The Rise of a New Left

From The Rise of a New Left - speech at the Subversive Festival:

Waltraud Fritz Klackl (European Left Party secretariat) commented briefly on the development of the European Left Party, and added a few points on the idea of a 'New Left'. She argued that at the centre of the current struggles was the problem of political representation. For those looking to build left parties, it was necessary to move beyond the concept of representation and think along the lines of providing a political space *including* representation where people who want to meet and take action. She added that it was right to address such a project to the organised minority of workers, and to the 'precariat', but said that it was also necessary to somehow include the 'excluded' who are turning their backs on any party, left or right - unlike the 'precariat, who may often be well-educated, the 'excluded' are denied education and services, and are ironically often the ones who are often brought into the bargain against the Left. It was necessary to offer such people a place where they can find themselves again: we need to build alliances around these stratas of society, or we lose the fight for sure. She added that while the left is rising, it is not adequate and not uniform across Europe. Addressing herself to my comments, she pointed out that it would be wrong to appropriate the social movements for the Left: not all indignados are on the Left; these movements we cannot claim as such. Regarding political power, she argued that we must not refuse to take governmental power; it is different now, of course, because managing the state is not the same as before, because you have fewer possibilities; the political class has much less before than ever before. But we need to fight for it because real democracy cannot be split from power. All very well, she said, for the indignados to experiment with direct democracy, but this has nothing to do with having power. It is pedagogical. Later, commenting further on the question of representation, she said that she thought people had a right to be passive if they wanted: that people have the right to be at home, and read a book, and rely on representatives to carry out their agenda. She said that she was suspicious of the idea of democracy based exclusively on active participation, as if being an activist should give your voice for weight.

Francine Mestrum (Belgian sociologist, activist) explained that she had never belonged to any of the left parties, and that her frustration with these had to do with the fact that left-wing people begin by interpreting a desire for change as a desire for socialism. And since it is not clear that most people want socialism, and since no one has defined what it is, it makes more sense to focus on what we need to do right now. She argued that our main enemy is not institutions, it is an ideology, it is neoliberalism, it is capitalism: in that fight, we may find we have to change institutions, but we do not start off by seeing institutions as the problem. But if you want to fight an ideology, she added, we need power. How do we get that power? The audience for the Left is not that large in Europe, so how can we enlarge that audience: what kind of change do people want now? She explained that beginning with the obvious needs that people had - jobs, healthcare, pensions - she started to work on rethinking the idea of social protection. Whatever regime you have, people need protection: the Right offers it traditionally in the form of police, and the military; the Left, traditionally through socioeconomic rights. But then, by posing the question of security, this forces you to think about changing the mode of production, and the form of democracy. Social protection has to come from the grassroots, since people have to express what their needs are. If you start from social protection, people's needs, you start to find yourself forced into transformative agenda. She acknowledged that for a New Left, we need both democracy and power - but we should not forget that we already have power, that we are not powerless, and we should make use of the spaces we have.

I'd suggest reading the whole thing. Although focused on the situation in Europe, there is much we could absorb and use in the US as well. Needless to say, I have tended to agree with much of Seymour's analysis for a while now. There has always been an anti-capitalist undercurrent in the US - one that had been largely ignorable until a couple years ago. Right now, our task us utilizing the spaces we have at our disposal, and offering a viable alternative to the sort of neoliberal nonsense that too many of our "progressives" fall for.

Birthdays

Via

Sullivan really steps in it...again

Somehow, one of the annoying qualities of one Andrew Sullivan is this compulsion to serve as an apologist for those whose stock and trade is race-based research on IQ. I guess the old man can't help himself, since he is at it once again. This is a topic that I have come back to on occasion, mainly because it serves as a reminder that the ugly side of IQ research has its origin in a peculiarly Eurocentric worldview, going back centuries. Long after the pseudoscience of eugenics lost its much undeserved credibility during the middle decades of the 20th century, its practitioners and apologists have continued to find outlets for their particular bile - primarily in "serious" newspapers and magazines. I've written plenty in the past about eugenics and IQ, if you care to read it. Much of what Sullivan wishes to defend is "empirical reality" is such only in the loosest sense of the term. Yeah, you can find data collected, but given the shoddiness of the work, and the racist agenda driving the "research" in question, it's more science fiction than science. The sad thing is that it tars some legitimately good research on intelligence in the process. Suffice it to say, it's a phenomenon that is considerably more complex than measurable with IQ tests (which are themselves of still questionable validity), and one in which the real differences of interest are not group differences.

