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From International Socialism (1st series), No.65, Mid-December 1973, p.30.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism
Staughton Lynd
Wildwood House, £1.30.
IT IS A PITY that a book with such a promising title and by an author from whom we have seen better should fail so miserably. Mr Lynd has given us a book of handpicked statements by an assortment of American ‘radicals’ (a word which in its current American example is at best an insult) of the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century and attempted to build a tradition around them. The book meanders through endless bits of theory gleaned from such authority as Lynd feels relevant to his argument. The result is a catalogue of Lynd’s favourite ideas with no attempt to place these within a historical framework. The failure of this approach is self evident in the grotesque summing up of Karl Marx. Marx, we are told:
‘... felt considerable distrust for workingmen who sought to change society on the basis of their own experience and perceptions. In this he somewhat resembled those American Founding Fathers who considered moral outrage against slavery premature and utopian, and placed their hope for its eventual abolition in long-run economic trends.’ (p.12)
For Marx the movement of the class was based upon constant assessment of society by an organised working class conscious of its relation to the society. He certainly did not distrust them or place any faith in the long-run trends of capitalism to correct itself. For Marx, ‘the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class.’
By presenting his readers with complete misrepresentations such as this Mr Lynd once again reminds his readers of the complete chaos currently reigning among the American left It is no wonder, since they seem to completely misunderstand that which they claim to represent.
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