Glenn Beck Misses the Obvious

Karl Marx is the single most influential economist in western history.

But, like Lord Voltemort of Harry Potter, we are not allowed to mention his name.

Marx's influence has been primarily negative. For the world to prosper, we need to root out the idiocies of this failed thought system.

For this reason, I am thrilled that Glenn Beck is engaged in an exploration of the influence of Marx in the Obama Administration.

However, Beck's show is extremely frustrating because Beck is simply reacting to the image of Marx and ignoring the substance.

If Beck understood the substance of Marx, he would understand that people reacting the way Beck is reacting magnify the problem.

Marx was first and foremost a dialectician. He believes that intellectuals could control change by the creation and resolution of conflicts.

Marxism is not simply the idea that big government leads to social justice. Marx's main focus was on manufacturing conflicts that could then be used to engineer change.

Marx's greatest accomplishment was the dichtomy between the capitalist and worker that continues to dominate politics today.

If you read Marx, you will find precious little about the workings of Communism. Marx's thoughts on communism go little beyond vague slogans.

Marx's goal was to create a conflict that intellectuals could then manipulate. He was seeking to establish a thesis/anti-thesis conflict.

Like many thinkers of his day, Marx was an avid follower of Sun Tsu and Machiavelli. He knew that, in the art of war, the best way to win the war was to define the position of his opponent.

The goal of the Sun Tzu intellectual isn't to argue a good point, but to structure the debate so that one has the high ground and one's opponent the low ground.

One reading Marx, one finds that he spends most of his time defining the position of his opponents ... the anti-thesis to his thesis.

The trick behind this tactic is that the people, like Glenn Beck, who argue the anti-thesis end up deepening the conflict.

For anti-Marxists to be effective, they must to reject the false dichotomy.

Arguing the anti-thesis preserves the thesis.

For anti-Marxists like Beck to be effective, they must stop reacting to the images of Marx and dissect the substance of his work.

Reactionaries preserve an image of the action they re-act against.

As long as Glenn Beck and those wishing to defend freedom continue the course of arguing the anti-thesis and reacting to the image of Marx, the conflicts created by Marx will continue to grow and eventually consume our society.

To stop the process one needs to reject the false dichotomy created by Marx.

One can start this simply by looking at the books Marx wrote. The two primary works of Marx are "Das Kapital" and "The Communist Manifesto."

Das Kapital is a massive work in which Marx enumerates ways in which a corrupt ruling class can pervert a market. This perversion centralizes the market and leads to an instable society of haves and have nots.

The Manifesto is a simple pamphlet which uses the ideas from Das Kapital to raise those harmed by the perverted market in revolution against the haves.

To understand modern history one must understand the Material Dialectics. A primary idea of the material dialectics is that the intellectual class can engineer change by creating conflicts and using the energy of the conflict (the call for change) to rise to power.

This next part of history is not rocket science.

Marx wrote a book called Das Kapital. Shortly after this book, the modern definition of capitalism appeared.

The modern definition of capitalism is more in line with Marx's perverted view of the free market, than the free market that was emerging in the wake of Adam Smith and the US Founders.

Even Glenn Beck could figure this puzzle out if he just put is muzzle to it.

The pieces of the puzzle are as follows: Marx was a dialectician who believed intellectuals could engineer change by creating conflicts. Marx never defined communism beyond a few broad slogans. Marx wrote a horrendously long book called "Das Kapital" which created a perverted version of the market.

The people who translated Das Kapital from German to English used the term capitalism for this perverted view of the market.

Don't you see?

It's obvious if one just looks at history.

The perversion of the free market that keeps collapsing on us came from Marx's "Das Kapital" through the schools and into society at large.

Modern "capitalism" is dramatically different from the free markets discussed by the likes of Adam Smith, Ben Franklin and the US Founders.

The perversion of the markets that Conservatives cling to did not come from the American tradition, the perversion of the markets called capitalism came from the enemies of freedom.

Don't you get it?

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx is the father of capitalism.

Marx's goal was to create a thesis/anti-thesis conflict that the ruling class could use to manipulate change. To create the conflict he created a perversion of the free market that we now call capitalism (the anti-thesis to his thesis).

And every time idiots like Beck argue the anti-thesis they deepen the conflict.

I wish I could reach into the television set. Grab Beck by the collar. Slam his head against the desk once or twice and ask in my loudest voice:

"Why do you keep defending Marx's anti-thesis when arguing the anti-thesis simply deepens the conflict?"

If you want to stop Marx, then reject the false dichotomy.

We need to reject all of the traps that the left has injected into our systems of thought and take affirmative steps to re-establish the system of freedom created by the founders of the United States.

The path that Glenn Beck offers leads us nowhere.

We need a better path.

That path could start by recognizing that Marx did not simply influence his followers. Marx influenced the entire discussion of economics and society, including a large number of the ideas that the reactionary right holds dear to its heart.

Our society is still suffering from the conflicts engineered by the Marxists. To move beyond Marxism, we need to understand that his creation was not Marxism, but a conflict designed to destroy the free society of the west.