Marxism is essentially the doctrine that all of history cab be understood as a struggle between an oppressor class and an oppressed class. For Karl Marx those classes were identified as “capitalists” or “bourgeoisie” as oppressors, and “laborers” and “peasants” as the oppressed class.
The doctrine of Marx has a history going back to the French Revolution, where the oppressors were the “royalists” and “aristocrats” against the “peasants” (France had not yet developed an industrial labor class). That deposed one monarch only to bring in a warlord, Napoleon, who promised to seek a “United States of Europe” but then betrayed that promise by declaring himself “emperor”. That is what led Beethoven to rename his Third Symphony”Eroica” from “Napoleon”. Napoleon in turn was succeeded by a few more monarchs until the French established the (first) Republic, as presented in Victor Hugo’s opera “Les Miserables”.
The history of Marxism then took several turns through the 19th and 20th centuries, until it evolved into what some call “cultural Marxism” in the U.S. in the late and now early 21st centuries. It is called that because it no longer has major institutional backing, at least not in the U.S.
The result is the rise of “political correctness” in all its forms, an attempt to enforce conformity on all kinds of activities by “social justice warriors” who engage in virtue signaling to proclaim their fidelity to Marxist doctrines that disparate outcomes in career progress are all the result of disparate treatment by racist, sexist, or other discriminatory individuals or institutions.
In the U.S. the focus has been on capture of substantial control over the entertainment industry, academia, the legal profession and the judiciary, local government, Congress, and the presidency. It has been largely successful at this, except recently Congress and the presidency. The appointment of originalist judges to the federal judiciary, guided by such groups as the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute, has been a major setback for that agenda.
In the West Coast entertainment community it is difficult to get funding for works that are not supportive of a Marxist agenda, except for some works of war, history, spying, or science fiction.
In the academic world, it can be career threatening to challenge prevailing views on politically correct positions, especially in the humanities or social sciences. But even some fields of science have fallen under the Marxist sway, for example in the field of climate science, where it is dangerous to deviate from prevailing views that global warming is human-caused and require the U.S. to severely restrict production of CO2, even at the cost of economic decline, unless one has tenure. Never mind the lack of evidence that warming is actually occurring, or that there is little we could do about if it was. This is pursuant to a Marxist agenda to de-industrialize the industrial world.
The legal profession presents a complicated situation. First, most lawyers are not taught the history and meaning of the Constitution. They are taught about court precedents, many of which may have deviated far from the original meaning. Judges, like lawyers, tend to learn the law of the cases before them. Lawyers are also taught not to criticize judges, which is futile at best. The practice of law is expensive, and there are always ways to make the opposition spend more money, until they run out of money. Taking a case to the U.S. Supreme Court, to get it to overturn one of its own wrong precedents, is not only uncertain and expensive, but likely futile. Even if the entire legal profession backed your position, it would likely not be enough. It is even worse if most of the judges you will appear before don’t agree with you.
Local government should not be ignored. Most of government is local, or starts out that way. Most of the people in charge of elections and counting the votes are local.
Most
members of Congress are perfectly aware that much of the
legislation they pass is unconstitutional. They are not experts on
the Constitution. They are experts on getting re-elected. If
pleasing a few constituents will get them re-elected, it doesn’t
matter to them. Their attitude is if the courts want to strike it
down, then we can blame them. Anyway, there are not enough judges
and courts to review everything we pass. In this sense they are
part of the reliance interests we discuss elsewhere.
That
leaves the presidency. The current president now has five
originalist judges on the Supreme Court. He could use even more.
But the real action is in the Circuit Courts of Appeal. And he is
appointing even more there.
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