4 | About this Podcast

This episode is a delayed general introduction to the podcast. It gives a little detail on what justice-based socialist theory is and how this differs from Marxism and 'quasi-Marxism'. It also discusses the aims of the podcast.

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Transcript

Hi all, welcome back to Justice Based Socialism.

In this episode I’m going to give a little more detail on my aims and hopes for the podcast. This discussion will partly be in response to some of the questions I received after the first three episodes. I’m going to start by talking a little bit about what justice-based socialist theory is—with a focus on how it differs from both Marxist and what I call quasi-Marxist socialist theory. Then I’ll talk about who the target audience of this podcast is and the sort of activities I hope the podcast will help listeners engage in.   

So, the first question I want to address is: what is the aim of the podcast? 

So, the aim of the podcast is to promote justice-based socialist theory. Put briefly, justice-based socialist theory argues that a commitment to justice requires a commitment to socialism. Now, I invented the term justice-based socialism as far as I know. However, I did not invent justice-based socialist theorising. Justice-based theorising arguably goes back to at least the medieval anti-private property Franciscan theologians. And the body of thought has been developed by socialist theorists from Thomas Spence to G. A. Cohen, Robin Hahnel, and Kevin Carson. I see myself as trying to popularise their ideas, build on them myself, and encourage others to build on them to the point that we have a thorough body of theory that as many socialists as possible become familiar with, and this improves their ability to promote socialism. 

Now, I should be clear about a few terms. In future episodes I’m going to go into more detail on what I mean by justice and socialism. Here, I quickly want to specify what I mean by the term ‘argument’ as I use the term here. As I use the term here, an argument is not just a claim. It is a claim backed up by reasons which, crucially, responds to opposing claims. So to make the argument that a commitment to justice requires a commitment to socialism, you have to respond to bourgeois claims that capitalism [2:06] is required or allowed by justice. This includes directly, and thoroughly critically responding to the central arguments in bourgeois normative philosophy. 

Note that claiming that a commitment to justice requires a commitment to socialism imposes certain technical tasks on justice-based socialists. First, socialists must offer one or more visions of how possible future socialist societies could function economically. Such visions must, for example, outline plausible mechanisms of investment. Only with such visions can people make a favourable mental comparison of a possible socialist society with capitalism. The second task is that socialists must offer reasonable strategic ideas for a revolutionary process. Only then can people assess the soundness of supporting and/or engaging in such a process. These technical tasks presumably need to be continually updated to deal with changing socio-economic circumstances that affect technical considerations. So part of this podcast will be outlining relevant technical considerations. 

[Let me quickly explain why I think justice-based socialist theory is important for socialists. I think the main goal for socialists is building public support for socialism. Note that as always, in this episode I use the terms socialism, revolutionary socialism, and communism, basically interchangeably. And I think the main obstacle for most people coming to support socialism is that they are convinced by popular, common-sense—but I think false--theories of justice, which claim that that capitalism is a requirement of justice or at least allowed by justice. 

Let’s very quickly outline a few of these theories. At the moment I think there are probably four types of dominant defences of capitalism. The first is the Lockean argument, which traces back to John Locke but has been developed by the likes of Murray Rothabrd and Robert Nozick. Crudely put, this is the argument that people have a natural or moral right to resources they acquired through labour or trade. The second argument—perhaps most associated with the economist Ludwig von Mises—is that that capitalism creates the most subjective well-being. The third argument is that the benefits and burdens of social production can best be balanced equally under a form of capitalism, with this argument perhaps best developed by Ronald Dworkin. The fourth argument—perhaps most closely associated with Edmund Burke—is a conservative variety of natural law theorising which claims that existing property systems have gained legitimacy over time through being successfully enforced. 

I think such bourgeois theories of justice are often somewhat convincing, and I think they cannot be ignored or responded to glibly as is often done by socialists. Rather, what is needed is thorough, direct critiques which take the arguments apart piece by piece. Positive justice-based argumentation for socialism is also needed. Without this work, for reasons I’ve started going into in my Marx series, I think communism doesn’t stand a chance —at least in Western countries such as the UK and US, which is where my podcast is aimed at. I’ll go further into this in future episodes, responding to Marxist criticisms of this perspective.

To clarify, it is my belief that (1) communism is objectively a requirement of justice, and (2) most people want to live in a just society. The only reason we don’t live under communism, or at least live in a state of constant revolutionary threat, is because most people are deluded into thinking capitalism is required by or at least compatible with justice.  And the fault for this delusion lies partly with socialist theorists who have failed to show people—and often failed to even make much of an effort to show people—that communism is a requirement of justice. 

This brings me to a crucial point. Justice-based socialist theory can be differentiated from what I consider to be the other dominant type of socialist theory, Marxism. That is, I think Marxism is not concerned with making justice-based arguments for socialism. 

