What would William Morris say? (Buyenlarge/Getty Images)
It is a strange time to be a socialist. When I was young, in the 2000s, socialism was about overthrowing capitalism or at least making it more fair for the workers condemned to toil within its structures. Socialism was unfashionable. Under New Labour, with its apparently pragmatic “third way”, socialism was treated as archaic and socialists as gauche and weird. For the socially ambitious, a commitment to the Left offered few opportunities. The institutional infrastructure was limited: it comprised an insignificant political party (Respect), the Morning Star newspaper, a single militant trade union (the RMT), and a handful of Trotskyist sects.
Now, though, that’s all changed. Since the financial crash of 2008 and the ascendancy of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, socialism has gone mainstream. The values the Left defends, primarily liberal and cosmopolitan, are almost a prerequisite for a career within the professions. It is unfashionable, or unseemly even, to reject them. But: this “socialism” is not what it once was. It is customary to locate the Left’s evacuation of class politics with the rise of the New Left in the Sixties, in particular, with the theory of the Frankfurt School philosopher, Herbert Marcuse. But the Left’s shift from economics to culture, however, was more protracted than this narrative suggests. It began in the Sixties and continued apace under neoliberalism in the Eighties and Nineties, as deindustrialisation undermined organised labour. Its denouement, though, was in the 2010s, after official communism had collapsed and social democracy had capitulated to the global market.
Responding to the comedian Russell Brand’s notorious Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman in 2013 (in which Brand defended socialism and attacked the vacuity of capitalist democracy), the cultural theorist Mark Fisher diagnosed the pathologies of the modern Left with precision. Even then, he captured its obsession with identity — above all, race, sex, and gender — its po-faced moralism, its joylessness, its resentment-fuelled feuding, and its individual competitiveness. In short, its unambiguously bourgeois subjectivity. Instead of celebrating Brand’s assault on the neoliberal status quo, the Left, nourished mainly by a poststructuralist diet of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, responded by lambasting him as a fraud and a misogynist. With this it was clear to Fisher that the gentrification of the Left was complete. “The Left”, he wrote, “has all but disappeared”.
Not surprisingly, alongside the New-New Left’s elision of class is an ignorance, also, about its traditions. Proletarian literature — such as Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole, and Alan Sillitoe’s novella, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner — is no longer a source of inspiration. (Presumably, too white and too male.) Nor are the figures who galvanised the first generation of Labour MPs into action: Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Giuseppe Mazzini — and particularly William Morris. On the contrary, they are seen — if, that is, they are known about in the first place — as an embarrassment. Relics of the 19th century, nostalgic and reactionary, espousing superannuated opinions about the compatibility of nationalism and internationalism, capitalism as an unmitigated disaster, duty, and the dignity of labour.
The current Left isn’t interested in universalism, virtue, non-elective communities, or technical skill. It is relativist, individualistic, hedonistic, and preoccupied with abolishing borders and work. As one influential text put in 2015: “the classic social democratic demand for full employment should be replaced with the future-oriented demand for full unemployment”. It would be misleading to present the Left as a monolithic block. Both the socialists who wrote this (Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams), and their Fully Automated Luxury Communist successors, cared and care about class. But it is a version of class from which the traditional working class has largely been expunged, disciplined for bad behaviour — Brexit and various Brandish misdemeanours.
Nonetheless, the modernism these socialists embrace makes Marx seem parochial. The modern Left, if it is not totally blind to class, is excessively technophilic. It holds that because communism is dependent on a fully automated economy, it was impossible until now. The irony, however, is that the pseudo-socialism of the present moment — all narcissism and technocratic utopia — has been articulated and critiqued before. The revival of these ideas rhymes with a similar intellectual tendency which emerged in the 1880s. Then, the Left and the early Labour Party correctly rebutted it, sowing the ideational seedbed for our postwar welfare state in the process. But, if we are not careful today, this distorted socialism which has reappeared may win out, fundamentally corrupting any socialism rooted in class solidarity and egalitarianism.
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Subscribe“Not surprisingly, alongside the New-New Left’s elision of class is an ignorance, also, about its traditions.”
Perhaps it would avoid confusion if we stopped using the term Left to describe these people. They are simply politically illiterate bourgeois liberals. Bit of a mouthful though.
How about ‘post-communist’? Like the term ‘post-fascist’ I’ve seen pop up occasionally. At first glance they appear similar to the genuine article, will even identify themselves as it, but are really just cloaking themselves in the discarded, hollowed-out skin of a long-discredited ideology to disguise their true beliefs from others and often even themselves. All they genuinely believe in, knowingly or not, is a post-modern intellectualization of ‘might makes right’ and ‘one against all’, just naked self-interest and the Will to Power clothed in a matryoshka doll of academic, sleight-of-hand shell games.
Communism = fascism – nationalism.
