https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/11/27/a-need-for-pragmatism-one-the-end-of-the-left/

When Keir Starmer applied the term “far right” to those involved in the riots which broke out following the brutal murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, the establishment media ran with and amplified it. But what, exactly, does “far right” mean beyond just anybody we happen to disapprove of? The exact same problem was raised by Orwell in his 1944 Tribune article:

“Of all the unanswered questions of our time, perhaps the most important is: ‘What is Fascism?’

“One of the social survey organizations in America recently asked this question of a hundred different people, and got answers ranging from ‘pure democracy’ to ‘pure diabolism’. In this country if you ask the average thinking person to define Fascism, he usually answers by pointing to the German and Italian régimes. But this is very unsatisfactory, because even the major Fascist states differ from one another a good deal in structure and ideology…

“It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else…”

This had more resonance then because of the “social fascism” line taken by Stalin’s communist international in which pretty much every political party which was not communist – including those on the left, such as the German social democrat party (SPD) – was labelled as some version of fascist. As socialist historian Florian Wilde explains:

“The theory of social fascism dictated that Nazis and Social Democrats were essentially two sides of the same coin. The primary enemy of the Communists was supposedly the Social Democrats, who protected capitalism from a workers’ revolution by deceiving the class with pseudo-socialist rhetoric…

“Another fatal consequence of the [communist] KPD’s ultra-leftism was that the term ‘fascism’ was used irresponsibly to describe any and all opponents to the right of the party. The SPD-led government that ruled Germany until 1930 was considered ‘social fascist’. When Brüning formed a new right-wing government by decree without a parliamentary majority in 1930, the KPD declared that fascism had taken power. This went hand in hand with a deadly underestimation of the Nazi danger. Thus [KPD leader, Ernst] Thälmann could declare in 1932: ‘Nothing could be more fatal for us than to opportunistically overestimate the danger posed by Hitler-fascism’. The KPD’s seeming inability to distinguish between democratic, authoritarian and fascist expressions of capitalist rule proved to be its undoing. An organisation that continually vilified bourgeois democratic governments as fascist was unable to understand the true meaning of Hitler’s ascension to power on 30 January 1933…”

Indeed, even Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party was not fascist in the sense that the label was applied in Mussolini’s Italy or Franco’s Spain (both of which also remained capitalist monarchies throughout the period of fascist rule). As Patrick Buchanan reminds us:

“Mussolini had been in power for a decade before Hitler ever became Chancellor. During that decade, Il Duce’s attitude toward the Nazi leader may be summed up in a single word: contempt…

“To Il Duce, Italian Fascism was a world apart from Nazism: ‘Both are authoritarian systems, both are collectivist, socialistic. Both systems oppose liberalism. But Fascism is a regime that is rooted in the great cultural tradition of the Italian people; Fascism recognizes the right of the individual, it recognizes religion and family. National Socialism … is savage barbarism; the chieftain is lord over life and death of his people. Murder and killing, loot and pillage and blackmail are all it can produce.’”

This was borne out to a great extent even after Britain and France had forced Italy into an uneasy alliance with Nazi Germany following the unravelling of the Stresa Pact. Unlike Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy was not antisemitic, and even after the various anti-Jewish measures introduced as part of the Axis pact with Germany, fascist Italy was no more antisemitic than the Polish regime which became Britain’s casus belli the following year. Indeed, Italy sheltered Italian Jews from the holocaust in the period prior to the Nazi invasion in response to the allied invasion of southern Italy in September 1943.

Perhaps more controversially, the Italian economy continued to operate under a recognisably market-led economy throughout the period of fascist rule, whereas Nazi Germany operated a state-controlled economy with more similarity to Stalin’s communist economy than to the market economies of western Europe. While not strictly “public ownership,” rather like the commissar system in the Soviet Union, German business owners and managers found themselves overseen and over-ruled by state-appointed gauleiters.

All three systems may have been collective, but the collective to which individuals were subordinate was different in each case. Nazi Germany was a collective system based upon the Social Darwinist concept of race, from which it claimed legitimacy for its territorial expansion prior to 1941… uniting German minorities living in the various states established in the 1919 Versailles Treaty. Stalinist communism was even broader in its ambitions, since it claimed to be the collective of the international working class… justifying Stalin’s invasion of more sovereign states than Hitler had done prior to 1941. Fascism was in this sense far more contained, claiming only to be a national collective (although this did not prevent Mussolini grabbing the remaining – Abyssinian – slice of Africa not already gobbled up by the Western European states).

