Capital’s Student Socialist Union (SSU) hosted Coco Smyth, a member of the International Socialist Organization last Thursday to discuss Marxism and how it needs to be prevalent in today’s society.
“99 percent of people have no idea what Marxism is … It’s about understanding your place in society,” said Smyth.
“Our goal for this [event] was to kind of create a foundation [of Marxism] that would allow people to then act on it,” said Ariel Johnson, SSU chairperson.
Smyth’s program included a very basic introduction of Marxism and a group discussion. Smyth spoke mostly on two points: the importance of Marxism today and the need to motivate people to see Marxist organizations as important.
The event first covered the importance of modern Marxism by exploring the topics of the “Black Lives Matter” movement and the socialist views of Democratic primary candidate, Bernie Sanders. Smyth stressed that these two examples showed the world sides of Marxism and socialism through their equality-driven backgrounds.
The discussion then led to the need to prove that socialist and Marxist organizations are important. This means understanding the need to have a balance between being “right-sided,” questioning socialism and its views, while focusing on issues and how to fix them.
Smyth then went on to explain where exactly the concept of Marxism came about. He tells us the concept was developed by philosophers Karl Marx and Fredrick Engles in the 19th century. Marx and Engles developed this idea on three ideologies:
- The Idea of British Classical Economics—or a free market system
- The creation of communes in order to develop a model society
- The Hegelian Philosophy—that history is constantly changing to create an absolute idea.
“We’ve been living in a really bad sort of philosophical political situation in the West since the rise of liberalism, which is just the capitalist system being fully capitalist,” said Smyth when he was asked why people need to devote time to understanding Marxism.
To explain why Marxism is so important in today’s world, Smyth told of a story of two friends who work at a coffee shop. This store runs a computer program that shows each employee how much they made for the company in their shift. Smyth tells that his friends make $150 for an eight hour shift yet they made the company three times that amount.
The explanation for this is that the company is paying the smallest amount for the labor to make profit. Smyth explained that this scenario would not happen in a world that embraced Marxism.
The SSU hopes to hold more events similar to this in the near future. Starting Tuesday, February 2, the organization will hold biweekly meetings at 9 p.m. on Tuesdays in Kerns Religious Life Center.
For questions or information, contact Ariel Johnson at ajohnson983@capital.edu.
