture, not even socialism, but how did capitalism work. When it is used to look at other things, it doesn't work, because it wasn't meant to be used for that.
My understanding of Marxism doesn't correlate with yours. I hear an intellectually whitewashed version Marx, his philosophy, its intention, and the historical results. You might want to look into what his "patrons" said about him. He was far from an artist. He was a curmudgeon , a narcisistic miscreant. He may have deluded himself that he remained poor and "sacrificed" for his children. Virtue-signaling was popular even then.
OK, to be fair, I can leave the man alone, but it is very difficult to separate one,s philosophy from one's moral underpinnings. I don't see how tribalism could have been "ignored" by Marx (even if that's what your Marxist professors told you) when he divided people squarely into categories. It actually doesn't matter whether that was based on economics then or the way BLM and Critical Race theory does it now. Oppression and Oppressor is a key theme in Marx. It cannot be dismissed. When the rubber hits the road all of these high-minded philosophical underpinnings disappear. Yes, I am talking about Socialst/Communist societies in practice. Theory is just so much baloney because, in fact, Marxist Communism as theorized has never worked. Yes, I know, there is always some fresh-faced fool who laments "But it has never been done correctly!". It will never be done correctly because it flies in the face of human nature. Dictators have tried to impose groupthink and collectivism on populations by force to mold human nature into something more malleable to suit their needs through violence, police states and imprisonment. (Do they still make students read "1984" anymore? Orwell considered himslf a Socialist but this was his take on what Socialism/Marxism does to a society.) There are a lot of buzzwords and sophhistry in your comments ("patriarchy" is my favorite") but most of that is irrelevant. Neo-Marxists have found their demon in Capitalism and the white Male (as Marx did in Capitalism and the Wealthy Male though there is certainly overlap) and you ignore the fact that many of today's "revolutionary" organizations openly declare themselves Marxist as BLM does. They have deep connections to organizations with Communist ties such as the Weather Underground, Angela Davis, Joanne Chesimard, and Black Nationalists who are also Marxists as the Black Panthers were. I find much of the theory you regurgitate to be nonsensical and more of an attempt to obfuscate rather than provide clarity. Most of it doesn't matter in terms of the Neo-Marxist idology of 2023. I do not agree that Marxism is of any real use in understanding Capitalism--unless you oppose Capitalism. Adam Smith is still quite relevant from the point of view of Capitalists--but then again Neo-Marxists would also do away with our Constitution entirely. They would replace it with a Government-centered Constitution in which, like the Soviet Constitution, people are truly entitled to "free" everything: Jobs, housing, health care, child care---which seems to be the direction that this country has been moving in since Obama. Obama, despite his folksy pandering, comes from a Black Nationalist church, had Communist parents and a Comminist mentor in Frank Marshall Davis. I don't need some "whole truth" about Marism, Capitalism or where we are going as a nation. I have seen enough general truth in the past 60 years or so to know thata we are on a destructive path and that path most closely resembles Marxism/Communism. I also know that is not a mistake, it is deliberate. You can tell me ad nauseum what "theory" says about it but what I care about is what I see. It ain't pretty.
I think we will never agree on what Marxism is (for me, it is an analysis of capitalism as an economic system, which posits that there is an inherent conflict in human history between those who own the means of production and those who don't, and that this tension can only be resolved when the ownership of the means of production is collective, but this transformation can only be achieved when the entire planet has reached a high level of wealth and technological advancement), so we might as well leave it at that. But first I want to say two things: when I used the word "artist" I was not referring to Marx, but to the relationship between patrons and people who, like Marx, didn't do "productive" work but intellectual/artistic work. In any case, I am prejudiced against artists, as I believe that many of them are narcissistic and self-obsessed. I also have no evidence to suppose that Marx the intellectual was not that kind of person--he might have been. It matters little to me, his personality.
The second thing is that I graduated from college more than 25 years ago and studied Economics, and had ONE Marxist professor, a man who was so orthodox that we read only texts from the 1960s, and who was eventually sacked after only one year of working in the university. I had ONE OTHER left-leaning professor in my Department--but he was of the heterodox sort, and would probably fall under the category of Keynesian rather than Marxist. I had ONE sociology professor who had been a Marxist in her youth, but was also heterodox in her perspective, which was squarely Feminist, and extremely critical, therefore, of Marxist and Leftist movements in general, which were, in Latin America, where I am from, focused on national liberation/anti-imperialism/the class struggle/democratization, but quite openly skeptical and dismissive of women's liberation as a secondary, "maybe later", issue.
The world is not the USA, and the "neo-Marxism" and "Marxism" espoused by USA movements is based on self-identification, which, again, is meaningless. BLM may call themselves Marxist, or Maoist, or Confucianist, but if they do not read the texts and analyze the ideas and embrace the core principles of the political ideologies or philosophical analyses that these schools of thought espoused, they are simply self-identifying the same way that some males are identifying as women and demanding that we all say, yes, Ma'am.
