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The Strange Death of Marxism: The European Left in the New Millennium
 
 
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The Strange Death of Marxism: The European Left in the New Millennium (Hardcover)

~ Paul Edward Gottfried (Author)
Key Phrases: political religion, United States, Frankfurt School, Third World (more...)
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Product Description

"The Strange Death of Marxism" seeks to refute certain misconceptions about the current European Left and its relation to Marxist and Marxist-Leninist parties that existed in the recent past. Among the misconceptions that the book treats critically and in detail is that the post-Marxist Left (a term the book uses to describe this phenomenon) springs from a distinctly Marxist tradition of thought and that it represents an unqualified rejection of American capitalist values and practices. Three distinctive features of the book are the attempts to dissociate the present European Left from Marxism, the presentation of this Left as something that developed independently of the fall of the Soviet empire, and the emphasis on the specifically American roots of the European Left. Gottfried examines the multicultural orientation of this Left and concludes that it has little or nothing to do with Marxism as an economic-historical theory. It does, however, owe a great deal to American social engineering and pluralist ideology and to the spread of American thought and political culture to Europe. American culture and American political reform have foreshadowed related developments in Europe by years or even whole decades. Contrary to the impression that the United States has taken antibourgeois attitudes from Europeans, the author argues exactly the opposite. Since the end of World War II, Europe has lived in the shadow of an American empire that has affected the Old World, including its self-described anti-Americans. Gottfried believes that this influence goes back to who reads or watches whom more than to economic and military disparities. It is the awareness of American cultural as well as material dominance that fuels the anti-Americanism that is particularly strong on the European Left. That part of the European spectrum has, however, reproduced in a more extreme form what began as an American leap into multiculturalism. Hostility toward America, however, can be transformed quickly into extreme affection for the United States, which occurred during the Clinton administration and during the international efforts to bring a multicultural society to the Balkans. Clearly written and well conceived, "The Strange Death of Marxism" will be of special interest to political scientists, historians of contemporary Europe, and those critical of multicultural trends.


About the Author

PAUL EDWARD GOTTFRIED is Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books, including Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt: Toward a Secular Theocracy (University of Missouri Press).

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 154 pages
  • Publisher: University of Missouri Press (September 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0826215971
  • ISBN-13: 978-0826215970
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #979,962 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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United States, Frankfurt School, Third World, New York, Cold War, Western Europe, East German, Soviet Union, The Authoritarian Personality, French Communists, Jurgen Habermas, Third Reich, Die Frankfurter Schule, New Left, Eric Fromm, Georg Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, Junge Freiheit, Paul Gottfried, Pour Marx, West German, Editori Riuniti, Ernst Nolte, Italian Communists, Theodor Adorno
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57 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Roots of Modern Leftist Totalitarianism., February 12, 2006
_The Strange Death of Marxism: The European Left in the New Millennium_ by Paul Gottfried is an account of the rise of a new European politically correct left from the ashes of Marxism. Unlike the Marxism of the past, which focused primarily on history as the culmination of a dialectical process and emphasized the struggle of the working class proletariat against the capitalist class bourgeoisie, modern day politically correct leftism has turned towards the cultural elite as the dynamo for revolution. Indeed, as Gottfried notes, the original Marxists did not advocate "alternative lifestyles", feminism, homosexual liberation, or rail against the family as oppressive in the same manner as their modern day leftist usurpers do. Gottfried argues that many of these ideas are not fundamentally European in nature but have been exported from America where they originated. This is contrary to the thesis advanced by others such as Alan Bloom in _The Closing of the American Mind_ that political correctness represents a Germanification of American universities. Against such Germanophobic tendencies of both the post-Marxist left and the neoconservative right, Gottfried maintains that political correctness is an import to Europe and began at the time of the Allied defeat of the Axis powers. In particular, Gottfried traces the rise of the Frankfurt School to the development of the therapeutic state, in which all dissenters are labeled as "potential fascists" and assigned to re-education. Echoing conservative critic Patrick Buchanan, whose book _The Decline of the West_ showed the perils of both unrestricted immigration and cultural Marxism, Gottfried shows how individuals such as Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer constructed an "authoritarian personality" type as an explicit rejection of traditional bourgeois Christian values. Others such as Herbert Marcuse and Eric Fromm contributed similar studies rejecting those deemed "regressive" or "insufficiently progressive" as potential fascists. Much of this research was motivated primarily by Jewish intellectuals under the auspices of the American Jewish Committee. Gottfried contrasts this modern cultural Marxism with the more orthodox materialist Marxism in which the working class dynamo is considered as the prime historical motivation. In particular, individuals such as Louis Althusser, although equally motivated by the philosophy of Spinoza, sought a return to this form of Marxist materialism. Gottfried argues that while the post-Marxist left rails against American imperialism and actively supports the Palestinians in the Middle East, that they are fundamentally in favor of an American hegemony provided that it is sufficiently tolerant. In particular, for many on both the left and the right, American democracy is seen as the primary motivating good to be exported to the entire world. Such a belief in American power had its origin in the Allied defeat of the Germans following World War II. In fact, following the Second World War, Germans were assigned to de-nazification camps. Many of those who had been conservative monarchists or nationalists yet opponents of the Nazis were regarded as insufficiently democratic and therefore consigned to the outer darkness of being "potential fascists". This was particularly ironic notes Gottfried because many of those who did the consigning were supporters of a far worse totalitarian regime which had an even greater death toll in the East or were even former fascists themselves. In addition, those who pointed out the many horrors of Allied occupation and the atrocities committed by the Allies during the war, such as the bombing of Dresden or the rape of German women by Soviet soldiers, were equally regarded as pro-fascist. Indeed, in the modern day political debate, any party that is deemed "reactionary" or "fascist" is instantly stifled by the far left. In Europe, many rightist parties have been suppressed or banned because of supposed sympathy for the fascists. While Gottfried admits that many of these parties may have unsavory elements within them, they do represent a part of the political process that involves the questioning of accepted wisdom and the desire to see a revived nationalism. It is disturbing to note the lust of the far left for censorship, particularly as it applies to Europe. However, Gottfried makes the point that America is equally slipping towards the left despite the apparent tendency to turn right following the so-called Reagan revolution. Indeed, Gottfried argues that the "Reagan revolution" was nothing of the sort and that Americans continue to drift in a sea of immorality and nihilism propped up by the far left. Gottfried also considers Italian communists such as Antonio Gramsci, who may have first originated the idea of the culture clash. In addition, Gottfried discusses the exploits of Jurgen Habermas, a profoundly anti-German German communist sympathizer, who has argued for banning other historians including Ernst Nolte. Indeed, those who bring up the atrocities of the communists under Stalin and others are regarded as being potential fascist sympathizers by much of the far left. This was particularly the case regarding the recent publication of the book _The Black Book of Communism_ which showed the terrors inflicted upon the world by this horrendous ideology. Gottfried considers it useful to regard the modern day post-Marxist left as a form of political religion, echoing the categories of conservative philosopher Eric Voegelin. Voegelin believed that many political philosophies constituted resuscitations of earlier Christian Gnostic heresies. Oddly, perhaps the last hope of the cultural conservatives in the coming era is turning towards the working class as a source for traditional values. As others such as Christopher Lasch have shown, the working class may frequently support socialist economics, however they are fundamentally culturally conservative. This may offer a useful opportunity for the right in regaining ground stolen from it by the pernicious influence of a post-Marxist left guiding a managerial therapeutic state actively persecuting all dissenters.
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21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The European Left After the Fall of Communism, March 19, 2006
Since the fall of communism and the iron curtain, the European left wing has had to fall back and regroup. The communist parties in places like France and Italy which had a significant percentage of the vote in years past has fallen to almost negligible levels.

