'Marxism in the Marketplace of Ideas'

JBeukema

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Apr 23, 2009
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everywhere and nowhere
Lakoff uses the phrase "tax relief" as an example. The mere combination of those two words assumes taxes are an affliction from which people have to be relieved.

Further, frames are based on values.

The reason conservatives rail against taxes for social programs can be traced to their idea that the society is comprised of isolated individuals, each of whom are solely responsible for their economic well-being. Progressives, on the other hand, recognize society as more than a mere collection of individuals, with different social groups and institutions which have policies reflecting those groups' disparate power relations.
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Zizek explains that words like "peace" or "freedom" have much of their meaning determined by the context which ideology gives them.

This is fairly easily recognized the broader the concept addressed by the word. For example, the words "good" and "bad" are nearly meaningless without a context. "Peace" and "freedom" are not as open to interpretation, but are still vague enough that what they mean is reliant upon a person's mode of thought and the ideology behind it.

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It has been said that, whenever a person spoke of freedom in his presence, Lenin always asked "freedom for who?"

This question was rooted in an observation Marx made in Capital. Capitalists' "free market" meant workers may be free to seek work, but are also "free" of the possessions (means of production) necessary to make a living. Capitalists benefit a great deal more from freedom defined as such, essentially claiming a "freedom to command."

By focusing on self-determination it is possible to show that the amount a person can do with their freedom is limited by secondary factors. A person whose parent's could not save money for his or her college, for example, does not have the same freedom to determine his or her future career as someone whose parent's could save. The capitalist that owns a majority of the commercial property in a certain city district has a great deal more freedom to determine what types of businesses are eventually built in that district than even the majority of people who live there, no matter who they elect to represent them.

In opposition to capitalists' freedom to command others, Communists stand for "equal freedom," focused on a net increase in people's self-determination and best understood philosophically as positive liberty.
Marxism in the Marketplace of Ideas
 
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