I really appreciate this, and this is an issue that I've had to grapple with when talking to my friends who are ready to hit me with a bigotry accusation the moment I dissent from Social Justice dogma.
But the distinction I usually use is Liberal vs Leftist, as in: The American liberal dispensation of rights earned through debate and the ballot box has done a lot more to help black people than the silly Kill Whitey! rhetoric that emanates from Leftist academia.
There is a rich tradition of African American uplift that predates the Leftist fever dreams of people like bell hooks and Angela Davis, and you can believe that American blacks have faced terrible treatment for centuries, that they still need various forms of help, but also believe that people like Kendi and Nikole Hannah-Jones are obvious charlatans and that BLM was a scam designed to score "white guilt money" (not my words, but those of one of its founders).
(But this is just one example, and I say the same when it comes to gay rights vs Queer Theory: one is designed to help actual humans thrive in the world, the other is designed to make campus radicals get off on "performing transgression," when they're actually apex conformists who've lived their entire lives in a state-subsidized epistemic coocon.)
As for the term "Social Justice": it is their property and there is no way to get it back. Instead I would just use 'liberal' in its original definition.
Hey, I'm just a random man on the internet, I have no platform or political project.
I have been able to explain to friends that I'm a liberal opposed to a Leftist, but this only works in a more personal setting where you can wander in your thoughts a bit. (And also, as far as dealing with anyone in the Blue Bubble, their beliefs are mostly religious or at least tribal, so they would have to change their lives to change their minds.)
Either way, I encourage anyone to use whatever words or techniques they prefer to at least present some opposition to the ideological takeover of America.
Well done - and I'm decidedly liberal, although I think Marcuse's one of the best analysts of modernity (his Critique of Pure Tolerance is fascist though.)
One only wishes that the distinctions could be as easy as the table categorises. Surely it is a good summary of liberal and "woke" worldviews. But of social justice?
To begin with, insofar as liberal thought entertains the idea of social justice, it completely entertains the idea of social groups and classes, which existed far before Marxism even if it has been central to the economic philosophy of Marxism.
Social justice as the problem of a state of things in which some groups have objectively disproportionately more power than others, has been and remains a question vastly debated by liberal thinkers. I understand that for many Americans class does not exist, but it is a fine blind spot. Class will not disappear because you look the other way. But a liberal approach to the problems of inequality between groups is certainly different from a woke, Marxist, Fascist, or religious approach.
And many of the philosophies and ideas mentioned are partly shared by thinkers in one field and the other, because, well, thinkers, not pamphlet-writers. The history of ideas is never so simple.
But again. I find it completely useless to put this in terms of What Kind of Social Justice, because the term "social justice" is mostly a Marxist term leaked down to woke thought, and anybody who talks of social justice these last years is irremediably woke. The liberals (who are a far more diversified spectrum than the woke, especially between the two sides of the Atlantic) more usually speak of more just and fair societies and of balancing social inequalities.
Social Justice is originally a Catholic phrase, stolen from Taparelli by political fanatics of all sorts. Social Justice, as it was explained in my Catholic schooling, is the concept of the sharing of material overabundance by those with more than enough and giving it to those lacking with no expectation of earthly recompense, all done under the watchful, judicious and benevolent eye of church authority. Weird thing about Italian social movements on both the left and right: they used religious terms and concepts pretty freely and, in this case, eerily appropriately.
Not so weird, as the entirety of Italian culture is inextricably entangled with Catholicism (I am half Italian, and am aware of the peculiarity).
However the social justice concepts of Taparelli D'Azeglio and Rosmini were far from stolen: those ideas had circulated in Catholic thought since the Counter-reformation, and were spread far and wide by the Company of Jesus. For Rosmini (I have not read Taparelli but I doubt he strays) it was a matter of theodicy, bringing back Aquinas against the "Aristotelian" scientism of the (mostly Protestant-led) Industrial Revolution.
And it might be interesting to see how much of the religious inspiration found in that line of thought about social justice transfers into the woke orthodoxy we have today, which is itself a form of religious thought, however without god. After all the entirety of the social theory of Marx (not so much his economic theory) is also a form of lay religion, complete with end of days paradise on earth.
The Enlightenment is a very small light, in the middle of a lot of fundamentally irrational thought masked as logic. Humans bloody love religious thought, it makes them feel good and righteous. While rational thought makes you constantly aware that truth, goodness, right, are things to be continuously always tested, adjusted and searched. Which thought is easier and more comforting?
You note that liberal and critical sides have both explored issues surrounding social justice -- indeed. But then you suggest that it is a useless distinction?
