Parliamentary cretinism

Parliamentary cretinism is a pejorative for the belief that a socialist society can be achieved by peaceful, parliamentary means. It is perpetuated by parliamentarians through their rhetoric that ignore real-word situations (e.g. class struggle).[1] The term, which was cited as a malady, is said to confine adherents to an imaginary world, keeping them from the knowledge and realities of the external world.[2]

Concept

The term parliamentary cretinism was originally coined by Karl Marx in chapter five of his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,[3] published in 1852 following Louis Napoleon's coup d'état in France.[4] Marx and Engels considered this a fatal delusion for the socialist movement, believing it would only waste time and allow reactionary forces to grow stronger. Marx, particularly, held the view that parliaments are indirectly representing the interests of classes but resolve problems superficially, with its politics ideologically displaced and abstracted from social conditions.[5] This means, for Marx, that parliamentary cretinism creates an imaginary world without sense, memory, and understanding of the real world.[6] This condition perpetuates parliamentarism by defending it against the proletariat through the destruction of the Parliament itself to reinforce the executive branch.[7]

In the words of Friedrich Engels:

'Parliamentary cretinism' is an incurable disease, an ailment whose unfortunate victims are permeated by the lofty conviction that the whole world, its history and its future are directed and determined by a majority of votes of just that very representative institution that has the honour of having them in the capacity of its members.[8]

References
  1. Stuart, Robert (2002). Marxism at Work: Ideology, Class and French Socialism During the Third Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 271. ISBN 0521415268.
  2. Carver, Terrell (2002). Marx: Later Political Writings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 90. ISBN 0-521-36504-X.
  3. "18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Marx 1852". marxists.org.
  4. Howard, Dick (1985). From Marx to Kant. Albany: State University of New York Press. p. 190. ISBN 0-88706-042-0.
  5. Erickson, D. (2009). Ghosts, Metaphor, and History in Toni Morrison's Beloved and Gabriel GarcIa MArquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 133. ISBN 9781349378081.
  6. Marx, Karl (2008). The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers. p. 91. ISBN 9781434463746.
  7. Tomba, Massimiliano (2013). Marx's Temporalities. Leiden: BRILL. p. 49. ISBN 9789004236783.
  8. "Glossary of Terms: Pa". marxists.org.


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