Ep 17 Paul Gottfried and Ed Welsch: Are We Right Wing Marxists?

Intro [Music] this is the Chronicles podcast a production of Chronicles magazine the original outlet for Paleo conservative thought and a Bastion of the authentic right in America [Music] well welcome everybody to a special episode of The Chronicles magazine podcast uh some of you may know that there was a slight review so to speak of Paul's new book that he edited the Paleo conservative Anthology and it was interesting and it provided an opportunity for Paul to give some of his feedback and I know Ed wants to say some things as well so Paul and Ed thank you for joining me thanks for having us all right let's let's start with ED actually um why don't you give some context uh you know for this for this piece and why you thought it was worthy of a conversation What is a paleoconservative sure well this review appeared in law and Liberty as you said yesterday was called revanches revolutionaries um by a guy named Michael Lucchesi um and it was a review of uh Paul's the Anthology that Paul added a Paleo conservative Anthology which is here right and um he he introduces a it's a critical review negative and says that um his closing line here is that inspiration should be sought elsewhere and we need critiques um pale conservatism as a failed ideology unpopular and provocatively he he calls paleo conservatives of which I consider myself one Paul came up with the term but he calls them um right-wing marxists which which is an interesting attempt to uh frame us as a species of marxist on the right so there's a variety of things that are wrong with that and um you know Paul was really involved in these wars in which these terms were forged in which um you know after World War II um conservatism changed the neoconservatives uh took over and the conservative movement in America changed um but before and and Paul maybe you should just set the stage by just talking about what is a neoconservative and what is a Paleo conservative just to uh for people who may not be familiar with those terms yeah I I think though it's sort of important to point out that some of the things that Casey attacks us for I think are generally accepted uh there was a piece by um Victor Davis Hanson in American greatness today in which he said that you know the metric for oppression is no longer race or gender it's class there's a class war that's going and this is you know Victory Davis Hansen is on Fox News every night uh one of the things that lukasi holds against us is that we suggest there's a social conflict going on in the United States right between predominantly white working-class people whole traditional Christian values uh traditional views of the family and uh uh the plutocratic left the the woke corporate capitalists and so forth there is a class war going on in the United States whatever else is happening but uh the the the to get back to your question I think the term neo-conservative becomes popular in the 1980s um when there was a shift a dramatic shift in the conservative movement from um you know what it had been since the 1950s and from the 1950s on it was a coalition of anti-communists consisting of libertarian social traditionalists Southern conservatives and others were sort of held together by the glue of anti-communism uh and the most important figure in the movement um the the most important political political journalistic celebrity in the movement was Buckley and the the organization the movement was largely grouped around National Review which was found in the mid-1950s um what happens is that anti-communism becomes by the end of this it's very the only thing and uh the uh those on the right who are anti-communist but basically something else like social traditional Southern agrarians whatever they are uh or even Libertarians like Murray rothbard are going to be pushed out of the movement and the Buckley allies himself of what are basically Social Democratic and uh center-left uh anti-communist um and that they come to Define in times what the conservative movement is and they identify it with a crusade a world crusade to bring human rights in something like American democracy as they understand democracy to the rest of the world and you can still see their influence which is very strong in fun and foreign policy the conservative movement uh in its media manifestations is entirely neoconservative sometimes someone like Tucker Carlson or Pedro you know well or you will argue against this but I I think the the uh the Norman of foreign policy is still neoconservative but there is a there's a lot of resistance to them that comes from conservatives not necessarily leaders in what had been the conservative movement before but people who identify with conservatism either of the of the 1950s type um or Southern agrarianism or interwar isolationist conservatism all these these forces what's left of them come together and they form what becomes a paleo-conservative Alliance um well one of the one of the um uh the points this guy keeps the the reviewer keeps harping on is that you know all paleo conservatives are Sam Francis no they are not uh Francis is a brilliant social critic he identifies as a neoconservative when neo-conservatives who disagreed with him um I think Robert and isabid is a neoconservative Kirk when his wife left him