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Philosophy Series: Marx on History, Communism, & Political Economy
🕑 Added 2024-11-26 14:00:09 +0000 UTCBreht listens to, reflects on, and critically engages with a public lecture by the late philosopher Michael Sugrue entititled "Marx on Alienation and Ideology". Professor Sugrue passed away recently, and Breht has always found his free, public lectures on philosophy to be helpful and really well done. In the spirit of free and open access to education, Breht offers his knowledge of Marxist philosophy alongside this offering by Professor Sugrue.
The use of this lecture series falls under the protections of the Fair Use doctrine.
Outro Music: "Steal for a Meal" by Bambu
Comments
Matthew Mochan
Also Breht I'm struggling to keep up with all the great post-podcast music. Any chance of a wee Spotify playlist or something so they're all in one place?
Matthew Mochan
I must say; when Professor Sugrue, having laid good, solid foundations for the basis of Marxist thought, to then do a complete about-face and argue against its real-world applicability was jaw-dropping and sore to take. How can one engage with this tradition and then decide yeah that's as far as I'll go, throw your hands up in the air and cry 'who knows what the answer is'?! It's disingenuous.
Jason Jones
I can’t believe Sugrue claims that idealistic teleology is inherently part of Marxism, and hence a flaw because it contradicts Marxist materialism / scientific basis. He then uses this false idea to extrapolate that Marxism is inherently authoritarian because Marxists could allegedly go to any extreme in the present to help achieve some far off utopia (communism). As Sugrue describes it, Liberation Theology exists and mixes Christian idealism with Marxist materialism, but so what? How is that a criticism of Marxism? Also, for every example of real or imagined authoritarianism in Marxism, you can find 100 examples in capitalism, so why does he save his criticism for Marxism?