The left wing individuals still, however, feel some obligation to hold beliefs counter to those of the mainstream of their societies. This Mr. Gottfried says that the modern trend in the European left came from picking up the beliefs of the American left. That is, the new European left now supports femenists, multi ethnicity, homosexual rights, all the items viewed here as being politically correct.

There is likewise a strange love/hate relationship between the European left and America. When Bill Clinton was in office, and making war in the Balkans we were held with affection. It isn't the same with Bush and the war in Iraq.

This is an interesting book. You can be sure that the European left would be highly adverse to admitting that any of their philosophy came from across the Atlantic. But birds of a feather....
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for understanding present european policy, December 29, 2008
By Fredrik Forsberg (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews
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There are some big ideas shaping present day europe. We have the growth of a federal EU system, immigration and lifestyle politics.

The strange death of marxism explains in a good way how the ideological framework behind almost all large parties (with some exceptions in Benelux, Austria, Denmark) was both an outgrowth and introduction of the post-WW2 american influence on european culture.

It introduces the post-marxist left, which now dominates ideologically much of the managerial european welfare sector together with left wing parties, not as a natural outgrowth of marxist politics but as a ideology born from the early sixties and forward. Gottfried is somewhat nostalgic of the old left which had traits he liked as community, working class orientation and true solidarity between working people instead of present day managerial "solidarity" of state administrators.

He developes a convincing model of post marxist creeds like multiculturalism, gender politics and other identity politicial issues as parts of a secular religion which has inherited obvious traits from the christian religion it replaced. The religious hallmarks is something I have experienced personally when discussing third world immigration to Sweden. Not to go into details, but all hard facts can be lined up of costs, rapes, plummeting schools, crime, gangs (which didn't excist before we started importing about 1% of the present population a year from Somalia and the middle east) etc. The counter argument is emotionally based where what I consider rational arguments are called "fascist". The dualistic world view together with european guilt of our cultural heritage has definite religious characteristics.

All in all the book covers important material for anyone interested in understanding how we got to the present state of affairs. It doesn't go into how the ideology go hand in hand with state administrator interests in such a way that no enforcing is needed to implement them and that large sectors of society become corrupted by the social equivalent of the military industrial complex through the benefits and employment at hand.
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