Did you know that our entire educational system is infested with radical Marxists who are indoctrinating our children to become revolutionaries? Then obviously you have not read Mark Levin’s American Marxism.
Obviously, Levin has no interest in persuading anyone with this book. The “arguments” are so poor and the use of “evidence” so sloppy that no one who didn’t agree with him already would be persuaded. Let me take a few examples from the chapter, “Hate America,” because it is about higher education, a subject I am quite familiar with.
If one was going to argue that Marxists had infiltrated the educational system, I would expect this claim to be supported by surveys of teachers and professors showing what percentage of them identified themselves as Marxist. I would expect an analysis of textbooks showing the presence of Marxist concepts. I would expect some analysis of lesson plans or course syllabi. But we get none of this. Instead we get excerpts from a handful of books and articles, only one of which is contemporary.
For example, Levin cites an article from the 1928 The New Republic written by John Dewey describing the educational reforms that were then being made in the Soviet Union. As a progressive educator, it should be no surprise that Dewey would take an interest in these reforms. But Levin takes Dewey’s description of these reforms and presents it as if Dewey was advocating these reforms.
For example, Levin quotes Dewey: “During the transitional regime. . . the school cannot count upon the larger education to create in any single and wholehearted way the required collective and cooperative mentality.” Levin comments: “This is an extraordinarily blunt proclamation by Dewy of what public schools should be and, in fact, have now become. ‘The required collective and cooperative mentality?’ Marx would have been so proud of his progressive descendants. The problem is that, in the excerpt Levin quotes, Dewey is not expressing his own opinion; he is summarizing the pedagogical philosophy of own of the educators he met.
The principle piece of evidence, which he “analyzes” at length, is a book by Jean Anyon, Marx and Education (2011). She is perhaps best known for her article “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” in which she analyzes the role that social class has in determining the curriculum of elementary schools. She clearly identifies her methodology as Neo-Marxist, but, in characterizing her work, he conveniently leaves out the “Neo” part.
Neo-Marxism is an umbrella term for a number of approaches which expand on some of Marx’s insights, usually by adding insights from disciplines such as psychology, sociology or anthropology. In fact, as at least one article argues, among those who call themselves Neo-Marxists, the connection to Marx has become increasingly tenuous.[i] Neo-Marxists are not looking for global revolution, but they do see class as useful basis for understanding society.
Because he fails to take into account the “Neo” in Anyon’s Marxism, he tries to argue against her position as if she was advocating Marxism-Leninism. For example, Anyon writes, “Critical educators are involved in [the] vital process of reimagining schools as social justice building spaces.” He interprets this to mean, “Re-imagine an entirely new society, built on Marxist precepts, leaving no societal stone unturned. Of course, there is no reason to re-imagine such a place, given mankind’s infernal experience with Marxist totalitarianism and genocide.” So wanting a more just society means you really want a Great Leap Forward.
He also pulls the same sleight of hand with Anyon’s work that he did with Dewey. He quotes at length her account of Marx’s beliefs. But to “refute” her, he attributes those beliefs to her and then describes the horrible results of Marxism in the Soviet Union and China. Simply because she describes what Marx believed does not mean that she holds the same beliefs.
It is clear that this kind of arguing shouldn’t persuade anyone. So the book is not intended for those not already sympathetic to its point of view. It is also clear that the book is not trying to inform its readers. So the book is not intended for someone who wishes to learn about Marxism in America. What, then, is the book for?
The point of the book is to scare people. Levin is a 21st century Joe McCarthy. He wants to use the specter of Marxism to rile his readership. Marxism, whether Marxism-Leninism or Marxism-Maoism, is an ideology of the past. Don’t conservatives realize that the socialists of Germany split in 1891, the majority giving up on revolution as a means of social change? In the former Soviet Union, Marxism has been replaced with nationalism. In China, one still sees pictures of Mao, but not the Little Red Book. Too bad Levin makes no effort to educate his readers.
I am surprised—although I probably shouldn’t be—that Marxism remains such a boogey man. It is curious that right-wing pundits, such as Levin, would turn today with charging the left with Marxism, especially a class-struggle, worker-of-the-world-unite, violent revolution Marxism. Both of my daughters went through the Chicago public school system and I am pretty sure neither of them know the words to the Internationale. In graduate school I had one professor and, as a professor, one colleague who claimed to be Marxists. But both of them were definitely of the Neo-Marxist variety. Is it funny that I have no desire to storm the Winter Palace?
[i] Ritzer, George, and J. Daniel Schubert. “The Changing Nature of Neo-Marxist Theory: A Metatheoretical Analysis.” Sociological Perspectives 34, no. 3 (1991): 359–75. https://doi.org/10.2307/1389516.