Engineering the State

Democracy under Marxist/Socialist terms is not what you think.

Liberalism and democracy appear to be adversaries. - Eric Hobsbawm

Eric Hobsbawm was an English historian who was probably one of the last true Marxists. And totally unrepentant about it. One of his parting shots through the 1980s was that if Marxism had killed millions it was worth it if they achieved socialism. The goal was always the revolution.

His comment that liberalism seemed to be at odds with the very notion of democracy was a very Marxist statement. At least if you understand democracy means something completely different. Marx himself saw the rise of liberal democracy as being an outcrop of a bourgeoisie society. An independent business class that sought its own self-interest through political means.

To be fair, Marx actually had a point. The rise of democracy was generally tied to the rise of independent property and small business owners. His complaint that democracy has as a British politician would see it was very much a bourgeoisie operation.

For those that were pursuing what came to be seen as democratic theory even well before Marx stepped on the stage, commonality was far more important than independence. The thought that most of society would operate as a collective. Those who were trying to engineer the French Revolution decades beforehand all thought this way. French political thought used words like brotherhood and solidarity. For them Liberty and common good were considered one in the same.

The best example is Rousseau who argued that you needed a ruling Elite to ascertain what was good for the general public, referred to as the general will, and impose it from above.

As a result the idea of individual autonomy and self-interest being a driver of democratic norms or concepts of liberty was completely at odds with what they saw as being legitimate democratic thought.

It was this kind of angle that Hobsbawm was getting at where he argued liberalism emphasizing the idea of individuals was at odds with democracy. For anyone who is a Marxist the idea of liberal autonomy literally is no different than fascism. It's why so often Fascism and capitalism are seen as synonyms within Marxist lexicon.

This is still true for anyone on the left that is influenced more by Marxist philosophy than they are by liberal progressivism. It's an important distinction. Both might see strong central governments as being necessary, but the Marxist is entirely hostile to the idea of individual agency being part of the equation. Democratic will is defined by communism and the result being achieved.

Enter the current situation where on Thursday the New York Times published an interview with New Republic editor Osita Nwanevu. If ever there was a headline intended to get attention this one did it.

A number of left commentators for nearly 10 years now have argued about structural deficiencies within the US constitution. Most of them have focused on modes of election being skewed towards more rural voters. Or arguments that checks and balances make government operation much less efficient. Those that would propose Wilsonian reforms around making executive agencies more powerful.

This one's different. It isn't just that it is much more grandiose. For the most part there's absolutely no hiding that the definition of what a properly run democracy would look like is fundamentally different from what the original Constitution was drafted to do. The interview is filled with lamentations that most of the intended constraints on arbitrary power make it impossible to exercise collective goodwill.

In fact very early, one of the concessions is that most voters effectively voted in their own economic self-interest. This is anti-democratic. Don't you know you're supposed to have everybody's interests and the collective good of society in mind when you cast the ballot. It should be fairly obvious at this point that when he says the Constitution needs to be completely overhauled for the left to win, what he's talking about is a much more Marxist oriented left.

The longer form of the interview also included concerns that New York mayoral candidate Mamdani is not likely to do many of his aspirations because of similar checks on his authority if he wins the election. This is a common refrain that comes from this portion of the left.

There is a catch. One could argue that it's ironic on the timing. If the perfect Constitution were instituted as they see it, Donald Trump having won the popular vote as well as the presidency, would mean he would have unlimited power now. You'd think that might give them pause as to whether or not they wanted to go this route. However the same philosophical orientation argues that the government should have the ability to generally impose anything they wish only is true so long as it's a socialist proposal.

That is the whole point of the narrative. History works in one particular trajectory and if you don't respect the pre-arranged conclusion you need to be re-educated.

On this front what is really being argued for is a constitution not so much as most of the average people would see one. Nwanevu was being overt and arguing that the left needs to consider imposing new structural components that only allow policy choices that they would approve of to be possible.

It's the extreme end to one line of literature that's existed for years now. A number of left-wing academics have argued that voting has become increasingly dangerous. Too many people aren't becoming left wing on their own and as such the political Spectrum has remained more or less static with a constant center. This particular proposal is simply that the constitution itself should basically only allow left-wing answers. That would deal with the voting problem.

So liberalism and democracy don't actually work. So the socialist says. Liberalism means that society at its core functions along with individuals making rational choices that work for themselves. That was never part of the assumption as far as those who believed democracy was entirely designed around governments being able to make choices free of constructions. The assumption being the government always had the public's good in mind when they did it.

Generally speaking it is fair to say the US Constitution largely runs along those lines as it's basically philosophical orientation. There is a legitimate point if you have Marxist influence that that is not an acceptable situation.

Most presume that the majority of academia is saturated in Marxist thought. What most don't bear in mind is that that also implies that when they try to argue about governing norms or invoke terms like democracy and liberty, they mean fundamentally different things than what a typical liberal would assume.