What's Left in 2011? A personal reflection

[King_David]

When I was coming of political age in the early-mid 1980s as a young progressive activist, the divide between the political Left and Right seemed pretty black and white.

Everybody on the ideological Left agreed that a society could only be democratic if all citizens – whatever their ethnicity, gender or religion – were free. And political freedom in turn required the provision of social rights via equality of outcomes - not just equality of opportunity – to effectively utilize that liberty. This outcome would require fundamental structural change to the free-market capitalist system.

So locally the Left supported trade union struggles for high minimum wages, and attacked capitalists who exploited their workers. Some thought class struggle and revolution was necessary to secure freedom and equality for ordinary people. Others thought radical economic and social change could be achieved via democratic means (i.e. by turning the ALP into a socialist rather than mildly social democratic party). The Left also supported a generous welfare state including progressive taxation, free public education and free medical and dental care, land rights and national self-determination for Indigenous Australians, equal rights for women and gay people, and opposed all forms of racism.

The Left rejected religion as an opium of the masses that diverted the anger of ordinary people into conservative politics. However, some alliances were formed with progressive Christian and Jewish groups that combined their religious beliefs with social justice philosophy. But nobody would have defended the dominant patriarchal tradition in Islam or any other religion on the grounds that certain cultures had the right to maintain relative diversity or difference.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3686446.html

[King_David]

1. more

'For me personally, these political developments have over time forced a reassessment of my philosophical fundamentals. I have long called myself a socialist, but this is now a contentious term of identity given that so many people who claim to be socialists hold what I consider to be regressive and even racist views. In particular, many defend repressive regimes in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Hamastan and other places over admittedly imperfect liberal democracies such as Australia. And too many are tolerant of anti-Semitism when it is disguised under the banner of politically correct anti-Zionism.'

[King_David]

2. Good comment underneath the article :

Doug :

22 Nov 2011 6:12:38pm

Excellent summary Phillip.
I grew up from the '50s as a leftist under the banner of universal rights (yes Azrael, it is certainly big on Kant--Marx's early work was based on going beyond Hegel who went beyond Kant, but so much of this got lost after Marx with Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc.).
There was an emphasis on 'Liberty, equality, fraternity', equal rights across sexes, cultures, nationalities, classes, how under capitalism such rights were empty and couldn't be delivered.
Little did I think that any but the far-out fundamentalist leftists would abandon this universalism and rationalize the oppression of women and gays in Islamist and communist regimes, and attack the US and Israel at any price forgetting all the universal, democratic, egalitarian values that were at issue in favour of being emotionally duped by
'feel good' ideologies that target gay-friendly Israel against regimes that murder gays or support honour killing, and ignore 3500 killed by the Syrian government this year. The leader of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (against a country that is not even mentioned but assumed, Israel), Senator Lee Rhiannon, didn't boycott the repressive Soviet regime she supported for so long.
Go figure!

[LeftishBrit]

3. Well, I agree with some of it...

but I think some of it is in the category of 'Things ain't what they used to be - and they never were!' I also came of age politically as a left-winger in the early and mid-80s; and the left was NOT united. It may possibly have been different in Australia (on checking, I see that Australia had a Labor government from 1983 on); but it was certainly not the case in the UK, or from what I could gather, the USA either.

This was part of our tragedy in Britain in the 80s- that the left was factionalized and the factions fought each other to the detriment of fighting the real enemy of Thatcherism.


There has never IMO been a united Left; possibly in the UK the postwar period came nearest, but I too may be falling into the trap of sentimentalizing the past.

As regards the issue of alliances with hard-right regimes: no, left-wingers in the 80s did not make alliances with Islamists, of whom we were mostly barely aware at the time. Most don't now. But some do, and there's a simple reason (reason, not excuse) for it. It's not some mysterious moral degeneration by the left. It's the Iraq war, and the 'war on terror' more generally, and the sheer vileness of Bush et al, which has led to 'mirror-image-ist' support in some quarters for anyone opposed to Bush, Blair, John Howard, etc. Sometimes left-wing groups have accepted right-wing allies in the anti-war cause, including both Islamists and xenophobic-isolationists of the Ron Paul variety.

