The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism

Description

In The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism, Carlos L. Garrido provides a comprehensive development of his concept of the purity fetish, tracing the outlook to the Eleatic school of Ancient Greek philosophy, and showing how it has appeared in 20th century Western Marxism and in contemporary U.S. socialism. In every form the purity fetish takes in Western Marxism's politics, Carlos argues that one finds not only the failure to obtain truth, but also the inability to create a revolutionary movement Endorsements: "This book will soon become a must-read for anyone who is serious about the socialist road and the goal of communism." - Roland Boer, professor at Renmin University of China, Beijing. Author of many books, including the recently published Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (2021) and Friedrich Engels and the Foundations of Socialist Governance (2021). "This book is a healthy antidote to the widespread infantile leftism that infects the American left." - Thomas Riggins, retired philosophy teacher (NYU, New School, et. al), chief editorial counselor at the Midwestern Marx Institute and author of Reading the Classical Texts of Marxism (2022) and Eurocommunism: A Critical Reading (2022). "This book—a clarion call for the collective project of building socialism—should be widely read and discussed!" - Gabriel Rockhill, Founding Director of the Critical Theory Workshop / Atelier de Théorie Critique & Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University. Author of many books, including Counter-History of the Present: Untimely Interrogations into Globalization, Technology, and Democracy (2017) and Interventions in Contemporary Thought: History, Politics, Aesthetics (2016). "In adroitly dissecting the philosophical underpinnings of what passes for Marxism in the academy... Carlos Garrido demonstrates the importance of theoretical education in dialectical materialism for the class struggle in the contemporary conjuncture." - Helmut-Harry Loewen, veteran anti-apartheid and anti-fascist campaigner in Western Canada, Associate of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University and a retired University of Winnipeg lecturer in sociology and criminological theory. "Garrido’s accessible philosophical discussion is indispensable for understanding much of the Western left’s inability to think dialectically, to truly follow Hegel and Marx rather than just invoke them, to understand the struggle for socialism as it is, rather than as it might be in the politically juvenile imaginations of so many." - Radhika Desai, Professor at the Department of Political Studies and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. Author of many books, including Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire (2013), Karl Polanyi and Twenty First Century Capitalism (2020), Revolutions (2020), Japan’s Secular Stagnation (2022), and Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy (2022). With Alan Freeman, she co-edits the Geopolitical Economy book series with Manchester University Press and the Future of Capitalism book series with Pluto Press. "Garrido's book is a valuable tool in the struggle to build a symbiotic relationship of solidarity, comradeship, respect and mutual learning between the Western left and the socialist world." - Carlos Martinez, independent researcher and political activist from London, Britain. He is the co-founder of No Cold War and Friends of Socialist China, and the author of The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse (2019) and No Great Wall: On the Continuities of the Chinese Revolution (2022). Introduction I - The Philosophical Grounds of the Purity Fetish: Parmenides Contra Heraclitus, Hegel Contra Parmenides II - The Paradoxes of Western Marxism The Only Acceptable Impurity is Imperialism: Controlled Counter-Hegemony and the Compatible Left Lessons from Parenti and Losurdo: Left-Anticommunism and the Fetish for Defeat Ressentiment and Socialist Profile-Identity Dead in the Eyes of Hegel III – China and the Purity Fetish of Western Marxism The Purity Fetish and The Capitalist Road Thesis The Importance Marxism Lays on the Development of the Productive Forces Deng and Reform and Opening Up What Western Marxists Fail to Understand Thanks to the Purity Fetish Socialist Markets? The Importance of Supporting China IV - The Fettering Role of the Purity Fetish in US Socialist Organizing Objective Conditions in The U.S. Subjective Conditions in the US PMC Left and Petty-Bourgeois Radicalism Three Forms the Purity Fetish Takes in the US The Importance of Fighting National and Historical Nihilism Conclusion Index