The point of the post is that the term "social justice" has recently been redefined to conform far more to critical theory ideology than to Enlightenment liberalism (as you note). Everyone, liberal or critical, knows that the term "social justice" refers to something as good as mom's apple pie. Both support it.
But the possibility of engaging in constructive communication is extinguished when words no longer have shared meaning. The average layperson is left befuddled. They know that mom's apple pie is good, but now it tastes funny. Hum, not sure why. Weird.
No, I do not suggest that it is an useless distinction. I suggest that the genealogy trees defined on the table, especially the genealogy trees of ideas and thinkers supposed to be be different do not help distinguish, because a number of the thinkers in the "woke" line of descent have expressed ideas, regarding matters of social fairness, quite compatible with enlightenment and liberalism and very incompatible with the woke ideas. To be honest, the only thinker who more or less in toto bears responsibility for what has become the woke orthodoxy is Derrida: the father of all critical theories, which from textual deconstructionism spread to almost every discipline, where they remained marginal, avant-garde and rather harmless pens where hyperintellectual scholars earned their living without much connection to the real world -- until the founding principle was adopted first by a section of feminism, then spread to gender studies and anthropology, and finally became (in a rather simplified fashion and through a very shallow and limited reading of Foucault) the backbone of the social justice identitarian ideology of the last two decades.
What I actually suggest is that the term "social justice" is today a term that goes beyond the meaning of its components and how they might have been used previously. What I suggest is that, just like "national socialism" became a very specific term in a very specific ideology in the 1930s, "social justice" today is not and cannot be used by anybody but the woke crowd. Some traditional Marxists may have continued to employ it, but increasingly specify what they are talking about in order not to be taken for woke.
So I find that while it is worthwhile to attempt to disentangle the laudable theoretical aims of the woke ideology (a more just and equal society, free of discrimination) from its methods (grievance-driven group-think and and intimidation) and its philosophy (division of humanity into rigid entities based on imposed identities and a mythology of all-encompassing power dynamics), to make the distinction on the term "social justice" is both simplistic and confusing.
I think that the average layperson today is not very befuddled in front of the term "social justice", but recognises it for the woke dog-whistle that it is. The risk for the average layperson is to reject even adjacent concepts of justice and fairness because of the woke taint. And to help make that distinction, the table presented does, in my opinion, make a rather poor job.
Objecting to ‘Social justice’ is actually fairly straightforward. ‘Justice’ should have no modifier.
Such modifiers only serve to describe what particular flavour of ‘injustice’ is being recommended.
Justice is hard enough to lay our hands on as it is, without intentionally doling out injustices; fuelled on spite and resentment, and acted out against a dodgy backdrop of supposedly ‘seeking to even-up the cosmic scales of historical inequity’.
I know it’s a platitude, but two wrongs really *don’t* make a right. It became a platitude because seeking vengeance, while in our nature, emerges from that part of our nature that is self destructive, and socially immiserating. It should certainly never be touted as a ‘virtue’, and legislatively enshrined. 
‘Justice’, unadulterated, must continue to serve as our target. Yes, it is hard to hit, but only justice brings peace. That is what balanced scales represent; the situation at rest.
Revenge is a broad target, and far less distant. This is because an outcome serving and sating vengeance is prescribed subjectively; by our lizard brains when we feel wronged. Acting to affect such outcomes subsequently produces no balance, and so brings no peace; it is the action that perpetuates conflict; an overreach that powers a persistent oscillation of suffering, recrimination, and retribution.
I’m not a fan of injustice, therefore I wholeheartedly object to ‘social’ justice, and all similar midwit foolishness.
This is a test. I am replying to Angela, but Angela replied to Richard. Usually (always?) when someone replies to a comment on a Substack, they get an email saying "so and so has replied to your comment" or something like that. . So, Richard, did you get an email pinging you on this comment of mine?
If so, I am wondering if you'd like to me to put up that comment, or one that you add some spit and polish to, as a guest post. It is an excellent point.
Many other emails in the box from you about related pieces, but no mention of this ‘reply to a reply’.
There are only really two thoughts in my comment above.
The first is just logical, concerning semantic modifiers; All such modifiers of ‘justice’ are, necessarily, a call for less justice. It was not originally my own insight, but it should form part of every thinker’s standard armament against those who smugly cheer for ‘social justice’; daring others to condemn themselves by challenging the nobly clothed clarion call.
The second is simply the old saw differentiating justice from vengeance, with some embryonic rumination. Old chestnuts are invariably centred on fantastically important foundational moral lessons. Unfortunately, just as invariably, we first learn them by heart, then parrot them ad infinitum until they are just sounds, assume their wisdom as having been granted, become bored or bemused by them, eventually forget all about them, and then immediately set about making the same mistakes all over again.
