Is Marxism Useful Today? | Chris Cutrone X Alex Grant

Grant is a good interlocutor insofar as he perfectly articulates pseudo-Marxist common sense -- I just wish he didn't keep interrupting Cutrone! Listen, (fake) Marxist!

The more Alex talked, the more he proved Chris's point

I watched this video with an open mind, hoping for a productive dialogue. The left appears to be in disarray and in desperate need of direction. What should it be doing? It’s an extremely crucial and time sensitive issue.

However to my dismay almost immediately I realised that Grant only agreed to this ‘debate’ to filibuster Cutrone. But that assumes a level of nous and finesse that appears absent from the parochial British schoolmaster. It was like watching a dog learning to speak Chinese.

The IMT did not send their best. Grossly irresponsible and juvenile on many levels.

Alex is quick to assume Chris is a laborist when he was the person who originally brought up unions as a revolutionary organization. Too quick to ascribe the mistakes of the DSA to Chris

Alex Grant is exhausting to listen to

Ok. I’ve listened to half now and will continue with the rest after this. Tried to wait with a comment until finished but that seams as a “can’t do”. Eamon, you did a not so good work here. That Grant guy is acting as a total cunt, interrupting all the fucking time. Your role (in my never humble opinion) should have been to tell him to shut the fuck up and letting Chris finish a sentence!

Well this was frustrating..

I gave up at 30m because of alex. He doesnt want to take up the basic point which is that there is no worker's movement and no party to intervene in, at least in the US. In that sense we're living in a pre-marxist situation.

Cutrone is the best thing happened on this channel yet, thanks for organising this, Stephen.

How best to mediate a discussion of such importance between two intellectuals of this stature ? Throughout i was hoping E would interject to cease Alex from his clearly deliberate diversionary chasing down rabbit holes and the evident intellectual conceit, it wasn't a pleasant watch with a condescending attitude that will not sit well or resonate among ordinary folk for sure. To achieve clarity and definitions in politics polemical discussion must take place, but it must be contextual and if possible cordial to achieve the aim, this was not a street fight nor an abstract high school debate but it came close to both, primarily from Alex. His attempted ridiculing and disingenuous interpretations of what CC said eventually self imploded.But in the end E steered it very well, in fact the more Alex talked the more he revealed himself, his intellectual capacity could not cloak his failings, we have to be honest here and say that despite the depths that wc politics is in today - as CC was at pain to explain -we should be glad that "leftists" like Alex have little influence. And here is the biggest reveal, Alex and his "inevitablity of revolutionary consciousness of the wc.." as the capitalist crisis " ..inevitably worsens.." during which by magic the revolutionary party will "lead" the wc to political power. A complete contrast to what CC was beginning to express while often cut off by Alex. What it means is that, whether the misunderstanding of the contemporary necessities are due to an intellectual failure/misinterpretation or multiple other factors " revolutionaries" can be self satisfied within their sect building while blithely quoting Lenin and vanguardism , historical specificity ignored. Miseducating new generations, and not just on " strategy" is clearly still taking place by the likes of Alex, in that they are obstacles just as neo stalinists are.

omg my previous comment was after the first hour, the last 20 minutes are more sadening. Chris is respectful and patient and pedagogical, never insulting or condesending, a teacher. I hope Alex and others like find a way to really listen.

This is the problem with Trots. They make being anti-revisionist their main ideology and can't even look past semantics to humour an idea only to then finger wag about how it's liberal which ironically is the most petite bourgeois thing you can do. A wokescold basically.

wish you had moderated this discussion a bit more and provided a structure where each side could clearly lay out their views without chris having to fight so much to even get the space to explain his theory uninterrupted. you cant just let polemical narcissists with anger issues like grant off the leash like that its just harmful for everyone involved

Grant: "that's just a truism!" Uh, no, thats the objective truth. I think one can take Dialectics to such a vulgar extreme that you just completely rehect what's right i front of yoh because that's going to change and later it will be different. Yeah, sure but you can't assert with confidence that what you want to happen is GOING to happen, that you have an insight on the future. Thats just faith. Its religious but swapping out Jesus for Lenin.

Cutrone says there is no base, and it needs rebuilding (while keeping in mind the endgame of achieving a socialist revolution) before anything can be achieved. Alex says build the party ( and perhaps everything Chris wants will happen along the way?). The interesting part would have been to explore those differences.
History shows the Marxist parties to have failed and have almost no relevance to most people these days so I have some sympathy with his position but the devil is in the detail; how are the mistakes of the past to be learnt from and avoided while trying to rebuild a new proletarian movement. That was not even touched on in this discussion.

