OK, “Socialism” but why use a white man’s system like Marxism?
The title of this post comes from several conversations I have been a part of but are are hardly unique to me. Anyway, for me, the answer is fairly straight forward. 1) Dialectical materialism and historical materialism, which allowed Marx to advance thinking frames such as class and how it functions in capitalism, are helpful social science tools, why not use them? 2) African ontological systems (AOS) like divination, and communication with ancestors and nature are also dialectical, but I am not familiar with their being applied to critique capitalism and advance socialism, the collective sharing of nature’s resources as the ultimate goal of the economy, so, in the interim, Marxism is the best social science to achieve those ends that I have come across. Not for nothing, most of us in organizational settings are using systems built on the intellect, which, ostensibly devoid of spirit, invariably comes back to the Western Enlightenment. So, why not Marxism? 3) Marxism has looked very closely at the mechanics of capitalism and how to overthrow it and has developed a lot of experience and insight on these processes. For example,
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ “The Communist Manifesto” does a great job laying out a criticism of capitalism and pieces of a positive vision of the core principles of a communist society.
Karl Marx’s “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy” Vol 1 breaks down the specific components of capitalism to explain such things as how class struggle and labor exploitation is built the construct of the commodity, how capital exploits workers in games played with the work day, how capital uses machines against labor and a number of other topics.
Friedrich Engels’ “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State” explains how the capitalist state a tool used against African people all over the world, evolved, and the relationship of property to patriarchy,
Vladimir Lenin’s “The State and Revolution” takes the discussion of the State even further,
Vladimir Lenin’s “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism” helps us see the reason U.S. attacks on Libya, Grenada and Cuba and was the basis of Kwame Nkrumah’s “Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism”
Vladimir Lenin’s “Where Do We Go From Here” is a very helpful look at the importance of propaganda and a political party.
Mao Tse Tung’s On Contradiction, provides a methodology for analyzing political problems, among other problems
There is long tradition here that should be examined before dismissing because in a system of lies like this one, that just makes sense. Again, Marxism has a tradition of taking on the enemy of not only Black people but the environment writ large and to return to the AOS’s, this is an environment upon which traditional culture totally relies on for herbs, water, and healthy animals. Again, it is a social science and built to integrate those things that work and are true, so why not just integrate our critiques as Frantz Fanon discussed by “stretching it”?