Other, much older collectives have persisted of course. Not only monotheistic religions like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, but also in the various sects within those religions. Sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe was devastated by the conflicts between various Christian sects following the spread of the printing press… the Twitter/X of its day. In those days, terms like “heretic” or “witch,” took the same place in the lexicon as the contemporary “fascist,” “nazi” or “far right.” But the demonisation of “the other” in the interest of the ruling elite was the same.

Put simply, like “heretic” before it, the term “fascist,” as used as a term of abuse in the 1930s, served to obscure far more than it clarified, and helped divide the people against each other. Moreover, the Anglo-American development of the “good war” narrative was imposed retrospectively to justify many of their own misdeeds during the period… legitimised by the discovery of the horrors of the death camps as the allied armies crossed German territory in 1944 and 1945. So that most Britons and Americans today believe that the Second World War was a heroic intervention on behalf of European Jews, even though, as of September-1939, the Nazis were no more antisemitic than Stalin’s Russia, or for that matter, Władysław Raczkiewicz’s Poland. At best, the British went to war out of stupidity (McMeekin), panic (Buchanan), or duplicity (Hitchens)… the plight of Europe’s Jews though, was not a consideration. Indeed, on the eve of war, the British government was refusing asylum to Jews fleeing Germany.

The lumping together of Naziism, fascism, and various military dictatorships, was encouraged by socialist activists – egged on by Stalin – who glossed over the very wide economic policy differences between those movements… claiming that each was essentially bourgeois in nature. Which is why, even today, the self-identifying “left” is able to place libertarians like Ron and Rand Paul adjacent to Adolph Hitler on the economic spectrum, despite their sitting at opposite ends of the free market versus state intervention continuum.

Much of the confusion – which has fuelled a huge and self-sustaining emotional crisis across the western states – stems from the vagueness of the terms “left” and “right” in the modern world. Originally applied to the seating arrangements in the post-revolution French Assembly, those “on the right” favoured maintaining the monarchy, while those “on the left” sought its abolition. And while there are fewer monarchists than republicans among those who identify as “left” today, it would be a stretch to imagine that “right wing” American libertarians are pro-monarchist. Indeed, the definition – which was no longer relevant at the dawn of the twentieth century – switched its meaning in the wake of the second Russian revolution, where the Bolshevik leaders were also anti-monarchist (borrowing the English and French example of slaughtering Kings who got in the way). But it was the communist imposition of state ownership and control of the economy which gave the terms “left” and “right” their twentieth century meaning.

Certainly, prior to the neoliberal revolution, it was simple to define political movements and individual activists according to where they stood on the economic axis. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan could be defined as “far right” insofar as they sought to roll-back the state as far as possible. They certainly stood to the right (as then understood) of the “one-nation” conservative parties and activists who emerged from the ashes of the Second World War. In a similar vein, while social democratic parties which favoured a mixed economy were regarded as “soft” or “centre left,” the various communist and Trotskyist parties which sought full public (i.e., state) ownership and/or control were described as “hard” or “far left.” And so long as nobody looked too closely at the economic system in 1930s Germany, the economic continuum seemed to work.

Like everything else it came into contact with, the acid of neoliberalism began to erode the post-war version of an economic spectrum. The defeat of the traditional left in the late-1970s and early-1980s (which the rump communist and Trotskyist parties, like their 1930s forefathers, claimed was due to betrayal by the soft left) paved the way for an economic consensus which accepted free market liberalism as a permanent condition. And this position was given even more weight following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – ushering in what some saw as “the end of history.”

In the USA under Clinton and the UK under Blair, any hope of a return to state intervention in a mixed economy was washed away. Both accepted the economic liberalism inherited from Reagan and Thatcher, and sought instead to shape – and, indeed, mandate – a new social liberalism. That is, while the state withdrew from economic intervention, with even the UK’s sacred National Health Service forced to endure a high level of private sector input, various social liberal measures (broadly labelled “political correctness,” “diversity, equality and inclusion,” or “woke”) were legislated for… although it was left to corporations to decide whether or how to develop diversity and inclusion policies.

This was a pragmatic approach by the former parties of the economic left to the massive change in the class structure over the course of the neoliberal revolution. The massed ranks of organised labour in what remained of the industries of the early industrial revolution were swept away. Symbolically, Thatcher’s defeat of the miners’ union in 1985 marked the point of no-return. Although in practice, the process of offshoring and greater exposure to international markets had already eroded the power of national labour movements long before Arthur Scargill was provoked into an all-out strike in an industry which had already been surpassed by the oil and gas flowing from the North Sea.