I'll also link to a few others who express their disagreement with Sullivan quite eloquently: Brad DeLong, Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Dana Goldstein, and Ana Marie Cox.

A few more strands...

The coda to Final thoughts on Vivek Chibber:

Seven years ago Chibber was obviously getting ready to start writing or had already begun work on his book, based on the article “On The Decline Of Class Analysis In South Asian Studies” that appeared in Critical Asian Studies. It is mostly an attack on what he refers to as PSPC, shorthand for Poststructuralism/Postcolonialism, and more specifically the dreaded Subaltern Studies.

His analysis is reminiscent of what Perry Anderson wrote in “Considerations on Western Marxism” and “In The Tracks of Historical Materialism”. If Anderson was keen on demonstrating that cultural studies, vaporous philosophizing, and postmodernist cant were tied to the decline of the organized left, Chibber reminds us that the problem still exists:

By the end of the decade [of the seventies], however, while the movements around nonclass identities had scored impressive gains, there was no comparable advance for the working class. Indeed, the balance of class power shifted powerfully to the right, and by the onset of the Reagan era, a full-scale assault on labor and the Left was underway. As a class movement, the New Left had met with a crushing defeat.

In some respects, this mirrored the defeats of the working class movement worldwide in the 1930s, which was followed by rightward shift in political culture. But the setbacks of the New Left during the 1970s were in many respects deeper. For the upsurges of the first quarter of the twentieth century had left in their wake a panoply of socialist parties and class organizations, which provided the milieu in which radical intellectuals survived for much of the century.

What’s more, the students entering the university system following the great retreat were not made of the right stuff, as Chibber complains:

By the middle of the 1980s, the New Left had mostly been domesticated into academic culture. Class analysis was practiced only within a small slice of it, and this was an increasingly marginal component of the academic mainstream. If a pressure for the deepening of class analysis was to come, it would have had to be from below — the students. But here too, there was no reason to expect any such development. For students, a college education is a means of social mobility. Even though their origin may be in the working class, their aspirations are of a more elite nature. For those students who make it into college, the mere fact of social advancement serves to confirm central elements of the dominant ideology, which insists on the fluidity of social hierarchies, and the absence of structural constraints. The mere fact of more working class students entering higher education — as they did after the 1950s — would not generate a mass base for socialist ideas.

I get a chuckle out of this: “Even though their origin may be in the working class, their aspirations are of a more elite nature.” Doesn’t Chibber have a clue that students, both working class and middle class as the case with his NYU students, are not aspiring to become elites but rather to merely get a decent paying job? From the 1980s onward, the job prospects for liberal arts graduates have been dismal. That is why so many smart young people are opting for an MBA, a law, or a computer science degree. Without them, you might as well go live with mom and dad and apply for a job at Starbucks. And even now they are no guarantee. For someone so committed to a class analysis, he seems woefully unaware of the Victorian-era realities of the job market.

I understand that many young people in graduate school today with left politics have—as Chibber put it—elite aspirations. Imagine becoming the next Robert Brenner making $220,000 per year and speaking before adoring audiences at some academic conference in London or Paris. Having your Marxist cake and eating it too.

But getting there is a brutal competitive process that is not for the fainthearted. You have to have the killer instinct that ensures that you will get tenure and not some other schmuck. All in all, academia—particularly at elite schools like Columbia University and NYU—replicates the class hierarchies of 19^th century Germany where many of the structures such as the oral examination were introduced (I am not talking about gum disease.) It is calculated to turn you into an asshole unless you were one to begin with.

Try to find a decent paying job that leaves you with lots of spare time and energy, an admittedly daunting task today and then blog your heart out, the contemporary equivalent of Tom Paine’s “Common Sense”. You will reach far more people than you ever will through a JSTOR type journal that is locked up behind a paywall and generally read only by other professors and graduate students, if they bother at all.

Finally, a reminder of what Max Horkheimer said about being a revolutionary:

A revolutionary career does not lead to banquets and honorary titles, interesting research and professorial wages. It leads to misery, disgrace, ingratitude, prison and a voyage into the unknown, illuminated by only an almost superhuman belief.

Who would have it any other way?