Please feel free to use anything you think you can, or to task me with the dismantling of any particular branch of foolishness that happens to irk you.
Excellent summary! I have shared this on my Twitter account. https://x.com/Nemasoil/status/1763010473992040533?s=20
Brilliant summary, thank you.
This is an excellent summary. Thank you for sharing it. The term 'social justice' has been used as a Trojan Horse for Critical Social Justice ideology. If you have the time (and inclination!) here is report I wrote last year with Dr Kirsty Miller about the politicisation of clinical psychology training courses here in the UK: https://save-mental-health.com/training-courses/
This is an amazing resource. Thank you for making it available. I will be sure to share widely. Critical Social Justice is definitely distinct from other forms of Social Justice and folks should be very clear and think critically when the term 'Social Justice' is used that we understand what is meant. I find similar thoughts on the concept of "racial equity" which I outline in my essay on Race Ideology-in-Practice: Racial Equity in American Learning Environments which is available at: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/race-ideology-in-practice
Tabia,
Your article is an excellent resource! I learned much from it (and, I like how you make use of concept summary tables ! ;-) ). Thank you for sharing!!
Yes, you are correct that we will not agree on Marxism. All of the organizations I mentioned can’t possibly be that misled, so maybe it’s you.
I am an artist (among other things) and am well aware of the history of patrons throughout the ages. I simply find the comparison in relation to Marx rather laughable. He ended up being financed ( and sponging off of) people he worked on theory with. This was more in the sense of a guest who refused to leave than a beneficiary of largesse from some wealthy donor. The reason I think this matters is that he envisions a governmental system which would enable a populus to do exactly that.
As far as Keynsian economics goes, that is something that is embraced by the far Left in my experience and utilizes Socialist principles ( such as “creating” jobs , printing cask and inflating the economy by large funding and welfare programs. Obama and Biden have utilized it and it has been a dismal failure.
You no doubt approach Marx from an economic standpoint because that is where your background lies. He is, however, founder of a movement that is much more than that. Transferring the means of production to “the people” never happens because the government, in his eyes, IS “the people”. Neat trick to give up one’s autonomy entirely and be deluded that you are doing a GOOD thing. That’ why when I hear words like “Imperialism”, anti-Capitalist statements and your theory that clearly ends with the Unicorns and rainbows of a one-world government (such as the World Economic Forum is trying to sell us along with replacing our meat with crickets) I truly have to wonder: if you aren’t a Marxist, what are you?
The principles of collectivism, anti-Capitalism, historical revisionism, the de-emphasizing family ties as opposed to government ties, the expectation that the State will be your Mom, Dad and Comrade, and the oppressed/oppressor model are indeed Marxist. Class struggle is Marxist. Neo-Marxists have substituted race for class but the hierarchies are the same.
You don’t have to agree with me. In the way that Marx’s personality matters not to you, Marxist theories don’t matter to me. The veil of compassion, altruism and the “better world” that we keep hearing Marx is all about is utterly useless. It’s a smoke screen. Marx and his economic theories have never made any place better. They have only enriched autocracies in brutal ways that Capitalism doesn’t—- though Socialists delight in their constant complaints about wealthy people. Greed plays a part in both economic theories. It’s just that Capitalism has historically enabled more people to rise out of poverty than Communism or Marxism ever could.
Nice discussion. We will agree to disagree. There is no possible way that everyone on the planet can reach “a high level of wealth and technological advancement.” People are too different in culture, intellect, abilities, desires and a host of other factors. Not everyone’s idea of Utopia is the same. Unfortunately, there are still megalomaniacs with a Messiah Complex out there who believe the old theories (Progressives, ironically) who think they and the government can “save” humanity. More death and destruction has been unleashed on the world by deluded do-gooders than inherent evil. We always need to be skeptical when a government entity arrives to “help.”
The above comment apparently was meant to be a response to Yesenia, in the thread below.
Yes. I do that frequently. Thank you for the correction.
Thank you for daring to mention "possible biological differences"!
The absolute dismissal of the current movements that self-identify as Marxist of the core of Marxist philosophy--historical materialism--makes them as Marxist as self-identifying as female renders a man a woman. The reification of individuality, individual desires, and identities as central to justice and social change are also a slap in the face of Marxist principles, which were to apply to humanity as a whole, and never to groups divided according to their identities (self or otherwise), their race, sex, sexual orientation, or any other marker, other than their relation to the means of production: did they own the means of production, or did they have to work for a living?
