The hypocrisy of high-end Marxism

Welcome to Marxist Summer School, where "limousine liberals" and "champagne socialists" pay $1,500 to critique capitalist excess.

Kasos, Greece is an island of 800 people known for crystal clear waters, beautiful beaches, and stunning architecture. For two weeks each summer, it’s also the home of Marxist Summer School, an event organized by the Institute for the Radical Imagination.

Here’s how they advertise the gathering, which has been held yearly since 2020:

The Marxist Summer School is designed to enable those new to historical materialism and more advanced participants to address fundamental questions, concepts, and texts in an intensive way and in an inclusive, non-sectarian, and congenial setting. There will be one daily mid-day seminar session, 12-2, and one evening session every other day, 7-9, (held in the Kasos municipal library) where participants will collaborate on close readings of texts and address some of the core political problems of our times: from racialization, war, the transformation of desire and subjectivity, and the materialist study of history, to the crisis of democracy, imperialism and accumulation by dispossession, and the requisites for revolutionary practice.

The Marxist Summer School is open to everyone with intellectual drive and revolutionary zeal and does not require any previous preparation. Students can register on the Institute website. There is a non-refundable registration fee of $500, and an additional $1,000 is due by the end of May.

Isn’t this a beautifully glaring example of ideological hypocrisy? Charging $1,500 stands in stark contrast to the foundational principles of Marxism itself — principles that advocate for the proletariat and against capitalist excesses. The entire concept not only reeks of hypocrisy but also exposes the deep flaws in so-called “champagne socialism,” as much of Marxist ideology is practiced today.

A poster for a past session of Marxist Summer School features a stylized image of Karl Marx on a windsurfer.

Marxism theoretically opposes the structures of capitalism that create economic barriers. Ironically, a $1,500 entry fee (not including airfare and ground transportation) is a pretty high barrier for many people. Only the well-to-do, academic elite can afford to attend — blatantly excluding the working-class individuals Marxism once claimed to represent.

Hosting the event on a remote, picturesque Greek island is a further illustration of the disconnect between Marxist theory and practice. Imagine slipping on a pair of flip-flops, applying sunscreen, putting on your sunglasses and heading off to discuss “the ways that the narrowing concentration of political power and the means of physical coercion are working against the struggle for democracy and human dignity.”

It’s not just tone-deaf; it’s indicative of a disregard for the plight of people around the world who are engaged in an actual daily struggle — whether to makes ends meet, put food on the table, or achieve the more lofty challenges of individual freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility.

True change doesn’t come from isolated, academic retreats but from engaging in honest dialogue. It comes from grassroots movements that include the people whose lives are affected directly by whatever force needs to be changed. Indulging in theoretical summer schools on far-flung islands is everything you need to know about what’s wrong with our world.

Champagne socialists love to preach equality and social justice while partaking in and benefiting from the luxuries and exclusivities of a wealthier class. High ranking officials at the United Nations fly first class and stay in five-star hotels when they travel to developing nations to hold meetings about economic development and poverty reduction. In 2020, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors purchased a $1.4 million mansion in Los Angeles’ Topanga Canyon, the fourth property she is known to own. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime progressive, has an estimated net worth of over $10 million. The list goes on.

Let’s just state the obvious: Marxism is a secular religion. Those who have seized power declare themselves the high priests and priestesses — with full access to the spigot of money, power, prestige — while everyone else is forced to enjoy their status of nameless, faceless workers without the opportunity to freely innovate or carve a path to a better future.

The movement in America towards socialism and outright communism, particularly thanks to the indoctrination at the university and college level, is no joke. It’s part of the playbook. If you think that’s bunk, spend some time watching the prescient Yuri Bezmenov interview with G. Edward Griffin. If we continue on this path, we risk everything this nation — and other decomposing Western nations — stands for.

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