Explaining Far Right Success & Left Wing Failures

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DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

So, what I'm getting from this, is that the left's agenda, and leftism itself, is doomed to fail. As it seems, the right is bound to only get stronger while the left will just get weaker, and there's nothing that can really stop this from happening. Bad times economically only seem to bolster the fascist and extreme right, while good times economically also benefits the conservative business right. It feels like we're elves in Middle Earth, watching the world slowly slip away as there are fewer and fewer of us as time passes, constantly looking towards the past for comfort.

EDIT: Even if you take a Marxist interpretation of the material conditions of today's working class, it is, as ronya put it, the form of the mass of working people today has drifted away from conditions of working that would be conducive to mass labor organizing.

DrSunshine fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Nov 22, 2020

# ¿ Nov 22, 2020 16:33

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:22

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

I've been reading Inventing the Future and I think it presents a very compelling argument/answer to the OP's question. The summary is that the left has ceded control of a hegemonic ideology and vision of the future to neoliberalism, and has retreated from a broad program of change to embrace what Srnicek and Williams call "Folk politics" - a politics of localism, "bunkering" and small scale direct actions which are insufficient for challenging the neoliberal status quo.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 21:45

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Ytlaya posted:

I feel like the problem here is that it's kind of impossible to spread ideology and a vision to the broader population when the media/government exist to silence/discredit anything inconvenient.

They go into some detail about this by examining a case study of how neoliberalism went from a fringe school of thought embraced by the likes of Ludwig Mises, Freidrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, into a dominating ideology that is all-pervasive.It's not an easy task. It was once on the edge and derided by Keynesianism, which was the dominant mode from the 1930s to 1970s. They had to start from infiltrating universities, creating think-tanks, and disseminating talks, to work in the business schools training generations of management and business professionals in neoliberalism, to finally seizing upon the stagflation crisis in the late 1970s in order to become adopted and promulgated by the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

I think the implication here is that the left needs to spend time developing and promoting theory, and spreading a unique, alternative, and -- most importantly for Srnicek and Williams -- future-oriented point of view that has explanatory power and provides a compelling point of view for interpreting historical events. The point they make is that the answer isn't in adopting a purely reactive or negative critique, but creating an inspiring intellectual movement that embraces emancipation and redefines freedom and modernity, that can be used to explain why people are being alienated and materially dispossessed, and provide a singular way out. By deciding upon and promoting an alternative lens, and inspiring people, and spreading through alternative means, the left can build real power and change hearts and minds.

I think there are real avenues for this now. Look at the creation of "Breadtube" for instance, or the way ideas can trend on Twitter and Instagram. We don't need to have Fox News, we just need a theory of change and a vision for the future that is as coherent and explanatory as neoliberalism is, and to act in a consistent and inspiring way. I often see people on these forums say, when posed with the question "OK, so what should I do?", respond "Organize locally". Srnicek and Williams say that this is all well and good, but "acting locally" is insufficient to build a coordinated mass movement. I resonate with this response, because I find myself extremely uninspired by just doing local actions. I want to be part of a mass, intellectual movement.

For my own perspective, I think there's a lot of potential if more on the left would press on the concept of something like Post-Scarcity Now. The inklings of it are already there - pop culture already is familiar with metaphors from Star Trek, the Culture novels, and the like. Ideas like UBI, a Green New Deal, and an exciting technological future of luxury and abundance, need to be welded together into one distinct vision of the future for the left, explicitly counterpoised against capitalism.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2020 00:09

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Ytlaya posted:

The problem is that neoliberalism is still fundamentally an ideology that was never opposed to most of the interests of those with wealth/power. Even if most powerful people disagreed with it at one point, it didn't fall under the category of "an ideology that is opposed to their very existence."

The stuff you describe (creating think-tanks, disseminating talks, working in business schools training people) requires the support of people with money/power. That isn't a path the left can reproduce, and "spreading a point of view" ultimately requires actual resources. The left doesn't have the advantage of a bunch of wealthy backers funding think-tanks and university departments (and even if it somehow did, it will still run into far more strong and direct opposition from our other institutions).

When it comes to the broader public, "intellectual movements" do not spread organically. The broader public doesn't give a poo poo what academics are saying unless the ideas of those academics are being promoted by the media. Most people over the age of ~50 or so literally never hear anything unless it's on the television or in major newspapers.

To use Breadtube as an example, if it ever became something beyond a very minor internet cultural thing Youtube would simply suppress those videos. They don't resort to that sort of thing because they don't need to.

edit: I want to add that I don't think attempting to spread left-wing ideology like this is worthless. Communicating with other people about these things is important and helpful. I just think that it's impossible to actually spread it to institutions in a way that results in a top-down spread of ideology similar to what neoliberals have done.

edit2: One other thing that I don't think I was clear enough about. As you mention, stuff spreads on Twitter/Instagram. But the problem is that this only applies to a fraction of the population that won't be big enough for at least a decade or two. It applies to very few older people and also doesn't apply to most people disengaged from politics (regardless of age), who never encounter the same discussions people like us do. Due to the existence of the Republicans, for the left to actually gain power through electoral politics it would need to gain control over virtually all of the Democratic Party. And gaining power through non-electoral means is something that will likely be untenable until things are so dire that a critical mass of people are willing to risk their lives (or at least livelihoods), and it will be a while until that's the case. So, if I'm being optimistic, I might expect left-wing ideas to gain in popularity with younger generations through less reliance on television for information, but that doesn't actually translate to political power unless it applies to a large enough portion of the population.

I mean, if you have any better ideas, I'm all ears! :allears:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2020 02:29

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

The Oldest Man posted:

Here's one; don't poo poo on localism and ground-level organizing as being some kind of dead end. It's quite literally saving people's lives right now and if anything is ever going to get better, the movement to force those changes is going to originate in those activities and formations that right now are out trying to keep homeless folks from freezing to death and such.

And if it fails to bring about revolutionary change in society, I guess we'll have helped our neighbors survive for no reason at all.

I'm not making GBS threads on it!! It's good, it is necessary, it gets people talking and organized. But the point is it cannot be the be-all, end-all. Ground-level organizing and localism is not going to bring about society-wide change from the bottom up. The way it is being done now, the best it could possibly do is precisely that - immediate assistance to those in need right now, and the temporary creation of a bunker or a little island against the tides of a greater capitalist society that is free to simply flow around it. It does not threaten capitalism, it depends on capitalism.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2020 16:18

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