Aaron Bastani flips the 'Marxist' attack-line on its head, reducing the Tories to an uneducated mess

Aaron Bastani flips the ‘Marxist’ attack-line on its head, reducing the Tories to an uneducated mess

Conservatives and the establishment frequently try and weaponise the label ‘Marxist’ against progressives.

“Karl Marx had a great deal to say”

But, speaking on BBC Radio 4, Aaron Bastani flipped the attack-line on its head:

Earlier today I was on @bbcradio4 discussing Marx.

The inability of right wing journalists & politicians to critique Marx thoughtfully reveals an intellectual vacuity at the heart of modern conservatism.

It's why they will be out of office for a while.pic.twitter.com/MKBUUwPD2Y

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) April 4, 2019

High-profile Conservatives have used the attack-line recently in response to Theresa May approaching Jeremy Corbyn for help with Brexit. For instance, Iain Duncan Smith claimed May’s talks with the leader of the opposition legitimise “a Marxist whose sole purpose in life is to do real damage to the country”. And fellow Conservative MP Caroline Johnson suggested that “ushering in” what she called “a Marxist… government” would be worse than a no-deal Brexit.

But co-founder of Novara Media Bastani took a different approach:

I’m proud to be someone who doesn’t just willfully right off any thinker within the Western cannon of political economy. Karl Marx had a great deal to say about capitalism and its shortcomings just as did John Maynard Keynes… So I think that willful ignorance which the Tories wear so lightly is something I absolutely don’t want to be a part of… Karl Marx’s conclusions were very relevant for the 21st Century.

Karl Marx explicitly said ‘I’m not here to write recipes for the cook shops of the future’… He was critiquing the classical political economy of David Ricardo, Adam Smith… and what we need to remember is actually he wasn’t unique as a political economist in thinking that capitalism had an end… This fanaticism that it has no end that we can have eternal compound growth really I think belies an intellectual inadequacy on the behalf of modern conservativism.

Through analysing inherent contradictions within capitalism, Marx foresaw the 2008 financial crisis from beyond the grave. Living Conservatives, meanwhile, near-unanimously failed to see it coming.

On BBC Radio 4, Bastani called out the Marxist attack-line for what it is: willful ignorance on a playground level.

Featured image via Novara Media/ YouTube

Comments 2

dissidents_unite says:

7 years ago

Thank God for clear and distinct thinkers like Aaron Bastani – I link to Novara Media on a daily basis and have to say he is one of the most truthful, observant and professional journalists out there.

However, I would add something else. The Tory MPs who made these statements are showing a Tory Party that has such contempt for democracy, Parliamentary Procedure and the nation generally (and incidentally whose policies and conduct are more in keeping with Fascist ideology than progressive politics). They show themselves and the Party as no more than children in a school playground. Corbyn is Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition and therefore, a Privy Councillor. He is not some street activist or journalist or member of the public promoting communism, Marxism or any other political ideology. He has ushered in to the Labour a truly progressive and transformative Manifesto for change which this country, as this monstrous mess the Tory Government are making of Brexit negotiations shows, badly need. That would be some serious old fashioned Keynsian economics – hardly a Marxist model for an economy but a tried and tested one when a Nation is in an economic crisis which this country is thanks to a corrupt, incompetent, lying, cheating Tory Government.

It shows the MPs and the Tory Party for what they are – as Nick Coles said – a Party of rabid brexiteers with only their own interests at heart to protect (Yep Liam Fox and Moggie have both transferred their financial investment business to EU countries so that they can continue to trade in Europe) yet it is not what they want for the Nation. Bunch of Fascist ideologist I believe the ERG to be. We are dealing with racists, bigots, liars, cheats and above all, a significant number of corrupt politicians within the Tory Party. If they were proper MPs who truly believe in Parliamentary Democracy then they would welcome talks between Corbyn and May as the potential to secure Parliamentary agreement on a way forward. Instead of which they are acting like petulant teenagers. Glad to say though, despite the best efforts of the MSM to protect May and smear Corbyn, it isn’t working, the more lies and smears they throw the stronger the vote for Labour grows.

What a bunch of idiots. Better to be a Marxist than a Fascist though isn’t it?

loon says:

7 years ago

Looking into history by Aaron Bastani does reveal this ignorance against progressive ideas in the 1860″s as I’ve been reading about Thomas Piane who wrote “Common Sense”. These Tories have the same attitude as back then, as it appears they wish to live in that era. A church Minster wrote an article called “Infidel Socailism” reminding one of present newspaper coverage. Equality of the sexes as a issue was non existent then as “when many rivers were poisoned by human sewage choked the rivers as by coal dust.”
I agree well with Mr. Dissendent’s comments but one can be a thinker like the original dissedents rather than having to choose between being a Marxist or a Fascist, which is what these idiots want you to do as its the only game they know.
Think of the Peterloo anniversary just reenacted a few months ago to remmeber the State’s violent response to being progressive.
The worst of the 1860’s still prevails with these Tories.