Precisely! I keep trying to tell this to people and they look at me weird….
… or it could be because of the sweaty, crazed look I have when talking at length about the rising threat of resurgant communism.
Probably a little of both.
Precisely! I keep trying to tell this to people and they look at me weird….
… or it could be because of the sweaty, crazed look I have when talking at length about the rising threat of resurgant communism.
Probably a little of both.
Communism = fascism – nationalism.
You’re correct, the current incarnation of the left bares almost no resemblance to how most of us understand it as a political grouping. Paul Embery on here described the current mob as an unappealing mix of Lennon and Lenin
Otherwise known as ‘Woke scum’ as John (Baby) Holland would have it.
Actually, Rubber Johnny Holland gets his knickers in a twist when I call them “woke scum”.
So I have noticed!
Perhaps we should also add THORAX to his nomenclature in view of his recent blunder?
So I have noticed!
Perhaps we should also add THORAX to his nomenclature in view of his recent blunder?
Actually, Rubber Johnny Holland gets his knickers in a twist when I call them “woke scum”.
Not sure I, nor author, can detect a real new coherent ‘socialism’ at all. Empty Vesselsville The core political ideology of the Left is raw toxic emotive CRT identity politics & a powerful cult like obsession with equality. Mixed in is the ‘Green is new Red’ dream, exploiting climate catastrophism to justify socialist like State interventions – like The Great New Green-Leyland British Eco Corp. Sigh. What is also awkward for so called Socialists is the fact that the eco/ Net Zero & Identity cults are both fully supported by our entire political Establishment – inc the likes of Johnson & May and these strange Non Tories who even got to Magic Money Tree madness first. There is a very strong and growing antipathy toward wealth creation on the Left and in the Blob as it is of course a key evil Discriminator. Ban private enterprise people from Parliament! Expel those brown Non Doms! Class envy certainly looks alive so expect yet more ‘degrowth’ anti enterprise thuggery. Our economy is now a total buggers muddle; huge swathes owned by global capital yet most key markets totally skewed and subverted by Brownite State interventions; welfare, housing market; labour market; energy market. What exactly would a ‘Socialist’ do to change all that?
Otherwise known as ‘Woke scum’ as John (Baby) Holland would have it.
Not sure I, nor author, can detect a real new coherent ‘socialism’ at all. Empty Vesselsville The core political ideology of the Left is raw toxic emotive CRT identity politics & a powerful cult like obsession with equality. Mixed in is the ‘Green is new Red’ dream, exploiting climate catastrophism to justify socialist like State interventions – like The Great New Green-Leyland British Eco Corp. Sigh. What is also awkward for so called Socialists is the fact that the eco/ Net Zero & Identity cults are both fully supported by our entire political Establishment – inc the likes of Johnson & May and these strange Non Tories who even got to Magic Money Tree madness first. There is a very strong and growing antipathy toward wealth creation on the Left and in the Blob as it is of course a key evil Discriminator. Ban private enterprise people from Parliament! Expel those brown Non Doms! Class envy certainly looks alive so expect yet more ‘degrowth’ anti enterprise thuggery. Our economy is now a total buggers muddle; huge swathes owned by global capital yet most key markets totally skewed and subverted by Brownite State interventions; welfare, housing market; labour market; energy market. What exactly would a ‘Socialist’ do to change all that?
What passes for ‘socialism’ in the UK is basically statism. As the middle class becomes increasingly redundant economically so it becomes more dependent on the state and more jealous of its privileges. The result is the explosion of debt which leads to the end of ‘social’ democracy and its replacement with the rise of an authoritarian oligarchy based on pseudo-science such as we are witnessing now.
“Politically illiterate bourgeois liberals”
“PIBOLs” perhaps?
Apologies to acronymiphiles everywhere.
(Unherd’s spellchecker changed my last neologism to “acronym i-Phones”. I’m sure there is a lesson therein, I just don’t know what it might be.)
Maybe PILBorgs
Maybe PILBorgs
Hear Hear… mostly in the masturbatory party
Hasn’t socialism removed the ‘class cudgel’ in favor of the more expedient ‘racism’ meme?
Politically illiterate bourgeois liberals? Sure. But pseudo-left seems to hit the mark better and is more succinct
Or just “pajama class”..ha..ha
How about ‘post-communist’? Like the term ‘post-fascist’ I’ve seen pop up occasionally. At first glance they appear similar to the genuine article, will even identify themselves as it, but are really just cloaking themselves in the discarded, hollowed-out skin of a long-discredited ideology to disguise their true beliefs from others and often even themselves. All they genuinely believe in, knowingly or not, is a post-modern intellectualization of ‘might makes right’ and ‘one against all’, just naked self-interest and the Will to Power clothed in a matryoshka doll of academic, sleight-of-hand shell games.