Hey folks, glad that people enjoyed the debate. I've got some blowback for interrupting. Which, fair point, I did. I'll explain why. It would be interesting if someone could time the amount we both speak - I think you'll find that Chris spoke far longer than I did. I'd accuse Chris of having nothing positive to say and only having a negative position. He'd enter into a long and convoluted talk, full of false ideas, and never got to the point of what he thinks people should do. Some have said that if only I hadn't interrupted he would have explained. But what was clear from my perspective is that this is vague verbiage hiding behind the prospect of potential future profundity. If I let him he'd take up all 90 minutes without coming to a clear conclusion. And indeed this is exactly what he did when he appeared on Eamon's show a couple of weeks ago. He had all the time to make his point then and never did beyond negative pessimism. But the good thing is that the debate isn't over. And the written word allows people to have their say without my nasty interruption. Can someone please explain to me what POSITIVE tactics and strategy Chris proposes for those who want a revolution? Now is your chance. I promise I won't interrupt.

As a supporter of Chris, this kind of goes back to my criticism of his and many people's sort of anti-anarchism. Anarchism was not, if you are materialist, just Proudhon and middle class local artisan utopias. Nor secret societies , nor the new left of 1968 (anarchism was functionally over before the 1960's) nor self styled modern activist-ists. It was, from a working class movement POV, the closest thing to the decades of organizational and structural building, that rethought along the way, that Chris is referring to. That is why it had an impact beyond its real potential in Spain at the time, because it was not jumping in to the crisis, it had been building and deepening. And if you read their own spanish language press at the time, it reads more like the kind of critically thinking, non generic, creative Marxists of our time, but using populist lingo, than it does like some vegan co-op, spontaneist greek street fighters or david graeber pamphlet. Anarchism is gone forever, and it failed. But by not learning from its actually relevant failure, the 40 year period when it was a proletarian mass movement, we're missing out on lots of lessons.

One thing interesting, and this is not meant to be insulting to Ales is : what if this debate were about social issues? Based on Alex's magazine, it would be a clear example of theory get in the way - because he would be empirically wrong about a lot of them. At best that is because it would just be uttering left wing tropes that obtained among socialists back in the day and follows claims found in hypothesis of people like Engels, forced onto society by leftists now, as opposed to tools that can taken up to find out what's going on today. At worst he would say these things because they overlap with what progressives say, not what the working class does, and so he can't not - or be called reactionary , despite not being so.

I like Cutrones approach. He makes Marxism understandable. Way too many Marxists think Marx, Engels and Lenin invented socialist politics and strategy, and that their predecessors and contemporaries were dummies.

not at all a useful comment from me, but god damn Alex came off like a fuckin smarmy twerp during this

what a fucking banger

Chris is just miles ahead of Alex

Half an hour in and I might have to bail. Grant is unfortunately making this unwatchable with the unearned condescension, pat dogmatic notions, and constant interruption.

Chris rolled here, alex wasted his life studying marxism if this all he can muster, chris was on to something when he called him an empiracist

Canada really just is utterly infested with marxists pollievre might be right about that

The capacities of the working class are the single most important thing to actually acheive something beyond capital and bureaucratic management

Alex lives in a parallel fantasy world. His constant, histrionic cutting-off of Chris -- literally raising his voice to cut him off -- only serves to show how afraid of he is of reality. Chris's patience is admirable.

Hey good to see Alex G.

He hears "irrelevance" and understands this just as "unimportant". While Chris wants to say inaplicable now, but important in the future

Incredible how all of these debates degenerate into endless back and forth before actually addressing the strategic and tactical issues facing the workers movement today.

Grant is conflating his own organizing experience in a theoretical and self-centered organization as "revolutionary" and constantly takes offense when Cutrone rightly points out that the real workers movement is left stranded and without leadership.

Just want to thank the comment section for saving me the time I would’ve spent watching this.

I enjoyed the podcast very much. I liked the passion of both speakers and the topic was incredibly relevant.

Alex reminds me of many of the religious fundamentalist evangelists i have debated with in the past. Full of buzzwords and dogmatic thought patterns, rhetoric and insecurity. Completely intellectually incurious about his interlocutors ideas.

To quote Trotsky back at him, Alex is an outstanding mediocrity. I mean that in the literal sense that its outstanding how mediocre he is.

CIA paid actors smh actually not marxists. So glad the white guys could help us out. Only needed 5 minutes to realize the anti-communist propaganda. Wonder why they didn't mention lenin or trotskyist meddlings, or any actually government policies of the Soviet union that were successful

Swole, why are you platforming Grant? I cant comprehend why you have a desire to do so given the events of the past year. Does that not bother you at all?

Great debate, but Alex interrupted far too much.

As frustrating as it was to watch I think letting Grant stick his foot in his vapid mouth illustrates better than anything cutrone could say just how devoid of substance his position is.

Can anyone explain to me what Chris actually means by Liberalism?

Chris laid out his argument coherently, and then the discussion reinforced his position.

