Skip to main content

The Realistic Thinking of the Left

I saw a Jacobin article recently that summarized the thinking of the left. It basically said: when people ask us where we will get the money to pay for Medicare for All and more social programs, they are just trying to distract us and demoralize us. The important thing is to win power and then we will deal with those questions later. These leftists don't want to ask about what the power consists in and what it's used for. They don't want to ask why so many people are completely destroyed and unable to afford basic healthcare. They don't want to ask what kind of economy needs massive social programs (hint: one that presupposes massive poverty). They don't want to clarify anything about the state and its basis. They don't want to think about the blackmail power of the capitalists that the whole system is based on. It's just like: "we will tax the hell out of them!" But then you have to ask: what will you do so that they invest? Without investment, no jobs and no tax revenue. And isn't the whole way work is organized the very basis upon which the power of the capitalist class is based on? Isn't that the reason for the ever-decried wealth disparities? If you just ask these very basic questions, which are well-known to any business student moron, they will freak out. For them, this is just a moral question. They think these questions just reveals some conservative ideology, and has nothing to do with the real interests of capitalists. It would seem the obvious answer would be to take away the power of extortion of the capitalists and to reorganize the economy so it becomes about meeting needs and not the profit interests of business. Instead these leftists have this fantasy of using the state and economy for good because they are so realistic and don't want to get too far away from the "possible". One is tempted to raise again the old Situationist slogan -- one of the few they had that made any sense -- against the myopic pragmatism of the left: "be realistic: demand the impossible!"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Hunting - On the history of ideas about anti-communism

A rough and dirty translation from an article "Gespensterjagd -- Zur Ideengeschichte des Antikommunismus" from Gruppen Gegen Kapital Und Nation (Groups Against Capital and Nation). Original can be found here: https://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/gespensterjagd-zur-ideengeschichte-des-antikommunismus/ “A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism."“ All the powers of old Europe have united in a holy hunt against this specter,” wrote Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto — and that, contrary to other claims in that work, is a pretty true statement. Hatred and fear of radical change in civil society is as old as its revolutionary implementation itself. At the latest with the French Revolution, which did not operate in a religious disguise like the Dutch and English revolutions, and which was much more radical in its theoretical justification than the American one, the fear of the “Red Terror” arose (before “La Grande, by the way. “Terreur” really started in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The concept of cultural appropriation – a critique of racism on its own foundations

Original here: https://gegen-kapital-und-nation.org/das-konzept-der-kulturellen-aneignung-eine-kritik-des-rassismus-auf-seinen-eigenen-grundlagen/ In recent years, a new form of racism,  cultural appropriation,  has been criticized in some anti-racist circles . They always discover this where members of a group adopt cultural productions (e.g. certain cultural customs, hairstyles, items of clothing,...) that, according to advocates of the concept of cultural appropriation, come from other groups, namely those who have less power over the acquiring group due to racial discrimination. When criticizing cultural appropriation, respect for these cultures is demanded. This respect should then contribute to combating racial discrimination. There was criticism that a non-indigenous artist in Canada integrated elements of indigenous art into her artwork.  1  Even when “white”  2  people wear dreadlocks or throw colored powder at each other (a practice inspired by th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Democracy and True Democracy

“... I think that we agree on our criticism of the ruling democratic system. Except that this system doesn’t have anything to do with true popular government. Somehow, I think your criticism is misguided, if you want to say something against democracy.” I doubt that we really agree. But first things first: on the one hand, it could be irrelevant what you want to call that form of government which ensures that the citizens elect a government that they regularly entrust their affairs to, despite being constantly at odds with those who are elected and their policies for good reasons. Put “parliamentary system” or “ruling political system” or democracy in quotation marks or whatever. One thing, however, is clear: this political system has governed the citizens here for decades and, for all the complaining by the citizens about what the administrations are doing to them, it has at the same time established itself as a political system that is always appreciated by voters, making it un...
Post a Comment
Read more