You’re correct, the current incarnation of the left bares almost no resemblance to how most of us understand it as a political grouping. Paul Embery on here described the current mob as an unappealing mix of Lennon and Lenin
What passes for ‘socialism’ in the UK is basically statism. As the middle class becomes increasingly redundant economically so it becomes more dependent on the state and more jealous of its privileges. The result is the explosion of debt which leads to the end of ‘social’ democracy and its replacement with the rise of an authoritarian oligarchy based on pseudo-science such as we are witnessing now.
“Politically illiterate bourgeois liberals”
“PIBOLs” perhaps?
Apologies to acronymiphiles everywhere.
(Unherd’s spellchecker changed my last neologism to “acronym i-Phones”. I’m sure there is a lesson therein, I just don’t know what it might be.)
Hear Hear… mostly in the masturbatory party
Hasn’t socialism removed the ‘class cudgel’ in favor of the more expedient ‘racism’ meme?
Politically illiterate bourgeois liberals? Sure. But pseudo-left seems to hit the mark better and is more succinct
Or just “pajama class”..ha..ha
“Not surprisingly, alongside the New-New Left’s elision of class is an ignorance, also, about its traditions.”
Perhaps it would avoid confusion if we stopped using the term Left to describe these people. They are simply politically illiterate bourgeois liberals. Bit of a mouthful though.
I really enjoyed this essay, there is a lot to reflect on, thank you. Bellamy’s book is now on my reading list!
Perhaps they come a bit later than the period the author was focusing on but any analysis of ideas on the contemporary left (and the current political hegemony of ideas) is incomplete without the globalist utopian, socialist ideas of HG Wells and the Huxleys, which are inseparable from the Malthusian eugenics movement to which they belonged.
Proposing, in 1940, of a “Federation of Mankind … a genuine attempt to realise that age of world-wide plenty and safety that we have every reason to believe attainable”, Wells claimed that the “decisive question before our species today is whether this time it will set its face resolutely towards that drastic remoulding of ideas and relationships, that world revolution, which it has shirked for a quarter of a century”.
Wells was a student of T.H. Huxley, “Darwin’s bulldog”, intellectual progenitor of the eugenics movement and grandfather of Aldous and Julian Huxley, also socialist, globalist eugenics enthusiasts. In 1959, Aldous gave a series of lectures in which he lauded the ideas of Herbert Spencer and agreed with Bertrand Russell’s “the only alternatives for the future are a catastrophic nuclear war or “the creation of a single world state … by force, as the result of one power being victorious in a nuclear war … or under the threat of force, under the fear of what might happen, and as a result of reason and considered enlightened self-interest and humane ideals”. He lamented that mankind was being held back by itself, “in very many cases the effort to raise human quality is being thwarted by the mere increase of human quantity, that quality is very often incompatible with quantity”.
If you read the stuff that this movement, in its various guises – Club of Rome, WEF, and into to various arms of the UN – has put out over the years, you start to see a pattern. An influential strand of thinking on the “enlightened” intellectual left that sees it as its job to save humanity from itself, and whatever cost to individual lives, liberty and dignity. They are dead wrong and more dangerous than any of their reactionary opponents could ever be, but there’s no telling them that. It would be like trying to tell Xi Jinping that “official communism” had collapsed by the 2010s!
I really enjoyed this essay, there is a lot to reflect on, thank you. Bellamy’s book is now on my reading list!
Perhaps they come a bit later than the period the author was focusing on but any analysis of ideas on the contemporary left (and the current political hegemony of ideas) is incomplete without the globalist utopian, socialist ideas of HG Wells and the Huxleys, which are inseparable from the Malthusian eugenics movement to which they belonged.
Proposing, in 1940, of a “Federation of Mankind … a genuine attempt to realise that age of world-wide plenty and safety that we have every reason to believe attainable”, Wells claimed that the “decisive question before our species today is whether this time it will set its face resolutely towards that drastic remoulding of ideas and relationships, that world revolution, which it has shirked for a quarter of a century”.
Wells was a student of T.H. Huxley, “Darwin’s bulldog”, intellectual progenitor of the eugenics movement and grandfather of Aldous and Julian Huxley, also socialist, globalist eugenics enthusiasts. In 1959, Aldous gave a series of lectures in which he lauded the ideas of Herbert Spencer and agreed with Bertrand Russell’s “the only alternatives for the future are a catastrophic nuclear war or “the creation of a single world state … by force, as the result of one power being victorious in a nuclear war … or under the threat of force, under the fear of what might happen, and as a result of reason and considered enlightened self-interest and humane ideals”. He lamented that mankind was being held back by itself, “in very many cases the effort to raise human quality is being thwarted by the mere increase of human quantity, that quality is very often incompatible with quantity”.