Fantastic work, both to Chris and Alex. I have been a fan of Cutrone's work for sometime now and always find his perspective refreshing and helpful. I agree with his thesis that Marxism tends to be too abstract and gets in the way of actually organising social efforts towards an actually existing socialism. This recognition in my early philosophical work is why I went back to Hegel over Marx in thinking through the foundation of the philosophy that leads to Marxist thought, although I would like to dive deeper into Das Kapital in the future. I agree with Cutrone's idea that we are living in the situation we are because of the past 200 years of capitalism and that this can be linked to the novel qualitative emergence of proleterian socialist movements, however, and at the same time, our situation is one of absolute impotence (unfortunately). Will this change in the future? And if it will change in the future what is the best practical way to engage our reality right now so as to prepare for this future, where Marxism may indeed become more relevant? I personally find the total and complete acceptance of our impotence to be an important starting point, in Christian terms, to recognise we are living in a moment of "crucifixion" and in psychoanalytic terms we are living a moment of "subjective destitution". Otherwise we will become too over confident in our own "bright ideas" about becoming a "revolutionary cell" of activity. This is not just a form of "miserablism" but probably a necessary move for us to start thinking again about best next steps, with a sense of extreme humbleness to the monstrosity of our situation. Will the non-revolutionary status quo continue for 10 or 20 years? Longer? Who knows. But I do agree with Cutrone that most self-identified Marxists tend towards giving spurious pseudo-Marxist analysis of capitalism that does not actually lead to socialism at the moment. At the same time, I appreciate the revolutionary energy and positive thinking, as well as emphasis on the importance of dialectical thinking from Alex Grant. I have not exposed myself to his work yet but I will look into it in the future. Thanks also to Eamon for hosting.

I've watched it again and I think AG's focus on "positivity" comes from decades of recruiting and agitating for very young Fightback members. Its just instinctive, muscle memory for him. He's right that you can't bring up "counterfactuals" as he puts it because that might dampen enthusiasm for the project. But in a conversation like this with an older comrade who's just as experienced this really comes off as bizarre. Like what's the point in ignoring the very real defeats of the movement? Isn't the point to learn from experience?

This instinctive training that his role as leader of Fightback is also the source of his insistence that building revolutionary organizations is the only task worth considering. Of course he would say that to a recruit whose time is limited but how can he not know that there are millions of workers who instead of being party members build orher forms of class independant institutions of all kinds? Its like he thinks ALL workers must do this one thing while dismissing the rest as "volunteerism" and Mutual Aid. So what? As if the largest eorking class in the history of the world is not going to have a million different things going on that can also gelp the movement as a whole!

Anyway, I hope Grant learns to break some of these habits and broaden his perspective a bit. There are tons of revolutionary orgs out there, people are in them and organizing. Without a real workers movement though they will not get anywhere.

I also found alex a bit annoying but tbh he was a really good challenge to and foil for chris

alex has his own head in front of him. he cant see the world because he is obsessed with seeing himself in it. very clear he just wants to be some talking head, spokesperson, for marxism.

Kudos to Chris for keeping his cool. The man could barely finish a single thought throughout this entire discussion without Alex jumping down his throat. I also agree with other commenters, I had my head in my hands as Alex said “Chris, let me finish, you have to let me FIN-NISH-UH”. The hypocrisy astounds 🤦‍♂️
Otherwise could have been an incredibly interesting conversation. Would love to see it again with a little more moderation

A remark made elsewhere here cuts to the chase: Grant is all "rhetoric and insecurity" (listen to that ascending squeak in his voice - such toe-curling histrionics!). He's on the edge, throughout, of a tantrum. It's an unedifying spectacle, as were the revelations about his expulsion from IMT for sexual misconduct.

"I don't mean this as an insult...". Yes, you do, Alex. When someone says they're not about to insult us, we all know they are.

Otherwise, there's something pitiful in hearing someone talking about the 'inevitability' of 'working class consciousness'. Once upon a time, it was important to impress upon our potential audience the urgency of the case for working class revolution. Yet I always understood that revolutionaries cannot create a movement of their own volition, but must give direction to one that already exists. It doesn't exist. It's gone, Alex, it's gone. Your shrill, sulky protestations only serve to highlight this all too clearly.

Cutrone is outstanding. I want to hear more from him.

“You must be interested in what’s happening around you, even if it looks unfamiliar.
What we need to ask is, ‘Is the theory articulating a social change which is positive in direction?’. Oftentimes, the things we hoped were moving in the right direction turn out to be moving in the wrong direction – even in a destructive direction. You can only know that by thinking them through. I honestly don’t care if there is no Marxism in the future, because they’ll be something better.”

James Heartfield, at ‘What is Marxism For?’, Platypus public forum, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 2022

"Chris, Chris let me finish here..." Lol