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The last in our series of seven key drivers influencing the move to After Capitalism is the Ineffective Left.
The far left continues to be ineffective in catalyzing change.
The left, particularly the far left, is more inclined to support the changes needed to move to After Capitalism than the right, but it has been largely ineffective in doing so to date. In short, it’s failed to build a vision for the future. The figure to the right suggests the three major obstacles:
- The mainstream left is not helping.
- Much of the far left is stuck in folk politics.
- The right has been more strategic than the left.
Mainstream left not helping. It is fair to say that the US as a democratic country has chosen capitalism along with all its inequalities. The people could vote to change it by selecting candidates supporting an alternative approach. This idea in the US context seemed absurd until recently when presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a nearly successful run on a fairly radical platform. Ultimately, the left chose the safe candidate and business-as-usual prevailed. It is not just a US phenomenon. The left is struggling globally. Former Greek minister and capitalism critic and Yanis Varoufakis notes the struggles of the left in Germany, France, the UK and the Nordic countries. He suggests a focus on ideological issues has come at the expense of core economic concerns of the working class (Eaton, 2023).
Stuck in folk politics. Srnicek and Willams (2016) observe that while the right was able to create a new hegemony, the “Euro-American left has been meandering and ineffective, with a sense of pessimism regarding the ability to create large-scale social change.” They argue that a key problem is that of “folk-politics” or folk-political thinking that has the left content to remain at — and even privilege — the transient, the small-scale, the unmediated and the particular. In effect, it is better to be ideologically pure at the local scale, than impure at a mass scale.
The postmodern values mentioned above — the fastest-growing type — lead to finding and supporting noble causes. A challenge for the postmoderns is that the quest tends to be more important than acting on it. It feels good to be in the protest march, but then it’s back to life as normal. The emergence of new values is in part to correct for perceived shortcomings of the previous type. In this case, integral values have a stronger action ethos than the postmodern value they follow. They are much more sharply focused on making a difference. They also prioritize big picture vision. This combination of vision and action provides some hope for change, but it should be kept in mind that the integral type is probably only 3-5% of affluent country populations at present.
Right has been more strategic. The right has generally been more effective in advancing its agenda. The right generated, and now supports, the neoliberal capitalist image that has been prevalent for decades. It succeeded by skillfully constructing an ideology and the infrastructure to support it. The left could be accused of not understanding the game it is in, particularly in the US context. The right has been a bit ruthless in pushing its agenda. It’s like the schoolyard bully getting away with it. The left looks to tell the teacher, but the teacher isn’t helping. The right continues to cross established lines and has learned there is no real penalty for doing so. The left, meanwhile, is continually shocked, offended, and almost dazed. It appeals to a sense of decorum that is long gone and finds itself in a reactive mode with no real agenda of its own.
Haque (2020) puts it bluntly: “The problems our societies face — climate change, rising poverty, inequality, a lack of opportunity — have all been caused by American-style conservatism and neoliberalism, after all. And yet the left seems to make no progress whatsoever.” That said, there are signs of change, and the focus on local and grassroots is not misplaced, but rather needs to be supplemented with a more global approach for After Capitalism. – Andy Hines
References
For you to quote Umair Haque as a reasonable source for you readers is incredibly shortsighted. I work very hard to find deep thinkers who deliver analysis on these same subjects and Mr. Haque is a far left hack. It is reasonable to hear from those on the extremes but all they do is espouse their beliefs so you must cross over to the far right and listen to their beliefs also to balance the scorecard. In the end they are mostly utopians without recognizing it. If you want a good social science evaluation of these people (right and left) try Jon Haidt’s The Righteous Mind.
If “after capitalism” means an economic model preferred by the left, communism or socialism, i want none of it. please be sure to hold it off until i’m long dead… let’s say circa 2060.
a centrally managed economy, over-indexing on equality goes against human nature and against the nature of the universe and can only be achieved via law and redistribution of wealth. every law takes something from someone and by necessity lowers society to the lowest common denominator.
i’ve asked before for your definition of “capitalism”. would you please share your definition? seriously.
my definition of capitalism: an economic method for enabling the development and innovation of capabilities that are resource intensive, by providing a way to accumulate capital, through fair and regulated investment systems that enable numerous small investors to attain ownership.
6ahrxy