So no, sorry, just because a group self-identifies as Marxist or even post-Marxist, does not mean that they actually embrace Marxist analysis. Because Marxism was, first and foremost, a perspective from which to understand the way societies worked that was based on understanding their ECONOMIC structures, and nothing about the so-called critical theories of today that are based on group identities, even remember that there is a thing called "the economy".
even in economic terms, Marxism has always been constructed on an "Oppressed vs. Oppressor" basis. today race is just substituted for economic hierarchies. These hierarchies were also groups ("proletariat", etc.) and not individuals. An inherent part of Marxism, which Marx himself saw as an introduction to full-blown Communism, was the process of constant self-criticism. (Hence, Critical race theory and the famous Struggle Sessions that Mao used as a tool of repression. I find great similarity between these and sessions in which employees have been forced into examining their 'White Privilege". There is no redeeming answer for which a white person can give up his or her "oppressor" role. Unfortunately, leaders from Stalin to Castro to Chavez always promise to make a better, more "equal", more robust and ultimately compassionate society. They do this by completely ignoring human nature, whether the perceived inequalities are based on economics, biology, race, ability, or any other categories which are ultimately used to designate victims and their victimizers. In the end, human nature loves freedom and individuality which foils any dreams of Utopia through forced conformity. That's when the killing starts. So, yes, BLM , DEI and "Diversity" programs, Cancel Culture, media censorship is cultural Marxism and it aligns perfectly with historical Marxism. If it continues to follow history, we will certainly all be "equal" as in equally miserable while an elite ruling class dictates the entire scope of our lives--first through guilt and emotional manipulation via fear tactics (COVID, Climate CHange) and via outright tyranny when the populus pushes back. It's what the World economic Forum (Hey, there's that "economic" thing again....) means when they tell us "You will own nothing and you will be happy".
On a side note, Marx himself didn't work for a living. He was a parasite, haunting coffee shops and sponging off of his friends while avoiding bathing as much as possible. He was the first "slacker." This may have a lot to do with his philosophy and those who continue to follow him, wittingly or unwittingly. You will never hear that from your college professor.
Marx did not work for a living, yes. He lived from what Engels and other friends, who regarded themselves as his patrons, gave him. He wrote and analyzed and thought, and his patrons paid him, which was not as uncommon in the 19th century as it is now, such kind of patronage of a person considered a great artist or a great intellectual who needed to not have a "day job" in order to use his skills and talent in what he was good at, which was writing. He lived in relative poverty and his kids suffered for this. But my post was not about Marx the man, or Marxist-Leninist parties, Stalinism, or Maoism, but of the root of Marxist philosophy, historical materialism. It wasn't about "oppressors versus oppressed" in general, it wasn't something that could be applied in that way, because the center of the analysis was economic. In fact, that is one of its weaknesses, that it does not regard other inequalities as important in comparison to the economic division between owners of capital and the proletariat; orthodox Marxist philosophy was oblivious to cultural differences, racial issues, historical construction of meaning, national identity, etc.
I am not a Marxist because I think that patriarchal relations and historical relations based on ethnic/racial/national inequalities matter, and because I think that elements of human psychology, particularly tribalism, were ignored by Marx and other communist/socialist thinkers (those who agreed with him and those who postulated rival communist/socialist models, and anarchist models of "utopian" communities). But identitarianism is anathema to Marxism, because, again, Marxist communism only "works" if it addresses and encompasses all of humanity. It ignores, and in fact, rejects as negative and "false consciousness", the relevance of racial, cultural, ethnic, national, and sexual differences.
I assume that you use the notion of "historical Marxism" to mean the economic, political and social systems set in place in non-capitalist societies that embraced socialism, such as Cuba, China, North Korea, the USSR, etc., and, more generally, Marxist-Leninist parties (perhaps Trotskyites too, even though they and Leninists regard each other as the epitome of opposition, the two ends of a "spectrum" of socialist belief, the two sides of the ideological binary of the Left, etc.). But Marxism was not an applicable philosophy, just like Adam Smith's theoretical capitalism is inapplicable. Which is not to say that these regimes did not adopt Marxist principles--they did, and they failed horribly. Marxism, like any philosophy and any political ideology, does not have "the whole truth" about how economies and societies work, but it is very useful for understanding capitalism, and that was what Marx intended to study. Not human identity, not racism, not culture, not even socialism, but how did capitalism work. When it is used to look at other things, it doesn't work, because it wasn't meant to be used for that.
My understanding of Marxism doesn't correlate with yours. I hear an intellectually whitewashed version Marx, his philosophy, its intention, and the historical results. You might want to look into what his "patrons" said about him. He was far from an artist. He was a curmudgeon , a narcisistic miscreant. He may have deluded himself that he remained poor and "sacrificed" for his children. Virtue-signaling was popular even then.
