Liberals and progressives vehemently object to the contention that Marxist leftist ideology accurately reflects the origins of their approach to society and governance. In my opinion however, the programs and policies of the left are based on Marxist philosophy. The fact that Marxism rarely surfaces during discussions of ideas underlying the cultural, social, political, and economic issues of our time is powerful evidence of the stealth nature of Marxism. Pseudonyms, such as socialism, liberalism, the progressive movement, the left, and the far left, substitute for the term Marxism in most discussions. Each term has its roots in Marxist philosophy.
Marxist leftist ideology is philosophically based on the concept that all societies will evolve into societies in which all people share equally in all the benefits of society regardless of their personal willingness or ability to contribute to the good of society. The theorized evolution will occur locally first, regionally, nationally, and finally expand into a global reality. Under Marxist social theory, all property and wealth will eventually be held in common, and as Marx stated it, from each according to his capacity, to each according to his need, wealth will be distributed equally among all people.
For the most part, socialist philosophers, both before and after Marx, postulated that their vision of social change would occur at an inevitable but evolutionary pace. Socialists, including Marx and Engels, felt that the worsening plight of laborers resulting from the expanding industrial revolution would soon be a catalyst for the change they predicted. These changes would eventually have global scale and impact.
The editors of A DICTIONARY OF MARXIST THOUGHT, 1983, demonstrated the staged demise of Marxism and its hidden influence that continues to this day, as follows:
Leszek Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism, which distinguishes between the value of Marxism as ‘an interpretation of past history’ and its ‘fantasy’ character as a political ideology, and argues that while the intellectual legacy of Marx has been largely assimilated into modern social sciences “so that as an independent explanatory system or method Marxism is ‘dead’ “ as an efficacious political doctrine it is simply ‘a caricature and a bogus form of religion.’
The editors go on to contradict the verdict that Marxism is ‘dead’ as follows:
But it is precisely the distinctive explanatory power of Marxist thought in many areas, and its capacity to generate not a religion, but a body of rational norms for a socialist society, which seems to many thinkers to make Marxism an enduring challenge to other modes of thought.
Consequently, it is safe to conclude from these two statements that
Marxism is not dead; but, Marxism is a body of rational norms that have been largely assimilated into modern social sciences.
Consequently, liberals and progressives are able to disassociate themselves and their ideas from the relationship between Marxism and totalitarian communism. Hence, they substitute phrases such as the rich should pay their fair share in taxes and inheritance taxes for wealth redistribution. Regardless of protests to the contrary, the statement Marxist leftist ideology, is in my opinion a statement of philosophical fact.
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