First published in 2017
Copyright Helen Razer 2017. North American edition Helen Razer, 2020
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Publisher and acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Luke Savage
Cover designer: Sophie Paas-Lang
Cover image: stock.adobe.com/GeorgiosKollidas
Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Total propaganda : basic Marxist brainwashing for the angry and the young / Helen Razer.
Names: Razer, Helen, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200268082 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200268120 | ISBN 9781459747739 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459747746 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459747753 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Socialism21st century. | LCSH: Socialism and youth. | LCSH: Generation Y. | LCSH: Socialism and society.
Classification: LCC HX547 .R39 2020 | DDC 320.53/15dc23
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(Decade of Glorious Worldwide Revolt)
Karl Marx Is A Super Cool Bro And Totally Relevant For Todays Cell Phone Crazy Youngster!
K arl Marx was a white European dude from the nineteenth century who drank too much and probably got the cleaning lady knocked up. He was often in a very bad mood. If we saw him on a TED talk of the present, we might ask, Cant that crusty old drunk break out a smile once in a while, or possibly a comb? before switching to another speaker. Perhaps one with tidier hair and a more optimistic topic than This Is How The World Went To Shit.
Such was the unpleasant labor of a sometimes-unpleasant man: exploring the shit of the world in some detail. This short book will not be a guide to the life of Marx, which may or may not have involved a weekend of banging a German cleaning lady called Helene. It will be a basic introduction to the revolutionary project of sorting shit out, begun in earnest by Marx. One that has enjoyed a recent revival.
You may have heard the old term socialism going around a bit lately. You must have, otherwise youd hardly have picked up a book that promises to explain Marxs marvelous version of it. I should tell you then, from the outset, that the Marx kind of socialism, which Ill now stop putting in scare quotes, is largely a tool for understanding capitalism. And capitalism is understood by the Marxist to negatively affect many parts of everyday life, not just the bits with money in it.
Yes. Not just the economy! This news may be a relief for you, because it means well discuss things a bit more thrilling than profit, commodities, and labor. We will talk about a world in which we might all flourish. We will even talk about our feelings. Our feelings are not, when truly examined, unimportant when it comes to diagnosing all the disorders of capitalism. And Marx was in the business of diagnosis. Its now up to us to find a cure, a task you may find, as I do, both thrilling and fucking exhausting.
As weve seen over the latter half of the past decade, this socialism word can once again be used loudly and proudly. You may have heard it used by the United States presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his astonishingly popular campaigns of 2016 and 2020. If you were listening in to the 2017 French Presidential election, you would have heard the word truly and more traditionally used by Jean-Luc Mlenchon. You may have heard it used by the record numbers of young people joining political parties like British Labour or organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). You might even have heard it even earlier, had you attended one of the many anti-austerity protests that swept the globe during the first half of the decade following the colossal capitalist clusterfuck that was the 20082009 economic crash. If you ever joined me and my family at a table, you would have heard it then, too. As in, there goes the socialist again, going on about seizing the means of production while totally covered in gravy. I am delighted to find a more agreeable place and time than Christmas dinner in which to address the topic.
For various reasons, which you can be sure I will start boring you with in Chapter 1, talk of socialism which can also be called communism by some, or, just to mess with your shit, the materialist Left has lately become more frequent and public. Its not just for the festive family table or nineteenth-century white men anymore! No. Apparently, many inquisitive youngsters of the West have decided they dont mind the sound of this thing at all, this form of socialism written down by Marx in the mean little rooms of a long-ago Europe.
You, whether old or young or a midlife husk like me, have not become curious about something like socialism on a whim. To take real interest in any ism is a time-sucking pain, especially when that ism has endured decades of bad press. And it has had such bad press. Everyone is always calling someone a Marxist as though this is a slur; as though they even understand what Marxism means in an era where it is no longer truly taught at universities.
You might have heard people say that Marxism is too idealistic, too lazy, or about as helpful to the present day as a derelict coal mine. Such people often old enough to remember the Cold War and usually rich enough to own a bit of property have many ways of dismissing Marxs socialism without ever bothering to read it. These include, Theres no difference between Left and Right anymore. That garbage went in the trash with my iPhone 2.
Well, you know, fuck em. If we truly understand what Marxism is a strong and unflinching criticism of capitalism, the necessary shadow of a behemoth that imposes itself on every person on the planet, no matter their cultural identity then plainly, theres a bunch of Western people, largely young, now reasserting their need to do this.
