Is capitalism Epicurean — and socialism Stoical?

A rejoinder to Benjamin Studebaker on political disturbance and social freedom 

Chris Cutrone

Platypus Review 181 | November 2025

Benjamin Studebaker attributes modern social and political thought to Stoicism, which he understands to be at heart Neo-Platonist — by contrast with Plato’s own Platonism.[1] In his view, it comes down to us from late Hellenism — Alexandrianism? But is capitalism Epicurean, as Studebaker avers, and socialism Stoic? Studebaker rejects the vision of socialism as society going beyond politics, which he interprets as the impossible or undesirable state without “disturbance”: an inhuman dystopia.

I wrote previously in response to Studebaker on ideology and social relations in capitalism.[2] Here, I will take a different tack, and try to rejoin all of Studebaker’s criticisms together.

Studebaker describes himself as a “non-liberal pluralist” — a Hobbesian. But the struggle for socialism comes from reaching the limits of liberalism — not from rejecting or as an alternative to it. Socialism arises from the self-contradiction of liberalism in capitalism — the self-contradiction of bourgeois social relations. But liberalism and capitalism are not identical — or, their identity is only a “speculative” one. This is not a matter of principles or ideals but social reality itself. Hobbes was a modern — which means a liberal. There was an emancipation of bourgeois society from traditional civilization: the emancipation of labor and social cooperation. The issue is not the self-conscious political or economic order but society itself, which comprehends both the economic and political realms — and includes culture and psychology. It is the actual unity of theory and practice. This includes “philosophy.” All thinking in modern society is a function of modern society — even when it draws from Ancient sources. As Durkheim observed, forms of thought are social forms. They remain modern. Modern civil liberties and rights will not be politically constrained, as they subsist in social reality itself. Their abrogation remains a crime — against social freedom.

Studebaker challenges me to support “Medicare for all,” the demand of the Bernie Presidential campaign and central to the DSA’s reform program. But we already had “human infrastructure” — as opposed to physical infrastructure, which was denounced as “masculine” and bad for the environment — funded by the Biden Administration as a way of buttressing the “service economy” after the stresses of the COVID pandemic. This is backward-looking. The moment for radical health care reform has passed — even as it remains, as they say, core to the Democratic Party brand: even Obama now says that the Affordable Care Act should have been public and not private provision of health care. This is mere sloganeering. Trump flirted with the idea of public health care as a cost-cutting measure for American capitalism — to make it competitive with other advanced capitalist countries that have such government provision. But he soon realized that it was not impossible but unnecessary. The Democrats will dangle it forever — or for so long as it holds the attention of voters, which, like climate change, seems to be already passing as a political issue. I pointed out to Ben that the Republicans are correct that health care is not — cannot possibly be — a “right,” but is a “good”: a commodity, whether provided by the market or the state; either a cheap or expensive one.[3] Capitalism will adjust to the new situation if not new needs, with or without political action. As Trump is driving down pharmaceutical costs, he is also proud to point out that the private sector is already making great strides on carbon reduction, even in developing cleaner fossil fuel production and use. The issues of the future will be different.

Studebaker takes issue with what he calls “Quixotic socialism” — it’s unclear whether he includes me in this category, but he might.[4] Are we still fighting the battles of the past? But which past? The history of a dead movement — Marxism — might indeed seem to be tilting at windmills. But there be dragons. The issue, it seems, is the “progressive” wave in politics from Obama through Biden, cresting with Bernie Sanders and the Squad of AOC et al. (Zohran Mamdani?) during the Trump era.  What did this have to do with socialism and capitalism? There is an evident disconnect between the “Left” — animated by Democratic Party issues — and Marxism. Is the latter merely a noble position belonging to a past world? Platypus poses two questions: Does Marxism even matter? And: What is Marxism? — What is the Left? If it is only the “Left-wing” of capitalism, then certainly Marxism is irrelevant. As Marx himself said, he did not discover class divisions or the class struggle of the workers — liberals already had.[5] (Marx only found the historical necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat — which liberals of course reject.)

Is Studebaker’s dreaded stasis of “Epicureanism and Stoicism” just the “dynamic equilibrium” of capitalism itself, which he associates with neoliberalism’s termination of politics — which is now in political crisis and in the political process of transformation to post-neoliberalism? But he denies that this is taking place at all — thus agreeing with the DSA’s Vivek Chibber, who thinks that Trump is just another typical Republican President.[6] There is evidently a deep ambivalence about the passing of the “post-political” technocracy of neoliberalism, which has been underway since George W. Bush’s War on Terror, and certainly after Obama’s failed Presidency — or what the Aufhebunga crew has called “the end of the end of history.” Studebaker associates me with a broader traditional (“)Marxist(“) approach to socialism and its implicit agreement with a more endemic alleged eschewing of the political in the neoliberal era (which he thinks began with the post-WWII U.S.-led world “liberal political order” — why not in the U.K.-led post-1814 Pax Britannica, i.e. the capitalist era itself?) — or in liberalism tout court.

