Re: Welcoming Stan Goff Out of Marxism

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Angelus Novus wrote:
>
>
> As far as Stan Goff's departure goes, I think the
> burden of proof is on the advocates of Marx-ism to
> make their case for Marx-ism's relevance.

Why? Why debate the issue at all? This claim implies, though I'm sure
that is not A.N.'s intention, that Marxism is a religion, and that the
task of marxists is to convert non-believers to the true faith. But this
position is negated by the anti-sectarian passage in the birth
announcement of marxism, the CM. We do not aim at converting others to
marxism; we aim rather to join with others in the overthrow of
capitalism. In some  instances that means that those others will, from
their practice, come to see that marx-ism is highly useful as an
illumination of that practice. In other instances our "non-marx-ist"
comrades will go happily to their graves still living under the joint
slogans of "Workers of all countries, unite" and "There is no God but
God." In any case, there are far more important things to debate than
the truth or falsity of the theory of commodity fetishism. (I would only
want to 'debate' that with fellow committed marxists.) The most
important issue within the broad left, it seems to me, is the question
of whether or not u.s. imperialism is (as I think) the main enemy of
humanity at the present time. And I can usually debate that without
calling on explicit marxist "doctrine," however much that marxism may
have shaped my conclusions, those conclusions have to be defended
without recourse to explicit marxist theory.

Carrol