alone you know expressed neoconservative ideas uh there were there were others uh Burnham was was definitely a paleo-conservative although they didn't Define himself as such but um the IDE the idea that these people are always unpopular always losers is is untrue uh they simply find themselves on the out because the people who take over the movement have a lot more money a lot more influence and they can work to more better together with the establishment whatever the political journalistic establishment is so the Paleo conservatives are going to be sidelined um by the way no nobody's asking this guy to feel inspiration I do we did not work on that book to inspire anybody you know we were simply describing the history of paleo conservatism that's that's one thing that I noticed um right there in the one of the opening paragraphs he he said that you know part of our the impetus for this book is to chart a new course for American conservatism but this is actually charting the old course yeah yeah but we do suggest you know that the old course could become the new course you know I in my introductory essay I say that there are lots of young people like your age you know who are influenced by paleo-conservatism but may go off in a different direction but yes still uh are going to uh inherit the the legacy of ideas associated with the Paleo conservative side yeah there are Are paleoconservatives unpopular two claims that this guy makes I think that we should probably address just sequentially he first of all says that the paleo-conservative which he calls buchananism is unpopular and you know the last couple elections showed that I think that overlooks the fact that Trump came to power in 2016 and absolutely destroyed all his competitors in the Republican primary by running on a paleo-conservative platform which he says VM in opposition to free trade higher immigration levels in an interventionist foreign policy this is popular with the pub public both left and right and um and to say that this is unpopular well in essence Trump failed to fulfill the claims that he made and he ran on the rhetoric of paleo conservatism but when he was actually in power he failed to actually carry out many of the things that he said he was going to do like many presidents do but you know he lost a lot of support and people kind of saw through his bluff and blusters Paley conservatism in a Maga you could call it a Maga platform or an American first platform or a buchanani platform existed long before Trump and his his election 2016 showed how popular he could be you know how popular a candidate running on those principles can be so I mean that's the first thing I do want to get back to this idea which I think is provocative about you know he says calls us repeats throughout right-wing marxists and you know there is a sort of um superficial um half-truth to it in a sense you could see it if you're really on a superficial level because you know paleo conservative is a popular movement that tries to appeal to um say an exploited proletariat um at least partly on economic issues although cultural issues is another lead part of it but at least partly on economic issues and you know one that argues for the replacement of our current you know ruling Elite with a more just and responsible Elite which actually serves the people instead of exploiting them so you know but there are other ways um you know in in the other the other way you could say is I mean well there are there are so many other ways that it doesn't the Marxism label doesn't fit though because you know paleo conservatism as you pointed out is not Universalist it's actually ironic that a neoconservative which is what this guy essentially is whether he's new conservative or establishment conservative he writes for National Review and it's bio other um you know conventional credentials in his bio um it's it's ironic that as a neoconservative he's calling us Marcus because the neoconservatives came from the Marxist movement their ex Trotsky ice that was the intellectual Genesis of their movement when they started and they have this universalistic uh Evangelical or Messianic need to spread the American way um the principles of the American founding um across the world whereas paleo conservatives are actually regionalists and want um separate communities to be able to organize themselves along their own traditional principles right so we don't want to enforce our Viewpoint or the American way or say the the Yankee way or the the southern way or the Western Way on people's who don't want it you know so I mean the also the we're not really um you know I wouldn't call this collectivists either I think pure Libertarians might call think of paleo conservatives as more collectivists and I like to get what you think about that Paul but I think we are closer to a distributed model where Authority goes down to this the lowest level of just localism um on the other hand we're not classical liberals either where you know we've we've been um in opposition to the classical liberals in some way the same way the Catholic cantabulous are where we think that uh a lot of the principles of the Enlightenment era Classical liberalism the egalitarianism have you know and the Civil Rights Act um in America and in other countries has gone too far and it's forced sort of these