It's nearly impossible to engage with 20th-century thinkers without encountering the influence of Marx. For many on the political right, even acknowledging Marx's contributions can feel like heresy. Yet, dismissing Marx outright without understanding his impact and the context of his ideas would be a mistake. To grasp why Marxism and other utopian ideologies gained traction during the turn of the century, it is important to understand the historical disruptions that shaped his thought and the subsequent integration of his ideas into various intellectual traditions, including those of his critics.
Historical Context
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were writing during a time of massive change. The Industrial Revolution disrupted the very fabric of human society. Before the Industrial Revolution, a man could provide for himself and his family through his labor. He could work the land or take up a small trade, and this would be enough to get by. After the Industrial Revolution, man could no longer survive by his labor but rather by selling his labor. Large portions of the population were forced into factories, enduring horrendous working conditions. Many, though not all, factory owners (bourgeoisie) were extremely exploitative. When Marx complained about children getting crushed to death in factories, it was because it was actually happening. The Industrial Revolution was brutal and disturbing for many, and Marx provided a solution.
Marxism is fundamentally materialist (dialectical and historical), focusing on economic relations and class struggle as the driving forces of historical change. Orthodox Marxism advocates for the overthrow of capitalist systems and the establishment of a classless society. Most of this did not concern the average worker, who cared more about their living conditions than dialectical materialism.
Influence on The Right
There are strong undertones of Marxist thought in many right-wing thinkers including Sam Francis and James Burnham. Sam Francis, as a paleoconservative, did not advocate for the abolition of capitalism but rather criticized the distortions he perceived within it, particularly those brought by globalism and the managerial state. Francis's analyses involved a critique of the ruling elite. While Marx focused on the bourgeoisie as the capitalist class exploiting the proletariat, Francis was concerned with the "managerial elite" or "New Class," who he saw as controlling modern bureaucratic and corporate institutions.
James Burnham’s intellectual trajectory is an example of a thinker who transitioned from Marxism to a form of conservatism that included elements of managerial theory and geopolitical realism. His early work was influenced by Marxist thought, but his later theories represented a significant departure from Marx, focusing on the rise of a managerial elite and rejecting key Marxist principles such as historical materialism and the inevitability of proletarian revolution. Burnham’s work is thus a complex blend of initial Marxist influence and subsequent conservative evolution. His seminal work, The Managerial Revolution, posited that a new class of managers, not the proletariat, would come to dominate the socio-economic landscape, a view that diverged sharply from Marx.
Modern Class Dynamics
The managerial class that dominates our current age can be seen as rule by the bourgeoisie. There is little difference between the bourgeois/merchant class and the managerial elite. Both are driven by the accumulation of capital and are willing to exploit the working class to maximize efficiency and increase their power. This working class vs. managerial elite conflict is, in many ways, an updated version of the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat, at the end of the day they are simply different manifestations of class conflict.
Class Resentment and Solutions
Both the early adopters of Marxism and the current online right are driven, in part, by class resentment. For some, this means they see themselves as disaffected elites, and while this is fanciful at best, they are in the minority. The majority, much like the Russian factory workers at the turn of the century, simply wanted a less oppressive and exploitative bourgeoisie or, in our case, a managerial class.
Marxists want to see the means of production turned over to the unwashed masses. This doesn't work and never will. Those on the right understand this, and as a result, our solution is a return to a properly ordered class structure. Hierarchy is crucial to the right-wing conception of the world. We understand that class exists whether you want it to or not. The means of production should not be seized and given to the workers. Rather, their control should be handed to a proper aristocracy that prioritizes something other than efficiency and profit. In short, the Marxist wants the destruction of class, and the right wants a responsible and properly ordered class.
In the end, it is important that we understand that while we reject Marx as the vindictive, jealous loser that he was, we also recognize that his critiques were often responding to the legitimate problems of his day. Because of this, many of our most beloved thinkers were either former Marxists or touched with the Marxist brush. They carried the residue of class conflict with them, it’s in their framing and their language, and it has, in many ways, infused itself into our thoughts as well. We should recognize the Marxist tendencies within our thoughts (as small as they might be) so that we may properly address the problems of our day and turn a tendency toward class warfare into class restoration.
-TJS
Luckily Postmodernism is exposing materialism and Marxism as a stupid way of thinking. It’s Aristotelianism or nihilism
“our solution is a return to a properly ordered class structure.”
Who fleshes out the economic specifics so it’s not just vague chit chat?