Building a New Class Theory

In the U.S., “only rightist kooks and commies talk about ruling classes and class structures,” Samuel Edward Konkin III remarked two decades ago. Even in the libertarian movement, discussing class theory is too often considered impolite and unrespectable. This is one reason I brought up the subject a few weeks ago.

If Libertarian Leftism (i.e., radical Rothbardianism, New Libertarianism, agorism) is to ever recapture the Left from a dying (some would say dead) Marxism, it has to hammer out a class theory upon which to build a new movement. With such a theory, we can finally sweep Marxism into the “dustbin of history” and, as SEK3 once wrote, “the revolutionary agorist cadre (New Libertarians) will supplant neo-Marxists in the new movements and institutions of present and future Left currents and will reduce to vestigial status or annihilate hopelessly Marxist-controlled institutions of the past.”

In the early 1980s, Konkin began writing a book about Agorist Class Theory vs. Marxist Class Theory called Agorism Contra Marxism. Only an introduction and first chapter were ever published (in the now out-of-print Strategy of the New Libertarian Alliance #2) and the book — along with many other SEK3 projects — was left unfinished at the time of Sam’s death last year. I’d love to see some libertarian theorists build on Sam’s work in this area.

In the next week or so, I intend to summarize on this blog what now exists of Agorism Contra Marxism, supplemented with other Konkin sources and my own ideas and comments. I hope readers of out of step will feel free to join this “work in progress.”

-----
Technorati Tags: New Libertarian, Movement of the Libertarian Left