Marxism and the Absence of Socialism in America: A Conversation with Carlos Garrido

We welcome philosopher Carlos Garrido for a conversation on the theoretical and practical challenges facing the left in America. Garrido is the author of The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism and he specializes in Marxist theory, the history of socialism in America and pragmatist philosophy. He is a director and philosopher at the ‪@MidwesternMarx‬ think tank and media organization.
In this conversation we discuss the concept of the purity fetish, the variations within Western Marxism and we move to discuss the practical challenges facing the American left. We also analyze the best accounts of why socialism has never happened in America. Please check out Carlos's work www.midwesternmarx.com

Пікірлер: 35

  • @futurehomestead1263
    @futurehomestead12633 ай бұрын

    great conversation! have Carlos on again.

  • @lorenzobetancourt5559
    @lorenzobetancourt55593 ай бұрын

    Very professional conversation on topics, very controversial, but conclusions are objective, thank you.

  • @levileveridge6621
    @levileveridge66213 ай бұрын

    Valuable conversation

  • @MotorhomeMarx
    @MotorhomeMarx2 ай бұрын

    Killer analysis

  • @alexbenedict9514
    @alexbenedict95143 ай бұрын

    Fantastic conversation y’all. I’ll have to read Carlos’ work. Recently, I moved to Cleveland and will be working at a union printshop. Carlos and the folks at Midwestern Marxists are absolutely correct that the conditions for revolutionary action with workers is ripe here. Nearly all of my coworkers are frustrated with the decline of their living standards, but there aren’t many organs for that energy or individuals helping their coworkers and friends organize. Protests still seem to be the primary mode of action.

  • @toddr.doherty1334

    @toddr.doherty1334

    3 ай бұрын

    Noah from MWM lives in Cleveland.

  • @robertmontgomery6256
    @robertmontgomery62563 ай бұрын

    I’m a big fan of Carlos’s work. Trotsky focused his polemic with philosopher James Burnham around a defense of dialectical materialism. He saw Burnham as a reflection of the hegemony of pragmatism as the native philosophy of American capitalism. Trotsky is the devil for Carlos I know, but he’d do well to look into Trotsky’s “In Defense of Marxism.”

  • @emancipations

    @emancipations

    3 ай бұрын

    Carlos and I plan to have future dialogues on Marxism and pragmatism, specifically around my essay cosmonautmag.com/2022/05/the-rise-and-fall-of-homegrown-american-marxism/ Additionally, it is worth pointing attention to the work of George Novack and his life's long critique of Dewey which was actually written at the behest of Trotsky!!

  • @robertmontgomery6256

    @robertmontgomery6256

    3 ай бұрын

    @@emancipations I’ll be looking forward to these conversations. You two work so well together.

  • @ludviglidstrom6924
    @ludviglidstrom69243 ай бұрын

    Great discussion!

  • @charlesbrown1365
    @charlesbrown13653 ай бұрын

    We will win socialism !

  • @doozledumbler5393
    @doozledumbler53933 ай бұрын

    Hegel treated the Heraclitean and Parmenidian philosophies dialectically.

  • @Magar0monk
    @Magar0monk3 ай бұрын

    Socialism and communism are two different system. Yes you can start with socialism but you have to move from socialism to communism if not it will Fail like soviet. Also how can you say i don’t know about Chinese communist party if your communist. You guys have to learn about Maoism and how they defeated empire many times if you wanna win

  • @shan-chaofu5079
    @shan-chaofu50793 ай бұрын

    There is great discrepancy between China's international policy and the reality of domestic exercises of power. I guess it's fair to say that China still honors the spirit of Bandung Conference to this day, and I'm grateful that Carlos mentioned a similar point. But the reproduction of power itself, or how it stabilizes the regime, takes a great toll. The middle class in the super metropolises enjoys great freedom(given that they're fully de-politicized), and this is not happening to the working class. One of the precious heritages from Mao time is the exalted subjectivity of peasants and workers. But this subjectivity is now dimmed, only able to breathe out some occasional sparks. With respect to the attitude toward China, there're obviously two contradicting views in western Marxists, and I think you are both right. It's impossible to merge these two contradicting perspectives, and I guess this very impossibility, this unquenchable parallax, pertains to the essence of all actually existing/-ed socialism. It's our urgent task to theorize this parallax, without which the great tragedies of the 20th century will simply reincarnate. And the critique of "purity fetishism" is definitely a good starting point.

  • @Ruairitrick
    @Ruairitrick3 ай бұрын

    He's got through a lot of bull about 'scientific socialism and 'dialectics' to express that doesn't like people making normative critiques socialist regimes.

  • @organiccomposition
    @organiccomposition3 ай бұрын

    Its all ok, degenerated Stalinism can't hurt me

  • @rv706
    @rv7063 ай бұрын

    "...dialectic..." I think Marxism should abandon wacky Nineteenth Century metaphysical talk and concentrate on material reality. There's no way we can make sense of philosophers like Hegel, once we've encountered Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, and the resulting anti-metaphysical critique.

  • @ludviglidstrom6924

    @ludviglidstrom6924

    3 ай бұрын

    There’s no theory or philosophy without metaphysics. Without it you don’t have any ontology whatsoever; there’s no “material reality”, because that concept doesn’t mean anything without a metaphysical or ontological basis.

  • @Continuous_Struggle
    @Continuous_Struggle3 ай бұрын

    It is hilarious for Carlos to call “western Marxism” idealist, when he has such a poor grasp on the history of the icm and does not reconstruct the two-line struggles that played out over the last hundred and fifty years.

  • @antediluvianatheist5262

    @antediluvianatheist5262

    3 ай бұрын

    He's also right, so there's that.

  • @daheikkinen
    @daheikkinen3 ай бұрын

    End socialism now.

  • @kippgoeden

    @kippgoeden

    3 ай бұрын

    End capitalist imperialism ☭

  • @eIiass
    @eIiass3 ай бұрын

    End socialism and communism

  • @kippgoeden

    @kippgoeden

    3 ай бұрын

    End capitalist imperialism ☭

  • @eIiass

    @eIiass

    3 ай бұрын

    @@kippgoedentell me how socialism or communism could work because it hasn’t yet

  • @kippgoeden

    @kippgoeden

    3 ай бұрын

    @@eIiass if it didn’t work, the US wouldn’t use your taxpayer dollars to do everything to stop socialism. It was working pretty well in the USSR, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cambodia before the United States obliterated the economies of those nations. Embargoes, wars, endless bombing campaigns, military coups, assassination, etc. If capitalism worked, the government wouldn’t have to intervene every few years to stabilize the market. Capitalism only works for the few who can squeeze their way to the top by stepping on others. Capitalism requires a poor working class to do the bidding of the masters. Stop parroting what your news media tells you. The US is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and the workers have zero say over what goes on, no matter what they vote for.

  • @ludviglidstrom6924

    @ludviglidstrom6924

    3 ай бұрын

    @@eIiass Watch the video

  • @antediluvianatheist5262

    @antediluvianatheist5262

    3 ай бұрын

    ​@@eIiassChina says hello. Also Cuba, Vietnam etc.

Келесі