To understand this claim, it must be noted that when I use the term Marxism, I am likely using the term differently to other people—particularly those that consider themselves Marxists.  Some people understand Marxism to simply be the belief that communism is a good thing. However, I don’t use the term Marxism in this way because I think there were communists before Marx—such as Thomas Spence, who I’ve already done an episode on—and I don’t think it makes sense to call them Marxists. Some people also using the term Marxism to refer to thinking strategically about socialist revolution. However, socialists before Marx thought of such questions, so again I don’t think it makes sense to use the term Marxism in this way. 

When I refer to Marxism, what I am referring to is Marx’s original theoretical contribution to communism. And this theoretical work was entirely different to justice-based socialist theory. Marx’s main theoretical goal was to show that capitalism is on a historical trajectory towards proletarian revolution and communism. And I think that his only major theoretical contribution to socialism was the argument that there is such a trajectory. It is this argument that I am referring to when I refer to Marxism. This argument is laid out in the Communist Manifesto, and we’ll look at it in later episodes, so I don’t want to elaborate on it here. I just want to point out that his theoretical project was very different to the justice-based socialist theory project. Significantly, you could hypothetically believe Marx’s theory is correct, but believe socialism is unjust. It is also wort noting here that in no part of his work does Marx make an argument that communism is required by justice. And as discussed widely by Marx scholars he seems to have been opposed to making such arguments, and even appears to have put quite a lot of effort into avoiding engaging with questions of justice. So I certainly include Marx and his adherents among those responsible for us remaining under capitalism. 

Note that it might be objected that that I am presenting an overly narrow view of Marxist theory here. However, I’ve started responding to this objection in my Marxism series and will continue to do so there. 

Note that while justice-based socialist theory can be clearly separated from Marxism, I think there is some overlap between justice-based socialism and what I label quasi-Marxism. It is worth discussing quasi-Marxism because as far as I can tell, the vast majority of self-identified Marxist theorists today are quasi-Marxists—either in addition to or completely in place of their Marxism. Quasi-Marxists are self-described Marxist theorists—including academics, podcasters, magazine editors and writers, and so forth—that attempt to put forward justice-based versions of Marx’s claims.

Quasi-Marxism generally takes two forms. 

First, quasi-Marxists simply presume certain phenomena Marx discussed are inherently unjust—such as so-called wage labour exploitation or primitive accumulation or the tendency under the so-called capitalist mode of production towards increasing inequality. However, they provide —and then point to the existence of these presumed unjust phenomena in our world, suggesting they have shown that justice requires communism. However, they have shown nothing. They haven’t outlined on what grounds the phenomena they discuss are unjust, nor defended such claims against bourgeois normative arguments.

Second, quasi-Marxists put forward, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes implicitly, what we can label the inevitable injustice argument.  The way quasi-Marxists attempt to make this argument is first point to certain phenomena that they view as unjust—often aggressive forms of foreign policy or environmentally destructive behaviours. Second, they argue—following Marx, or by extension Engels or Lenin—that these phenomena are inevitable outcomes of the so-called capitalist mode of production. Third, they suggest that such phenomena would not be inevitable under socialism. Fourth, they conclude that those concerned by justice should favour socialism. From what I am aware of, I’ve never seen a very strong form of this argument made, but this is a matter for future discussion. 

Now, while quasi-Marxism and justice-based socialist theory overlap in their interest in justice, it seems to me that they can be distinguished for two reasons. 

First, as mentioned, for quasi-Marxists, claims about justice can only be made if they are in the form of an extension of Marx’s claims about the dynamics of capitalism. Second, as far as I’m aware, quasi-Marxists don’t respond to bourgeois normative counterarguments.   

This being the case, when I refer to justice-based socialism, I can be assumed to be excluding quasi-Marxism.  

Now, I think justice-based socialist theory is important, but that doesn’t explain why I think this podcast Is needed. It might be asked: aren’t a lot of other people doing and promoting justice-based socialist theory? Not as far as I’m aware. Most original normative political theorising is done by bourgeois ideologues arguing among each other. There has been some justice based socialist theorising done recently by theorists like Kevin Carson and Robin Hahnel, but it’s not something that is common among socialist theorists. Furthermore, as far as I’m aware, most socialist magazines and podcasters tend to stick to Marxism and quasi-Marxism. An exception I know of is the What’s left of Philosophy podcast, which has recently shown interest in relevant debates with episodes on relevant Robert Nozick, G. A. Cohen and Norman Geras. But justice-based socialist theory is generally very niche.

So I think it’s important that both more original justice-based socialist theorising is done and that such theorising is further publicised. In terms of original theorising, up until now, I’ve personally mainly been focused on responding to Lockean anarcho-capitalist and right-libertarian theorists. I’m going to be sharing the results of that work on this podcast. I am also working on a book looking at a range of other bourgeois theorists including Ronald Dworkin, Edmund Burke, and Ludwig von Mises. Again, I’ll be posting episodes drawing on this work on this podcast. 

