24 - On the PMC Question

@moltopopulare joins co-hosts Natalie Smith, Will Beaman & Maxximilian Seijo to problematize unquestioned leftist critiques of the “Professional Managerial Class,” or “PMC,” past and present. As exemplified by a recent episode of The Dig podcast, leftists frequently invoke the epithet “PMC”--as well as its cousin, “ultra leftist,” or simply “ultra”--in order to shore up class solidarity against capitalist cooptation and ward off allegedly unfeasible political aims. Yet in reality, the Superstructure gang argues, the left PMC trope conceals deeply zero-sum and exclusionary logics that undercut universal emancipation and caretaking. Often stemming from a place of self-loathing or a desire for self-exculpation, such logics not only police leftist discourse according to a univocal workerist ethos, but also violently divide supposedly legitimate from illegitimate horizons of contestation in a manner that reduces universalism to exceptionalism. Tracing the PMC figure’s theoretical and historical roots, the episode culminates with a sustained reading from Karl Marx’s controversial essay, “On the Jewish Question.” Link to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MoLsuperstructure Music: “Yum” from “This Would Be Funny If It Were Happening To Anyone But Me” EP by flirting. http://flirtingfullstop.bandcamp.com Twitter: @actualflirting