mickey kaus posted a very thought provoking entry to his slate blog

http://www.slate.com/id/2...2/?from=rss#snoblikeobama

Help! I'm A Snob Like Obama! Greg Mitchell ridicules Bill Kristol for insinuating that Barack Obama was a Marxist for saying that residents of economically depressed small towns "cling to guns or religion ... as a way to explain their [economic] frustrations." But of course it was a Marxist thing to say, wasn't it? If Democrats had delivered on the economy, Obama suggests, all those GOP cultural "wedge" issues would lose traction. This idea**that the economy trumps culture**isn't new. It's "materialism." The economic "base," Marxists would argue, determines the cultural "superstructure." If the economy changes (i.e. if small town Pennsylvanians get well-paying jobs) then the superstructure will change (Pennsylvanians will feel less intensely about their religion).

Actually this isn't simply Marxism**it's what, when I was in college at least, was called Vulgar Marxism. More sophisticated Marxists hypothesized various ways the cultural "superstructure" could interact with the economy or take on a life of its own. Less supple Marxists (Engels, if I remember) hew to the crude base/superstructure idea**with feudalism you get feudal beliefs, which give way to bourgeois beliefs once capitalism takes over.

I've sniped at Obama for the condescension implicit in his argument that Pennsylvanians will stop their 'clinging' once Democrats like him start delivering jobs from Washington. But this condescension is inherent in any Vulgar Marxist explanation, isn't it? European peasants thought they were loyal to divine monarchs in a well-ordered hierarchical universe. Comes the industrial revolution and they look like fools. "All that is sacred ...

The problem for me is that I'm a Vulgar Marxist too. I've always believed that people need to eat, and want to get ahead and prosper. If you give them an avenue that lets them do that, they aren't going to let their religion, their music, their sexual habits, their families or their educational system stand in their way for long. The two most obvious contemporary applications of this economic determinism are 1) China (when the Chinese have a capitalist economy they won't be able to have a Communist government, Vulgar Marxists would say) and 2) the Muslim world (if Islam needs a Reformation in order to prosper in a global market, then Islam will eventually get a Reformation). I agree with both of those propositions.

Does that mean I'm condescending too? It's hard to avoid the charge. If a Chinese Communist Party Official somehow came to me and declared that, no, China would out-compete the West while maintaining Mao-era control over free inquiry, I'd think 'You poor deluded fool. Just wait.' I support Western policies of bringing China into the global marketplace in large part because I think that means Chinese Communism will collapse even if the Chinese Communists don't realize it. Same with fundamentalist Muslims**e.g. Pakistan, when prosperous, will no longer be such a breeding ground of jihadist fanatics. They'll be too busy making money to blow up the world. My attitude toward Pakistan is roughly parallel to Obama's attitude toward rural Pennsylvanians: if the economy really delivered for them, they'd stop clinging to their God. And their guns.

I'm especially appalled by the possibility that I'm as much of a snob as Obama because I've made a big deal about social equality**how treating people as equals, rather than redistributing income, is the essential goal of liberal politics. Condescension, needless to say, is not treating people like equals.

Well at least hes addressing the issue of the good ole boyz. Someone has to deal with white trailer trash.

Are you suggesting that the argument that economics affects society, culture, and education is a false one?

It's a rather poorly written article in the sense that it doesn't justify the label of "Vulgar Marxist" other than to state that his claim that an obvious and observable economic principle will take its course makes him one. You could equally call him something like a "Socially Conscious Capitalist" and justify it by the same means.

I suppose it doesn't have quite the same ring to it though.

It also seems rather like inflammatory spin to say that stating an economic principle makes someone a condescending snob.

I suppose the article is thought provoking in the sense that it makes you wonder why people attach so much weight to the connotations of certain words and question the ethics of abusing that fact to provoke a reaction.

I object to the fact that despite admitting to being one himself, he frames the title as an accusation rather than an admission. That's a big red flag.

Also, making a statement that economy is likely to affect culture and society isn't even really economic determinism, much less vulgar marxism. Maybe Obama is a Vulgar Marxist at heart, who knows, but the statement used as evidence is hardly conclusive of anything aside from that he believes that economic factors are related to social ones, which would be pretty hard to argue against.

Also, my understanding of economic determinism is that it can't be wrong on account of being a positivist principle, thus when it's appropriate to apply it, it's right and when it's wrong, it wasn't appropriate to apply it. IE. it can't be used to determine future events, it's simply a label for past events. So saying that improving Pennsylvanians economic lot in life will incur positive social change is not economic determinism unless it is demonstrated to work and thus makes economic determinism kind of a useless principle and vulgar Marxists a rather silly bunch, but doesn't imply that mr. Obama is a Vulgar Marxist in any real way.

My impression of the article is that it was a negative attack editorial that uses the same general format as most negative attack editorials to spin an innocuous comment into a negative impression of the speaker through the use of complex language and principles interspersed with multiple buzzwords with a negative connotation. Vulgar Marxism is quite perfect for this, since the average reader won't have a clue what it is, but boy does it sound bad. The result is that the layperson reader won't understand the fundamental accusation, but will believe that because the writer is clearly an expert on the concepts and terminology, the accusation must be true. It will trap the majority of readers into believing that Obama really is a Vulgar Marxist despite the clear lack of evidence and justification in applying the label.

This is laughable. First Obama was a muslim educated in a madrassa with a middle name that rhymed with "Osama". Now he's a Marxist. What will the ever-so-creative right wing scribes grace us with next? Communist? Hitler-lover?

I think we've all seen this movie before.

Hmm. That's fair enough, and to be honest I didn't read Obama's comments except what was in the article you posted, but you are right. I apologize for commenting without checking the background. That does qualify as determinism.

From the other part of the posted article, I got the impression that his comment related to future improvement rather than the reasoning for the present state, hence my reasoning.

While I will agree that his justification for the title is more valid given the whole quote, I still feel that there are a number of elements of the post that are more inflammatory than is justified and it still follows the format of a negative attack editorial (a format I don't find particularly conducive to useful conversation).