I'll actually take Feser's use of "liberalism", since it means more than is appropriate for it in American political discourse. But from a leftist position I disown almost every popular aspect of the American "left" as much as he does, including identity politics, nor would I call myself a liberal, since that means, essentially, a center-right economic position that isn't particularly different than anything Republicans have put forward in the last 50 years.

I essentially believe Marx on capitalism, with some modifications. My main problem is that I reject orthodox political economy and the libertarian intensifications of it, which leaves me no where to go but left. However, since I'm not an economic reductionist about politics, I think a lot more things are valid than the average Marxist. For instance, I think usury laws- in the sense of laws the prevent a charge for the use of money with little respect to the productive/social prospects of the lendee -were good and should be revived in various forms. I also think that debt jubilees are useful instruments for keeping the finance sector in check.

But that said, there's a lot of people in Marxism that utterly reject identity politics for reasons that should be obvious. Your critique of their hypocrisy is one, though there are many others.

Last edited by iwpoe (1/30/2016 3:27 am)

iwpoe wrote:

I essentially believe Marx on capitalism, with some modifications. My main problem is that I reject orthodox political economy and the libertarian intensifications of it, which leaves me no where to go but left. However, since I'm not an economic reductionist about politics, I think a lot more things are valid than the average Marxist. For instance, I think usury laws- in the sense of laws the prevent a charge for the use of money with little respect to the productive/social prospects of the lendee -were good and should be revived in various forms. I also think that debt jubilees are useful instruments for keeping the finance sector in check.

But that said, there's a lot of people in Marxism that utterly reject identity politics for reasons that should be obvious. Your critique of their hypocrisy is one, though there are many others.

​Interesting. I'm anti-capitalist as well. I have never been especially impressed by Marx's work though, except his business cycle theory and historical work on primitive accumulation. There are interesting, decentralist, localist, and traditionalist alternatives to both corporate-capitalism and socialism or social democracy.