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But it seems that today’s Republican Party is dominated by a perverse economic materialism that’s positively Marxist in its mechanical determinism

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This is far too reductive of conservative thought, and Marxist though, for that matter.

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Neither you nor the OP did anything to establish a foundation to demonstrate how Republicans are in favor of the goverment controlling the markets by government agencies.

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that "social being determines consciousness" is a primary tenet of orthodox marxism. by that standard it isn't reductive in the least.

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The quotation did an extremely poor job of trying to confirm your point.

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So "non-Marxist" left wingers don't think this?

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that "social being determines consciousness" is a primary tenet of orthodox marxism. by that standard it isn't reductive in the least.

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i think the question that the post [from a paleoconservative, religiously-traditionalist journal BTW] ultimately suggests is this: what are the implications for conservative thought if conservatives adopt dialectical materialism? and what are the implications if they adopt the kind of economic reductionism that materialism implies? and whither the culture war if that is the case?

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"social being determines consciousness"

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"spiritual (read:moral, religious, ethical or etc.) being determines consciousness"

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Please explain how the Republican's are marxist. This article does not do it.

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Bunsbert Montcroff

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Freauxzen

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Because conservatives "believe something is happening," doesn't make them believe it is right or how it "should" work. How far we take our ideological conclusions is a different discussion.

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which is the materialist premises implicit in many republican arguments

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Anyways, I know you're interested in secularization questions. Have you looked at Brad Gregory's new book, the Unintended Reformation? Mark Lilla has a pretty stimulating review here: LINK

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As far as the question of the conservative movement, it's an interesting paradox. One of the key features of Marx's analysis is that capitalism lays the groundwork for marxism; i.e., it reveals that all "values" are just products of material conditions--the market, let's say. This gives way to Marx's insights against the paradoxes of the capitalist system, which are, after all, based precisely on the materialist premise and how he expects it to unfold.

So the point is that some libertarian arguments against liberalism go a long way toward actually embracing the materialism that libertarians ought to reject if they would reject Marx's philosophy. They are, in other words, playing into the hands of the marxian materialist dialectic. The world really has become what Marx predicted it would--the old values have broken down, etc.

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As far as the question of the conservative movement, it's an interesting paradox. One of the key features of Marx's analysis is that capitalism lays the groundwork for marxism; i.e., it reveals that all "values" are just products of material conditions--the market, let's say. This gives way to Marx's insights against the paradoxes of the capitalist system, which are, after all, based precisely on the materialist premise and how he expects it to unfold.

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The point is that their arguments follow a paradoxically marxian logic.

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