Difference between Liberalism and Leftism

This topic has 33 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 5 months ago by PA Ram.

Viewing 30 posts - 1 through 30 (of 34 total)

1 2 →

Author

Posts
June 11, 2017 at 10:01 am #69903
Zooey
Moderator
JUNE 07, 2017

The Difference Between Liberalism and Leftism
Is true unity among Democrats possible? No. But collaboration is.

by NATHAN J. ROBINSON

It is reasonable to wonder whether the divide between liberalism and leftism actually matters very much. Why does there actually need to be so much animosity between the Clinton and Sanders factions of the Democratic Party? (Or the Blair and Corbyn factions in the UK’s Labour Party.) Why on earth did the race for DNC chair between Keith Ellison and Tom Perez grow so vicious, given their substantially similar progressive credentials? With Donald Trump poised to ravage the planet, either through boiling it slowly over time or blowing it up instantaneously with his vast nuclear arsenal, it would seem time for liberals and leftists to emphasize their similarities rather than their differences. Squabbling over minutiae is a fine way to ensure political irrelevance, and if everyone agrees that right-wing policies are poisonous and immoral, then surely the differences among progressive and leftish people can be worked out later.

It’s also true that, according to one view, the differences between liberals and leftists are not even differences of substance, but differences of political strategy. The claim of people like Clinton and Blair is that, while they share the core progressive principles of compassion and equality, they are simply more hard-nosed and pragmatic. They are more cynical about the limits of political possibility, and believe that change happens slowly. From this perspective, the core difference between Clinton and Sanders is not their ultimate end goals (they both want a world of progressive values), but how to get there.

If that’s the case, and the core of the divide is over “compromise” versus “purity,” or “a view that major progress happens slowly” versus “a demand that it happens immediately,” then the disagreements here should be friendly ones. Unity should be pretty easy, because we’re literally trying to help one another pursue the same objective. I want the same things you do, but I simply think that I have a more effective way of getting them.

But while this is often the kind of language with which moderate liberals distinguish themselves from more “radical” progressive factions, I don’t actually think it does accurately describe the nature of the liberal/left divide. And while conservatives would lump all these varying political tendencies together as a generic political tendency called “the left,” there are some internal conflicts that are both fundamental and irresolvable. It is not simply a disagreement over tactics among people who share ideals. The two sets of ideals are different, and come from two entirely different worldviews.

The core divergence in these worldviews is in their beliefs about the nature of contemporary political and economic institutions. The difference here is not “how quickly these institutions should change,” but whether changes to them should be fundamental structural changes or not. The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves. The liberal does not actually believe this. Rather, the liberal believes that while there are problems with capitalism, it can be salvaged if given a few tweaks here and there. As Nancy Pelosi said of the present Democratic party: “We’re capitalist.” When Bernie Sanders is asked if he is a capitalist, he answers flatly: “No.” Sanders is a socialist, and socialism is not capitalism, and there is no possibility of healing the ideological rift between the two. Liberals believe that the economic and political system is a machine that has broken down and needs fixing. Leftists believe that the machine is not “broken.” Rather, it is working perfectly well; the problem is that it is a death machine designed to chew up human lives. You don’t fix the death machine, you smash it to bits.

I was recently reminded of the nature of the difference while glancing through Timothy Snyder’s (very) short book On Tyranny. Snyder is a historian of fascism, who believes that the rise of Donald Trump has parallels with 20th century authoritarian movements, and he offers twenty “lessons” for how ordinary people should act under tyrannical regimes. (Trump actually goes undiscussed in the book, but it is quite clear throughout what Snyder is referring to when he talks about contemporary tyranny.) Some of Snyder’s lessons reminded me strongly of why, despite our mutual antipathy for Trump, there is such a serious contrast between his beliefs (as a liberal) and my own (as a leftist).

One Snyder lesson was particularly striking: Number 19—Be a Patriot. Snyder’s exhortation to patriotism runs as follows:

What is patriotism? Let us begin with what patriotism is not. It is not patriotic to dodge the draft and to mock war heroes and their families… It is not patriotic to compare one’s search for sexual partners in New York with the military service in Vietnam that one has dodged. [Snyder’s use of this oddly specific act is a good representation of just how clear it is that the book is about Trump despite treating the president as a Voldemort-esque unmentionable.] It is not patriotic to avoid paying taxes…. It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators… It is not patriotic to cite Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to share an adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to solicit foreign policy advice from someone who owns shares in a Russian energy company… [Snyder’s list of things that are not patriotic goes on further.] [P]atriotism involves serving your own country. [A patriot] wants the nation to live up to its ideals…A patriot has universal values.

Snyder’s patriotism passage stuck out to me, because I realized I totally rejected a core part of his message: the idea that “patriotism” is a good thing to begin with. Patriotism has always seemed to me to be a profoundly irrational notion; I believe one should love and serve humanity, not one’s particular arbitrary geopolitical segment of humanity. Snyder’s problem with Trump is that Trump is not enough of a patriot. But I see all rhetoric of patriotism as profoundly conservative and antithetical to everything I believe. In fact, I find Snyder’s whole case to be based on deeply conservative principles. Rhetoric against “draft dodgers”? The idea that one shouldn’t listen to the advice of someone with shares in a foreign company? What the hell kind of liberalism is this?

anatomyad2

But that’s why I say the divide has something to do with one’s view of political and economic institutions as either fundamentally good or not. The liberal sees the conservative patriot wearing a flag pin and says: “A flag pin isn’t what makes you a patriot.” The leftist says: “Patriotism is an incoherent and chauvinistic notion.” The liberal says, “We’re the real ones who love America,” while the leftist says, “What is America?” or “I don’t see what it would mean to love or hate a meaningless conceptual entity.” The liberal says, “I’m standing up for what the Founding Fathers actually believed” while the leftist says, “The Founding Fathers endorsed the ownership of human beings. Some owned human beings themselves, and beat or raped these human beings. I will not measure the worth of something by what the Founding Fathers thought about it.” Certainly, the word “liberal” is an unfortunately overbroad and imprecise term, but it’s fair to say that some strains of liberalism actually have more values in common with conservatism than with leftism, in that they affirm key conservative premises that leftists abhor. (e.g. all that “America is the greatest country in the history of the world” poppycock.)