By contrast, Studebaker cites — against me — my own “Lenin’s liberalism,” where I wrote that the goal is to free politics from capitalism. But this was about the goal of proletarian socialism as a movement and as a revolution: the desideratum of the dictatorship of the proletariat. I wrote about this as follows:

Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch, and Theodor Adorno, teasing out a “Hegelian” dimension to Lenin’s Marxism, derived from Lenin’s theoretical writings and political practice an elaboration of the Marxist theory of social mediation in capital, through the politics of proletarian socialism, that sought to recover Lenin from a bad utopian perspective of the desire to do away with politics altogether. Rather, such Marxist critical theory following Lenin understood overcoming the “alienation” and “reification” of capital as providing the possibility for the true practice of politics, a neglected but vital contribution Lenin made to the development of Marxism. Lenin did not attempt to destroy modern forms of political mediation, but rather to achieve the true mediation of theory and practice, in politics freed from society dominated by capital. This was the content of Lenin’s liberalism, his “dialectical” Marxist attempt, not to negate, but rather to fulfill the desiderata of bourgeois society, which capital had come to block, and which could only be worked through “immanently.”[7]

Nevertheless, the “utopian” horizon of socialism should be maintained. Because neither Lenin nor Marx and Engels, or Lukács, Adorno et al. tried to foresee what society beyond capitalism would be, defining it negatively as overcoming the unfreedom of capitalism, but only anticipated and pursued politically the dictatorship of the proletariat, I was similarly addressing the latter and not the former. Dialectically:  since original historical Marxism considered the only true politics in capitalism to be that of the class struggle of the workers for achieving socialism (the rest being merely pseudo-politics or racketeering — mere power-struggles), the realization of this will be their exercise of social and political power, in order not to merely manage but overcome the problem of capitalism.

The dictatorship of the proletariat will thus still be a politics of capitalism. It will still need to be political. But it will be more truly political than can be the case under capitalism. It will be the final form of state — but not any state, but one in particular: the capitalist state. It is this state that will “wither away” along with capitalism in being overcome. This is the dialectical relationship between what Marxism called Bonapartism and the dictatorship of the proletariat as a final state.

Studebaker dislikes the Marxist theory of the state, regarding “Bonapartism” as too pejorative a characterization of the state, discouraging of politics.[8] But recognizing how and why we are politically alienated in capitalism is important if we are not to be misled — simply by remaining aware of how we are liable to be misled. As I wrote in my previous article in response to Studebaker, capitalism inevitably misleads us: it is what Marx called a “false necessity” that dominates us. This means that what appears necessary to us is precisely what must be overcome. But the problems that appear to us presently both must and cannot be worked through in their own terms. All of our problems stem from capitalism, and yet none of them can be solved in their own terms — none, not even the struggle against exploitation, leads out of but only more deeply into capitalism. It is for this reason that we have need of the state. It is a false need.

“False” is a tricky designation because it suggests the truth by contrast with it. We don’t know our true needs in capitalism — other than the need to overcome it. What Marxism meant by the “false consciousness” of ideology was its self-contradiction: contradictory consciousness. Capital accumulation is a self-contradictory necessity in capitalism: it is self-destructive and self-defeating even while it remains necessary. It is because of this self-contradiction of social necessity in capitalism that the state arose to meet it in the 1800s.

In many crucial and decisive respects the state as such — as we know it in capitalism — is unique, a new and different phenomenon specific to capitalism. For instance, there were no police or prisons before capitalism — before the Industrial Revolution. The state, as thus recognized by Marxism, is composed of the “special bodies of armed men.” This is not the more conventional, colloquial definition of the state as the legal-juridical constitutional order of politics. The fate of the specifically coercive state in this Marxist view is clear; what is more obscure is the fate of politics. Friedrich Engels wrote that it would involve the replacement of the “governing of men” by the “administration of things” — actually, the Utopian Socialist Saint-Simon had first formulated it thusly (very little positive in Marxism is original to it).

