Marxism Is A Science, Not A Religion

A Short Response to Caitlin Johnstone

Caitilin Johnstone profile picture

This short post is a response to a recent post made by journalist Caitlin Johnstone. Many of you in the pro-Palestinian resistance space will recognize Johnstone for her continued advocacy and coverage of Palestinian resistance, as well as crimes committed by the ‘state’ of Israel.

Let me be clear that I support Johnstone in her crusade against the Gaza genocide and for the liberation of Palestinians. This response is made in good faith, and I would appreciate a response from Johnston as we share many similar outlooks and goals. Discussion and clarification helps us all.

Nevertheless, she recently posted some responses to her readers’ questions. One question in particular was interesting:

“A question, how do you see yourself politically? You’ve mentioned you’re not a Marxist, but you do seem close to it.” (source)

Caitlin’s response was also quite interesting:

The best way I’ve been able to sum up my politics is that I support shoving things as far to the left as possible until we get a healthy world. Shoving as far away from capitalism, ecocide, militarism, empire-building, oppression and exploitation as is necessary to have a peaceful and harmonious world where everyone gets what they need and we’re not cannibalizing our biosphere for shareholder profits.

I probably am pretty close to a Marxist in a lot of ways, but I avoid categorizing myself as such for a couple of personal reasons which are unlikely to be of interest to many people.

Firstly, I try to avoid joining up with any ideological factions because humanity is still in a state of extreme delusion at present, so even the best political groups will be full of wildly dysfunctional individuals whose thinking and behavior I’d rather keep at arm’s length to make sure I stay on the right track. I’ll help with leftist movements and agendas where I can be of service in my own capacity like I am with Palestine right now, but I personally don’t find that aligning myself with any group is a safe move at this point in the human adventure.

Secondly I try to avoid limiting my thinking to anyone else’s -ists or -isms. I’ve seen a lot of Marxists get super religious about it and close themselves off to whole aspects of human psychology and spirituality just because of something some dead guy said in the 1880s. That’s something I find too confining as a writer, as a thinker, and as a human organism.

I wanted to highlight plenty of wrong factors and ideas in this response. But first, I will steelman her position and be charitable with my framing.

I understand the general desire for leftists to be seen as non-sectarian. There are plenty of specific factions within specific movements that can close one off to growth, understanding, and actually getting involved. These chronically online individuals do not organize in their communities and do not put their ideas into practice like a true Marxist would. I have encountered some of these individuals, so it is understandable where some misconceptions might apply. There are also plenty of splintered and shady organizations within the U.S. that claim to be a ‘vanguard’ party, but are either highly revisionist or are sometimes known for questionable behavior.

However, as Johnstone would find it unacceptable for someone to characterize the entire movement of Palestinian resistance to the worst caricatures of Hamas, I find it inappropriate for her to represent the whole of Marxism by the worst caricatures of supposed ‘Marxists’.

Marxism is not limited to the USA, Europe, or the West in general. It is noted for being an important part of liberation struggles in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

That it is already the ideology of eight hundred million Chinese people; that it is already the ideology which guided the Vietnamese people to successful struggle and to the defeat of imperialism. That it is already the ideology which allows North Korea to transform itself from. a backward, quasi-feudal, quasi-colonial terrain into an independent, industrial power. That it is already the ideology which has been adopted on the Latin American, continent and that serves as the basis for development in the Republic of Cuba. That it is already the ideology which was used by Cabral, which was used by Samora Machel, which is in use on the African continent itself to underline and underscore struggle and the construction of a new society.

It cannot therefore be termed a European phenomenon; and the onus will certainly be on those who argue that this phenomenon, which was already universalised itself, is somehow inapplicable to some black people. The onus will be on those individuals, I suggest, to show some reason, perhaps genetic, why the genes of black people reject this ideological position.

- Marxism and African Liberation by Walter Rodney (1975)

The rejection of Marxism because of dysfunctional individuals to preserve Johnstone’s own agenda tells me that she is more concerned with serving her own interests than with understanding the movement of Marxism.

Another dubious claim Johnstone makes is that Marxists utilize Marxism in a religious context. Marxism's underpinning is dialectical materialism, which is supposed to be seen as scientific, as described by Marx and Engels.

Nature is the proof of dialectics, and it must be said for modern science that it has furnished this proof with very rich materials increasingly daily, and thus has shown that, in the last resort, Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically; that she does not move in the eternal oneness of a perpetually recurring circle, but goes through a real historical evolution. In this connection, Darwin must be named before all others. He dealt the metaphysical conception of Nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals, and man himself, are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years. But, the naturalists, who have learned to think dialectically, are few and far between, and this conflict of the results of discovery with preconceived modes of thinking, explains the endless confusion now reigning in theoretical natural science, the despair of teachers as well as learners, of authors and readers alike.

- Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels

If Johnstone took the time to look over something some dead guy said in the 1880s before posting, she would know that Marxism is dependent on a scientific method of historical and dialectical materialism.

I would suggest two basic reasons why I believe that Marxist thought, Scientific Socialist thought, would exist at different levels, at different times, in different places and retain its potential as a tool, as a set of conceptions which people should grasp.

The first is to look at Marxism, as, a methodology, because a methodology would, virtually by definition, be independent of time and place. You will use the methodology at any given time, at any given place. You may get different results, of course, but the methodology itself would be independent of time and place.

And essentially, to engage in a rather truncated presentation of Marxism, inevitably oversimplifying, but nevertheless necessary in the context of limited time I would suggest that, one of the real bases of Marxist thought is that it starts from a. perspective of man's relationship to the material world; and that Marxism, when it arose historically, consciously dissociated itself from and pitted itself against all other modes of perception which started with ideas, with concepts and with words; and rooted itself in the material conditions and in the social relations in society.

This is the difference with which I will start. A methodology which begins its analysis of any society, of any situation, by seeking the relations which arise in production between men. There are a whole variety of things which flow from that: man's consciousness is formed in the intervention in nature; nature itself is humanised through its interaction with man's labour; and man's labour produces a constant stream of technology which in turn creates other social changes.

So this is the crux of the Scientific Socialist perception. A methodology that addresses itself to man's relationship in the process of production on the assumption, which I think is a valid assumption, that production is not merely the, basis of man's existence, but the basis for defining man as a special kind of being with a certain consciousness.

It is only through production that the human race differentiates itself from the rest of the primate's and the rest of life.

- Marxism and African Liberation by Walter Rodney

Marxist methodology has helped and can help liberation movements, including the Palestinian cause. Marxist works have been produced in the Gay liberation movement (Lavender and Red), the Decolonization movement (Walter Rodney), the Black Queer Feminism movement (the Combahee River Collective), etc.

To suggest that this vast array of work is “too confining” makes me question whether Johnstone is serious about tackling the problems of liberation and imperialism. While she does not have to agree with Marx and Marxism, her comments portray a profound ignorance of Marxist history, theory, and practice, which could only work to hinder her work and understanding in the future.