OK, to be fair, I can leave the man alone, but it is very difficult to separate one,s philosophy from one's moral underpinnings. I don't see how tribalism could have been "ignored" by Marx (even if that's what your Marxist professors told you) when he divided people squarely into categories. It actually doesn't matter whether that was based on economics then or the way BLM and Critical Race theory does it now. Oppression and Oppressor is a key theme in Marx. It cannot be dismissed. When the rubber hits the road all of these high-minded philosophical underpinnings disappear. Yes, I am talking about Socialst/Communist societies in practice. Theory is just so much baloney because, in fact, Marxist Communism as theorized has never worked. Yes, I know, there is always some fresh-faced fool who laments "But it has never been done correctly!". It will never be done correctly because it flies in the face of human nature. Dictators have tried to impose groupthink and collectivism on populations by force to mold human nature into something more malleable to suit their needs through violence, police states and imprisonment. (Do they still make students read "1984" anymore? Orwell considered himslf a Socialist but this was his take on what Socialism/Marxism does to a society.) There are a lot of buzzwords and sophhistry in your comments ("patriarchy" is my favorite") but most of that is irrelevant. Neo-Marxists have found their demon in Capitalism and the white Male (as Marx did in Capitalism and the Wealthy Male though there is certainly overlap) and you ignore the fact that many of today's "revolutionary" organizations openly declare themselves Marxist as BLM does. They have deep connections to organizations with Communist ties such as the Weather Underground, Angela Davis, Joanne Chesimard, and Black Nationalists who are also Marxists as the Black Panthers were. I find much of the theory you regurgitate to be nonsensical and more of an attempt to obfuscate rather than provide clarity. Most of it doesn't matter in terms of the Neo-Marxist idology of 2023. I do not agree that Marxism is of any real use in understanding Capitalism--unless you oppose Capitalism. Adam Smith is still quite relevant from the point of view of Capitalists--but then again Neo-Marxists would also do away with our Constitution entirely. They would replace it with a Government-centered Constitution in which, like the Soviet Constitution, people are truly entitled to "free" everything: Jobs, housing, health care, child care---which seems to be the direction that this country has been moving in since Obama. Obama, despite his folksy pandering, comes from a Black Nationalist church, had Communist parents and a Comminist mentor in Frank Marshall Davis. I don't need some "whole truth" about Marism, Capitalism or where we are going as a nation. I have seen enough general truth in the past 60 years or so to know thata we are on a destructive path and that path most closely resembles Marxism/Communism. I also know that is not a mistake, it is deliberate. You can tell me ad nauseum what "theory" says about it but what I care about is what I see. It ain't pretty.
I think we will never agree on what Marxism is (for me, it is an analysis of capitalism as an economic system, which posits that there is an inherent conflict in human history between those who own the means of production and those who don't, and that this tension can only be resolved when the ownership of the means of production is collective, but this transformation can only be achieved when the entire planet has reached a high level of wealth and technological advancement), so we might as well leave it at that. But first I want to say two things: when I used the word "artist" I was not referring to Marx, but to the relationship between patrons and people who, like Marx, didn't do "productive" work but intellectual/artistic work. In any case, I am prejudiced against artists, as I believe that many of them are narcissistic and self-obsessed. I also have no evidence to suppose that Marx the intellectual was not that kind of person--he might have been. It matters little to me, his personality.
The second thing is that I graduated from college more than 25 years ago and studied Economics, and had ONE Marxist professor, a man who was so orthodox that we read only texts from the 1960s, and who was eventually sacked after only one year of working in the university. I had ONE OTHER left-leaning professor in my Department--but he was of the heterodox sort, and would probably fall under the category of Keynesian rather than Marxist. I had ONE sociology professor who had been a Marxist in her youth, but was also heterodox in her perspective, which was squarely Feminist, and extremely critical, therefore, of Marxist and Leftist movements in general, which were, in Latin America, where I am from, focused on national liberation/anti-imperialism/the class struggle/democratization, but quite openly skeptical and dismissive of women's liberation as a secondary, "maybe later", issue.
The world is not the USA, and the "neo-Marxism" and "Marxism" espoused by USA movements is based on self-identification, which, again, is meaningless. BLM may call themselves Marxist, or Maoist, or Confucianist, but if they do not read the texts and analyze the ideas and embrace the core principles of the political ideologies or philosophical analyses that these schools of thought espoused, they are simply self-identifying the same way that some males are identifying as women and demanding that we all say, yes, Ma'am.
I really appreciate this, and this is an issue that I've had to grapple with when talking to my friends who are ready to hit me with a bigotry accusation the moment I dissent from Social Justice dogma.
But the distinction I usually use is Liberal vs Leftist, as in: The American liberal dispensation of rights earned through debate and the ballot box has done a lot more to help black people than the silly Kill Whitey! rhetoric that emanates from Leftist academia.
There is a rich tradition of African American uplift that predates the Leftist fever dreams of people like bell hooks and Angela Davis, and you can believe that American blacks have faced terrible treatment for centuries, that they still need various forms of help, but also believe that people like Kendi and Nikole Hannah-Jones are obvious charlatans and that BLM was a scam designed to score "white guilt money" (not my words, but those of one of its founders).