diversity inclusion and Equity um initiatives to a point where it's ruined the natural right for free association um enforced you know forced all these groups together and and every single institution of of American life or Western life whether it's educational or corporate or um any every single living institution is has these federal laws for inclusion and Equity imposed upon us which is very artificial and stifling you know so we're we're against that as well but anyway Paul what do you think about the charge of I I want to explore this thing about right-wing Marxism either about um collectivism or others do you agree with what I've been saying or anything you want to add yeah no I I think there there is a certain just limited justification in what this fellow is saying in a very clumsy um a generalizing way um I think paleo conservatives one thing are less obsessed with anti-communism than the neoconserve the neoconservatives are obsessed because they're just as revolutionary as the Communists they're like the Communists as you point out yeah their rival revolutionary groups whereas I think paleo conservatives would say you know the Communists were a nuisance at some point or you had to oppose them but you know the what makes the Chinese uh uh a problem is not that there are Marxist so it makes them a problem is that they're aggressive nationalists you know it's a very different person so we are not as absorbed in the ideology or rhetoric of the Cold War as the neoconservative and the neocons ever come to power you know as the leaders of that cause they're fighting for democracy against International against communism so we we don't share that I mean I I think we're also um Less anti-marxist in the sense that we don't run around calling people Marxism all the time decisions I never unless you tell me your remarks is you sound like a Marxist I'm not going to call you a Marxist so uh the same way the left calls everybody to their right a fascist you know right a fascist so they call everybody marxists uh or fascists they also use the word fascists sometimes so we don't we don't engage in um that that kind of rhetorical abuse uh so I think the other thing is I you know I I think that like Marx we are able to be critical of capitalism uh from the right and you know Marx himself was influenced by Catholic counter-revolutionaries in the early 19th century so not not everybody who's critical of capitalism is on the left there are people on the right fascists were very critical of capitalism well it's also interesting because Irving crystal said he was only willing to give two cheers for capitalism right so I mean this is par for the course you know for I mean this is a mainstream acceptance of uh you know you don't have to be the most ideologically Libertarian free market um otherwise you're a Marxist I mean that's kind of ridiculous yeah but of course of course they themselves accept a welfare state I mean there are hypocrites too you know this is this was my criticism of Jonah Goldberg's uh liberal fascism that your liberal fascist if you want to expand the welfare state beyond the point at which he accepts it yeah everything we've done until now but he doesn't want to do any more then you become a fascist right a liberal fascist I mean they're not calling for uh uh dismantling the welfare state these free market capitalists and neocons and so they're quite happy with it um they uh they just want to be able to shape it themselves so uh what what distinguishes US is not that they're for the free market and we're not um it is that we're more critical of the establishment than they are which is which is a different point Are we right wing Marxists in the other critique you know I'll just say that the other critique he he mentions as well is that the idea that we are um marxists right wing Marxist because we are okay with using state power or the administrative apparatus which the left has built against the left we want to fight fire with fire um you know the real problem with the conventional new conservative movement and even say the mainstream left libertarian movement is that it doesn't offer any real challenge or critique to the current power structure except rhetorical other than that you know he'd like his his wing of the American uniparty to be in power rather than the neoliberal one you know the the Paley conservative view is that in practice there's there's only sort of a marginal difference in economic policy or foreign policy or or any any policy between say the Obama Administration and the George W Bush Administration you know both are for continued Foreign Wars both inflated the currency um to the point where it's nearly destroyed bankrupted the country and um you know and and it's totally um it's totally okay and offers no challenge to to corporate to corporate power as well so all these these guys are um you know that's why as you said Paul all the money and institutional power and influence is really is really on that side you you can make a good career make a lot of money and there are plenty of Institutions for you to hop around to in the Washington DC area if you're either neoconservative or neoliberal whereas the Paleo conservatives because we're trying to represent um really the interests of the majority of the population the common man in America against the