By the time Blair arrived as Labour leader, the trade unions had been reduced to a public sector rump which lacked the economic power to force governments and corporations to the negotiating table. This was a long way from Saltley Gate and the defeat of the Heath Government in 1974. Blair’s ditching of the old socialistic Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution in 1995 was more a recognition of how far the UK economy had changed than a betrayal of a working class which was no longer a majority… correctly understanding that the twentieth century model of class-based socialism could not be engineered within a national economy which was no longer self-sufficient in production.

Blair’s and Clinton’s error was, essentially, to believe that their own class – the university-educated professional-managerial class – would become the engine of revolution. In support of this aim, higher education was massively expanded. In 1980, just 15 percent of school leavers went into higher education. By the 1990s, this had risen to 25 percent. And Blair’s aim of getting 50 percent of youngsters into university was finally realised in 2019. The central premise, however, that an increase in graduates would create an increase in graduate level employment proved chimerical. What it created in practice, was “the over-production of elites” which has tended to undermine empires throughout history.

Notably in relation to the increasing irrelevance of the terms “left” and “right,” this over-produced and thwarted bourgeoisie constitutes the vanguard of the contemporary self-identifying “left.” By their assertion of individual rights against or over society though, the contemporary “left” prove to be hyper-liberals whose beliefs are in stark contrast to the socialist (class-based) left of an earlier age. Indeed, all too often, the contemporary “left” stands in agreement with policies which favour supranational corporatist and technocratic interests, while simultaneously denouncing anything which favours the mass of ordinary people – more a precariat than a working class these days – as inherently “far right.”

The problem with this approach is obvious enough. Within a democracy there is no coalition of “minorities” which can provide a path to victory. And abandoning democracy would result in the sheer weight of the majority – or rather, the organised minority which harnesses them – seizing power for themselves. In short, there is no route to power for the contemporary self-identifying “left.” Which, of course, is why so-called “far right” populists – who have no problem claiming to represent the mass of people “left behind” by the contemporary “left” – have been gaining momentum across the western states in the aftermath of the 2008 crash and the years of depression which have followed.

In the wake of Trump’s re-election at the beginning of November, while the majority of the self-identifying “left” retreated into a new Bluesky social media bubble, a handful of less emotional left-leaning thinkers began to think the unthinkable… that the future will not automatically fall into the laps of the left. One such is former Corbyn ally Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, who – in a real life imitation of that Mitchel and Webb sketch – explains that:

“Whether you like it or not, the far-right has a set of familiar narratives. We can probably all recite, something like: ‘The reason you’re in an overpriced, damp rental; your gran lives in squalor; your job is low paid/insecure, and your public services crumbling – is because elites declared war on workers, favoured immigrants and made your life more expensive with their “green crap”. Vote for us and we will deport the immigrants, stop the elites, cut the green crap and declare war on woke, Britain will be great again.’

“This is a story. It has a beginning, middle and end or sets the scene, explains why we are where we are and offers a solution. In other words, it has goodies, baddies and happy endings.

“Labour’s story, just like the US Democrats, doesn’t make narrative sense.

“Rather than explain how 40 years of atomising, neoliberal plunder, the selling-off of and destruction of our public services, the undermining of our democracy, and the hollowing out and selling-off of our natural resources at the hands of companies like Blackrock and other profit-maximising corporations, billionaires & financial institutions, has led us here.

“Instead, we refuse to give a credible explanation for how we got here other than ‘it was Tory chaos’. The problem is when the political and economic permacrisis continues, that won’t be a viable explanation. By refusing to identify the culprits for this state of affairs, we fail to make a convincing narrative that explains our predicament.

“Instead, we become the defenders of the very elites/ the business-as-usual brigade – that the right claims we are.”

This (probably correctly) implies that the emergence of a populist left might follow… if only they could develop the narrative. It isn’t just a narrative issue though. We didn’t need to witness Starmer’s front bench being given instruction by Satan’s representative on Earth to understand that successive neoliberal governments – Labour and Tory – were directly responsible for the four decades of atomising neoliberal plundering that Lewis rails against. And the self-identifying “left” didn’t stand by and watch this happen… they actively participated. And for that, for the foreseeable future at least, it is an emerging nationalist conservatism which is set to reap the political rewards.