A second aim of the podcast is to publicise the work of historical and contemporary justice-based socialist theorists. I think this will help provide listeners with alternative perspectives than my own on the topics. It will also give people a greater insight into the history of the relevant debates, helping to further improve their understanding. 

A third aim of the podcast is to defend the justice-based socialist theory project from certain possible criticisms from other socialist theory perspectives. I think this is necessary because there are certain strands of socialist thinking—particularly among Marxists—that are opposed to this sort of theoretical work, and I want to be clear on why I think such opposition is extremely problematic, and basically counterrevolutionary.   

Another question I want to address is: who is this channel aimed at? 

Ultimately, my target audience is proletarians—or what might be called the working class. Now, I do think a lot of proletarians are generally interested in questions of justice and the arguments raised in this podcast. But for various reasons, I think they would like the information in more engaging, digestible forms than I can present here. For example, they would like dialogues between justice-based socialists and prominent pro-capitalists. Or they would like the info in shorter format forms of propaganda like TikTok videos and memes or even Twitter threads. 

And I do think those general audience forms of propaganda are valuable, but what is also needed is for the general audience propaganda to be backed up by longer form, more thorough argumentation, as presented in this podcast and accompanying texts.  

So my aim is to use this channel to support more general audience propaganda. I will be making some general audience propaganda myself, but my real ambition is to educate a bunch of other people to give them the knowledge and understanding to be able to make strong justice-based socialist theory points with their general audience propaganda work. Many of them will likely do it far better than I can. 

Now, my aim isn’t to try to convert existing socialist propagandists to justice-based socialism. It would be great if some of them did get on board, but I suspect due to their existing ideas about what socialist theory should look like, that most are unlikely to be interested.

Rather, my primary aim is to focus on promoting justice-based socialist theory to those with a particularly strong interest in questions of justice or normative philosophy. And I don’t really care about anyone’s level of commitment to—or knowledge of—socialism when they start listening. I think even if they start out as strongly opposed to—or sceptical of—socialism,  if they are really interested in questions of justice and listen carefully, a big percentage of them will eventually come around to communism.   

My ultimate ambition is that in a few years’ time, there are bunch of socialist theorists educated primarily through this podcast and the readings referred to here—or by other media channels or magazines inspired by this podcast—that are very comfortable arguing for the justice of communism, and very comfortable thoroughly refuting to the full array of bourgeois normative defences of capitalism. And I hope that they are able to reach a mass audience with justice-based socialist ideas. 

I imagine what their propaganda will look like is a little like what we see now by the most popular quasi-Marxists. However, it will likely have a tighter focus directly on questioning existing property rights rather than downstream phenomena including war, genocide, environmental issues, healthcare, education, and so forth that the most popular quasi-Marxists tend to focus discussion on. Also, because it will be created with a better understanding of relevant debates about justice, it should be more appealing and convincing to general populations, plus more difficult to refute by pro-capitalists. So I think it will overall be a tighter, more powerful form of propaganda.   

As a small example of this type of propaganda and its possible impacts, I remember the first video on my old YouTube channel was quite a short response to a couple of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson’s claims about capitalism and communism, and in this video, I tried to take bourgeois normative views into account in all of my claims. And I remember a commenter who I presume was pro-capitalist saying something along the lines that he had expected my video to be another weak socialist video full of holes, but that he found what I’d said difficult to refute, so he’d follow my channel. I had another response from someone presumably sympathetic to socialism but not fully convinced by it, who said that despite having watched a lot of other socialist content, it was only with my video that she finally understood the socialist criticism of capitalism. These are the sorts of impacts I want justice-based socialists in the future to have on a much bigger scale. 

Eventually I want justice-based socialists to be flooding existing socialist organisations or setting up new ones. I want justice-based socialists writing books, and maybe influencing the theoretical agenda in academia. I want justice-based socialists creating their own podcasts, magazines and so forth, and becoming the dominant public strand of socialist theory rather than Marxism or quasi-Marxism. I want justice-based socialists to promote a crisis of capitalist legitimacy, where unlike today, the bulk of the populations living in countries such as the UK and US come to realise that by living under capitalism, they and their loved ones are oppressed victims of systematic injustice. I also want justice-based socialists to be organising electoral campaigns, labour struggles, protest movements, direct actions, and so forth, that combined with the new consciousness they’ve promoted, could lead to a revolutionary transformation.  

Anyway, those are the main points I wanted to clear up. This podcast aims to promote justice-based socialist theory as opposed to Marxist or quasi-Marxist theory.  It is aimed at anybody with a strong interest in questions of justice, and I want it to contribute to the development of a successful new type of socialist revolutionary movement.   

That brings us to the end of the episode. As always you can follow me on Twitter at Justice_Based, and if you like what I’m doing you can support via Patreon. I’d also appreciate if you gave me like or good rating on your podcast app. Thanks for listening and see you soon.