entrenched Elite power we actually don't have the institutional power uh or money or funds available so um we we consider ourselves as fighting The Virtuous fight out in the wilderness which we've been cast out on principle um where it's a very it's a very easy life and a mercenary position to be a neoliberal or a neoconservative you are not going to make any enemies in the uh in big corporations or the defense industry by taking those positions yeah the other thing I would say is that the Paleo conservatives are in fact you know much more radical um in trying to change the political order um I mean for instance be very happy you know to shift power um from Washington to Emporia Kansas to of uh uh Regional government to take away all the power of the central government if we could you know to go back to this sort of communal model or you know a a more decentralized form of self-government we're entirely in favor of that but you know cutting some corporate tax is not going to make any difference if that's what their free enterprise is they do not offer you much of an alternative and as you pointed out with the Libertarians which are getting was mostly rhetoric you know there's no way the government is going to um simply abolish itself uh in such a way that we go back to this sort of individuals interacting with other individuals as the basis of our government and economy the other thing Are we all racists that he brings up to in in Sam Francis is you know by implication calling us all racists so let's just talk about that because you know if and also if we oppose the Civil Rights Act doesn't that make us all racist or whatever I mean the the points that Sam Francis was making it was about I mean he very predicted um 30 years ago how and the the rhetoric would become anti-white and he's been proved right about that over and over again it's it's way worse now than it was 30 years ago um whites get the blame for everything and you know he was pointing out then that all these other racial groups can start you can start an NAACP but if a white group tries you know as some have to try try to start a a a an advocacy group for for whites I mean they're immediately seen as as white supremacists or terrible or or whatever you know our position is simply that all groups all Races should have the ability to free associate and to defend themselves in their own interests we're not about hating other races but we also don't want to be in a position where we're apologizing or no no group should feel forced to apologize for being oppressed race within within the American system so I mean that that's that's our Viewpoint and as far as you know if if Francis uh said some things especially later in his career when he may have been bitter from being ostracized mercilessly by the conservative establishment that doesn't reflect Paley conservatism as a whole you know yeah what I would I would point out is that the the attack on Paleo conservatives as racists is an attempt by the neoconservatives and conservatism Incorporated to use the rhetoric of the left to attack those who are on their right yeah you know having hung out among paleo conservatives I've never noticed them being rabid racist on the other hand you have perfectly uh you have establishment conservatives like Dinesh D'Souza who make racist remarks I mean they don't have to do what they appear on Fox News later on um if you're important enough like Charles Murray you're allowed to talk about IQ differences among Races they don't ostracize him right uh he's more like my left but he's not within the right yeah right yeah more moreover the the basic differences with uh between paleo conservatives and neoconservatives going back to the 1980s were not over race they were over foreign policy right I mean so to say that the split came over race is simply untrue uh not naturally paleo-conservatives particularly the ones from the south who bitter about what happened to uh to Mel Bradford um but you know they were they were not uh defending Mel Bradford because they were racist they were defending Mel Bradford because he was one of their group and because they liked him and what was done to him by the neoconservatives was unconscionable um so I I really I really don't see the the attack on a moral versions of the case of Sam Francis most of his writings have nothing to do with race uh and except for some speeches that he gave toward the end of his life uh uh there's a well in fact if one wants to accuse him you know borrowing Marxist method sometimes it's perfectly true uh if you read his his uh his sociological um uh studies and his his study of middle American radicalism and so forth um you know he sounded he could easily be a leftist sociologist and at least some of what he wrote um but you know you don't find any racism there so I I think the charge of racism has been used dishonestly and perhaps cynically by the neoconservatives to justify their uh their successful attempt to ostracize our side rather than debate us on the issues especially if you start attacking the uh military-industrial complex or Foreign Wars change the subject call your opponent a racist it's worked over and over again yes um so it's par for the course Sam Francis well anyway I think we've covered this short article the short review of your book and and of in in fair amount