There Is No Alternative (that I can think of)
The Left has failed to come up with a more persuasive idea than neoliberalism. I don't say "better", I say "persuasive". It's persuasive because it denies even existing, even being an idea - certainly not an ideology. It just steadily reformats what it can - workplace relations, the welfare state - and it's never anyone's fault in particular, we just kind of had to do it.
The Left lost its head ten years ago but I don't blame it
Asking the Left to keep calm and respond in a rational, measured and constructively critical way to George W Bush, churchy Texas oilmen, Halliburton, the GWoT and a preemptive, transparently unthought-through war was a really big ask, was it not? I mean they went mental, shrill, hysterical and made all kinds of terrible decisions, but wow, there's only so much provocation you can take. Politics went kind of flat and stretched for a while there, but I don't think the Left made the first move in terms of reducing the overall level of nuance.
The Rise of the Meritocracy is a thing
I really liked Michael Young's The Rise of the Meritocracy (and can't believe that Toby Young, that bag of shit, is his son). Disparities in "cognitive capital" are only going to increase. I think/fear the liberals will get cleverer and cleverer and the Left and conservatives will get stupider and stupider.
Being on the Left is really really difficult
It's just really difficult. There's so much more you are trying to do, so many other dimensions of the human experience (dignity, stability, social ties, culture) that you are trying to stick up for, so much Romanticism that doesn't really slide easily into the conceptual language and faux-scientific approach of liberal governance. The intuitive sense of threat you feel from the powerful leads you down so many blind alleys and next to so many bad allies. If you're middle class, you also have to constantly keep your wounds open and resist the temptation to embrace quick-fix workarounds like ethical purchases.
It's difficult, it's maybe impossible, it's beyond me.
The answer is something to do with freely deciding to restrain yourself
Of all my ruins, this is just the faintest hint of an ancient floorplan amid the grass. I think it must come from theology. We have free will because that makes it more meaningful when we choose to love God - is that how it goes? We must freely decide to give up our freedom? To hold back from pressing our advantages just because we can. To transcend rational self-interest by freely deciding to destroy the self, if you're taking a more Eastern tack. I can barely make out the contours of this argument, to be honest.
This is the end of the tour, thank you for visiting.
Hey, I'm clear on what you mean by liberalism (for what it's worth, I'm not really one of those) but I'm a bit confused by what you mean by the left. Promise this isn't sarcastic or snarky.
ReplyDelete"There's so much more you are trying to do, so many other dimensions of the human experience (dignity, stability, social ties, culture) "
These can very easily be claimed by the right/conservative politics, I think. Who to you represents the left as it is today? (Thinkers, ideas, books etc) Maybe I'm in this gang without knowing it.
Very good question and I think part of my problem is that I don't really have a clear answer. It feels now like it basically just means "opponents of liberalism/neoliberalism", which as you say comprises both conservatives and the traditional left of trade unions, Old Labour etc - but also anarchists and a lot of niche identity politics type stuff, environmentalism to some degree, anyone who feels like a victim or wants to stick up for perceived victims of what seems to be this cold logic reformatting everything. I mean you probably have to go right back to the start of the Industrial Revolution to get the whole shape of the thing, when the old conservative order were the initial defenders of society against rampant capitalism.
DeleteBut yeah, that's a pretty vague definition!
but maybe a common thread is people who think that there is something fundamentally broken or wrong about with the neoliberal/free market machine - something that corrodes everyone morally, dehumanises, even as it delivers greater material benefits. So it's kind of a rejection of the New Labour / centre-left ideal.
DeleteThat makes sense, although much of the (conservative) right claims space against the free market with calls for protectionism, anti-immigration etc. One of my problems with "solidarity" is the obvious "who with?" question. Making common cause with the (British) working class means restricting immigration and promoting native workers. Also, it means that other countries, much poorer countries than Britain, will suffer through fewer exports.
DeleteThe answer may well be, "yes, that's true, under *this* system. We need a new system." I'd be all ears for a new system.
Exactly, it's always "details TBC". And I wonder if the word "solidarity", in the sense of making collective *sacrifices* for collective gains, even makes sense to many people anymore.
DeleteIt does seem like a fundamental redrawing of the political lines is long overdue. The right is such a contradictory hodgepodge too. There are the free-marketeers, the everything has its price crowd, the small government and, to take them at their word, meritocrats. And then there are the traditionalists/nostalgists, the steam trains, crown, C of E and cricket brigade. No real reason why they should be lumped together. UKIP exposing this, which is all to the good. We need to shuffle the cards and see if there are some groups which make sense so the resulting conversation is about something.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree, especially re: UKIP.
DeleteLook at us, talking about the state of British left/right politics again! It must be Blogger that pulls it out of us.
DeleteBut what's really funny is what our 2005 selves would have thought about our 2014 left/right debates ending with us agreeing that UKIP was a good thing!
DeleteHa! Exactly. UKIP pretty unambiguously a good thing, I'd have thought. From a partisan perspective it hurts the Tories, and from a democratic perspective this howl of anguish at the ravages of neoliberalism is a previously marginalised voice now heard.
DeleteYep. "We need to stop undemocratic and unaccountable global elites made up of politicians, bankers and bureaucrats from sacrificing our communities on the altar of profit and global capital" - everyone at Occupy, 2011
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