If you read the stuff that this movement, in its various guises – Club of Rome, WEF, and into to various arms of the UN – has put out over the years, you start to see a pattern. An influential strand of thinking on the “enlightened” intellectual left that sees it as its job to save humanity from itself, and whatever cost to individual lives, liberty and dignity. They are dead wrong and more dangerous than any of their reactionary opponents could ever be, but there’s no telling them that. It would be like trying to tell Xi Jinping that “official communism” had collapsed by the 2010s!
There are two possible forms of government: democracy and oligarchy. All governments exist somewhere on the continuum between them.
Switzerland is probably as close as we get to democracy; China to perfect oligarchy. The Anglo Saxon systems are essentially oligarchic, with all real power in the hands of the Oxbridge mafia in the UK and the Wall Street elites in the USA.
Ideology is just marketing.
different colour tie, same government.
Rather oddly Switzerland was the last place that a WITCH was put to death in Europe, in the 1780’s as I recall.
(For the UK you’ve guessed it, Bonnie Scotland in 1727!)
I see the opposite. The swiss are a perfect example of oligarchy, the most sheltered heart of the oligarchic core of global capitalist empire, voting in a material context sustained only by the violence of their neighbors and their participation in the financial logistics of that violence. They have no significant union or any other system to establish democracy in the so-called “private economic” side of governing. China is as close to a perfect democracy as exists on earth.
different colour tie, same government.
Rather oddly Switzerland was the last place that a WITCH was put to death in Europe, in the 1780’s as I recall.
(For the UK you’ve guessed it, Bonnie Scotland in 1727!)
I see the opposite. The swiss are a perfect example of oligarchy, the most sheltered heart of the oligarchic core of global capitalist empire, voting in a material context sustained only by the violence of their neighbors and their participation in the financial logistics of that violence. They have no significant union or any other system to establish democracy in the so-called “private economic” side of governing. China is as close to a perfect democracy as exists on earth.
There are two possible forms of government: democracy and oligarchy. All governments exist somewhere on the continuum between them.
Switzerland is probably as close as we get to democracy; China to perfect oligarchy. The Anglo Saxon systems are essentially oligarchic, with all real power in the hands of the Oxbridge mafia in the UK and the Wall Street elites in the USA.
Ideology is just marketing.
I cannot believe I can still post here, but it seems I can…now if the post lasts…..haha, maybe its mods day off…
But anyway – too much for me to fallow this late at night, but a couple thoughts… and I would love to go into the Frankfurt School, Modernism, Postmodernism, and even Utilitarianism and Neo-Marxism but will let it go…
The thing is Socialism is basically societal death, it is the sports in school where scores are not kept, where excellence is not above mediocre, it is Nihilism –
I remember the Houyhnhnms, when the Yahoos would lay around sulking and wailing in despair, they would drive them to the fields to do hard work, and so they would regain their calm and be happy again…. Having spent a great deal of time around yahoos – I know this to be the case…. and machines doing the work will not make them happy…
”Yuval Noah Harari, historian, futurist, and World Economic Forum (WEF) adviser, said, “We just don’t need the vast majority of the population” in the early 21st century given modern technologies’ rendering human labor economically and militarily “redundant.””
Harari said the only answer he can figure out is Drugs and computer games and VR to keep the yahoos quiet and out of the way after they become useless (You are all included in this group too). I imagine this will be the case used in the end.
But my favorite Socialist by far is Simone Weil. She so loved the lowest workers, and God, that more than anything she wished she could relieve them of all their Travails and suffering….. and her Wonderful line:
”When I think of the crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy.”
Simone would have been Canonized if she had allowed herself the joy of joining the Catholic Church – but she had to deny herself even that. Simone ended up inadvertently starving herself to death in England in WWII she felt so much pain thinking of those under occupation and starving she could not eat her own food –
Communists – Socialists – very mixed bag. Monsters like Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin killed more and destroyed more lives than any other rulers… then the weirdly superior ones Like Oscar Wild – who thought the working man to be just a brute, and the Commie Intellectuals like the Hobsbawns Milliband Sr who just hated Western Liberalism and cared nothing for the common man but that their betters would have to be destroyed to make Socialism – that was the part they liked. And the crazies like Scargill and Corbyn who just wanted to fight the system, and were sympathetic to the common man, and picked Socialism.
But never a Saintly Intellectual like Simon Weil having power; directing popular thought making a pure Socialism – now days just the Lefty University stupid Neo-Marxist Modernists, usefull Idiots controlling thought today… servants to those who would destroy us.
You are bang on correct about Simone Weil. The most under-read, underrated intellectual of the twentieth century, in my book. She really got it, didn’t she? There’s not a single one of that lot in Davos who could hold a candle to her kind, gentle genius or her steely grasp and love for the real world; she would – if she were not so saintly – eat Harari for breakfast! I am also convinced she was a key inspiration for a lot of Orwell’s later work.