I don’t think this difference is merely rhetorical. Sometimes it is; the ACLU often sees as politically and legally advantageous to frame everything it does as a defense of the great and noble values embedded in the Constitution, instead of pointing out that many of the Constitution’s values are not particularly great or noble. But there is also a strong sense in which the liberal affirms the nation’s core ideological underpinnings, while the leftist rejects them. (Some other divides: the liberal view of the Vietnam War is that it was well-intentioned but doomed and badly handled. The leftist view is that it was evil in both intention and execution. Likewise with Iraq: was George W. Bush a well-meaning bungler or a predatory war criminal?)

Snyder’s suggestions for resisting tyranny are in conflict with leftism in other ways. Most of them are individualistic: they focus on people as isolated units. Thus they include:
Amusingly, most of these seem like woefully ineffective weapons against fascism. At best they are useless (“Make small talk”??). At worst, like prescriptions for “revolutionary self care” (e.g. learning to play an instrument as revolutionary act), they provide convenient rationalizations for people’s inaction, allowing them to feel as if they are being politically active by doing the same thing they were probably going to do anyway. Read the news! Hug your friends! The idea that these things constitute meaningful resistance to Trump could be held only by somebody who wasn’t actually thinking about what serious political change looks like.

Leftists, on the other hand, are constantly talking about “building a mass movement” and “taking power.” They don’t just want to change our lifestyles, or get people to donate a bit more here and there to a good cause. The leftist believes in upending everything, which “corporeal” politics very much do not. (“Put your body in unfamiliar places,” Snyder says. One can only contemplate what the reaction would have been if Snyder had handed copies of his “lessons for resisting tyranny” to the residents of Warsaw in 1943.)

That could be classified as simply another tactical difference: the leftist tells Snyder that his plans won’t work, but we do all want the same things. But I think it goes somewhat beyond that. I hate the word “neoliberalism” and have mostly banned it from this magazine (to the extent that it’s even meaningful, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, “it’s not new and it’s not liberal”), but I do think something has happened over the past few decades where moderate members of traditionally left parties have become incredibly reluctant to challenge the status quo in any serious way. As Luke Savage has written about the “West Wing view” of politics, today’s Democratic Party is dominated by political aspirations that mostly consist of having good character rather than effecting serious structural change. As Snyder’s book shows, this ideology doesn’t really espouse a clear set of political ends, and is focused intensely on individual action rather than collective action. Snyder, for example, does not discuss the need to build an effective labor movement, which is a core part of any serious attempt to regain progressive political power, and a necessity if the Trumps of the world are to be stopped. But he does believe we should make eye contact and read The New York Times more.

So I don’t think it’s the case that liberalism is just a slower-moving form of leftism. There are real ideological differences. Barack Obama wished to pretend that underneath it all, Americans really just believed the same things. But they don’t. And the only way you can make it so that they do is to sap progressivism of any and all elements that seriously challenge the status quo. If you make it so that the difference between a Trump economic policy and a Clinton economic policy is the difference between trying to appoint the CEO of Carls Jr. as Labor Secretary and trying to appoint the CEO of Starbucks as Labor Secretary, then yes, there won’t be much of a serious ideological divide among American political elites. But people on the left can never sign on to such an approach, because it ditches their core commitment to restructuring the economy from the ground up.

Does this mean that anti-Trump forces are doomed to political infighting on everything? No, I don’t think so. Because even if you ultimately cannot reconcile your values with someone else’s, you can still forge temporary alliances for the purposes of achieving common political goals. Pelosi and Sanders share the goal of ridding the world of Trump, and it is possible to collaborate based on what we do have in common. That’s why Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton and told his followers to vote for her. The fact that, at the end of the day, the liberal/left conflict is real and intractable does not preclude a liberal/left coalition in undermining the Trump agenda. It just means that this coalition is ultimately destined to be temporary.

None of what I have said will be news to leftists, most of whom know full well that their disagreements with Democrats go well beyond the merely tactical. But I think it’s worth spelling out clearly, because it’s reasonable to wonder just how deep the division really goes, versus how much of it is unnecessary warring over issues of strategy. And while I am a firm believer that the enemy of my enemy is my temporarily politically useful coalition partner, the answer is that the divide goes very deep indeed.

Nathan J. Robinson is the editor of Current Affairs.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/the-difference-between-liberalism-and-leftism
June 11, 2017 at 10:22 am #69904

zn
Moderator

The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves.

That’s one version of the left.

As a description of the left in general I find it to be something of a caricature.

..

June 11, 2017 at 1:15 pm #69905

Billy_T
Participant

Very good article, Zooey. Thanks.

June 11, 2017 at 1:28 pm #69906

Billy_T
Participant

zn wrote:

The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves.

That’s one version of the left.

As a description of the left in general I find it to be something of a caricature.

..

My view is that it accurately describes most leftists. Not all of them, of course. It doesn’t describe your views, for example, if I read you correctly. Or WV’s — who sees corporate capitalism as the problem, not capitalism itself. But it’s a very accurate representation of my own vision of the capitalist system, which I find immensely immoral and obscenely destructive. Though I’d also add the environmental impact to the author’s summary, and pin that at or near the top.

