Of course Marxist political economy and market fundamentalism are similar in that they produce metaphysical frameworks that both illuminate and obstruct, but their similarities stop there. The set of motivations and visions that underlie both systems are very different.
Such is the case with "progressive" and "conservative" political projects. One seeks to dissolve existing political and economic systems and replace them with another, based on an alternative ideal, or even restore some older set of systems hearkening back to that alternative ideal, while the other seeks to freeze them in the image of a previously existing ideal, or even revolutionize them in order to further reach that existing ideal.
But here the divisions grow very complicated very fast. Because a given political project is not only conceptually underwritten, but historically and socially underwritten as well. So you have the absurdity of a modern "conservative" clamoring to preserve a state of radical change, and a modern "progressive" racing to restore a social balance based on ideas of social order and stability. The political concept becomes unmoored from the lingual and logical concept and takes on a life of its own through its historical development.
I'd love to work at "conserving" a system that has been found to work well, and justly, but you won't see me marching and pumping my fist with "conservatives." And so on.
And this is the interaction between political tribe and concept that one should look out for. What exactly is one looking to preserve, and in what direction is one looking to progress? What matters for these projects is the unit of social organization that one is looking to ensconce oneself in, and preserve or transform, as it is the social organization, through its amplified powers of labor and transformation that determines the character of all involved.
An empire that imagines itself progressive, will, like a glacier, grind its way to the same mean that a conservatively self-styled empire will move to, through its sheer mass and momentum. But conversely, the individual that seeks to break away and start anew will be subsumed by whatever juggernaut happens to form next. None of this was ever supposed to be easy.