Didn’t she write a 30-40 page essay with a lot of wringing of hands about the deaths in the Trojan War? Actually, she was agonising about the deaths written in a poem hundreds of years after the Trojan War. Or was the poem about a fictional war? Or a fictional poem about a real war?
She was a nutjob. It isn’t that great to be gifted if you are a nutjob. Other brilliant essays came from Nietzsche, another nutjob.
Chris, your comment saddens me. I am really sorry that you feel that way. Have you actually read Weil’s analysis of the Iliad or any of her other works? If not I would strongly recommend “Simone Weil: An Anthology” before ungraciously, and unfairly, dismissing her as a “nutjob”. It’s available for less than a tenner on Amazon or in all (really) good bookshops.
I have read it and I thought it was very funny. Unfortunately her anguish about a (possibly) fictitious story does not allow us to take her seriously when writing about teal things.
OK. Fair enough. I think you might have missed the point though. Not to worry. If you haven’t read Human Personality I would recommend suspending judgment and considering it on its own merits. Sometimes it’s the oddballs, misfits, and outsiders who – despite their chaotic appearance and strange behaviours – can see things that insiders just can’t see. No man is a prophet in his own land.
OK. Fair enough. I think you might have missed the point though. Not to worry. If you haven’t read Human Personality I would recommend suspending judgment and considering it on its own merits. Sometimes it’s the oddballs, misfits, and outsiders who – despite their chaotic appearance and strange behaviours – can see things that insiders just can’t see. No man is a prophet in his own land.
I have read it and I thought it was very funny. Unfortunately her anguish about a (possibly) fictitious story does not allow us to take her seriously when writing about teal things.
Chris, your comment saddens me. I am really sorry that you feel that way. Have you actually read Weil’s analysis of the Iliad or any of her other works? If not I would strongly recommend “Simone Weil: An Anthology” before ungraciously, and unfairly, dismissing her as a “nutjob”. It’s available for less than a tenner on Amazon or in all (really) good bookshops.
Didn’t she write a 30-40 page essay with a lot of wringing of hands about the deaths in the Trojan War? Actually, she was agonising about the deaths written in a poem hundreds of years after the Trojan War. Or was the poem about a fictional war? Or a fictional poem about a real war?
She was a nutjob. It isn’t that great to be gifted if you are a nutjob. Other brilliant essays came from Nietzsche, another nutjob.
I don’t think that posts are permently deleted. Some blocks of comments hide for a while, but reappear later. Heaven knows why.
(You are all included in this group too). – Speak for yourself 😉
You are bang on correct about Simone Weil. The most under-read, underrated intellectual of the twentieth century, in my book. She really got it, didn’t she? There’s not a single one of that lot in Davos who could hold a candle to her kind, gentle genius or her steely grasp and love for the real world; she would – if she were not so saintly – eat Harari for breakfast! I am also convinced she was a key inspiration for a lot of Orwell’s later work.
I don’t think that posts are permently deleted. Some blocks of comments hide for a while, but reappear later. Heaven knows why.
(You are all included in this group too). – Speak for yourself 😉
I cannot believe I can still post here, but it seems I can…now if the post lasts…..haha, maybe its mods day off…
But anyway – too much for me to fallow this late at night, but a couple thoughts… and I would love to go into the Frankfurt School, Modernism, Postmodernism, and even Utilitarianism and Neo-Marxism but will let it go…
The thing is Socialism is basically societal death, it is the sports in school where scores are not kept, where excellence is not above mediocre, it is Nihilism –
I remember the Houyhnhnms, when the Yahoos would lay around sulking and wailing in despair, they would drive them to the fields to do hard work, and so they would regain their calm and be happy again…. Having spent a great deal of time around yahoos – I know this to be the case…. and machines doing the work will not make them happy…
”Yuval Noah Harari, historian, futurist, and World Economic Forum (WEF) adviser, said, “We just don’t need the vast majority of the population” in the early 21st century given modern technologies’ rendering human labor economically and militarily “redundant.””
Harari said the only answer he can figure out is Drugs and computer games and VR to keep the yahoos quiet and out of the way after they become useless (You are all included in this group too). I imagine this will be the case used in the end.
But my favorite Socialist by far is Simone Weil. She so loved the lowest workers, and God, that more than anything she wished she could relieve them of all their Travails and suffering….. and her Wonderful line:
”When I think of the crucifixion, I commit the sin of envy.”
Simone would have been Canonized if she had allowed herself the joy of joining the Catholic Church – but she had to deny herself even that. Simone ended up inadvertently starving herself to death in England in WWII she felt so much pain thinking of those under occupation and starving she could not eat her own food –
Communists – Socialists – very mixed bag. Monsters like Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin killed more and destroyed more lives than any other rulers… then the weirdly superior ones Like Oscar Wild – who thought the working man to be just a brute, and the Commie Intellectuals like the Hobsbawns Milliband Sr who just hated Western Liberalism and cared nothing for the common man but that their betters would have to be destroyed to make Socialism – that was the part they liked. And the crazies like Scargill and Corbyn who just wanted to fight the system, and were sympathetic to the common man, and picked Socialism.
