What do “Eat the Rich,” MAGACommunism, and Carl Schmitt have in common? At face value, they don’t have anything in common.
“Eat The Rich” is a shorthand for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s dictum, “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”
MAGACommunism is an online attempt to repackage National Bolshevism or Strasserism so as to have American characteristics.
Carl Schmitt was a Nazi legal theorist.
When one digs deeper, however, there are common political lessons to be learned.
In recent years, “Eat The Rich” has been popularized not by the Millennial Left, but by the Gen Z Left. I applaud this popularization, and will explain why in short order.
The main point of MAGACommunism is that Trumpism reintroduces class struggle because it introduces Clausewitzian enmity in politics. Although the MAGACommunism folks have attributed that latter part to Lenin, this Millennial Marxist cannot find any such Lenin quote.
Carl Schmitt has been credited with introducing a “friend/enemy” distinction in politics, between the Us and the Other. The Populist Left likes of Chantal Mouffe have taken this idea seriously, and have articulated a political system that facilitates antagonism between friendly enemies.
I strongly agree with the urgent need to have an Us vs. Other approach to contemporary politics.
Where I have disagreements, however, are in the details, including attribution.
First, contrary to established political science, it wasn’t Carl Schmitt who introduced the friend/enemy distinction between the Us and the Other. It was the socialist pioneer Ferdinand Lassalle. He recognized that any serious socialist needed to be *anti-capitalists* and not just *anti-capitalism*. This was the basis for his imperfect articulation of the “one reactionary mass” apart from the working class. This is the reason why I applaud the Gen Z Left popularization of “Eat The Rich.”
Second, hard distinctions need to be made between economic struggle, political struggle, and genuine class struggle.
Economic struggle includes things such as mere labour disputes, the stuff of the budding 21st-century unionization movement. Even the “struggle for socialism” is the maximum economic struggle, and is not a political struggle. Unfortunately, economic struggle is also the bread and butter of lowest common denominator opportunists, whether the trade unions-only economism folks of the late 19th century or the US “Popularism” folks of today.
Meanwhile, the MAGACommunism folks confuse political struggle with genuine class struggle. The main aim of political struggle for the left is participatory-democratic transformation. Political struggle includes things which MAGACommunism folks like, such as Drain The Swamp and Lock Them Up. Political struggle also includes things which MAGACommunism folks don’t like, such as Defund The Police. Not for nothing did Frederick Engels note that average skilled workers’ wages for all public officials and recallability for all public officials were central to any body politic claiming to be a proper “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
The level of political struggle may not necessarily have Clausewitzian enmity between the Us and the Other. Many folks in favour of demarchy, or random sortition replacing elections, don’t discuss this or push this forward. The level of political struggle may have Clausewitzian enmity between the Us and the Other, but may have it articulated in racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic terms, such as Trumpism or Orbanism.
Genuine class struggle does not arise from economic struggle, but from political struggle. Genuine class struggle is political struggle infused with a class-based approach to Clausewitzian enmity between the Us and the Other. Hopefully, and in contrast to the US “Popularism” folks, the US “Inclusive Populism” folks have learned this lesson.
Third, Marxists and other socialists ought to rehabilitate the anti-liberal Ferdinand Lassalle, Stalin-style: in like manner as today’s right-wing Russian nationalists have an anti-Lenin, pro-Stalin attitude. Karl Marx himself was not *anti-capitalists* enough.
For example, Marxists and other socialists ought to be comfortable discussing not conspiracy-theory protocols of the elders of Zion, but very real Protocols of Bond Vigilantes and Chambers of Commerce. Eat The Rich, by all means, but also don’t let off the hook capitalists as a class and also powerful groups of capitalists. The practical Christian has become the Jew, or the Economic Jew Stereotype.
Relevant links for discussion:
https://jacobin.com/2022/09/ca
https://compactmag.com/article
https://areomagazine.com/2021/
Jacob Richter
