If there is anything that the last few months have done to political discourse, it is that they have made it heavier and more dire than ever. But if there is any silver lining to this, it seems to be that the conversation is now especially focused on practical, pressing, and non-frivolous matters. Every now and then, though, a remnant from the Old World emerges – a world of political idealism, hot takes and debates, and quirky and tempestuous ideas about the structure of the economy and society. So when I saw a poster for “Libertarianism vs Marxism,” a student debate in Stokes Hall, I just knew that I had to go to it, to understand it somehow.
Wondering primarily about the experience of being part of a very marginal ideology on a campus where politics are already quite marginal, and wondering secondarily about what these people are like as individuals, I sat in the corner of the male-dominated audience and listened. Near the entrance was a table where the Libertarians and Marxists both offered bling – the type of accessories one might expect these groups to have on hand.
The Libertarians invited us to take stickers of guns captioned with “COME AND TAKE IT;” outlines of a snake that told us “Don’t Trust The GOVERNMENT;” and, strangely, Martin Luther King Jr. stickers repurposing a quote about injustice. The Marxists had none of these colorful accessories, and instead, displayed reading material, including the 567-page Platypus Review Reader (2007-2014).
I did take one of their pamphlets, though, which told me that “We are thinkers on the Left educated and warned by the history of the 20th century – but not terrorized by it!” which perhaps is comforting. But I went back to inhaling apprehensively again when in their opening statement, the Marxist debate leader advertised an article their organization had written, titled, “Why Not Trump?” which, after reading it, makes the depressing argument its title suggests.
The Marxists completed their arguments on the economy that past failures in economics classes rendered me incapable of understanding, although I did think a lot about the multiple, huge, and heavy German dictionaries that they had lugged to their table and never opened once. I further thought about how impossibly weighty it must’ve made their backpacks on the way over, and how, as they decried capitalism, they may also soon be decrying chronic back pain.
Eventually, two girls came into the room to watch, and I wished that I could ask them what they were thinking as they fervently scribbled notes, only taking breaks to look at each other ominously when the Libertarians started talking. “I definitely recognize that issue and I think it’s obviously because of the government,” one of the Libertarians said, emblematic of their positions. The team centered their arguments around what was called the “Non-Aggression Principle,” an idea that condemned any type of government interference with one’s property or earnings, and there was room for disappointment when the moderator never asked how removing taxation and instituting such a concept would affect the myriad of homeless, poor, and destitute people in the country.
Yet, the question of economic disparities was perhaps answered for me by one of the Libertarian debaters later on. “There’s plenty of unused land in the United States,” he observed, “so maybe poor people can go there and start farms?”
Later in the debate, as the two teams became more direct with each other in asking questions, I started to wonder if they were as different as this whole premise claimed they were. Of course, one wanted plenty of government and the other no government, but they both shared a hatred of basically any politician you could name (the Marxists regarded Bernie Sanders with particular distaste); they both viewed the world as an uncaring and brutish place (“it’s an extremely aggressive society!” the Marxists said); and they both really lived their politics, wearing it on their sleeves. Moreover, if you were in a room with them and didn’t know they belonged to these organizations, they may likely soon tell you.
And so I began to wonder whether these identities were ones of marginality, or whether, more simply, the marginal itself was an identity. A shared one, one that came in different flavors.
Eventually the debate ended and I introduced myself to a particularly friendly Marxist who told me that he got into leftist politics in 2020 during the pandemic when there was plenty of time to sit around and think. The Platypus Society to which they belonged was more of an intellectual reading group, he said, not one orchestrating direct action.
One of his debate partners chimed in to say that she was also a member of BC Climate Justice who said they really do push for immediate change, and there was certainly a difference in how the administration approached handling the groups. Even with the current dystopian headlines of the day, the Marxists were optimistic about the future and the many volatile ways it could go, seeming unbothered by the fact that their club wasn’t very well-known or well-attended by even the progressive population at BC. It was a sunniness anyone can appreciate; if the revolution does come, it probably won’t be on account of bad morale.
Talking to the Libertarians, I was struck by both how down-to-earth and pessimistic they were. The pessimism seemed unwarranted…aren’t they getting all they have ever dreamed of with half of the federal government being cut right now? Not quite, one of them said. Of course they welcomed some of the changes, “but these guys are still politicians,” he emphasized, they still have ulterior interests.
Much of the debate was, simply put, not very accessible to someone who didn’t already know the core tenets of these two ideologies. Even for someone like me who likes to think of themselves as up-to-date with fringe modern politics, it was humbling. And so, while it may have been a public event, it seemed in a way like a private club. A club for the kids on either side who seek differentiation, who revel in contrarianism, who feel like two parties, two options, two ways of life, are simply not enough for their effervescent outlooks. Who bubble with “actuallys’,” who are waiting for the current system to fail, who are waiting to be proven right, who have their strongest interpersonal relationship with capitalism, either in a marriage of amorous endearment or jealous revilement.
“All my friends find me super annoying cause I’m constantly trying to explain these atrocities,” a Libertarian debater said towards the end. The event wrapped up and the Marxists and the Libertarians met in the middle to negotiate who would put the chairs back in the rooms they borrowed them from. “Won’t the chairs just take care of themselves?” I asked the Libertarians, eliciting only one laugh. And then I put my coat on, stepped outside, and entered back into the real world.
Correction 4/12/25: This article was revised to say “male-dominated audience” as opposed to “all-male.”
Really into tacky boba shops, pretentious novels, and long talks with friends that are a mix of both
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