But never a Saintly Intellectual like Simon Weil having power; directing popular thought making a pure Socialism – now days just the Lefty University stupid Neo-Marxist Modernists, usefull Idiots controlling thought today… servants to those who would destroy us.
Certainly the case as many ‘Loony tunes’ on the Left as on the Right too attuned to Groupthink. Orwell taught us that 70+yrs ago but whilst retaining at his core a belief in something he called democratic socialism.
One benefit of Brexit, and it is a struggle to find many but nonetheless, is it re-sensitised many centre-left to the cul de sac that is identity politics and how Class has some significant differences to that 30-40yrs ago that can no longer be assumed. About time. This is still playing out.
Other comments here refer to the ‘managerial class’ which whilst not ‘capitalist owners’ has distinct protectionist desires, and certainly something in this. Perhaps also a greater divide is that relating to educational attainment with so many more of our young going onto further education (rightly or wrongly). These new fault-lines are still settling as our traditional parties seek ways to build electoral coalitions that don’t then implode on first contact with real thorny policy problems.
Always personally felt the strength of Britain is it’s non ideological moderate core. I think this still has a gravitational pull, and thank goodness for it.
Kids don’t get educated at university now. Any electrician, plumber, or mechanic will have a better grasp of practical reason and applied logic than any septum-pierced wokewoad gender studies git.
In fact most of the workforce force for “Pimlico Plumbers” should really be Fellows of ‘All Souls’.
Their contribution to civilisation is infinitely greater than that of most of the current members of that august establishment!
How conversant are you with the apprenticeship levy and the problems last 10yrs in Govt policy with stimulating non Univ training? You aware of what a shambles it’s been? And we desperately need people with the skills for all the new green technologies coming too.
So I agree with the implied thought that we need a rebalancing, but I suspect you’re a million miles away from grasping what that then needs to entail as regards policy and instead just like a bit of keyboard warrior broadsiding at people you don’t care for.
In fact most of the workforce force for “Pimlico Plumbers” should really be Fellows of ‘All Souls’.
Their contribution to civilisation is infinitely greater than that of most of the current members of that august establishment!
How conversant are you with the apprenticeship levy and the problems last 10yrs in Govt policy with stimulating non Univ training? You aware of what a shambles it’s been? And we desperately need people with the skills for all the new green technologies coming too.
So I agree with the implied thought that we need a rebalancing, but I suspect you’re a million miles away from grasping what that then needs to entail as regards policy and instead just like a bit of keyboard warrior broadsiding at people you don’t care for.
the peoples republictoylitte of Bourgoisia nu britn is run by the line managerial class
Kids don’t get educated at university now. Any electrician, plumber, or mechanic will have a better grasp of practical reason and applied logic than any septum-pierced wokewoad gender studies git.
the peoples republictoylitte of Bourgoisia nu britn is run by the line managerial class
Certainly the case as many ‘Loony tunes’ on the Left as on the Right too attuned to Groupthink. Orwell taught us that 70+yrs ago but whilst retaining at his core a belief in something he called democratic socialism.
One benefit of Brexit, and it is a struggle to find many but nonetheless, is it re-sensitised many centre-left to the cul de sac that is identity politics and how Class has some significant differences to that 30-40yrs ago that can no longer be assumed. About time. This is still playing out.
Other comments here refer to the ‘managerial class’ which whilst not ‘capitalist owners’ has distinct protectionist desires, and certainly something in this. Perhaps also a greater divide is that relating to educational attainment with so many more of our young going onto further education (rightly or wrongly). These new fault-lines are still settling as our traditional parties seek ways to build electoral coalitions that don’t then implode on first contact with real thorny policy problems.
Always personally felt the strength of Britain is it’s non ideological moderate core. I think this still has a gravitational pull, and thank goodness for it.
Millennial socialists are also dependent on an existence of an immigrant underclass that drives their ubers, serves in their bars and restaurants and makes their electronics in factory-prisons in Asia.
Whereas baby boom capitalists haven’t also driven this reliance?
Whereas baby boom capitalists haven’t also driven this reliance?
Millennial socialists are also dependent on an existence of an immigrant underclass that drives their ubers, serves in their bars and restaurants and makes their electronics in factory-prisons in Asia.
I am confused. From the article I see that Socialism is all about writers and thinkers, some of whom pass me by. In the comments we have excited discussion of Simone Weill starving herself for her beliefs. Is that Socialism? If so, it is no use to man nor beast.
Where I come from, socialism is about activists in the community, people who give up their time to help others, people who help to find emergency shelters for destitute families, thise who give their own food away. These people have never heard of Simone Weill, nor would they want to. All of the writers in the top journals, piled on top of each other, do not make one socialist.