My own view is the only way to save the planet for humans and the vast majority of nature is to end capitalism, period. Entirely and absolutely. Root and branch. Tweaking it won’t cut it. To me, it must be eradicated and replaced by an alternative economic system based on direct public ownership, without proxies, fully egalitarian principles, cooperative, democratic, “small and local is beautiful,” and steady state. It must return to use-value and dump forever exchange-value models. A radical downsizing of the entire production/consumption nexus with zero profit motive in the mix, and zero incentive to Grow or Die, etc.

In short, I think most leftists are anticapitalists, but not all of them. So the author is describing that sub-set of “the left,” not as a caricature, but as an accurate summa of our views. Not yours. Not your sub-set of “the left.” But ours.

June 11, 2017 at 2:17 pm #69909

zn
Moderator

The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves.

zn wrote:

That’s one version of the left.

Billy_T wrote:

My view is that it accurately describes most leftists.

This is entirely subjective of course.

But basically being a person who identified with the left from young adulthood on, and knowing many people across the decades and all over the country who identify the same way, and having read like-minded people again for the majority of my life, my personal experience is that no that view does not describe “most” leftists. Not even in the least. It is ONE view you can FIND AMONG leftists, but by no means a majority.

Really, this sums up my entire experience as a politically aware animal–no “most” is not the word I would use there. I would say “some.”

In fact, among the people who post here who identify as belonging to the left, you are the only one who subscribes to that specific set of views. Unless you want to tell Zooey, Nittany, PA and others who post here regularly that they’re not on the left. Talking about people who decidedly don’t centrally identify with establisment dems and/or standard issue american liberals, and who have (for example) taken the online political quiz and come out more or less left libertarian.

There’s lots of labels for the sprawling and disparate types who might be said to gather under the left umbrella, such as progressives or democratic socialists, and so on. And of course we all are burdened by the fact that in the USA mainstream “left” is a term used for establishment liberals and establishment dems and that general type. Which none of us of course are.

Still, to me, “the left” has always been a term for a loosely affiliated alliance of many kinds and types. It certainly includes but is by absolutely no means restricted to straight-up marxists (which is in itself not one thing anyway. If it were one thing then my life would have been very different, because it would not have included years and years of often annoyed awareness of the marxist v. marxist in-fighting among some of the people I know and read).

So anyway starting a long time ago I saw and so still see the left as a kind of loose and churning alliance of different views, which do have some key fundamental things in common but absolutely do not reduce to one strictly defined type or view.

.

June 11, 2017 at 2:34 pm #69910
Billy_T
Participant
zn wrote:

The leftist sees capitalism as a horror, and believes that so long as money and profit rule the earth, human beings will be made miserable and will destroy themselves.

zn wrote:

That’s one version of the left.

Billy_T wrote:

My view is that it accurately describes most leftists.

This is entirely subjective of course.

But basically being a person who identified with the left from young adulthood on, and knowing many people across the decades and all over the country who identify the same way, and having read like-minded people again for the majority of my life, my personal experience is that no that view does not describe “most” leftists. Not even in the least. It is ONE view you can FIND AMONG leftists, but by no means a majority.

Really, this sums up my entire experience as a politically aware animal–no “most” is not the word I would use there. I would say “some.”

In fact, among the people who post here who identify as belonging to the left, you are the only one who subscribes to that specific set of views. Unless you want to tell Zooey, Nittany, PA and others who post here regularly that they’re not on the left. Talking about people who decidedly don’t centrally identify with establisment dems and/or standard issue american liberals, and who have (for example) taken the online political quiz and come out more or less left libertarian.

There’s lots of labels for the sprawling and disparate types who might be said to gather under the left umbrella, such as progressives or democratic socialists, and so on. And of course we all are burdened by the fact that in the USA “left” is a term used for establishment liberals and establishment dems and that general type.

Still, to me, “the left” has always been a term for a loosely affiliated alliance of many kinds and types. It certainly includes but is by absolutely no means restricted to straight-up marxists (which is in itself not one thing anyway. If it were one thing then my life would have been very different, because it would not have included years and years of often annoyed awareness of the marxist v. marxist in-fighting among some of the people I know and read).

So anyway starting a long time ago I saw and so still see the left as a kind of loose and churning alliance of different views, which do have some key fundamental things in common but absolutely do not reduce to one strictly defined type or view.

.

I’m not sure if I read you correctly above, especially the part about Marxists. But it sounds like you’re saying only the “Marxist left” is anticapitalist. Please correct me if I’m misreading you.

My anticapitalism includes Marxian views, but in no way is limited to (or by) them. As you know, the left-anarchist tradition, for example, which battled Marx directly and indirectly during his lifetime . . . and afterward . . . was/is staunchly anticapitalist, but not “Marxist” in their political orientation. That’s largely the subset I identify with, though I’ve always been eclectic (and evolving) in my thinking/sourcing.

To make things more complicated — and you hint at this — there is no such thing, really, as “Marxist” in the first place, and the range of thought among those who might choose that label is vast, sometimes contradictory, but mostly complementary. I don’t. I choose to read as much of the relevant vastness as I can . . . weigh and balance it with what might be called “non-Marxist” thought, etc. etc. Again, eclectic, a la carte approaches. My studies show a large contingent of the non-Marxist left is anticapitalist too.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Billy_T.
June 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm #69912

Billy_T
Participant

btw,

I have no idea if Zooey and Nittany are anticapitalists. I’d actually be very interested in hearing their own views on that. Zooey did, of course, post the above article, by an anticapitalist, and he didn’t argue against that position. So, who knows?

I still stand by my view that most leftists are anticapitalists. Not all, but most. And in my view, this is really the most important difference between leftists and liberals — the stance toward the capitalist system itself, especially when it comes to inequality and the planet.

