One of the stupid recurring debates in the current culture war is over the question of whether or not “wokeism” (or whatever you want to call it) is Marxist or not. Right-wing critics of wokeism tend to label it Marxist; conservative guru Jordan Peterson refers to wokeism as “Postmodern neo-Marxism.” And many on the woke left would love to claim the mantle of Marxism for their ideas. Yet many self-proclaimed Marxists argue vehemently that wokeism is, if anything, a betrayal of Marxism. So is wokeism Marxist?
Yes and no.
The problem, of course, is how we should understand the term “Marxist.” “Marxism” means, roughly, working in the intellectual tradition of Karl Marx, picking up on patterns of thought that we might find in his writings. But Marxists don’t just re-state every word of Marx’s writings, verbatim. They clarify, elucidate, expand, and develop Marx’s ideas. And this is the problem. There are a lot of things going on in Marx’s writings, and thus a lot of ways to be a Marxist.
Here’s one (dramatically oversimplified) thread of Marxist thought:
Contemporary society is a kind of hierarchy, with the capitalists on top and workers on the bottom. This is a system of exploitation. Capitalists exploits the labor of the workers, amassing wealth to themselves that they don’t properly deserve. This form of exploitation is inevitable, given the disparities of resources implied by the capitalist system of political economy. Capitalists, through their control of the means of production, have control over the things that workers need in order to survive (food, shelter, etc), and thus can force workers to submit to their will. Workers accept this domination because the moral order of society demands that they do so. Yet this acceptance is a “false consciousness,” imposed by capitalist society, which prevents workers from perceiving the unjust nature of their exploitation.
There’s a lot going on there! And again, even this is oversimplified; I’m leaving out lots of ideas that are key to Marxist thought, like the concept of alienation, the concept of dialectical materialism, and much more. But that simple synopsis is a recognizably Marxist way of thinking, and a way of thinking that is pretty central to Marx’s philosophy. So what’s the main thread of thought there? What is the central theme that we might riff on?
And of course, the problem is that there is more than one answer to that question. Here are two themes we might extract from that simple statement of Marxism:
The Economic Theme: The key to understanding society is that wealth, in the form of control of material resources, rules everything. Capitalists control those material resources, and so workers suffer what they must.
Compared to:
The Structural Domination Theme: The key to understanding society is that it is composed of an oppressor class and an oppressed class. The oppressor class profits off the immiseration of the oppressed class. And the oppressed class accepts this state of affairs because of the “false consciousness” imposed on them by the oppressive structure.
Which of these two themes are True Marxism? That’s a bad question. They’re both Marxist. They just pick up on slightly different threads of thought.
Wokeism follows the Structural Domination Theme very closely. It just generalizes and broadens the basic idea. Wokeism sees society as composed of an intersecting matrix of oppressor classes and oppressed classes: white over black, male over female, straight over gay, cis over trans, able over disable, and on and on. The oppressor classes have power over the oppressed classes, and that power is maintained “structurally,” often with the consent of the oppressed, via false consciousness. Indeed, what it meant to be “woke” (before the term was coopted, mangled, and stretched beyond all comprehension) was that you are not asleep to the structural forces that cause you to submit to your own oppression. You see the system for what it is; fully awakened; “woke.”
But wokeism completely ignores the Economic Theme. Rich over poor never seems to appear on the list of oppressor and oppressed classes. Or, when it does, it’s one among many, and rarely the most important.
You can find “rich” and “poor” in there, but you’ve got to hunt a bit.
And this is the source of the debate about whether wokeism is Marxist. Those who claim that it is Marxist emphasize the Structural Domination theme. Yet those Marxists who are most interested in the Economic Theme get very angry at the wokeists. Because if you think the Economic Theme is the key to Marx’s thought, then wokeism is completely missing the point.
According to the Economic theme, structural domination comes from control of material resources, and that’s only about wealth. “Power” without wealth isn’t really power. For example: Race is incredibly important within the woke framework. But while a white racist referring to a black person using a racial slur might be infuriating, that doesn’t amount to domination unless the white person has control of material wealth that the black person doesn’t. A racist white landlord demeaning a black sharecropper is the epitome of injustice; racist white trailer trash demeaning a black investment banker is merely pathetic. Oppression isn’t really oppression unless it comes with the backing of control over wealth. Rich over poor is the only real axis of domination within society. Focusing on anything else is a distraction from what really matters.
And it’s more than just a mere distraction! Racial conflict works to the benefit of the capitalist class since, if white people are fighting black people, then white workers and black workers aren’t teaming up to overthrow the one true form of domination in society, the domination of workers by capitalists. Indeed, by distracting workers from the true nature of their oppression, wokeism is itself a form of false consciousness that legitimates capitalist oppression.
Is that economic critique of wokeism a good one? Sure, maybe (I’m somewhat sympathetic). But that’s a question for another day. The point is that both the woke and some critics of wokeism are pursuing themes that are identifiable in Marx. It makes no sense to debate who is the “real Marxist” here. Marxist thought is so vast that contradictory political programs have been spun off from it.
The debate over whether or not wokeism is Marxist is ultimately pointless. There’s enough Marx, and enough Marxism, to go around. So whether you’re a supporter or critic of wokeism (or a supporter or critic of Marxism), forget the references to Marx. Political programs should not be attacked or defended by their relative proximity to a hallowed sage. They should be attacked or defended on their particular merits.
My favorite "wokeists" are Groucho and Harpo Marx.
It could be said that Lewis Carroll was a wokeist too.
As indeed was William Blake who was scathingly critical of the powers-that-be in his time and place
http://thehumandivine.org
And Jesus too. He was scathingly critical of both the ecclesiastical and political establishments in his time and place, for which he was executed as a trouble-maker.