In the 80s, it was *right-wingers* who made alliances with Islamists, because they were opposed to the Soviet Union.

But there were left-wing mirror-image-ists then too, and some of them supported hardline communist regimes. By the 80s, the conservative nature of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev was apparent to most, and it was not as common as earlier for leftist groups to sympathize with the Soviets, but some did sympathize with Maoism; and some were simply 'smash the enemy' types who placed revolution well ahead of democracy or human rights.

So let us not indulge in too much nostalgia, and let us instead simply remember two salient points: (a) the Right is the enemy, not some other faction of the Left; and (b) the Right takes many forms, and sometimes an enemy of our right-wing enemy is also our right-wing enemy.

As regards the specific prescriptions here:

(1) Freedom of speech including academic freedom is not just an abstract bourgeois value, but an essential prerequisite for a fair and just society;

Yes. But it's not *everything*; and it's important to oppose the sort of right-libertarianism that opposes the police state but allows economic oppression.

(2) Freedom of religion or not to be religious or to change religions, and zero tolerance for religious fundamentalism of any kind;

Yes.

(3) Gender and sexual equity and freedom including the right to contraception and abortion as paramount in every culture;

Yes, in principle; but realistically we cannot enforce abortion rights (or many other things) in *every* culture.

(4) Welfare states should be re-constructed as bottom-up decentralized institutions controlled by local community groups including service users;

I strongly disagree with this as regards the UK (though I don't know the situation in Australia). Here, 'decentralization' is being used as a fairly transparent cover for cuts, partial privatization, and gross inequality between rich and poor communities. As regards the USA, it's simply irrelevant: the USA doesn't have a welfare state! In any case, what I think is crucial, is not the *reconstruction* of welfare states, but their preservation where they exist, and their construction, in whatever form works, in places where they don't exist.

In any case, this is perhaps for me *the* key issue for the left: to create and preserve welfare states, or at the very least social safety nets. I have to admit that I HATE those who actively and ideologically oppose social safety nets, whatever their views on other matters (such as I/P); and it takes a lot of reminding myself on my belief in Human Rights for All, not to fantasize about all manner of tortures for such people!

(5) An end to the preferential ranking of some oppressed groups over other oppressed groups, particularly in the Middle East. We should support equality and freedom and human rights for all minority groups including the Egyptian Copts, the Assyrians in Iraq, the Palestinians denied citizenship throughout much of the Arab world, the Bahai in Iran, and the Mizrahi Jews who were ethnically cleansed from their former homelands.

Yes. Not sure that it's 'particularly in the Middle East' though. I know that this is the I/P forum; and I do agree in particular that anti-Palestinianism in the Middle East is not restricted to Israel and that Arab states are often let off the hook on this issue. But many of the most oppressed groups, especially in African countries, are simply ignored to a large extent.

[shira]

4. Freedom of speech (the ability to criticize and effect change for the better) is everything IMO.

I'm not really sure how any rational person could disagree.

I think that, maybe above all else, is what makes Israel truly great. No matter what is wrong within any society, it's that ability to always improve (even if very slowly) that eventually ensures social justice.

[LeftishBrit]

5. I was criticizing right-libertarians, not civil liberties or free speech.

My comments stem not so much from anything in the OP, as from arguments that I've had in the past with people who argued that anyone who believes in free speech shares the general viewpoint of progressives, even if they are against social safety nets, or are war-hawks.

My view is that if you are against a social safety net, then you are ultimately against freedom. Being afraid to speak out because of the fear of losing your job and then freezing and starving on the street is no better than - or very different from - being afraid to speak out because of the fear of ending up in prison.

[shira]

6. Oh okay, I misunderstood. And thanks. Never thought of it that way....

I agree with you.

I can't understand evil bastards who are against social safety nets.