You disagree, and that’s fine. But it’s my view that it’s perhaps the most important single difference between liberals and leftists . . . . by no means the only one. But the most important.

June 11, 2017 at 2:58 pm #69914

zn
Moderator

Billy_T wrote:

I still stand by my view that most leftists are anticapitalists

And I still disagree.

I think it’s fair to say that as a rule or generalization people on the left are against large economic interests dominating democracy and democratic institutions, but in terms of the only genuine solution to that being the replacement of all capitalism entirely, I have only seen you say that in more than 10 years of posting with these folks.

Reaching around the globe now, the european left for example includes strong and numerous voices for revising social and economic structures, but that does not reduce to strict anti-capitalism and the belief that all forms and traces of capitalism are to be entirely dismantled OR there is no real progress. And in fact it is rare that I see that position (the blue bolded one) criticized as being too residually pro-capitalist.

That voice, the red-bolded one above, as I said, is clearly part of the left alliance, but does not represent that alliance. It’s not THE flag. It’s A flag in the big tent, not THE flag.

That’s an entire life’s experience speaking there. Again for what that’s worth. I am more just describing a perspective than “finalizing the discussion with irrefutable proof.”

…

June 11, 2017 at 3:45 pm #69915

Billy_T
Participant

You would agree, I’m guessing, that not all socialists ID as Marxists, right? As you know, socialism goes back well before Marx was born, etc. But those who advocate for socialism (by definition) advocate for the replacement of capitalism with alternative economic systems. I know of no definition of “socialism” that includes capitalism remaining as the economic engine. This of course, assumes that socialism replaces the current system — not that we go the social democratic route, the Tony Judt route from his excellent Ill Fares the Land, and “nationalize” certain industries only.

As in, if real socialism is implemented, across the entire nation in question, that assumes capitalism goes. All of it. Root and branch.

June 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm #69916

Billy_T
Participant

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I still stand by my view that most leftists are anticapitalists

And I still disagree.

I think it’s fair to say that as a rule or generalization people on the left are against large economic interests dominating democracy and democratic institutions, but in terms of the only genuine solution to that being the replacement of all capitalism entirely, I have only seen you say that in more than 10 years of posting with these folks.

Reaching around the globe now, the european left for example includes strong and numerous voices for revising social and economic structures, but that does not reduce to strict anti-capitalism and the belief that all forms and traces of capitalism are to be entirely dismantled OR there is no real progress</span>. And in fact it is rare that I see that position (the blue bolded one) criticized as being too residually pro-capitalist.

The part in bold may be the crux of the misunderstanding here. I’ve never added that part. I’ve never said, “or there can be no progress,” and that was never my point. I’d be thrilled if we can even get to a Sanders in America, or further, to a Corybn-like manifesto. I see all of that as “progress.”

My point about capitalism and anticapitalism isn’t that anything short of the latter is useless. It’s that it should be the goal, and that most leftists do view it as necessary in order to achieve a truly just society with as little inequality as possible, and that it is the only way to save the planet. It’s not that anticapitalists want all or nothing, or that we think without the complete and utter abolition of capitalism, life can’t improve. It’s that anything short of that does fall short when it comes to human emancipation, equality, social justice and environmental sustainability. And, that there’s simply no reason on earth for clinging to capitalism in the first place. It’s not logical to do so, given how it came into being, its horrific costs, its endless destruction, its endless crises, and its incompatibility with a healthy planet. It makes zero sense to cling to a system we know is so destructive, antidemocratic, authoritarian, autocratic, etc. etc.

Why? Why invest so much time and energy on trying to reform it at all, rather than replacing it with a better system from the Get Go? Why NOT replace it with a system that is fully democratic itself, with social justice and equality already baked in?

June 11, 2017 at 4:57 pm #69917

zn
Moderator

I know of no definition of “socialism” that includes capitalism remaining as the economic engine.

Yeah there are people who identify that way.

And there are those who don’t identify as democratic socialists that way. That’s not how they mean the term. So for example I doubt Sanders means the term socialist in that once more traditional sense. Or as someone writing about the Sanders campaign said, “Experts told us …the word itself has evolved, “untethered from its original meaning,” said Samuel Goldman, who studies the history and philosophy of political thought at George Washington University. The millennials and Gen-Xers who are more open to socialism aren’t associating it with a state-controlled economy. Rather than Soviet-style governing, they think of and admire Nordic models of living. Source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/aug/26/bernie-sanders-socialist-or-democratic-socialist/

Many people don’t care about the history of the term, either. Which is fine with me. “Democracy” changed its meanings too. At one point you could say you were strongly in favor of democracy and own slaves.

So either way, there may be no single identifying doctrinaire term for the american left, and I have always experienced it as being diverse. There are some general principles leftists tend to have in common, but they are not represented as a rule by any single carefully articulated program, be it marxist or socialist in the traditional sense. The latter types are certainly part of the left mosaic but are not representative of it as a whole.

.

June 11, 2017 at 5:44 pm #69918

Billy_T
Participant

I think we all agree that “the left” is diverse. And that the subset “leftist” is diverse. Leftist subsets, “Marxist” and “Marxian” are also are diverse, etc. Which is why I said “most” and not “all” leftists are anticapitalists.

And to get even further in the weeds . . . . I specifically referred to “socialism,” not “democratic socialism,” which is a far more recent derivation of the term, perhaps best exemplified in America by Michael Harrington, as you know. MLK and Helen Keller were also democratic socialists.

Painting with really broad strokes, I think democratic socialists are to the right of traditional socialists, and to the left of traditional social democrats. Kind of a bridge between the two. But the traditional definition of socialism qua socialism has always entailed the replacement of capitalism with alternative economic systems, democratized, egalitarian, cooperative. The Soviet system, for instance, was state capitalist, not socialist. Lenin said Russia would have to go that route in order to make up for being a century behind the West, etc.

