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GenZedong @lemmygrad.ml
King_Simp @lemmygrad.ml

Is it just me or are Italians surprisingly prolific marxist theorists?

Antonio Gramsci, Dominic Losurdo, Silvia Fredirici, etc. [Technically Michael Parenti if we go by his surname, and the fact that New York City is rightful Italian land (/s)].

Obviously there are good authors everywhere [and obviously AES states have more], but I feel like Italians get a slightly bigger proportion of non-AES originated publications compared to other places like Germany and Britain [although in the latter's case, their intellectuals are so endlessly insufferable im genuinely considering calling for a ban on all publications from the god forsaken island]

Anyway, probably just confirmation bias, but if anyone has any thoughts on it then id love to here them

7 comments

  • North Italy especially had a very revolutionary tradition, throughout various periods there were more communists than liberals, especially after the russian revolution, and during the 1950s-70s. It was one of the main fronts of the cold war, which is why the CIA put so many resources into killing them during the years of lead and stamping out their orgs via gladio.

    The Italian and other southern and eastern european expats to the US during the early 1900s formed the core of most of its communist / socialist organizing too. They were highly-communitarian minded people, pretty much the opposite of anglos.

    Highly recommend comrades read Paul Williams - Operation Gladio.

    • North Italy as well? You know - they seem surprisingly revolutionary, despite being what I presume to be the most richer region amongst North and South

      • It's because they were the more industrialized region. Southern Italy used to be a lot more agrarian. It's like how Hungary used to be to Austria under the Dual Monarchy.

  • I mean, Marx came from Germany so...

    But I think it has to do with how both Germany and Italy were heavily industrialized while also not having as many colonies like Spain, Britain or France.

    But Germany actually got a socialist government in the east after the war, so their western counterparts by necessity had to be social democrats. The Communist Party of Italy on the other hand went on existing for most of the 20th century, supported by the Comintern.

    In all of Western Europe the last century, I think Italy and maybe (Northern) Ireland had the most consistent revolutionary potential until Eurocommunism doomed the peninsula.

  • Economic disparity in Italy following industrialization, between North and South, which continues to this day, undoubtedly could be a factor. Italy is also a very extroverted culture with a collectivist, outgoing tradition that even today opposes social atomization that capitalism creates (think of movements like Cittaslow and Slowfood), but this can be said about so many other cultures in just the Mediterranean basin alone - Italy has just been part of the imperial core, meaning higher literacy rates and thus "capacity" to produce such prominent Marxist thinkers. Italy also saw fascism, which perhaps could have made class consciousness amongst intellectuals skyrocket?

    And confirmation bias? Maybe, but it's a fun thought experiment regardless because we as Marxists are materialists in the first place, so we know that this isn't just an "inherent genetic trait", or "random", as liberal idealism would propose.

    Britain [although in the latter’s case, their intellectuals are so endlessly insufferable im genuinely considering calling for a ban on all publications from the god forsaken island]

    not just their intellectuals are insufferable lmao, that's too generous when speaking of that "civilization"

    • Italy is also a very extroverted culture with a collectivist, outgoing tradition that even today opposes social atomization that capitalism creates

      Almost the polar opposite of anglos. Italians are outgoing, social, community-focused / communitarian. Anglos are reserved, individualistic, and care more about unlimited freedom for individuals than collective betterment.

      • Facts, comrade. If we divert off-topic a little further and focus on anthropology, honestly, this comparison can be drawn in general between "superior whites" (Celto-Germanics) and the "non-whites" (including European Mediterraneans, at least historically). The ethno-nationalists claim to be so "superior" yet prefer the food of the "inferiors", appropriate the cultural traditions and teachings of the "inferiors", and even try to steal the history of the "inferiors", by claiming it as their own or by attempting to sever the continuity between ancient civilizations they find fascinating and the modern populations, which are their descendants, to paint those as "inferiors". This is a veeeery common trick in the playbook of aforementioned Anglo intellectuals, and the Fr*nch too.

        This is partially how the entire myth of "Western civilization" emerged, which is little more than a Eurocentric term for what became the political imperialist bloc we know today, rooted in the same narratives that gave us "civilizing mission", "savages" and other nonsense - which are today recycled into the neocon language's "spreading democracy", "terrorists", etc.

7 comments