(But this is just one example, and I say the same when it comes to gay rights vs Queer Theory: one is designed to help actual humans thrive in the world, the other is designed to make campus radicals get off on "performing transgression," when they're actually apex conformists who've lived their entire lives in a state-subsidized epistemic coocon.)
As for the term "Social Justice": it is their property and there is no way to get it back. Instead I would just use 'liberal' in its original definition.
We must try to get it back, imho.
"Are you for social justice?" How many folks would have the temerity to say "no." Or, say "no but I'm a classic liberal." Virtually no one.
Alternative:
"Are you for social justice?"
"Yes, I support liberal social justice, but not critical social justice."
"What is the difference?"
:"Would you like to see a table that summaries the differences?"
"Ok...."
Hey, I'm just a random man on the internet, I have no platform or political project.
I have been able to explain to friends that I'm a liberal opposed to a Leftist, but this only works in a more personal setting where you can wander in your thoughts a bit. (And also, as far as dealing with anyone in the Blue Bubble, their beliefs are mostly religious or at least tribal, so they would have to change their lives to change their minds.)
Either way, I encourage anyone to use whatever words or techniques they prefer to at least present some opposition to the ideological takeover of America.
thanks
Well done - and I'm decidedly liberal, although I think Marcuse's one of the best analysts of modernity (his Critique of Pure Tolerance is fascist though.)
One only wishes that the distinctions could be as easy as the table categorises. Surely it is a good summary of liberal and "woke" worldviews. But of social justice?
To begin with, insofar as liberal thought entertains the idea of social justice, it completely entertains the idea of social groups and classes, which existed far before Marxism even if it has been central to the economic philosophy of Marxism.
Social justice as the problem of a state of things in which some groups have objectively disproportionately more power than others, has been and remains a question vastly debated by liberal thinkers. I understand that for many Americans class does not exist, but it is a fine blind spot. Class will not disappear because you look the other way. But a liberal approach to the problems of inequality between groups is certainly different from a woke, Marxist, Fascist, or religious approach.
And many of the philosophies and ideas mentioned are partly shared by thinkers in one field and the other, because, well, thinkers, not pamphlet-writers. The history of ideas is never so simple.
But again. I find it completely useless to put this in terms of What Kind of Social Justice, because the term "social justice" is mostly a Marxist term leaked down to woke thought, and anybody who talks of social justice these last years is irremediably woke. The liberals (who are a far more diversified spectrum than the woke, especially between the two sides of the Atlantic) more usually speak of more just and fair societies and of balancing social inequalities.
Social Justice is originally a Catholic phrase, stolen from Taparelli by political fanatics of all sorts. Social Justice, as it was explained in my Catholic schooling, is the concept of the sharing of material overabundance by those with more than enough and giving it to those lacking with no expectation of earthly recompense, all done under the watchful, judicious and benevolent eye of church authority. Weird thing about Italian social movements on both the left and right: they used religious terms and concepts pretty freely and, in this case, eerily appropriately.
Not so weird, as the entirety of Italian culture is inextricably entangled with Catholicism (I am half Italian, and am aware of the peculiarity).
However the social justice concepts of Taparelli D'Azeglio and Rosmini were far from stolen: those ideas had circulated in Catholic thought since the Counter-reformation, and were spread far and wide by the Company of Jesus. For Rosmini (I have not read Taparelli but I doubt he strays) it was a matter of theodicy, bringing back Aquinas against the "Aristotelian" scientism of the (mostly Protestant-led) Industrial Revolution.
And it might be interesting to see how much of the religious inspiration found in that line of thought about social justice transfers into the woke orthodoxy we have today, which is itself a form of religious thought, however without god. After all the entirety of the social theory of Marx (not so much his economic theory) is also a form of lay religion, complete with end of days paradise on earth.
The Enlightenment is a very small light, in the middle of a lot of fundamentally irrational thought masked as logic. Humans bloody love religious thought, it makes them feel good and righteous. While rational thought makes you constantly aware that truth, goodness, right, are things to be continuously always tested, adjusted and searched. Which thought is easier and more comforting?
OH! And ironically, social justice was supposed to have the effect of PREVENTING revolutions.
Yeah. And that type indeed would be. How tragically dismaying. For this type certainly does not.
You note that liberal and critical sides have both explored issues surrounding social justice -- indeed. But then you suggest that it is a useless distinction?
The point of the post is that the term "social justice" has recently been redefined to conform far more to critical theory ideology than to Enlightenment liberalism (as you note). Everyone, liberal or critical, knows that the term "social justice" refers to something as good as mom's apple pie. Both support it.
But the possibility of engaging in constructive communication is extinguished when words no longer have shared meaning. The average layperson is left befuddled. They know that mom's apple pie is good, but now it tastes funny. Hum, not sure why. Weird.