Anyway, time for this Rams fan to go offline.

June 11, 2017 at 6:35 pm #69919

zn
Moderator

Which is why I said “most” and not “all” leftists are anticapitalists.

I know. And we still disagree on that. I just don’t see “most.” (In fact there was a time in my past when that would actually bother me…ie that it’s not “most…but that was a long time ago.) We disagree on that this whole discussion, and will probably always disagree on that.

I don’t see the general force of popular or even intellectual leftism to be to eliminate capitalism in toto as an economic structure. I said what I based that on…fwiw, being a leftist for more than 40 years and talking to, listening to, reading, and otherwise being involved with leftists.

To curtail the political and social and cultural power of the current version of it, sure. To alter in it some respects so it is more in sync with the interests of labor and the human community generally, sure. In fact that ought to go without saying.

June 11, 2017 at 6:48 pm #69920

zn
Moderator

As Luke Savage has written about the “West Wing view” of politics, today’s Democratic Party is dominated by political aspirations that mostly consist of having good character rather than effecting serious structural change. As Snyder’s book shows, this ideology doesn’t really espouse a clear set of political ends, and is focused intensely on individual action rather than collective action. Snyder, for example, does not discuss the need to build an effective labor movement, which is a core part of any serious attempt to regain progressive political power, and a necessity if the Trumps of the world are to be stopped.

Having disagreed with something in the article, I take a different step, and agree with this.

June 11, 2017 at 10:08 pm #69923

Zooey
Moderator

I haven’t thought to much about a post-capitalist world. I suppose I’m in favor of something other than capitalism, but I haven’t read anything about alternatives to speak of, and don’t know what might be possible. Replacing capitalism isn’t a prospect I expect to be taken seriously in my lifetime. I mostly concern myself with worrying about a descent into fascism, and the end of sustainability of life. I think capitalism has fatal flaws inherent in its system. And we are seeing the effects of them now.

As far as liberalism vs leftism, I thought the article pointed out some key differences in perspective between the two, but it was the sub-headline that originally attracted me to the article. It didn’t deliver much on that point, though.

June 11, 2017 at 10:30 pm #69924

Billy_T
Participant

Zooey wrote:

I haven’t thought to much about a post-capitalist world. I suppose I’m in favor of something other than capitalism, but I haven’t read anything about alternatives to speak of, and don’t know what might be possible. Replacing capitalism isn’t a prospect I expect to be taken seriously in my lifetime. I mostly concern myself with worrying about a descent into fascism, and the end of sustainability of life. I think capitalism has fatal flaws inherent in its system. And we are seeing the effects of them now.

As far as liberalism vs leftism, I thought the article pointed out some key differences in perspective between the two, but it was the sub-headline that originally attracted me to the article. It didn’t deliver much on that point, though.

Thanks, Zooey, for your take.

I think about a post-capitalist world all the time. Daily. Sometimes minute to minute. And, yes, I agree. It’s not likely to be repealed and replaced in our lifetimes. But I honestly think if it’s not, humanity won’t survive. And I don’t mean that as hyperbole to make a point. I mean that quite literally. Capitalism is unique among all previous economic systems in being wedded to “growth.” No previous economic system was dependent upon that. It needs it or it dies. Capitalism must continuously expand into new markets, spatially, geographically, and/or via time, or it goes into recession and depression, and it wouldn’t recover from those crises if it weren’t endlessly bailed out by governments. It’s managed to survive this long because of the trillions spent to resuscitate it — more than 100 times, internationally, just since 1970.

And that doesn’t count the ecological destruction. Again, it’s the first economic system in history to constantly need more, and more, and more. More production, more consumption, endlessly, which means more waste and pollution. And the profit motive incentivizes the continuous rape of the planet, for riches in the here and now. The planet, at least as far as the animal and plant kingdoms are concerned, can’t sustain that.

June 11, 2017 at 10:38 pm #69925

Billy_T
Participant

I also see it as fundamentally immoral on a host of levels, beginning with the legal arrangement wherein one person can own many others, strip the fruits of their labor, hoard that for themselves, exploit, appropriate, hoard natural and human resources, so the few control the many. So the few decide the value of the many. So the few decide how much our time is worth, without our input, without our consent.

In my view, if someone is truly a supporter of “democracy,” they can not also support capitalism. Because it, by definition, is anti-democratic, autocratic, top-down. A capitalist business means the absence of democracy within its walls, which means the system itself, an interaction of individual autocracies, is devoid of democracy.

Any nation with democracy ostensibly outside, but not inside the workplace, is a sham democracy in my view. A sham. Especially in a world where the economic looms so large.

June 11, 2017 at 10:52 pm #69926

nittany ram
Moderator

I agree that capitalism is driving the world to the brink and that, by its nature, it is unsustainable. The ‘free market’ cannot fix the world’s problems. It’s the cause of them. But obviously capitalism is not going away anytime soon, if ever, so I concentrate on ways that it can be made less dangerous (tightening environmental regulations, demanding workers be paid fair wages, doing away with corporate personhood, eliminating corporate subsidies, ending ‘right to work’ laws, etc.). I think taming capitalism, not replacing it, is the only practical approach to take now. But even that is a longshot.

June 11, 2017 at 10:54 pm #69927

Billy_T
Participant

Another thing to consider: There is nothing produced in a capitalist economy that could not also be produced in a fully democratic one, and for much less, with much less waste or pollution. There is nothing inherently more “productive” about the capitalist system, or the profit motive, or the for-profit model, and no one in their right mind could argue convincingly that capitalism doesn’t produce mass inequality, quite naturally, as a matter of its internal logic.

