richard barbrook on 28 Feb 2001 23:56:49 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> In Defence of Cultural Studies |
Hiya, I've been amused that all the recent contributions seem to assume that Marx was opposed social democracy. Wrong! Marx was (literally) the founding father of this movement. One daughter helped to set up the British Labour party, another was involved in the precursor of the French Socialist party and his closest comrades created the German Social Democratic party. In the introduction to volume 1 of 'Das Kapital', Marx explains that his critique of political economy is inspired by the introduction of the Factory Acts, i.e. the reform of capitalism in the interests of the proletariat. Not surprisingly, until the 1917 Russian revolution - and even up to the outbreak of the Cold War, Marxism was widely recognised as *the* theory of the mass parliamentary socialist parties. Now the evil empire has collapsed, there is no longer any reason to pretend otherwise. Yet, I guess that we should expect that Leninists and Autonomists will carry on ignoring the politics of their theoretical guru. But what is really funny is when a self-proclaimed 'card carrying social democrat' appears to be completely unaware of the history of his own movement! Certainly, Marx's work can't provide us with the answers to everything. However, our founding father did work very hard to create a theoretical tool-box for the analysis of really-existing capitalism, especially in its liberal variants. As a card carrying social democrat myself, it seems perverse not to build upon Marx's legacy. Compared to the tedious tomes of the 'Third Way' gurus, his writings are still a much better starting-point for the analysis of the dynamics of really-existing capitalism. Marx might not have owned a TV set or had a Net connection, but he did live in the most advanced industrial society of his time. And his jokes are much funnier too! Later, Richard ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Richard Barbrook Hypermedia Research Centre School of Communications and Creative Industries University of Westminster Watford Road Northwick Park HARROW HA1 3TP <www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk> +44 (0)20 7911 5000 x 4590 ------------------------------------------------------------------- "While there is irony, we are still living in the prehistoric age. And we are not out of it yet..." - Henri Lefebvre ------------------------------------------------------------------- The HRC is involved in running regular cybersalons at the ICA in London. If you would like to be informed about forthcoming events, you can subscribe to a listserver on our website: <www.cybersalon.org>. _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold