Why Marxism is still alive; The legacy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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- čas přidán 18. 06. 2019
- On this episode of Acton Line, Romanian author and public intellectual, Mihail Neamtu, joins the show to talk about what he calls the "ghost" of Marxism. What defines Marxism and what remnants of the ideology are we seeing today? After that, Daniel J. Mahoney, writer and professor of politics at Assumption College, speaks with Acton's Director of Communications, John Couretas, about the legacy of the 20th century Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn's writings are said to have contributed greatly in bringing down the Soviet Union and brought wide attention to the atrocities of the Soviet Gulags.
God damnit! This was absolutely wonderful! What an insightful guest and host!
Fantastic intewview.
Fantastic 👏 👏 👏
Have y’all done anything on Vatican One?
Where is the link of the book?
Very nice podcast, regards from Serbia, ex-communist Yugoslavia
Hello, from communist Mexifornia! :-)
Well, it's not commie yet, but they are workin' on it! :-)
@@serpentines6356
China has plans to make San Francisco their new capital, ya?
Mihail was great to hear from!
Too bad his Channel is in Romanian...
The music is very distracting at 23:43.
Is it true you cant buy Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book Two Hundred Years together? Publishers wont print it in English? Some kinda of conspiracy to keep English speaking readers from a secret?
yes because he bad mouths the jews and you cant do that , ask ye.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn great work
Mihail Neentu was very accurate about the US and the West! Now in 2020, we are reaping what we’ve sown with godless secularism, the Leftist anarchists and the chaos that “American” Socialism has brought! Very sad.
Cultural Observer are you for real?
America is a godless secularism? The Evangelical movement is so powerful in the US that one president, Gearge W Bush, thought God had spoken to him and told him he should be president.
Another God loving evangelical became vice president, Mike Pence.
Another one Bettsy Devoss became education secretary.
Mike Pompeo; the list goes on and on.
The facts don't line up with your preconceived ideology.
Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic. Secularism?
America was more what you call socialist from FDR right up to Ronald Reagan. From Reagan on America has shifted more and more to the right such that traditional democrats have become what were moderate Republicans.
America was formed upon "freedom of and from religion". Secularism is only rational /logical especially when the first settlers here came here for religous freedoms. What happened in England and elsewhere with religous persecution and pogroms, sharia law in some middle eastern countries now are all the reason one needs for secularism. God/religion are a belief/practice for people that choose that- that most that claim it dont actually practice any of it and when they do they cherry pick what suits them. Religion or the lack of it doesnt dictate ones morals or beliefs. Ones religion as well as politics should be kept to themselves, with the exception of those kind of settings
@ Kristi Skinner It states in the First Amendment that there shall be Freedom OF religion, as in the Freedom to have multiple Faiths, but no one state religion. There is no such Amendment that states that there should be freedom FROM religion! You added that yourself! Obviously IN THE UNITED STATES, sharia Law has NEVER taken place! That would contradict our First Amendment that forbids a state religion! And speaking of religion, Socialism seems to have the “trappings” of a religion all its own, where it coerces the citizens through FEAR to look to government as their “provider” of all things, and to “revere” the government, and the citizens are actively discouraged to practice any religion! (Atheism is at the foundation of Socialism). But when people look to a government as it’s “everything,” the mere humans that “run” the Socialist government always, and I mean ALWAYS use their power within that government to control and abuse the citizens!! Look at EVERY example of a Socialist nation since 1917, when Russia became the first country to adopt Socialism, and you’ll find ATHEIST government officials who believe they answer to no one, ABUSING its citizens and destroying the culture! I’d rather have freedom to worship God if I choose, than to worship fallible, cruel human demagogues any day!!
Enlightenment and modern liberalism are by definition secularist. Who attends Mass doesn’t affect that one bit.
What keeps marxism, communism, critical theory alive is the money and power of the central bankers. If there were no central bankers there would have been no Soviet Union.
Central Banking cartels are creating currency on a biblical scale to own it all, global communism is what they want and if people don't wake the F up quickly they will succeed in the goal they set out to over 100 years ago with the creation of the federal reserve
Yeah still killing millions of people in camps doesn’t sound like a solution
@@florentn7442 who said anything about camps
You mean those Russian bankers who turned against the commies at the very start, during the Russian civil war of the 1920s? You mean those bankers which supported the White (monarchist) army - the army that fought against the commies in that war?
P. S. Shall I remind you that the White army was directly supported by not only Russian, but also British bankers and monopolists?
Where is your data even from??
Fantastic podcast 👏 I have only one of solzhenitsyn books. I'm reading at this time the stealing of America by John w whitehead and he Mentioned solzheitsyn. Please keep the information coming 🙏.
"how do you define a marxist ghost?" a Democrat.
Well, not all of them, but yeah, some of the ones I have talked to - those college age ones active in BLM, are scaring me.
Bullshit. Correct that to neo-liberal democrats that are attempting to use the traditionally right wing authoriative stance to get their way. Those ppl do not represent all democrats, just as the alt-right doesnt represent all republicans. There are conservative & moderate democrats. Those neo-liberals shouldnt even be considered as democrats any longer
@@kristiskinner8542 they said nothing about Neo-liberal democrats, but referred specifically to the far-left Marxist contingent of the democrats. Socialists.
Democracy was always cringe.
"The only solution is communist revolution!"
"This is what democracy looks like!"
If you give me a choice between communism or Fascism, I would go with Fascism every time.
Most Fascism is Communism. The Left played a trick on people in trying to convince people Fascism is Right wing. The Nazis were the German's Worker's Party. The National Socialists. Mussolini was a Marxist. Fascism is State control of the Economy like all Socialist ideologies.
@@scartissuefilms Fascism is not right wing
@@pietroscarpa2384 why don’t people understand this. They are both communist
@@thebluedan no, they are not both communism, why do people think that? There are some very big differences.
@@pietroscarpa2384 cuz Mussolini was a communist and learn his stuff from the communists. They are both about stealing the resources and means of production by force.
I think too, that Marx was motivated primarily by resentment when he formulated his theories.
The exact reason why Marxism is a flawed ideology is because it was written out of emotional resentment and sensational romanticism.
He was a rothschild third cousin. That family is nothing but resentment to the very pits of their non-existent souls.
@@markrod420 🙄
Marx was Jewish. DUH HELLO
,MCFLY.
He was resentful. He was a classic narcissist...
the workers doing rather well? what are you talking about!!!!!?????? No clue.
✡️
If only it were that easy huh
Mihail Neamtu is acting as a religious nationalistic dissident and generalizes different situations of former sovjet sattelite states as equal and the same. Besides the sovjet countries as they excisted didnt even get close to being marxist but mainly being stalinist!
how cld Marx know what wld happen in the future? a ridiculous charge... He was DESCRIBING the Class struggle, as it existed in the middle of the 19thc... .. Van Gogh did not work in a steel or ironworks, for 12 hours a day, mate.-, like some of my ancestors did.
He claimed he could predict the future and millions of idiots fell for his bs.
Marx was NOT German.
That intro sucked.
Sanders and AOC aren't marxists, they are social democrats. SJWs aren't Marxists, they are liberals.
The best way to understand Marxism and Marxists is to actually read Marx and Marxists
Sanders and AOC are social fascists.
@@cubbyvespers6389 fascism is a branch ideology of socia;ism
You’re being an ignorant fool allowing them to hide behind new names look at the fucking policies look at the practices you piece of shit if my country goes down all of you will die before I do I put that on my soul I hate you people
Isn't that just like saying "oh that wasn't real communism/Marxism" when people bring up Russia / Venezuela / Cuba / North Korea etc...
The principles guiding Sanders and AOC to make poor policies are still bad
Sanders should maybe denounce Socialism First?!
How comical! First, Neamtu says Marx "got it wrong about human nature, human psychology." Is Romanian vs. Congolese vs. Indian vs. British vs. Texan vs. California psychology all "the same"? One of Marx's most important points is that what we call psychology is actually shaped by the culture socio-economic context we are groomed to conform to since birth. For example, many fools in the U.S. see wearing a simple device designed to protect us from a virus as an encroachment on "freedom" (which is left as an ideological concept with no real substantive notion driving it; for example, my freedom to not get needlessly sick by you breathing mask-lessly in my face!). However, many other countries seem to have a tighter grip over the virus, which is why their lives are returning to a newer sort of normal, and ours is still in limbo. So, it seems our "psychology" is at very least influenced by the ideas we have been raised with. Marx adds this (and he may be overstating his point, I'm perfectly willing to admit that): those ideas are often the product of a particular status quo who benefits financially and in terms of social capital from propagating a morality and value system that reinforces the dominating capitalist class. Yes, Marx underestimated both technology and climate (and the climate crisis); yes, fascistic socialism has been harmful. But, as thinking people (you ARE thinking people, right?), you must realize there is not a simple choice between full-blown exploitative capitalism and fascistic socialism/Marxism. Do yourself a favor and actually READ MARX FOR YOURSELF, especially the hardest but most important chapter: 1 of Das Kapital, Volume 1, where he explains replacing the intrinsic value of labor and sweat that goes into producing a good, and, instead, commodifying the item as though it appeared from nowhere (or, "on the market"): like the shirt or shoes you are wearing now, and the potential child labor and underpaid labor in Bangladesh or Peru or China or Mexico, etc. that made that garment. He quite accurately traces the exploitation that is inherent in individuals MAKING MONEY SOLELY OFF OF MONEY, which comes down to
USING THE LABOR OF ANOTHER to PRODUCE EXCESS VALUE, and often using VIOLENCE OR THE THREAT OF VIOLENCE TO EXTRACT THAT EXTRACT VALUE FOR ONESELF (a value one did not actually "work" for, but, instead, schemed for). Perhaps, socialism as we've known it in the countries mention in this podcast has failed. NO problem admitting that (although many would not). However, that does not get us out of the woods. MARX ALSO CRITIQUED CAPITALISM, and he did so powerfully. SO ACTUALLY READ HIS WORK!! DON'T TAKE MY WORD OR MIHAIL'S WORD FOR IT. PUT IN THE LABOR YOURSELF!! Even if MARX'S SOLUTION FAILED, we still have a very credible critique and should not just "go back to business as usual." Sure, that is the simpler path for our short little lives--get what you can while you can and find a way to justify it and sleep easy at night. But still, there may be OTHER SOLUTIONS that include some measures of socialism without the communist apparatus.
very aptly said
when they can't find cheap labor here capitalism goes to other countries to exploit workers there and they claim look these people are making more money because of us, but they left the many American workers out of work by moving their factories to other countries why is that so hard to understand for these Americans that there is fundamentally something wrong with American Capitalism and it has run it's course, one in 8 child is poor in the richest nation. When sometimes parents working full time jobs qualify for food stamps. Being poor is a crime in America. Sheriffs are called in to throw people out of their houses, instead of doing some other kind of human intervention, provide subsidy to people to buy houses, even many third world nations do it, so why can't America do it.
Well said.
Not sure of the point you're making. Child labor pre-dates the Industrial Revolution, and, under Marxian materialism (like you say), morals are relative, local, and subjective; ergo, under his own system, there can be nothing "immoral" or "exploitative" about child labor (or any other kind of labor); Marx's labor theory of value is incorrect since it does not account for supply and demand...and doesn't recognize the consumer as the actual driver of the economy, not the so-called "bourgeoisie." Marx's entire ideology is basically just a restatement of 13th century Catholic scholasticism, with the Usurers (Bourgeoisie) in the 9th circle of hell.
You are the only fool. If you think that socialism is amazing then why don't you live in Venezuela where they are chasing cats and dogs for lunch. Also ask the uyghurs about the labour camps. The soviet political dissidents about the gulags. Ask them how much they were paid for their labour, absolutely nothing which is outright systemic slavery.
I heard the name Alexander Solzhenitsyn for the first time and did a CZcams search. This video was first in queue so I picked it and stopped 3 minutes plus in when speaker said no residual Nazi or fascism in America. hmmmmmm..going to pick a different video.