One More Reason Why I Am an Anti-Marxist and Pro-Egalitarian
The typical Marxist, Jeff Halper, wrongly insists that unless they're led by Marxists, working class people are just brainwashed followers of the capitalist class
As followers of my Substack know, I have written (here) about how the Israeli Jewish working class rose up against its economic oppression by the Israeli billionaire ruling class in 2011, and how this huge uprising—with 450,000 demonstrating in the streets with 85% to 90% support from the entire Israeli population—was killed by Zionism, by an Israeli government that has for decades funded Hamas and worked to keep it in power (as I prove here) in order to make the Palestinian bogeyman maximally frightening so that the billionaire class in Israel can pretend to be protecting Israeli Jews from their “real enemy” and thereby get away with economically oppressing those Jews severely.
I recently spoke about Israel and Zionism as one of three panelists that included the self-described Marxist, Jeff Halper. Go here to see the panel discussion (my talk is the #3 video) After the panel discussion Jeff Halper told the panel’s host
“I took great exception ar John's presentation, however, which I found to be a stringing together of conspiracy theory ("Zionism" as a thing that plans and does) and vulgar, simplistic "marxism" (& I say this as a Marxist).” [Halper also asked that the recording of the panel discussion not be posted online and the host has informed me that it will be converted to three separate posts for each speaker.]
Subsequently, Hapler sent me an email in which he argued that the huge uprising in Israel in 2011 against economic oppression (read about it here) was not an act of the working class but only of the (presumably unimportant) middle class. Here are Halper’s exact words in his email to me:
I wish 2011 had been a working class uprising against the illionare class. As it was, it was a liberal middle revolt against food prices (mainly Israelis' beloved cottage cheese). The working classes had little to do with it (especially since it was against their beloved Bibi). In fact, the main tent city was on Rothschild Blvd, the heart of bourgeois Askenazi-ville. It petered out (not because ig Gaza), burping out a couple new liberal members of the Labor Party (the right-wing of the party). Reality doesn't fit the narrative.
Jeff Halper's vehement disagreement with me, coupled with his assertion that he is a Marxist, provides an excellent opportunity to see the sharp difference between my views and those of Marxists. Before discussing this, however, I need to point out that being a Marxist means agreeing with Karl Marx about his view of working class people and his so-called “science of social change” that is based in large part on that view of working class people. Merely liking the wonderful ideas (such as class conflict, class solidarity, the need for a revolution, from each according to ability and to each according to need, and so forth) that were widely known and advocated before Karl Marx was even born does NOT make one a Marxist. I discuss this in some detail here.
What makes Halper a Marxist is his Marxist view of working class people.
According to Halper, a movement that had 50 days of repeated demonstrations with at one time 450,000 people demonstrating against the outrageous prices of food and housing and transportation and other requirements of life, a movement that had (according to newspaper polls) the support of (according to one poll) 85% or (according to another poll) 90% of the entire Israeli population, was merely a "liberal middle [class] revolt" over "Israelis' beloved cottage cheese."
Apparently, people demonstrating against economic oppression by the billionaire ruling class are not the working class in Halper's view unless they also wave signs with Marxist jargon to indicate they are led by Marxists.
Halper bends over backwards to maintain his belief that the Israeli billionaire ruling class has no reason whatsoever to fear, and certainly no need to create a bogeyman enemy to control, the Israeli Jewish working class, and that I am a "conspiratorial" "vulgar" "simplistic" fool for thinking it does. Why does he do this?
I believe Halper does this because this is standard Marxist practice, to view the working class as "brainwashed by capitalism" (in Halper's words, being in love with "Bibi’ [Netanyahu].)
Marxists do not believe, as I do believe, that working class people share subjective moral values (equality, mutual aid, fairness) that are in direct conflict with capitalist subjective moral values (inequality, pitting people against each other to control them, domination of the many by the few.) Marxists believe that working class people have objective interests that conflict with the interests of the capitalists, but that working class people have the same subjective moral values as the capitalists (self-interest, racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.)
Marxists believe that the job of revolutionaries is to instill "class consciousness" (i.e., understanding that workers' interests conflict with those of the capitalists) in workers and to thereby obtain the support of enough workers to gain state power for the Marxist (Communist) party so that it can then use generations of social engineering to UN-brainwash the workers to make them have good subjective moral values so that one day they will be what Che Guevara called "Socialist Man" and "Socialist Woman." But until that glorious day arrives Marxists must make sure that the brainwashed workers who have no subjective desire for a classless society do NOT have a real say in society. This is why Marxist regimes are always profoundly anti-democratic.
I ask you to consider that Jeff Halper's words provide evidence for what I say above about Marxism.
On this note, you may want to read my article here about why I disagree with Marxists in general, not just this or that individual Marxist.
You may also find interesting “Egalitarianism is Anti-Marxism”
To read the words of Karl Marx that are the basis for what I say above about Marxism, go here.