The vast majority of people in a capitalist system are NOT capitalists, by definition. They’re workers, paid a salary, or an hourly wage, and the quality or quantity of their work wouldn’t be negatively impacted if they received their salaries as co-owners of a workers’ cooperative, say, versus from a CEO who makes a thousand times more than they do. In fact, I’d bet anything a non-capitalist, non-profit model, a democratic co-op, for example, would incentivize better work, more passion for the job, less alienation and stress by far, and much greater “loyalty” to the mission at hand. It would be a new kind of loyalty to a family of equals, instead of a hierarchy of what amounts to different species, given the massive difference in pay and benefits under capitalism. And that non-capitalist model would also mean a much, much shorter work week for everyone.

Several of the posters here are teachers. Their jobs would move seamlessly to a (true) socialist economy. And Nittany, as a scientist, would as well. But pretty much all work could make the transition to co-ownership, and I honestly don’t see why anyone would be against such a change, unless they’re in the 1% or seek great personal wealth for themselves.

I try really hard to understand the reluctance to dump the capitalist system, at least when it comes to 80-90% of the population, and I just keep running up against a brick wall. I honestly don’t get it.

June 11, 2017 at 11:00 pm #69928
Billy_T
Participant
nittany ram wrote:

I agree that capitalism is driving the world to the brink and that, by its nature, it is unsustainable. The ‘free market’ cannot fix the world’s problems. It’s the cause of them. But obviously capitalism is not going away anytime soon, if ever, so I concentrate on ways that it can be made less dangerous (tightening environmental regulations, demanding workers be paid fair wages, doing away with corporate personhood, eliminating corporate subsidies, ending ‘right to work’ laws, etc.). I think taming capitalism, not replacing it, is the only practical approach to take now. But even that is a longshot.

Thanks, Nittany. I get that view. It’s basically, “I want to see it changed. I want something different. But I don’t think that’s practical now. So let’s do what we can to reform it and take away its worst effects.”

I guess the part I struggle with mightily is when some suggest, even if we could change it, we shouldn’t. As in, if we could cast a spell and start all over, fresh, that they’d favor retaining it to some degree. And I wonder, why on earth would you want any of it, in any form, if you had the chance to begin anew?

Which is why I think it needs to be THE goal, rather than reform. Falling short of the absolute repeal and replacement of capitalism gets us further than falling short of the goal of reform. Shooting for the moon means we fall short and reach Everest — and we set a better foundation for still greater heights. Shooting for 3500 foot mountains and falling short means we get to the foothills, etc.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by Billy_T.
June 11, 2017 at 11:45 pm #69931

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

Very good article, Zooey. Thanks.

============

Indeed. I thought it was awesome.

w
v

June 11, 2017 at 11:52 pm #69932

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

My view is that it accurately describes most leftists. Not all of them, of course. It doesn’t describe your views, for example, if I read you correctly. Or WV’s — who sees corporate capitalism as the problem, not capitalism itself.

=================

Well, corporate-capitalism iz what we got, so thats what i talk about. As far as some other kind of capitalism that might be regulated and tamed — i dunno, BT. I can envision a socialist system with a little capitalism mixed in.

I dont spend much time anymore thinking about wv-ram’s idea of ‘utopia’. Ya know. It aint here now, and it gonna happen, so i dont spend a lotta time thinking about it. For me it comes too close to ‘day dreaming’.

w
v

June 12, 2017 at 12:18 am #69933

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

My view is that it accurately describes most leftists. Not all of them, of course. It doesn’t describe your views, for example, if I read you correctly. Or WV’s — who sees corporate capitalism as the problem, not capitalism itself.

=================

Well, corporate-capitalism iz what we got, so thats what i talk about. As far as some other kind of capitalism that might be regulated and tamed — i dunno, BT. I can envision a socialist system with a little capitalism mixed in.

I dont spend much time anymore thinking about wv-ram’s idea of ‘utopia’. Ya know. It aint here now, and it gonna happen, so i dont spend a lotta time thinking about it. For me it comes too close to ‘day dreaming’.

w
v

Thanks for the clarification, WV.

For me, it’s not about “utopia.” It’s just my worldview. It’s how my principles sync up with and inform my vision for how things should and could be. It’s primarily a “moral” thing for me. And I honestly don’t think it’s any less “realistic” to talk about a replacement for capitalism than reforming it. The deck is stacked mightily against significant reforms, too, as you know. At present, even mild reform is out of the question.

The power is with Capital to protect its perks, privileges and hegemonic sway. It’s not with reformers. And I also believe the insistence on reform, rather than full replacement, actually empowers retaliation by the hard right and weaponizes latent fascism, because reform will always leave far too much inequality in place. That’s endemic to capitalism. It’s what it does.

And from a practical, political pov? FDR couldn’t have passed the New Deal reforms he did pass if not for an actual, vibrant, passionate, anticapitalist left, scaring the bejeesus out of the Establishment. That’s almost non-existence right now, which means the Establishment has no one to fear on economic grounds. They know they don’t have to “cut a deal” to prevent a worse scenario for themselves.

In short, if leftists won’t fight the anticapitalist fight, who will?

June 12, 2017 at 12:23 am #69934

Billy_T
Participant

Also, WV:

Would enjoy reading your ideas of having an economic mix. It sounds like you’re saying mostly socialism, with a dash of capitalism. Would like to hear your thoughts on why you think it’s important to have that mix, etc.

After my sudden burst of posts today, I’ll go silent again for a bit and check back later. Will just read what you’ve written and let it sink in, etc. No comments until next weekend, at the earliest.

Take care, all.

June 12, 2017 at 6:52 am #69935

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

Also, WV:

Would enjoy reading your ideas of having an economic mix. It sounds like you’re saying mostly socialism, with a dash of capitalism. Would like to hear your thoughts on why you think it’s important to have that mix, etc.

