The Marxist definition of Utopianism.

One of the things that annoys me about Marxists is how they create definitions of words but then treat those definition as the somehow true definitions.

They are most inclined to acknowledge other definitions exist when referring to the "Anarchist definition of The State" when addressing their disagreements with Anarchists.  Thing is the Anarchist Definition is also the objective definition, even pro-State conservatives and liberals can't really object to it.  It's only Marxists that use a different definition, yet they keep trying to frame the debate as if the Anarchist are the ones who fabricated a biased definition.

However the worst Marxist definition is their definition of Utopianism.  Whenever someone accuses Marx of Utopianism instead of engaging with that actual criticism they go "Ugh Marx invented criticizing Utopian Socialists so you clearly don't understand Marxism".  But the Marxist definition of Utopian is in fact not even close to being a valid definition.  At least with The State their definition is a reasonable alternate explanation for the same phenomena, but what Marxists mean when they say "Utopian Socialists" is not even related to what the root word "Utopia" means.

The reason I can say that so strongly is because I also know exactly what word they should be using instead, Idealist/Idealistic.  What Marxists keep saying is wrong with Utopianism is that it's a belief that a Platonic Ideal of Socialism already exists in the Platonic world of forms, and the way to finally make it work in the material world is to make a less imperfect copy of this predetermined form.  Anyone who actually is thinking that way I would disagree with, as rejecting Plato is one of the overarching storylines of this blog.

But I don't think everyone Marxists call Utopian are truly guilty of that, I have my doubts any really are.  My point is that's what their definition is, and their continually saying "Utopian" when they mean "Idealist" is simply bad use of language, period.

They sometimes call Anarchists "Utopian", but Anarchists in fact do just as much Material Class Analysis as they do, they simply come to different conclusions on issues like Economic Determinism.  But even with the writers most uncontroversial to describe as Utopian Socialists, I feel like maybe their critics are just taking them a little too literally.

If I wrote a work of fiction in which I depicted a Socialist society and included a lot of world building details on how it functions.  I would take it for granted that no one would assume I'm saying real world Socialism needs to match that exactly.  It's just a hypothetical idea I threw out to get people thinking.  Maybe Charles Fourier and Saint-Simon were simply doing the same in a non fiction format?  I don't know since I haven't and don't plan to actually read them.

However it's Moses Hess and Flora Tristan I most object to dismissing the way Marxists like to dismiss everyone before Marx as "Utopian".  Their approaches were just as Materialist as Marx and Bakunin, but Marxists are invested in a belief that no one was doing material Analysis before Marx.  So for the most part their very existence gets ignored.

In ContraPoints recent Video on Envy which I thought was pretty darn great even though I don't agree with everything, she calls Marxism "Utopian" because of it's deterministic belief in the inevitability of the fall of Capitalism to Socialism.  I don't think that's a great use of the word "Utopian" either, but it's still a valid criticism, as the idea is a comparison to the perceived ramifications of Christian belief in an inevitable Second Coming.  Which is a comparison that has been made before, just usually not using that word.

Marxists tend to insist they're more Optimistic then other Leftists precisely because of this belief in it's inevitability.  But no, Optimism is the Belief that you can Win and Pessimism the belief that you can't.  Believing victory is inevitable is a way to be Optimistic, but arguably not the most pragmatic way.  I think it's important to believe we can win, but we won't if we don't actually do anything but vote for Democrats.

Okay so enough with rambling about what Utopian doesn't mean. 

The Definition of Communism, a Moneyless, Classless, Stateless Society, is a Utopia, period.  Secular Leftists not liking the quasi religious connotations the word often has doesn't change that.  The word "Utopia" was being used to describe that idea long before the word "Communism" was, in fact the original hypothetical society the word was coined to describe was a Communist one.

Because the word has become so negatively connotated in the last century, among Leftists it keeps in some way being used a description of how to get there, they make it a Verb instead of a Noun.  I however say we reject the negative connotations and start calling ourselves Utopians as a badge of honor.