Decision ‘08

Interesting Choice Of Inspirations

The George Allen blog notes The Nation looking on with approval at James Webb’s nods to…Marx and Engels. I’ve noted before Webb’s solid progressive (read: populist or socialist, pick your poison) credentials on economic matters, causing one commenter to note with exasperation:

Can we all agree that we’re OK with the free market system? Can we all agree that most of us - regardless of party affiliation - aren’t itching to pack up and move to a state farm? Can we dispense with the strawmen?

Well, when you’ve got a candidate for the U.S. Senate taking his economic cues from Marx and Engels…no, we can’t agree on that at all…

UPDATE 1:25 p.m.: Well, okay, I’ve seen the bit in the speech now, and it’s fairly innocuous:

…[I]n Washington where 3,100 lobbyists now circle around 535 elected representatives we need to put our government back into the hands of leaders whose principal loyalty would be to the people who have no voice in the corridors of power. Back in another century, people like Marx and Engels talked about man being cut away from his land, his agricultural roots. And all the angst that followed that. Today, we risk being cut away from our government, from our democracy. The slash and burn politics of the Karl Rove era have too often obscured the real issues for America. Even if they deliberately driven wedges between all of us.

I’m not sure it’s a very coherent point, but it’s not a ringing endorsement of the economic policies of Marx and Engels, either, I’ll grant you…

10 Responses to “Interesting Choice Of Inspirations”

1 jpe Says:
October 8th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Marxism is a fairly important part of intellectual history. I don’t see how it’s a bad thing that Webb knows history.

Well, when you’ve got a candidate for the U.S. Senate taking his economic cues from Marx and Engels

Your post mentioned Marx several times; by your lights, it’s fair for me to claim that you take your economic cues from Marx and Engels.
2 Mark Says:
October 8th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Ummm, no…I don’t think that’s how it works. Get real…I just mentioned Hitler (that’s right Hitler- you heard me, Hitler) three times. Are you calling me a Nazi?

Webb paraphrased Marx and Engels regarding the ‘fairness’ of splitting economic output. That’s a completely different thing, and you know it.

Come on, that’s just weak…
3 Jacques Distler Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 1:52 am
Webb paraphrased Marx and Engels regarding the ‘fairness’ of splitting economic output.

Umh. Sorry. I looked at G. Allen’s blog and at the AP article it linked to. I missed any actual quotes from Webbs’ speechs which are purportedly (paraphrases? quotations?) from Marx and or Engels.

You seem to have them. Could supply some examples?
4 Mark Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Well, Jacques, I’m relying on the honesty of the reporters. Not only the AP article, but also The Nation article mention the Marx and Engels references in the context of the ‘economic pie’:

“I was generally comfortable with the Republicans, until the neoconservatives took over,” Webb says. “But the one issue that always bothered me was economic fairness.” His speech is virtually identical to the one he gave in “liberal” northern Virginia–right down to the Marx and Engels references–and carries precisely the same message: Bush and Allen’s war is a disaster, and working Americans are getting shafted while corporations and CEOs rake in record profits.
5 Jacques Distler Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 8:39 am
“Economic fairness” is not a phrase that occurs in the œuvre of Marx and Engels. Indeed, as the phrase is understood today, it is a concept that is quite alien to their way of thinking.

The only thing in the Nation article, that remotely sounded like Marx, that I could find was the phrase “working class” in the passage

“I think both parties have been taken over by elites,” Webb says over his shoulder after he’s done perusing his speech. “The natural base of the Democratic Party, working-class folks, looked at both parties and saw they weren’t going to get any more help on economic issues. The one place they thought they could make a difference was on these divisive social issues, so that’s how they’ve been voting. But I think that has run its course now.” So, he says, has the “cultural Marxism” of the 1960s that’s dominated the Democrats.

Personally, I would be impressed if a politician was erudite enough to quote Marx. Unfortunately, as I’m sure you know, Marx’s prose is rather turgid stuff, that does not lend itself to contemporary political speech-making.

So, absent any actual quotes from Webb’s speeches, I’m gonna assume that this “quoting Marx and Engels” claims was every bit as made-up as the word “macaca.”
6 Mark Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Well, I’ll try to find the speech itself…if I do, I’ll post the relevant portions, or update to say I found no such thing…
7 Mark Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Jacques, I found the passage, and it’s pretty harmless…I’ve updated the post. I’m not sure why The Nation and the AP thought this was newsworthy, since it’s a pretty tame reference, but hey, I guess some people (myself included) see those names and react like Pavlov’s dog…
8 Jacques Distler Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Thanks for tracking that down, Mark.

I agree that it’s fairly innocuous.

It’s also not much of a quote. Marx would have used the phrase “alienated” rather than “cut away from.” By which he would have meant that agricultural workers didn’t own the land that they worked, rather than something woolly-headed about being cut away from their “agricultural roots.”

I also agree that it’s something of a stretch to see a connection with politics in the age of Karl Rove.

But, then, politicians say all kinds of stupid stuff in their speeches. If this is what passes for erudition in 2006, I guess I’ll have to settle for what I can get.
9 Mark Says:
October 9th, 2006 at 11:24 pm
Yes, he makes Marx and Engels sound like a couple of survivalists, or refugees from Burning Man…
10 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » James Webb, Socialist Says:
November 16th, 2006 at 9:05 am
[…] Actually, I did recognize quite early on that Webb had socialist ‘tendencies’, a full month before the elections, and I said so: I’ve noted before Webb’s solid progressive (read: populist or socialist, pick your poison) credentials on economic matters, causing one commenter to note with exasperation: Can we all agree that we’re OK with the free market system? Can we all agree that most of us - regardless of party affiliation - aren’t itching to pack up and move to a state farm? Can we dispense with the strawmen? […]