The accusation is everywhere: liberals, progressives, and culture warriors are ‘neo-Marxists’ hell-bent on destroying Western civilisation. Closer examination, however, reveals irony—the far-right has itself adopted the core analytical framework and policy prescriptions that once defined Marxist movements.
That the term ‘neo-Marxism’ has become a favoured cudgel of right-wing populists from Donald Trump’s America to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is not news. According to the narrative, a shadowy cabal of intellectuals—often traced to the Frankfurt School of critical theorists who fled Nazi Germany—has infiltrated universities, media, and cultural institutions to wage war on traditional values through ‘cultural Marxism’.
This conspiracy theory, described by scholars as having ‘no basis in fact’, serves a convenient political purpose. It allows the far-right to dismiss legitimate criticism and deflect attention from their own increasingly radical positions. But the irony runs deeper than mere deflection.
In their rhetoric, analytical framework, and policy prescriptions, today’s far-right movements have themselves become the closest thing to a genuine neo-Marxist force in contemporary politics.
The scapegoat strategy
Consider the far-right’s approach to explaining social and economic problems. Where classical Marxists identified class enemies—the bourgeoisie who exploited workers—today’s populist right has simply substituted different villains. George Soros, the Hungarian-American philanthropist, has become a particular fixation, blamed for everything from orchestrating immigration to funding protests to manipulating currencies.
The rhetorical structure is remarkably similar to Marxist class analysis. Marx’s theory posited that, “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” with a clear division between oppressor and oppressed. Today’s populist right employs the same binary thinking, simply replacing economic classes with cultural and ethnic categories. The ‘globalist elite’, ‘cosmopolitan rootless’ figures, and ‘cultural Marxists’ become the new bourgeoisie, whilst ‘real Americans’ or ‘ordinary Europeans’ represent the exploited proletariat.
This isn’t merely analogous—it’s structurally identical. Academic research shows that conspiracy theories about Soros and other supposed puppet masters follow the same pattern as antisemitic propaganda that historically blamed Jewish financiers for economic and social upheaval. The same conspiratorial mindset that once drove pogroms now fuels pipe bombs sent to Soros’s home and synagogue shootings by far-right terrorists.
Economic nationalism as neo-Marxism
Perhaps nowhere is the far-right’s adoption of Marxist thinking clearer than in economic policy. Economic nationalism, now a cornerstone of far-right platforms from Trump’s America First to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, represents a fundamental break with traditional conservative economics in favour of something much closer to Marxist-Leninist doctrine.
Classical Marxism prioritised the interests of the working class over capital mobility and free markets. Today’s far-right populists make virtually identical arguments, merely substituting nation for class. They advocate protectionist trade policies, state intervention in markets, and the subordination of economic efficiency to political goals—precisely the policies that conservative economists spent decades opposing when proposed by the left.
Research demonstrates that far-right populism emerges primarily as a reaction to globalisation’s dislocating effects on traditional industries and communities. The response—demanding that states protect domestic workers from foreign competition through tariffs, immigration restrictions, and industrial policy—would be entirely familiar to a 20th-century communist planning commissar.
Consider Trump’s trade war with China, complete with state subsidies for farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs. Or examine European populist parties’ calls for ‘economic patriotism’ that prioritises national over international capital. These policies represent state intervention in markets on a scale that would have made even moderate social democrats uncomfortable a generation ago.
The dialectical method in practice
The far-right has also adopted something resembling Marx’s dialectical method—the idea that social change emerges from the conflict between opposing forces. Where Marx saw history as driven by class struggle, today’s populists frame politics as an eternal battle between authentic ‘peoples’ and corrupt ‘elites’.
This framework explains the far-right’s curious relationship with capitalism. Unlike traditional conservatives who championed business interests, populist movements routinely attack ‘globalist’ corporations, tech monopolies, and financial institutions. They distinguish between ‘productive’ national capital and ‘parasitic’ international finance in ways that echo classical Marxist analysis of the contradictions within capitalism.
The language matters less than the underlying logic. When Marine Le Pen attacks ‘savage globalisation’ or when Tucker Carlson denounces the ‘ruling class’, they’re employing analytical categories derived from left-wing critiques of capitalism, not conservative defences of free markets.
Cultural revolution, right-wing style
Perhaps most telling is how the far-right has embraced what Marxists called the long march through the institutions. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian communist theorist, argued that lasting political change required cultural hegemony—controlling the narratives and assumptions that shape how people understand the world.
Today’s far-right has adopted this strategy wholesale. From Steve Bannon’s calls to “flood the zone with shit” to the systematic creation of alternative media ecosystems, populist movements understand that political power flows from cultural influence. The use of social media to spread conspiracy theories and reframe political debates represents a textbook application of Gramscian tactics.
The irony deepens when considering that the far-right’s supposed enemies—liberal academics and progressive activists—operate largely within existing institutional frameworks. It’s the populist right that seeks to overthrow established norms, delegitimise traditional authority structures, and replace them with movements claiming to represent ‘the people’ against corrupt elites.
The real neo-Marxist threat
This isn’t to suggest a moral equivalence between far-right populism and historical Marxism. The content of their ideologies differs dramatically, even if the structures are similar. Where Marxism largely promoted internationalism, populist nationalism embraces xenophobia and hierarchy.
But the analytical parallel matters because it reveals something important about contemporary politics. The real threat to liberal democratic institutions comes not from progressive professors teaching critical theory but from movements that have adopted Marxism’s apocalyptic political vision whilst rejecting its internationalist aspirations.
The far-right’s success stems partly from its willingness to abandon conservative orthodoxies that no longer serve their political needs. Free-market fundamentalism, international cooperation, and institutional restraint—the pillars of post-war conservatism—have given way to economic nationalism, cultural warfare, and strongman politics that Marx would recognise as revolutionary tactics.
Beyond the looking glass
Understanding this role reversal is crucial for defending democratic institutions. Conspiracy theories about cultural Marxism function primarily to deflect attention from the far-right’s own radical agenda. By projecting their revolutionary intentions onto their opponents, populist movements obscure their own break with liberal democratic norms.
The remedy isn’t to abandon progressive politics or embrace the far-right’s framing. Rather, it requires recognising that the gravest threat to democratic stability comes from movements that have learned to weaponise Marxist analytical tools.
In a looking-glass world, the real neo-Marxists aren’t the professors and activists whom populists attack. They’re the populists themselves—movements that have absorbed Marx’s insights about power and social change whilst directing them toward deeply reactionary ends. That may be the most dangerous irony of all.
The far-right’s projection of ‘neo-Marxism’ onto their opponents serves to obscure a more uncomfortable truth: in their analytical framework, policy prescriptions, and revolutionary tactics, they’ve become the closest thing to a genuine Marxist movement in contemporary Western politics.
They’ve simply replaced class with culture, internationalism with nationalism, and egalitarianism with hierarchy. But the underlying structure—the division of society into oppressed peoples and parasitic elites, the call for revolutionary change, the willingness to subordinate markets to politics—remains unmistakably Marxist in origin.
Perhaps it’s time to call them what they really are: the far-right’s own neo-Marxists.
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