Summing up a huge part of the problem

Oldish posts can be worth a look, such as this one - David Harvey on Neoliberalism and Identity Politics:

Not only do I argue with neoliberals about antiracism and identity politics, I argue with neomarxists, people I think of as hyphenated marxists: feminist-marxists, antiracist-marxists, etc. I'm old school; I think if you hyphenate "marxist", you're probably being redundant (Marx was about as egalitarian as they come) or you're missing the point.

Mind you, I still dunno if I'm a marxist. Maybe I'm a hyphenate too, a christian-marxist, which certainly isn't what Marx or Engels were. I just like Marx's tools for analyzing power.

Anyway, after some discussion about Adolph Reed Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels, two of my favorite leftist critics of antiracism, at Lenin's Tomb and pink scare, I decided I needed to read David Harvey's A Brief History of Neoliberalism to discuss this more knowledgeably.

So far, I'm quite enjoying it. He's a good writer, and while I had a rough idea of the beginnings of neoliberalism, I hadn't connected it to US aid to Pinochet.

Much of the reason I'm enjoying it is Harvey's providing ammo for my side. This is from his second chapter:

Neoliberal rhetoric, with its foundational emphasis upon individual freedoms, has the power to split off libertarianism, identity politics, multi-culturalism, and eventually narcissistic consumerism from the social forces ranged in pursuit of social justice through the conquest of state power. It has long proved extremely difficult within the US left, for example, to forge the collective discipline required for political action to achieve social justice without offending the desire of political actors for individual freedom and for full recognition and expression of particular identities. Neoliberalism did not create these distinctions, but it could easily exploit, if not foment, them.

ETA, from the same chapter:

Civil rights were an issue, and questions of sexuality and of reproductive rights were very much in play. For almost everyone involved in the movement of '68, the intrusive state was the enemy and it had to be reformed. And on that, the neoliberals could easily agree. But capitalist corporations, business, and the market system were also seen as primary enemies requiring redress if not revolutionary transformation; hence the threat to capitalist class power. By capturing ideals of individual freedom and turning them against the interventionist and regulatory practices of the state, capitalist class interest could hope to protect and even restore their position. Neoliberalism was well suited to this ideological task. But it had to be backed up by a practical strategy that emphasized the liberty of consumer choice, not only with respect to particular products but also with respect to lifestyles, modes of expression, and a wide range of cultural practices. Neoliberalization required both politically and economically the construction of a neoliberal market-based populist culture of differentiated consumerism and individual libertarianism. As such it proved more than a little compatible with that cultural impulse called 'post-modernism' which had long been lurking in the wings but could now emerge full-blown as a both a cultural and an intellectual dominant. This was the challenge that corporations and class elites set out to finesse in the 1980s.

We have been dealing with the fallout for decades - not only in the US, but in Europe, and all across vast swaths of the Global South. The language has changed, as well. One no longer speaks of solidarity or unity. Terms like "liberation" (one that I recall distinctly being important in the civil rights movements, among feminists, gay rights activists, etc. as late as the 1970s) have been replaced with "empowerment." We're good individual consumers, but we are so badly fragmented. A generation of Americans have sneered their way through life in the meantime.

The book by David Harvey that the author references is worth a read. Like a lot of leftists (and again, I use leftist strictly in the predominantly Marxian anticapitalist sense, as opposed to the pseudo-left/liberal/progressive capitalist partisan Democrat or Green sense), Harvey is short on solutions, but rather adept at describing the problems currently plaguing us. Then again, recognizing that there is, indeed, a problem or set of problems, is a necessary first step in rebuilding a left that is worthy of the name.

"Angel" as viewed from an Existential-Marxist perspective

Looks like someone is mining some similar territory to me: Sartrean Themes in Joss Whedon's Angel: A Marxist Interpretation.

Say Hello To

A centralized location for your leftist literature - from the fine folks who brought us Ebookcollective on Tumblr (til Tumblr pulled the plug). They provide a fabulous service for those of us who might not have unlimited funds to buy books, or access to an adequate public library. Their approach to book selection is very non-sectarian, which is both admirable and necessary. Download an ebook and open your mind.

And while we're speaking of Marx:

How about a few things to read?

What would Marx think if he were alive today?

Marx and Other Four-Letter Words - an ebook that you can currently download for free.

May 5th is also...

the anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, who was born on May 5th, 1818, barely less than a century before the October Revolution.

In a book by Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, there was a great quote:

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways: the point, however, is to change it.”

 It rings true today.

Say Hello To

Socialism In One Blog - a project brought to you by, apparently, the folks who maintain r/Communism.

May Day

Today's May Day.