Studebaker objects to this view, seeing in it the end of social freedom, which requires the “disturbance” that Epicureans and Stoics seek to avoid. But social disturbance need not be political in character — need not, as Marx described it, be a matter of “when right meets right, force will decide.” This is not even the case always today under capitalism, let alone beyond it in socialism. Bourgeois society is able to tolerate all kinds of difference: there is scope for a great deal of collective and individual right without conflict unknown to prior history.

Studebaker conflates the political with the social, restricting the social to the realm of agreement and characterizing the political as the domain of disagreement. Rousseau explained, following Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees as well as John Locke’s theory of property rights, that commercial competition was a form of cooperation. Rousseau’s social compact is implicit not explicit: it is the interdependence developed through the contract involved in any transaction — even what Hegel called “military transactions” in war. Society developed through antagonism and not only or even primarily concord. Social development has accelerated through commercial activity in ways that could never have been achieved through war.

And politics before capitalism was all about war — except in the American republic. Even Plato’s ideal state was a republic of war. It is important to note that the participants in the Ancient republic — ancient politics — were members of the warrior caste: the nobility/aristocracy. War might be “politics by other means;” but politics is not another means for war; and war is no longer the principal way to achieve political goals, let alone greater social freedom.

The socialist party I seek to lay a foundation for building might be a party for war — class war — but it will not be primarily a military party; however it will be a party with the required martial discipline to achieve power. Plato’s Republic banned all music except for marching.

Stoic resolve is necessary in order to avoid unnecessary disturbance in our Campaign. But the disturbance to be avoided is the torment of mistaken aspiration. Are we in global capitalism a civilization in decline? If so, the fall has been long — and we are nowhere near the bottom of it.

We already live in a unified world of peaceful cooperation — including competition — and interdependence that includes a great deal of diverse multiplicity without violent conflict. Pax Americana remains. Because we have been living through a period of economic and political crisis and transformation for the last 20 years, it might be easy to naturalize this, but we will forget that, despite this, commercial social relations and cooperative production at a global scale continue, largely unperturbed, nonetheless. ( — The horror is that open warfare with millions of casualties is inconsequential in the course of modern history. This means wars are actually unnecessary, even if the pathologies of capitalism still make them possible. The U.S. is correct to regard them as impermissible, even if in fact they are quite tolerable.) This is only increasingly the case over the course of the last 200 years of capitalism. It is an irreversible trend.

Studebaker asserts that Marxism was a phenomenon of “early capitalism” that prematurely declared “late capitalism,” but we need to accept living in “middle capitalism” for the foreseeable future.[9] But it was always both too late and too early for socialist revolution. It is a perennial need. This is because capitalism is in a constant state of “creative destruction” — actually, destructive creation — that is always planting the seeds for its future crises even while recovering from current ones. It moves, as Marx wrote, in “fits and starts.” The transition from capitalism to socialism can never come too soon and is always long overdue. The Industrial Revolution pointed directly to communism. We have been stuck in an incomplete transition and suffered from its pathology ever since. When the proletariat emerged in bourgeois society it was time to transcend it. Not every community has been tasked with overcoming itself, but capitalism is. By deferring the question of capitalism, Studebaker abdicates from it. By treating the Marxist philosophy of history as a Platonic “noble lie,” he inhibits true recognition of the task we face. We pay an accumulating price for deferring the task of building a socialist party that could take power.

Studebaker doesn’t like the idea of being “tasked,” thinking that this is somehow counterposed to the cultivation of virtue. He cursorily observes the scientific and technical progress of the Enlightenment and its aftermath, but downplays its significance. — A common misapprehension of Marxism is that it is technological determinism or technophilia. But the technology we currently have is what capitalism needs, and is neither the cause or problem nor the solution and answer to our suffering in modernity. Technology is a social relation — an alienated social relation. Its appearance is a key indication of the task we face in capitalism.

It must be consoling to think that we are confronted with the same problem as ever, but only in different forms. Perhaps we do. But the forms in which our problems appear still matter. We must deal with the specific problem of capitalism. That is not addressable in terms of capitalist politics.

Studebaker wants politics. He wants dissensus against the prevailing stale — rotten, disintegrating — default “consensus.” He just wants it to be true, meaningful political disagreement — rather than how it appears now: false, confused and meaningless  — which means debating the “good.” No: the debates today are truly over the direction of capitalism — which everyone knows will not be detained over questions of the “good.” Those in power know very well that in the realities of global capitalism we are already far beyond questions of good and evil. But what if we are in a pre-political moment — so far as the issue of capitalism and socialism is concerned?