“Where I come from, socialism is about activists in the community, people who give up their time to help others, people who help to find emergency shelters for destitute families, thise who give their own food away.”
You don’t have to be socialst of course. Many of the mutual help and charitable bodies established in the UK were devoutly Christian in inspiration. They are greatly missed. Sometimes we throw out the baby with the bath water. My father once said that young women, girls really, dressed in the uniform of the Sally Army, could walk into the public bars of even the roughest East End pubs and ask for donations. They didn’t always get money, but they never received abuse. I imagine that my father knew what he was talking about.
In my experience it’s more religious groups that do those sort of things. Socialists are too busy arguing with each other.
For religious people to behave like socialists doesn’t their religion itself have to be socialist? Is Christian teaching not fundamentally socialist? Does anyone seriously consider it to be capitalist? ..or even right-wing for that matter? Can one be a capitalist / right-winger and still be Christian? I think not.. I know it’s not really a problem these days as everyone (except me it seems) is an Atheist.
Or participating in the Antifa/BLM riots over here in the States.
For religious people to behave like socialists doesn’t their religion itself have to be socialist? Is Christian teaching not fundamentally socialist? Does anyone seriously consider it to be capitalist? ..or even right-wing for that matter? Can one be a capitalist / right-winger and still be Christian? I think not.. I know it’s not really a problem these days as everyone (except me it seems) is an Atheist.
Or participating in the Antifa/BLM riots over here in the States.
That’s not socialism.
Socialism teaches that social ills are created by capitalism, and the only solution is to do away with private property. The means of production – that is, every piece of equipment for every possible business – should be controlled by the state. The state is supposed to take care of “those people,” as well as you – you absolutely should not.
In order to achieve socialism, the public must become aware just how many problems capitalism causes. That means you want the suffering capitalism causes to be seen and felt. A real socialist would NEVER volunteer to help the poor, because that “papers” over the evils of capitalism – it is basically enabling. If you are smart, you find ways to accentuate the problem.
The people who are motivated to volunteer are usually capitalists, religious people, and conservatives. If they claim to be socialists, they are confused about what socialism is.
Your definition of Socialism is a bit off.. you are confusing it with Marxism.
Same coin, different side
Same coin, different side
Your definition of Socialism is a bit off.. you are confusing it with Marxism.
“Where I come from, socialism is about activists in the community, people who give up their time to help others, people who help to find emergency shelters for destitute families, thise who give their own food away.”
You don’t have to be socialst of course. Many of the mutual help and charitable bodies established in the UK were devoutly Christian in inspiration. They are greatly missed. Sometimes we throw out the baby with the bath water. My father once said that young women, girls really, dressed in the uniform of the Sally Army, could walk into the public bars of even the roughest East End pubs and ask for donations. They didn’t always get money, but they never received abuse. I imagine that my father knew what he was talking about.
In my experience it’s more religious groups that do those sort of things. Socialists are too busy arguing with each other.
That’s not socialism.
Socialism teaches that social ills are created by capitalism, and the only solution is to do away with private property. The means of production – that is, every piece of equipment for every possible business – should be controlled by the state. The state is supposed to take care of “those people,” as well as you – you absolutely should not.
In order to achieve socialism, the public must become aware just how many problems capitalism causes. That means you want the suffering capitalism causes to be seen and felt. A real socialist would NEVER volunteer to help the poor, because that “papers” over the evils of capitalism – it is basically enabling. If you are smart, you find ways to accentuate the problem.
The people who are motivated to volunteer are usually capitalists, religious people, and conservatives. If they claim to be socialists, they are confused about what socialism is.
I am confused. From the article I see that Socialism is all about writers and thinkers, some of whom pass me by. In the comments we have excited discussion of Simone Weill starving herself for her beliefs. Is that Socialism? If so, it is no use to man nor beast.
Where I come from, socialism is about activists in the community, people who give up their time to help others, people who help to find emergency shelters for destitute families, thise who give their own food away. These people have never heard of Simone Weill, nor would they want to. All of the writers in the top journals, piled on top of each other, do not make one socialist.
I wonder if the fall of the Soviet Union / 90s is related. The emergence of neoliberalism, technological progress, the seeds of third-phase feminism, Chinese investment and greater ‘global thinking’ meant the gentrification of left radicalism.
Marxists had to reorient themselves, they risked being left behind in the third millenium, assigned to writing cliched cyberpunk fiction or burning CDs from Rage Against The Machine mp3 files. The rise of mass culture and American military endeavours in the Middle East / Central Asia provided Marxists a unique opportunity in offering a critique not build on the class structures illuminated by Morris, but on the contemporary power dynamics of the West, especially America. After 9/11 and particularly the Global Financial Crisis, young Westerners were eager to listen, using leftist theory to make sense of their situations.