If you're curious about the origins of May Day, read here. It may well be the most ancient religious festival worldwide - primarily a homage to fertility goddesses as well as the renewal of life that we see in the spring time.

In more modern times, May Day is significant as the original labor day, and is tied with the struggle by organized labor movements to get the 8-hour work day that many of us take for granted recognized.

A number of years ago, I read John Ross' book Murdered By Capitalism, in which the author discussed the labor movement in US history. In that book, I was reminded that by the middle of the 20th century May 1 was officially designated "Law Day" - making us unique in that we're supposed to celebrate those who smashed organized efforts to improve labor conditions. That's not even getting into Bush II's attempt last decade to dub May 1 as "Loyalty Day" (let's celebrate the displacement of workers around the globe thanks to US-hatched 'free trade' policies). Three years ago, I pointed to a column by Brendan Barber that highlighted the economic uncertainty faced by workers across the world as economic conditions continued to stagnate. We would do well to remember that fact, and to remember that conditions for those of us who are workers have not improved, and are not likely to improve unless we're willing to stand up and demand better conditions.

This is a day usually marked by organized protests, around the globe. If there's something in your area, wherever you happen to live, check it out. If not, surely there is something you can do to educate those around you - if nothing else you might have kids, grandkids, etc. who would be willing to learn something about the historical significance of this particular calendar day.

Note: images nicked from wondercomments.com and Media Re:public, respectively to capture both ancient and modern meanings of May Day.

May Day 2013

Today is the international workers' day! As a wiser man than me once said, we have nothing to lose but our chains.

Quotable: The left we are. The left we need.

I'm going to quote Jodi Dean's post in I cite in its entirety because it makes some useful points with regard to where we're at and how we might emerge in a better place. Please read, and please ponder.

I came across the following passage in a Slate piece about the failure of gun control legislation to pass the Senate. The question was whether it was Obama's fault, his failure to lead, or whether it was the fault of partisan politics.

In fact, the type of president who could work or cajole the Senate in this political environment would probably never have been elected in the first place.

The passage made me think about dilemmas on the left. The kind of left that we need for successful communist struggle today is the kind that can't appear. The conditions that make it necessary are the conditions that make it impossible.

If leaders emerge, they are slapped down. If they don't emerge we are stagnant. When some try to unify our struggles, they are treated with suspicion, resisted and rejected -- even as the multiplicity of singular struggles fail to make any substantial headway. The automatic reflex in the face of any appeals to unity is to criticize:  there isn't a strong working class movement, so there is no ground for unity; any unity is or will be exclusionary; any success will only result in another form of domination.

It also seems as if people don't know how to follow.  Instead, we are enjoined to have our own opinions, be independent, be winners. Among intellectuals this is a particular hazard -- especially for academics who are paid to judge, evaluate, and grade, who function in reputation economies that value criticism, pedantry, and iconoclasm, who construe disagreement as the sine qua non of independent thinking, especially when it is accompanied by an injunction to historicize and compare. It's odd, this way of thinking that considers itself so willing take risks even as it criticizes ideas and suggestions because they risk X, Y, or whatever.

The only ideas that seem to escape unscathed are those that conform to the expectations of communicative capitalism:  do it yourself, rely on technology, go local (small is beautiful), smash and hack (as if nobody learned that the capitalist economy can eliminate trillions of dollars of wealth and still keep going).

I'm looking forward to Historical Materialism (and Left Forum) because it seems like we may be building the critical mass necessary to break free of this deadening individualism and figure out what pulling together will entail and how to go about it. I'm going to listen for organizing ideas (not because I am an organizer, I am not, but because I would like to be able to do my part in building support for them).

After talking to a friend who spent a lot of time with the Sandinistas, I started wondering about what it would look like to organize young women, single mothers in communist struggle. What would that look like? It seems a good place for unifying with teachers and nurses (who have been highly visible in their organized struggles). It would probably make health care, nutrition, education, and housing into core issues (and so look for protest opportunities on these fronts). And it could suggest the development of a communist infrastructure of clinics, farms, schools, and anti-eviction alliances/public housing/rent controlled apartments. A cool advantage here is that recognizing that women's politics are about a lot more than sex (birth control, abortion, etc) can attract and radicalize a lot of women who are considered so narrowly in mainstream Democratic politics. 

And you people are surprised why?

