Am I a ‘right-wing Marxist’?
The justifiably angry response by Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and other conservative commentators to a “privileged white” holding forth at Forbes (of all places) about “three ways to decenter whiteness in the workplace” reminded me of something else. It was my disagreement with a critic reviewing an anthology of paleoconservative writings I edited earlier this year. This critic insisted that my colleagues and I were not really American conservatives, but rather “right-wing Marxists” fixated on class struggle. We allegedly believed that conservatives should be spearheading a populist movement against the rich and powerful.
At the time I emphatically denied that charge, but I should qualify my denial by indicating there was at least a kernel of truth in my critic’s reproach. Although I certainly don’t believe, like Marx, that all belief systems and values are reducible to material interests or that socialism can lead to a happier human condition, it does seem that the cultural war we are currently losing is very much about class. True, other factors may have contributed to the crisis, including deep racial, sexual, and moral divides. But what seems to me a pervasive driving force is class war.
Contrary to what Marx taught, but following the views of James Burnham, Samuel Francis, and others who have presented this thesis, I would argue that the Western world, particularly since the 1960s, has been moving ever more deeply into a managerial society melded with an all-embracing welfare state. We are also burdened by state propaganda agencies pretending to keep us “informed” that promote further government managerial control over our lives and thoughts.
We doubt that we can win our social and cultural war by telling ourselves that we are now the freest society in human history. New strategies must be pursued for dealing with leftist class domination.
Quite disastrously, this new class has taken power in every major Western society and pushes everywhere the same radical values, albeit in different languages. Although this class has achieved dominance, attempts to see it as a continuation of the traditional bourgeoisie or, even less credibly, as an extension of some WASP old-boys network are ridiculously mistaken. Our present ruling class has taken over from older, now-displaced elites.
Equally wrong-headed are efforts to treat this struggle as a battle over “whiteness.” As I have pointed out ad nauseam, it is predominantly white people living in tony neighborhoods who are exercising power. They may stir up black racial resentments, but they are really acting to increase their own power and riches. Some black people may be foolish enough to yield to this organized demagoguery, while black politicians happily go along with the mostly white ruling class because they are allowed to line their pockets and rage against lower-class white people.
But it’s all a scam. Deluded black people gain no real advantage from trashing cities and pulling down the statues of long-dead American heroes, except for photo opportunities courtesy of our corporate leftist media. Those who incite mob violence or call for opening jails and letting out violent criminals do win points, however, for stoking righteous indignation. They also use the black underclass the way the czarist regime used Ukrainian peasants, whom the Russian political authorities aroused against Jewish shopkeepers to divert attention from their own misrule.
No one I know on the populist right is challenging traditional moral or social verities. Most of us would fit the definition of a “cultural conservative.” What distinguishes us from our critics in the conservative establishment is our weariness with certain ritualistic practices. We have no interest in recycled pep talks about “the permanent things” or seminars about lowering corporate taxes or waging wars for “democracy.” We doubt that we can win our social and cultural war by telling ourselves that we are now the freest society in human history. New strategies must be pursued for dealing with leftist class domination. The decline of American constitutional freedom and the collapse of most social decencies since I grew up in the 1950s has been appalling. Unless we on the right can do something to reverse this process, our problems are likely to become worse.
Most significantly, what we oppose is both structural and cultural. We are being controlled by a demonic ruling class that has declared war on normal, God-fearing people. These elites are obviously driven by class hatred. Hence their persistent, heated attempts to punish ordinary white people who still accept traditional gender distinctions and resist the left’s efforts to turn all received human practices on their head.
And let’s not make any mistake about the level of hostility. Our ruling class includes those who, until a few decades ago, would have been rightly regarded as sexual deviants, socially dissatisfied women, and antiwhite race-baiters. Cultural hatred has been there all along. Christopher Rufo’s carefully researched work on the origins of our cultural revolutionary leaders underlines the loathing for normality that has driven our present left since the 1960s. Decade by decade, this group has tightened its grip on vital institutions while imposing its counter-values. These ideologues have become integral to the ruling class and have accompanied its ascendancy.