of detail well may I ask you a question do you think he actually read our book or ever read Sam Francis because Alex Riley said no he said there's no indication you ever read you ever read these materials uh I don't know he he touches on at least a few different people within the um within so maybe he paged through a few of them page through yeah I gotta be honest I haven't read I've only read a couple of these I'm I'm sure no choice but you know I added in read Chronicles every month so I know the stuff so that's my excuse I I'm hoping to get around to it and and and our audience should also pick up this book uh and if they're interested in learning more about the topic uh Halo conservative Anthology new voices for an old tradition edited by Paul Godfrey just came out the end of last year I believe right yeah and uh uh CJ has a long essay in that volume well it's half of what it was before you made me cut it so but it's it's better for it so I appreciate the help but um yeah I did this is something that I said in response to some people tweeting this article out um what was bizarre to me is to summarize an entire book with a wide variety of different topics on constitutionalism um the nature of the older American way and there's all kinds of different angles that this book takes to summarize you know what it means to be a Paleo conservative um and it seems like he just looked through the index for references to Sam Francis and then right called out that specific essay um but the idea that this book is Chief hopefully some sort of like you know Francis uh motivated you know racial book is is sort of a bizarre take on the on the book yeah it's a strange way to read although perhaps not for a neoconservative but uh there was only one essay on Sam Francis a relatively short essay by Pedro Gonzalez and the rest of us wrote another top I think you may have quoted Sam or I did in a few places and it but I mean there's so many other subjects you know that the book deals with uh but I I think he focused on that and he focused on class war and Sam Francis his racist comments you know in order to discredit our work and the Paleo conservative side it is bizarre that he would he would cite Russell Kirk you know he says that um you know Russell sought to build a movement on the idea of the American founding which of course is true but in doing so he was he was trying to challenge the neoconservative hegemony in the in the conservative movement that was Russell Kirk's entire take I mean if you read America's British culture if you read that book that's entirely consistent with the Paleo conservative vision and not at all with the neoconservative one and so is roots of the American order right right right you know which is definitely yeah he mentions Kirk in there and that is interesting because Kirk is somebody who kind of moved into the conservative Camp over the life right he would very definitely was the Paleo conservative okay yeah so to say that we're against Kirk is is also kind of uh it's just wrong-headed um well it is interesting to see this review though because it just shows that these lines still exist and they're just as um in some ways we conservatives of all Stripes work across lines and these distinctions paleo you know integralist neo-conservative or whatever they kind of go by the wayside and that's probably good um so we can get things done collectively but the lines still exists and it's good to have a reminder of that by by reading this essay I remember I was down uh South Paul at meeting with some of our mutual friends and Don Livingston asked me kind of rhetorically I think he said do you still think that this neoconservatism matters or or is it just get rid of all that and I said you know even if they don't call themselves neoconservative the defense industry will will make them out of the stones of the earth they'll make they make them Anew if they need them to serve a purpose so these divisions will still exist and it's good to be reminded of that yeah what I think is interesting about this piece is a hit piece against the the Paleo conservatives who don't count right but he writes this hit piece and I think the hitch piece reflects the Deep division between the Paleo conservative I mean we obviously are very offensive to the conservative establishment uh even though they you know they've taken away our funding they've uh tried to cancel us on numerous occasions but they're still bothered that we're around I think this is uh so they have to occasionally order hit piece on us well just as we're speaking uh National Review their blog they posted a very small it's only three paragraph echo of the Law Liberty essay it's by Bobby Miller and he just said what a great piece this was and recommends it so it's over on National Review yeah if people want to support us by the way please do uh subscribe to Chronicles you can subscribe to chroniclesmagazine.org this is the magazine that Paul and I edited I think it's still um you know it's one of the Premier paleo conservatives still around there aren't any institutions that are fairly conservative so if our audience identifies with that please support us with your subscription and you'll get a good magazine in the mail every month as well good well thank you gentlemen for your time and I'll have this up shortly [Music] thank you