Studebaker wants a better conservative, liberal and socialist politics — or at least improved political discourse. But the only way to develop liberal and conservative political thinking and action would be in the face of the challenge of socialist politics, which is currently entirely absent. We only have debates between progressive and conservative perspectives that are largely beside the point since capitalism will conservatively and “progressively” reform as needed, not according to sentiment. To improve the overall political situation in capitalism, in the sense of any possible clarification of stakes, we need a socialist movement and politics. We need a socialist party. Without this, capitalist politics degenerates, both in theory and practice, inexorably.

As a former Bernie supporter, Studebaker is a populist; as a disappointed Sandernista, he is disenchanted with the prospect of fundamental political change — such as demanded by the pursuit of socialism. Democracy seems to be a more tractable issue — even if it has become chronic rather than acute. His main complaint is against the Democratic Party. He has said that Marx’s philosophy of history is good because it is useful to motivate a movement; but Marx’s theory of exploitation is good because it is true.[10] It is actually the opposite: the theory of exploitation is useful as a political analysis motivating the class struggle of the workers, but the philosophy of history is true — so far as capitalism is concerned. We are in a unique historical moment — tasked with overcoming pre-history and achieving true history: the true “progress in consciousness of freedom.”[11]

Bonapartism is the farce of the tragedy that appears in our political alienation.[12] It is a grotesque visage of our comedy. It is not a fetish for warding off the demon of politics, but a recognition of what possesses us in our political passions. It is not to purge the passions that we must exorcize the demon. But it is not to dispel the political but only its fetish. Shakespeare couldn’t play in Ancient Athens. Trump is not the Lear but the Hamlet of our politics, from which the domino has slipped in our “carnival of philosophy.” Can we learn from what has thus been revealed — or must we treat it as still concealed, hidden behind its death-mask?

I seek the participation of those such as Studebaker in building the social and political movement for a socialist party in the United States. All would-be socialists should be united in this effort — whether Platonic or not.

I don’t despair of the necessity of this task, which asserts itself objectively and not merely subjectively. It was abdicated by the Millennials, in favor of “progressivism.” But the needed “progress” of our moment in capitalism has been met by Trump, not the “Left.”

The political question of our time is overcoming capitalism. Its name is “socialism.”

As the young Marx wrote,

In fact, the internal obstacles seem almost greater than external difficulties. For even though the question “where from?” presents no problems, the question “where to?” is a rich source of confusion. Not only has universal anarchy broken out among the reformers, but also every individual must admit to himself that he has no precise idea about what ought to happen. However, this very defect turns to the advantage of the new movement, for it means that we do not anticipate the world with our dogmas but instead attempt to discover the new world through the critique of the old.[13] | P

[1] “The Buddha’s bastards,” October 3, 2025, available online at: <https://bmstudebaker.substack.com/p/the-buddhas-bastards>.

[2] “Social relations and ideology: An anti-critique,” Platypus Review 180 (October 2025), available online at: <https://platypus1917.org/2025/10/01/social-relations-and-ideology-an-anti-critique/>.

[3] See our discussion of my call for “Socialist unity!” (published in Sublation Magazine, July 29, 2025, available online at: <https://www.sublationmag.com/post/socialist-unity>), posted to my YouTube channel at: <https://youtu.be/BJer4nbmrCk?si=ApcYukrgjI8kDzVF>.

[4] “The Left as hope industry: Beyond Quixotic socialism,” November 3, 2024, available online at: <https://bmstudebaker.substack.com/p/the-left-as-a-hope-industry>.

[5] Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852.

[6] Jacobin, July 14, 2025, available online at: < https://jacobin.com/2025/07/trump-foreign-policy-budget-gop>.

[7] “Lenin’s liberalism,” Platypus Review 36 (June 2011), available online at: <https://platypus1917.org/2011/06/01/lenins-liberalism/>.

[8] “Beyond Bonapartism,” Platypus Review 166 (May 2024), available online at: <https://platypus1917.org/2024/05/01/beyond-bonapartism-breaking-statephobic-thought-taboos/>.

[9] “The Left as hope industry: Beyond Quixotic socialism,” November 3, 2024, available online at: <https://bmstudebaker.substack.com/p/the-left-as-a-hope-industry>.

[10] See “What is Marxism for?,” panel discussion of April 2, 2022, recording available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl5i4orxCAM>; transcript published in Platypus Review 153 (February 2023), available online at: < https://platypus1917.org/2023/02/01/what-is-marxism-for/>.

[11] Hegel, Introduction to the Philosophy of History.

[12] See my “Bonapartism is not Bonaparte,” Platypus Review 177 (June 2025), available online at: < https://platypus1917.org/2025/06/01/bonapartism-is-not-bonaparte/>.

[13] Letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843, available online at: < https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09-alt.htm>.