After my sudden burst of posts today, I’ll go silent again for a bit and check back later. Will just read what you’ve written and let it sink in, etc. No comments until next weekend, at the earliest.

Take care, all.

========================

Well, yes, a ‘dash of capitalism’ is all I’d want.

But again, my brain just wont ‘go there’ anymore — ie, my brain just wont spend time imagining utopias, or my personal vision of a just society, etc. My brain just wont do it anymore. We have a history that we are stuck with. A constitution written by white-male-capitalists. A long history of various kinds of capitalist propaganda. Our institutions, schools, religions, media, etc have been captured by capitalist ideas (mostly). Corporate-capitalism has colonized most Americans minds now.

Given that, I just ‘set my personal utopia-visions aside’ in my brain. Its too painful to even consider them in a large scale. (though there’s always small-scale intentional community visions that appeal to me)

I’m left with the here-and-now policies of the Bernies and the Jills. Even THAT seems like pie-in-the-sky most of the time. Ah well.

Time for me to water my plants and dig in the earth a bit. Gardening keeps me sane.

w
v

June 12, 2017 at 8:00 am #69938

nittany ram
Moderator

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Also, WV:

Would enjoy reading your ideas of having an economic mix. It sounds like you’re saying mostly socialism, with a dash of capitalism. Would like to hear your thoughts on why you think it’s important to have that mix, etc.

After my sudden burst of posts today, I’ll go silent again for a bit and check back later. Will just read what you’ve written and let it sink in, etc. No comments until next weekend, at the earliest.

Take care, all.

========================

Well, yes, a ‘dash of capitalism’ is all I’d want.

But again, my brain just wont ‘go there’ anymore — ie, my brain just wont spend time imagining utopias, or my personal vision of a just society, etc. My brain just wont do it anymore. We have a history that we are stuck with. A constitution written by white-male-capitalists. A long history of various kinds of capitalist propaganda. Our institutions, schools, religions, media, etc have been captured by capitalist ideas (mostly). Corporate-capitalism has colonized most Americans minds now.

Given that, I just ‘set my personal utopia-visions aside’ in my brain. Its too painful to even consider them in a large scale. (though there’s always small-scale intentional community visions that appeal to me)

I’m left with the here-and-now policies of the Bernies and the Jills. Even THAT seems like pie-in-the-sky most of the time. Ah well.

Time for me to water my plants and dig in the earth a bit. Gardening keeps me sane.

w
v

Yeah, this isn’t the time for an all-out open revolt against capitalism. People can’t even envision what that would look like. What’s more they don’t want to. Capitalism is still a sacred cow in the average person’s mind. If the Left did that it would play right into the Right’s hands.

Need to start slow. Work on taming the beast first.

June 12, 2017 at 9:53 am #69942

zn
Moderator

nittany ram wrote:

Yeah, this isn’t the time for an all-out open revolt against capitalism. People can’t even envision what that would look like.

Here;s my take on that kind of thing. It’s a philosophical belief of mine and is rooted, ironically, in a traditional conservative source, although to me it’s something that can easily be translated into a left context. It’s basically this—no contrivance of pure reason can predict or engineer a human utopia. In fact, in some cases, the effort to do so is itself going to be a terrible thing. AND it is said in all due respect to those who think differently. Part of why we’re here is to hash all this out, and we have to do that without bad friction and conflict. With differences and debate, but no gunfire.

People cannot think up legit models of human social existence. It’s beyond our capability.

In fact one of my complaints about the right is that the basic tenets of neo-liberalism are just think-tank fantasies and do not operate in the real world the way the thinkers thought they would.

So yeah we resist tyranny from the financial elite and and large capitalist interests but then naming a utopia based in reason is just going to fail, the way those things always do.

I don’t believe in commitment to socio-economic engineering models based on reason, but I DO believe in principles you hold to. So to me it;s an ethics, not engineering. Ethics are open to situations and change and contexts; it’s not about imposing models based on the weak-ass contrivances of reason alone. For example to me it’s a leftist principle that democracy includes the public world having final say in issues of economic policy and economic life. Government should never be an instrument for private interests to benefit at the expense of public good. (For some idea of what that would look like–where government IS an instrument for private interests to benefit at the expense of public good–look at NOW.)

June 12, 2017 at 10:30 am #69946

Billy_T
Participant

zn wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

Yeah, this isn’t the time for an all-out open revolt against capitalism. People can’t even envision what that would look like.

Here;s my take on that kind of thing. It’s a philosophical belief of mine and is rooted, ironically, in a traditional conservative source, although to me it’s something that can easily be translated into a left context. It’s basically this—no contrivance of pure reason can predict or engineer a human utopia. In fact, in some cases, the effort to do so is itself going to be a terrible thing. AND it is said in all due respect to those who think differently. Part of why we’re here is to hash all this out, and we have to do that without bad friction and conflict. With differences and debate, but no gunfire.

People cannot think up legit models of human social existence. It’s beyond our capability.

In fact one of my complaints about the right is that the basic tenets of neo-liberalism are just think-tank fantasies and do not operate in the real world the way the thinkers thought they would.

So yeah we resist tyranny from the financial elite and and large capitalist interests but then naming a utopia based in reason is just going to fail, the way those things always do.

I don’t believe in commitment to socio-economic engineering models based on reason, but I DO believe in principles you hold to. So to me it;s an ethics, not engineering. Ethics are open to situations and change and contexts; it’s not about imposing models based on the weak-ass contrivances of reason alone. For example to me it’s a leftist principle that democracy includes the public world having final say in issues of economic policy and economic life. Government should never be an instrument for private interests to benefit at the expense of public good. (For some idea of what that would look like–where government IS an instrument for private interests to benefit at the expense of public good–look at NOW.)