No, I do not suggest that it is an useless distinction. I suggest that the genealogy trees defined on the table, especially the genealogy trees of ideas and thinkers supposed to be be different do not help distinguish, because a number of the thinkers in the "woke" line of descent have expressed ideas, regarding matters of social fairness, quite compatible with enlightenment and liberalism and very incompatible with the woke ideas. To be honest, the only thinker who more or less in toto bears responsibility for what has become the woke orthodoxy is Derrida: the father of all critical theories, which from textual deconstructionism spread to almost every discipline, where they remained marginal, avant-garde and rather harmless pens where hyperintellectual scholars earned their living without much connection to the real world -- until the founding principle was adopted first by a section of feminism, then spread to gender studies and anthropology, and finally became (in a rather simplified fashion and through a very shallow and limited reading of Foucault) the backbone of the social justice identitarian ideology of the last two decades.
What I actually suggest is that the term "social justice" is today a term that goes beyond the meaning of its components and how they might have been used previously. What I suggest is that, just like "national socialism" became a very specific term in a very specific ideology in the 1930s, "social justice" today is not and cannot be used by anybody but the woke crowd. Some traditional Marxists may have continued to employ it, but increasingly specify what they are talking about in order not to be taken for woke.
So I find that while it is worthwhile to attempt to disentangle the laudable theoretical aims of the woke ideology (a more just and equal society, free of discrimination) from its methods (grievance-driven group-think and and intimidation) and its philosophy (division of humanity into rigid entities based on imposed identities and a mythology of all-encompassing power dynamics), to make the distinction on the term "social justice" is both simplistic and confusing.
I think that the average layperson today is not very befuddled in front of the term "social justice", but recognises it for the woke dog-whistle that it is. The risk for the average layperson is to reject even adjacent concepts of justice and fairness because of the woke taint. And to help make that distinction, the table presented does, in my opinion, make a rather poor job.
This is excellent! Indeed, so many people are fooled by these redefinitions and providing some clarity should help.
Nice to have the scorecard.
"Can't tell the players without a program."
Objecting to ‘Social justice’ is actually fairly straightforward. ‘Justice’ should have no modifier.
Such modifiers only serve to describe what particular flavour of ‘injustice’ is being recommended.
Justice is hard enough to lay our hands on as it is, without intentionally doling out injustices; fuelled on spite and resentment, and acted out against a dodgy backdrop of supposedly ‘seeking to even-up the cosmic scales of historical inequity’.
I know it’s a platitude, but two wrongs really *don’t* make a right. It became a platitude because seeking vengeance, while in our nature, emerges from that part of our nature that is self destructive, and socially immiserating. It should certainly never be touted as a ‘virtue’, and legislatively enshrined. 
‘Justice’, unadulterated, must continue to serve as our target. Yes, it is hard to hit, but only justice brings peace. That is what balanced scales represent; the situation at rest.
Revenge is a broad target, and far less distant. This is because an outcome serving and sating vengeance is prescribed subjectively; by our lizard brains when we feel wronged. Acting to affect such outcomes subsequently produces no balance, and so brings no peace; it is the action that perpetuates conflict; an overreach that powers a persistent oscillation of suffering, recrimination, and retribution.
I’m not a fan of injustice, therefore I wholeheartedly object to ‘social’ justice, and all similar midwit foolishness.
Hear, hear!
This is a test. I am replying to Angela, but Angela replied to Richard. Usually (always?) when someone replies to a comment on a Substack, they get an email saying "so and so has replied to your comment" or something like that. . So, Richard, did you get an email pinging you on this comment of mine?
If so, I am wondering if you'd like to me to put up that comment, or one that you add some spit and polish to, as a guest post. It is an excellent point.
Many other emails in the box from you about related pieces, but no mention of this ‘reply to a reply’.
There are only really two thoughts in my comment above.
The first is just logical, concerning semantic modifiers; All such modifiers of ‘justice’ are, necessarily, a call for less justice. It was not originally my own insight, but it should form part of every thinker’s standard armament against those who smugly cheer for ‘social justice’; daring others to condemn themselves by challenging the nobly clothed clarion call.
The second is simply the old saw differentiating justice from vengeance, with some embryonic rumination. Old chestnuts are invariably centred on fantastically important foundational moral lessons. Unfortunately, just as invariably, we first learn them by heart, then parrot them ad infinitum until they are just sounds, assume their wisdom as having been granted, become bored or bemused by them, eventually forget all about them, and then immediately set about making the same mistakes all over again.
Please feel free to use anything you think you can, or to task me with the dismantling of any particular branch of foolishness that happens to irk you.
Objectivity and logic are tools of the white supremacist patriarchy! Reeeeeee!