this is Richard Wolff from democracy at
work responding to another ask Prof wolf
question from our patreon community and
this one comes from Greg
Greg asks having read about horrific
crimes and so on attributed to marxists
like Mao or Stalin or others Pol Pot in
Cambodia and so on what do I have to say
about that is basically what he's asking
what do we do in in the face of people
wondering about that and I think the
wondering is perfectly legitimate and
the question likewise
well the first thing to start with to be
honest is to admit yes there have been
people who say they are marxists who
follow Marx's writings at least they say
so and there's evidence that they do
and have done horrific things yup there
are those people they haven't done all
of that and there's no denying it and
I'm not about to deny it
but I'm also not about to avoid the
explanation
Marxism is a thing a way of thinking a
way of acting uh that dates from Karl
Marx and Marx died in 1883 so we've got
about a hundred and almost 150 years
since Marx's death during which his
ideas
his ways of thinking he never was in a
government official so he never had any
power but he did have an enormous
influence with his ideas and they spread
around the world in what is in
historical time record speed
in literally a few decades his ideas
became part of the culture of every
country on this planet there are Marxist
political parties marxists newspapers
marxists academic institutions marxists
labor unions I mean all kinds of things
all over the world
any set of ideas that spreads across the
world that quickly
interacts with very different cultures
different politics different economics
wherever it spreads
and everybody doesn't make the same
interpretation of these ideas how could
they they're all different people with
different histories and different
conditions bottom line many people have
interpreted Marx in radically different
ways some in ways I think you would
recognize as very positive
for example many of the reforms of
capitalism have been fought for by
marxists or Marxist labor unions or
Marxist political uh parties I'll give
you an example just pick one at random
in France a country I know well because
of my family
there's a law on the books and the law
goes like this whenever you start your
working life graduating from high school
or college
your employer public or private must
give you five weeks paid vacation as a
necessary part of a balance between your
life and your work
now I think most people would agree that
is an incredibly positive benefit
certainly exceeds what exists in the
United States which has no such law
that was fought for by labor unions and
political parties inspired by Marx and I
could give you many more interpretations
so what I would say is there's no
denying that some of the people
interpreted Marx in ways that they
thought Justified horrific Acts
but many other people interpreted
Marxism as something that justified and
motivated very positive social
not only is that true for Marxism it's
true for everything else like Marxism
other movements that had to do with ways
of thinking I'm gonna pick a couple just
to drive the point home
let's start with Christianity something
that developed many centuries ago as a
movement a way of thinking about man and
life and women and God and all these
important questions Christianity has a
way of understanding what those are and
how they connect one to the other
but there were some people who
interpreted Christianity their concepts
of God and people and all that in ways I
think most of us now call horrific
sort of like what Mao and
you know Stalin folks like that are said
to have done and in some cases did
there's the Spanish Inquisition that
killed large numbers of people because
they weren't Christian in the manner of
the Roman Catholic Church at that time
if you study history you'll study things
like the 30 years war in Europe these
were Wars between Protestants and
Catholics part of the history both sides
were doing what they thought God called
them to do which was to slaughter one
another
the colonialism in which European
countries that were Christian and said
so
took over large parts of Asia and Africa
causing massive death and destruction in
the name of God as they understood it do
we reject Christianity because it
Justified and rationalized many of those
actions well I don't think so and to be
blunt and use a current example the war
in the Ukraine pits one set of
Christians against another set of
Christians and both of them affirm their
Christianity as part of why they are
warring with one another well I mean
something there is amiss
I think we're able to say that
Christianity is interpreted in different
ways by different people and in many
cases has been used to justify what we
now see as horrific Acts
and it's true in the Muslim religion
it's too in the Jewish religion and all
the rest of them but we don't in general
reject those religions totally
by identifying them only with those
stories those interpretations that are
linked to Awful actions
the worst war in human history as far as
I know is World War One it killed tens
of millions of people all of the
countries that went to war Germany the
United States Britain France
called themselves and were in many ways
Christian countries
the Resurgence of of anti-Semitism and
white supremacy
in parts of the American Midwest and
South
are often linked to people who also
claim they are fundamentalist Christians
and that this in some way is linked to
what they feel about other races or
whatever they call it
we can deplore these connections but to
use them to dismiss an entire way of
thinking
is really unjustified and you can see
that when you notice that the people who
do that do it selectively to some
traditions and not to others
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