Gonna go against my own self-imposed temp exile for a moment to comment this Monday morning. For me — and I’ve said this before to no avail — it’s not about utopia or pure reason taking over. Not in the slightest. It’s never been about that. It’s about starting with basic principles of justice, equality, democratic control, the full consent of the governed and building a structure that serves all, instead of the current one that serves the few without our input or consent. It’s about generating much better results. It’s an ethical, moral stance, with tremendous pragmatics and practicalities built in to support the new structures, the new legal arrangements. It would be a massive improvement in the way things are done, from an operational stance, from an effectiveness pov, along with those massive improvements along ethico-moral lines. And it’s never, ever been attempted beyond small enclaves like the Spanish left-anarchists of the 1930s, or the Paris Commune of 1871.

I also think you’re forgetting that our current system was imposed on all of us without our consent, by force, and is maintained by force and endless “social engineering.” It’s not as if it’s the “natural” outcome of a “natural” process that just gets us to capitalism and its hegemony. Replacing it with a new system, based on principles of justice, equality, egalitarianism, cooperation (rather than competition) and full democracy, inside and outside the workplace, is no more a matter of “social engineering” than our current system . . . . and, unlike that current system, it would, from the get go, incentivize, empower, enable full inclusion, with no one left behind. Our current (socially engineered) capitalist model, which is the real “utopian” structure, incentivizes, empowers and enables the concentration of vast wealth, income, access and power at the very top, legally, via its internal logic, “naturally.”

Morally, ethically and, yes, logically, knowing this should lead most people to choose left-alternatives. And it’s not as if capitalism has ANY history of actually working for more than a small percentage of humankind, or that it has ever NOT been massively destructive of the planet.

It’s never been about the bogeyman of “pure reason and utopia” for me, or for any anticapitalist I’ve read or know. It’s always been about starting with basic principles of justice, personal autonomy, liberation, emancipation; basic goals for significantly improved lives (in all spheres, for everyone) a better environment, a much better legal system, and building better alternatives from there.

In short, it’s just common sense. To think of it as “pure reason run amok” is to fundamentally misunderstand this vision ginormously.

June 12, 2017 at 10:34 am #69947
PA Ram
Participant
I don’t like labels. There is too much overlapping most of the time and not many people will fit a strict definition of one thing or another. In fact, once labels start entering the conversation things get divisive. I’m not THIS I’m THAT so I have to believe THAT and not THIS. I just don’t like them. I believe whatever I believe and some of those things may fall under one term and some another. So does that make me neither? Do I need a third term? I don’t know. It just doesn’t work or matter to me if people call me liberal, progressive, leftist…antelope. Doesn’t matter. I’m just concerned about things issue by issue.

In regard to capitalism. I think SOME capitalism can be a good thing, as long as it is tightly regulated. My God–without it would we have fidget spinners?

However–we need a strong socialist element in society for it to function.

One place, for example that does not need capitalism, is health care. In fact, it is BECAUSE of capitalism that our current health care situation is such a disaster. I’m reading an amazing book about that right now called, ” An American Sickness” by Elizabeth Rosenthal(NY Times bestseller–not hard to find)that I highly recommend every American read.

This book details exactly the problems capitalism creates in health care. So called “non-profit” hospitals? Eh…not so much. It has all become profit and that’s the problem. Medicare must spend 98 percent of it’s revenue on patient care and 2 percent for administration. Insurance companies(because of Obamacare) must spend only 80 percent of revenue on patient care. The rest is for administration, and marketing and of course big CEO salaries. And frankly, that’s not enough for them.

Infinite growth. That’s what capitalism requires. And yet–that isn’t possible. It’s a myth from the start.

So yes–I have problems with it. At the same time, the free market can probably do some things better than government programs(IF regulated).

The question is really–can you have regulated and limited capitalism? Or…if you have it at all will the beast simply swallow the regulations time and time again with a corrupt congress and pursue the infinite growth model no matter what?

That’s a big question.

So far we haven’t seen that it can restrain itself. We haven’t seen any political will to restrain it.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Sickness-Healthcare-Became-Business/dp/1594206759
- This reply was modified 7 years, 5 months ago by PA Ram.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
June 12, 2017 at 10:41 am #69949

Billy_T
Participant

I think one could argue that we shouldn’t try to change the current system, if they could demonstrate that this current system really works for most people. But no one can. Even during the one and only “golden age” of capitalism, we had massive inequality, minorities were left out, women were left out, and most of the wealth, access, income and power was still concentrated at the top. All of it also depended upon the unseen masses here and overseas, doing the grunt work, for pennies on the dollar. All of it still depended upon massive waste and pollution, taking the easy way out when it came to dumping refuse, unsold goods, chemicals, food and on and on.

At its very best — roughly from 1947-1973 — capitalism never solved issues of distribution and allocation of necessities for billions of human beings, and without paying MOST humans poverty wages, it wouldn’t have been able to do capital formation or sustain itself overall. Capitalism does that formation by collecting as much unpaid labor — literally NOT paying billions of human beings trillions in earned income — and then directing that currency in the service of making more money for those at the very top.

At its best. Prior to that relatively short golden age, and after it, we got all of that plus rampant runaway inequality above and beyond the brief Keynesian moment in time. And it has always involved the destruction of all non-capitalist, independent economies and cultures along the way. Submit or die, in essence. Capitalism is the first intrinsically imperialistic economic system in world history. All previous economic systems weren’t themselves imperialistic. Kingdoms, empires and states were, not the economic system itself. Capitalism is the world’s first.

It needs to go. We can do better. IMO, thinking we can’t do better is tantamount to believing capitalist itself is the real “utopia.”
Author

Posts