1917-2017: the collapse of the revolutionary left

I recently surveyed the top thinkers on contemporary Marxism. By comparison with 1917 they're almost all academics or independent intellectuals. Compare this with the talented leadership of the mass working-class socialist organisations so dominant a century ago.

"Lenin lived, lives and will live!"

I find it remarkable.

The discourse of contemporary Marxist theory, while as acerbic as always, is incredibly introverted. The top issues still the 'transformation problem' or the validity of  'the law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit'.

Where are the analyses of how developments in genomics and psychometrics impact upon Marxist theory? Surely the nature of the individuals who create the social relationships of society - across classes and across the world - are pretty relevant? So why the visceral hostility to such research?

And where are the serious debates about the transition to socialism? No-one analyses why the Soviet Union imploded. No-one asks where China is going. No-one thinks deeply or plausibly about the nature of revolution when the Leninist vanguard-insurrection model seems completely off the agenda. No-one thinks about how to organise a post-capitalist society in a way which wouldn't collapse into something like bureaucratic-socialism, a cure far worse than the disease.

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Ironically the 'mass-leftism' we see (Corbyn/Momentum in the UK, the SJW phenomenon all over the place) isn't based on a Marxist analysis at all. It's liberal-egalitarian in ideological content. An under-analysed aspect of capitalist society is the production of ideology. Sure, enough Marxists have emphasised that cultural leaders, public intellectuals, op-ed writers don't just sit down and think to themselves, "How can I dream up a narrative which justifies the global exploitation of workers by the neoliberal bourgeoisie?"

Obviously.

The way it really works is that earnest, well-meaning people have had their horizons reset since the 1980s by the eclipse of the workers movements and the rise of globalisation.They now reflect upon a world bound together, as they see it, by the ties of global production and trade.

They buy in to the civilising and developmental benefits of world-wide manufacturing and global supply-chains, and are naturally keen that people everywhere have unimpeded access to a plethora of meritocratic opportunities. Why wouldn't they be opposed to racism, sexism, and phobias of all description, which seem to impact on equal outcomes?

Global capitalism is wholly on board with such morally-uplifting campaigns, which smooth the way for frictionless utilisation of labour power across the planet. The whole SJW thing is in no sense anti-capitalist at all, which is why the establishment so indulges it. You'd think that the more profound Marxist thinkers might be drawing attention to this, rather than simply aligning themselves uncritically with 'the movement'.

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My final point is that the death-throes of capitalism have been trumpeted prematurely by Marxists for 150 years. Really, there is very little evidence that the historical work of capitalism in developing the productive forces has been achieved. The abolition of capitalism will come about through the dynamics of its real innermost contradictions, those whereby capitalism seeks to abolish the proletariat itself.

From 1917 to 2017 we've had a century of capitalist progress; for another century we will see more of the same. When it's time for capitalism to go, we surely will know it without having to dig deep into Marxist theory to discern the hidden patterns of the tea leaves.