I've been watching the liberal/progressive (or whatever they are called in the parlance of our times) bloggers having a bit of a freakout over the end of the Sequester for airline travelers while keeping Sequester firmly in place for the poor, the unemployed, university students on financial assistance, the elderly, etc. (for just one of many examples, see this post). Look, I'm sure a few will even try to spin this to be a positive (you know, all that brilliant 11 dimensional chess malarkey), but the reality is that austerity will remain in place for the vast majority of us with regard to the vast majority of basic services, and that we will be dealing with that austerity for some time to come. If you didn't believe Gil Scott-Heron back in the 1970s when he proclaimed it "Winter in America", well, what can I say? There is a chill in the air, my friends. Winter's going to be with us. You know which way the wind is blowing.

Why those most loyal to the Democratic Party get surprised by any of this is quite frankly surprising to me. The party has always been a capitalist party, although up until about the 1980s was one that acknowledged a need to keep capitalism on a fairly short leash. However, since the 1980s, the party's loyalties have become split between its labor base on the one hand and its corporate sponsors on the other hand. A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey provides a reasonably good treatment of the Democratic Party's transformation during that period to the present, and the implication of that transformation for those who value the New Deal and Great Society programs that the current party had inherited. In essence, the neoliberal incarnation of the Democratic Party is one that will perpetually disappoint it liberal base. If it weren't for the GOP's fixation with the most backward elements of American society, we'd be in an era of "permanent" GOP majorities. It appears we'll be spared that particular fate, but instead will be dealt one in which the Dems carry the GOP's water on economic matters while throwing us a few bones on matters of social issues (and then rather reluctantly).

And as I write this, many continue to silently suffer. I suppose it would be too much to ask for something resembling an organized and disciplined Left. The timing would be perfect for such an entity. But hey, those business travelers won't have to deal with inconvenient delays as they do the bidding of their various and sundry corporate masters - and that's all that matters. Let's pop open the bubbly. Might as well get tanked. It's going to be a long winter, indeed.

A few thoughts on Tsarnaev

There has already been plenty of spilled ink and pixels on the recent capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev - one of the young men believed to be involved in the Boston Marathon bombing earlier this week.

At the moment, there is much that is simply unknown. Assuming he recovers from his injuries (which as of this morning seemed likely), he’ll get his day in court, and we’ll hopefully have a better picture of what happened.

We know that at least one of his relatives has contended that he and his older brother were set up by US authorities. For the time being, I find that implausible. If I had been one of the relatives, I am sure my initial impulse would be one of denial. From what is available, it seems pretty likely that the Tsarnaevs were the perps in this week’s bombing.

Equally implausible for now is the notion that this was an attack that was motivated by religion, politics, or ethnicity - nor do there appear to be any ties to any terrorist organizations. Oftentimes, terrorist attacks that have been motivated by such reasons are followed up a statement or manifesto explaining the reasoning behind the attack (the exception seems to be right-wing terrorist groups in the US, who seem to prefer to remain largely silent). No such statements were ever forthcoming, nor did any organization rush to claim responsibility. My opinion, for now, is that this was probably some sort of lone wolf attack. I could be wrong, but until I see some evidence to the contrary, I think I will stick to what I see as the simplest explanation.

What I think should be avoided are any broad generalizations about Chechens (I have seen way too much of that), or Muslims (again, I have seen way too much of that) and connections to terrorism. Personally, I feel I know way too little about Chechnya or the surrounding Russian states or surrounding independent nations in and around the Caucasus to make broad statements. What little I do know would suggest that the lot of those who live in Chechnya along with those who have fled has been fraught with hardship.

In the meantime, hopefully, the victims of the bombing can start to find some closure. What happened was horrifyingly awful.

In summary...

Saw this on Tumblr:

From the information general news reports + analysis from venezuela I have gathered that:

• The election was won by a close margin by Maduro and the opposition called for a recount (despite the fact that every election in Venezuela has an automatic recount hosted by independent observers as well as people from all parties).

• Maduro supported the idea, but the electoral commission said no, because a recount had already been conducted.

• Caprilles called for demonstrations, and riots broke out in Merida, where Cuban medical clinics as well as left-wing groups were attacked, 7 people have died, and they were all political activists who supported the socialist government.

• Most of the riots have occurred in the wealthy suburbs in the cities.

• This seems like it could lead to another coup attempt by the opposition, similar to the one in 2002 (which Caprilles supported).

• The opposition is using old footage from the past to propagandise against the government, and much of the Venezuelan media (the private sector) is assisting in that.