GERALD GRAFF
853
Barring an all-out takeover by the far Right, our choice figures
to be not between capitalism and socialism but between different
kinds of capitalism. This means choosing, at the extremes, between
an egalitarian welfare-state capitalism (with socialist elements) aim–
ing to make good on its democratic promises and the up-the-rich,
screw-the-poor type of capitalism currently in favor among many of
our leaders . What Marxists still sneeringly call liberal democratic
"reformism" constitutes the effective limit of radical political action
in the United States. Given the present conservative drift, however,
"mere" reformist goals don't look quite so insignificant as they once
did . As for the question of whether a socialist society could overcome
the disastrous heritage of socialist experiments over the last half–
century - it has become academic.
None of this is news to anybody, not even to Marxists, who
often candidly concede these points in the late hours of cocktail par–
ties . They are , after all, not stupid and can see as well as anybody
that socialism in the United States, whether along Marxist or some
other lines , is a dead issue. This is not to deny that as a methodology
Marxism has much value for the investigation and analysis of
culture . There is no coherent analysis of modern economic organiza–
tion, communications, and culture that doesn't borrow heavily from
Marx . Nor can we rule out using Marxism-despite its notorious
disgraces- as a standpoint for measuring the corruptions of capital–
ism. But as a practical political philosophy, Marxism is little more
than an academic fantasy- not a political philosophy at all so much
as a professional "field."
I sometimes think the main "political" effect of American Marx–
ism is on the politics of the university, where more-radical-than-thou
positions are very effective in putting rival academic schools on the
defensive. In the criticism of the arts, we currently see an interesting
competition among deconstructionists, Marxists , feminists , and
other "postmodern" revolutionaries in which each group tries to out–
Left or out-radical the others . The effect is to raise the rhetorical
ante to increasingly utopian and apocalyptic levels, less and less
related to any actual or conceivable political situation.
But this is by no means to say that academic cultural radicalism
has been without significant consequences in the real political world.
On the contrary, it has been highly effective at discouraging the
"mere" reformist liberalism which is all that stands in the way of the
complete triumph of the Right. Liberal pluralism, which has kept
the university open to a variety of dissenting ideologies, is still the
philosophy that receives the most contemptuous abuse from the radi-