I’m not a leftist, I am firmly on the right. Yet the agony depicted by Flaherty may have a historical explanation. These are loose thoughts (of mine) and I welcome any discussion.
The way the phrase ‘Marxists’ is used these days is an awful long way from the original tenets of Karl and Frederick. Does feel like it’s occasionally such a broad ‘catch-all’ that it’s almost ’emperor’s got no clothes’.
Marx did have a renaissance in interest resulting from 2008 Crash. But there is v little in what he wrote that bears any relationship to the identity politics of today.
The way the phrase ‘Marxists’ is used these days is an awful long way from the original tenets of Karl and Frederick. Does feel like it’s occasionally such a broad ‘catch-all’ that it’s almost ’emperor’s got no clothes’.
Marx did have a renaissance in interest resulting from 2008 Crash. But there is v little in what he wrote that bears any relationship to the identity politics of today.
I wonder if the fall of the Soviet Union / 90s is related. The emergence of neoliberalism, technological progress, the seeds of third-phase feminism, Chinese investment and greater ‘global thinking’ meant the gentrification of left radicalism.
Marxists had to reorient themselves, they risked being left behind in the third millenium, assigned to writing cliched cyberpunk fiction or burning CDs from Rage Against The Machine mp3 files. The rise of mass culture and American military endeavours in the Middle East / Central Asia provided Marxists a unique opportunity in offering a critique not build on the class structures illuminated by Morris, but on the contemporary power dynamics of the West, especially America. After 9/11 and particularly the Global Financial Crisis, young Westerners were eager to listen, using leftist theory to make sense of their situations.
I’m not a leftist, I am firmly on the right. Yet the agony depicted by Flaherty may have a historical explanation. These are loose thoughts (of mine) and I welcome any discussion.
Sonnet 78
Where to begin dissecting Russell Brand?
The matted rug’s quite Da’esh Caliphate.
Ditto the beard. The overactive glans
in God knows what kind of infectious state.
Creeping towards belated middle age,
the weeping winkie of this Peter Pan
has petered out, beset by phallophage.
May God have mercy on this ghastly man,
who can’t afford to put sleeves on his shirts.
Lo! On his mattress stuffed with last year’s pranks
this yahoo reeking worse than his own dirt
unglues his Bookywook and limply w@nks.
He says he wants a revolution. Well,
he’ll need a lot of antiseptic gel.
Best laugh of the day so far. I’ve never been able to tell if you’re a genius or a lunatic. Keep it up!
Seconded!
Seconded!
Best laugh of the day so far. I’ve never been able to tell if you’re a genius or a lunatic. Keep it up!
Sonnet 78
Where to begin dissecting Russell Brand?
The matted rug’s quite Da’esh Caliphate.
Ditto the beard. The overactive glans
in God knows what kind of infectious state.
Creeping towards belated middle age,
the weeping winkie of this Peter Pan
has petered out, beset by phallophage.
May God have mercy on this ghastly man,
who can’t afford to put sleeves on his shirts.
Lo! On his mattress stuffed with last year’s pranks
this yahoo reeking worse than his own dirt
unglues his Bookywook and limply w@nks.
He says he wants a revolution. Well,
he’ll need a lot of antiseptic gel.
The need for work is nicely dealt with in Kurt Vennegut’s debut novel, “Player Piano”. It’s about the revolt of the old “working class” against an automated society that uses a bread-and-circus policy to keep the plebs in their place. An oldie but a goodie. Recommended….
The need for work is nicely dealt with in Kurt Vennegut’s debut novel, “Player Piano”. It’s about the revolt of the old “working class” against an automated society that uses a bread-and-circus policy to keep the plebs in their place. An oldie but a goodie. Recommended….
The only Communist ever to sit in parliament was an hereditary Welsh peer in The House of Lords, head of the Philipps family…!!!!
Perhaps “Boris the Beast” will follow him?
After all we have had Julian Fellows and Andrew Roberts, Baron of Belgravia no less!
Perhaps “Boris the Beast” will follow him?
After all we have had Julian Fellows and Andrew Roberts, Baron of Belgravia no less!
The only Communist ever to sit in parliament was an hereditary Welsh peer in The House of Lords, head of the Philipps family…!!!!
The new left is not much more than a collection of self aggrandizing, mentally ill, morally corrupt, fools attempting to enact their mental masturbation’s.
They cannot find enough intersections to break down society to a sufficient level that it collapses, but damn if they are not trying.
These people are far far more dangerous than the Trump’s of the world.
The new left is not much more than a collection of self aggrandizing, mentally ill, morally corrupt, fools attempting to enact their mental masturbation’s.
They cannot find enough intersections to break down society to a sufficient level that it collapses, but damn if they are not trying.
These people are far far more dangerous than the Trump’s of the world.