>>> Charles Peterson
Meanwhile, in our "left", there are endless arguments about dead white guys. A centrist friend of mine wonders if there have been any new ideas on the left since Marx. I told him I like Keynes too.
^^^^^ CB: No need to concede to this centrist friend that the left needs new ideas much. Most of Marx and Marxists' ideas since Marx are still valid today. Capitalism remains basically the same as in Marx's day. To the extent it has developed, the Marxists since Marx have updated Marx's ideas to meet the changes. Comments like "no ideas on the left since Marx" are not so subtle anti-Communism and anti-Marxism, designed to get the left to take their eyes off the prize or the ball. Does this centrist really think Marx's thinking is valid ? Probably not or she/he wouldn't be centrist. I doubt this person is saying "oh yea, Marx was right on for the 1800's. I would have been on the left in 1867. "
As to dead white guys, white guys can do the best critique of a white guy system ( when it's a genuine and radical critique, as with Marx and Engels). It's a critique from the inside. Marx's critique is still 98% valid and pertinent to capitalism 2007. We Marxists have developed the theory to cover the other 2%. The problem is not theory , but practice.
The main problem with practice, application of Marxism, is overcoming the extraordinarily violent and anti-democratic counter-Marxism that the bourgeoisie have developed since Marx's theory changed the world.
The left doesn't so much need new basic ideas at the level of Marx's analysis and theory , as it needs to find out how to apply Marx and post-Marx Marxist theory in practice in the face of capitalism's very sophisticated and exact counter-Marxist system, developed over the last 100 years. The left needs new ideas for political education and agitation, not as to the nature of the system we are trying to change.