Marxism, Anti-capitalism and the Mobilisation of the Political Left (Part 3)
September 24, 2010
Marxism
Over the past two articles, most of what I’ve been saying is straight out Marxism and I don’t have any beef with that. Marxs is a genius, frankly. His understanding of economic systems is dead-on and I agree what most of what he says, particularly that of anti-capitalism and the need for a more democratic distribution of power. Socialism is effectively softcore communism and I agree that socialism ought to be the future, however, I am apprehensive about socialism as a phase into communism. Maybe because I am not as “forwarded sighted” as Marx or I just can’t envision a class-less society, but I think that, at least in my lifetime, class is necessary to maintain social order. I think that Marx’s views on communism are perhaps too idealistic. It seems like he visions a utopia and personally, that’s too far forward than I have currently contemplated. Right now, I am interested in how we can stop capitalism and replace it with a system which won’t kill the planet and our own humanity. This much is relevant to me and everything that will probably happen in my life time, from then on it’s too difficult too judge.
Leading into my last point, I disagree with Marx that a revolution from the workers will be necessary to debunk capitalism. I believe that people win arguments through persuasion, not by overthrowing the discussion. Whatever happens in the future, I think the best approach is a transition from, not an upheaval of capitalism. Maybe there will be some upheaval from the workers, but you can’t just turn society on its head and rebuild from scratch, you must evolve from a base. This transition is already in motion, but for things to really get going it’s going to need mobilisation of the political left.
The Mobilisation of the Political Left
Capitalism will be defeated by the unrest of workers due to their activism against the grave consequences of modern capitalism. The greatest issues facing the world today are all due to the unrestrained free market: global warming, widening gap between rich and poor, monopolisation, depletion of natural resources, the obesity epidemic and the destruction of democracy are a handful of examples. These issues are too big for people to ignore, and with politics playing to the tune of big business, change has to occur from the ground up, so by the people. At one point, the workers will have to become fed up and revolt. There is no way we can continue to let the planet and our own human resources deplete before our own eyes.
In a world dominated by conservative politics attempting to reinforce the status quo, the left, who stand for the rights of people and the planet over profits, must mobilise. The problem with the left, however, is that they’ve been practically demonised out of existence in the public’s consciousness by the overwhelming power of the right. Frankly, media commentators (never we forget that the media is a mouthpiece for the right, in order to conserve its own interests), like, say Andrew Bolt, can’t even form proper criticisms of left-ish thinking besides the broken-record slander of being too radical, unrealistic, bad for business or simply flawed by the virtue of being “left”, of being something alternative to the free market.
People need to launch into action on these issues because the government obviously isn’t representing us when they won’t even support something as simple as gay marriages, despite the public clearly being in favour for it. People need to rally around these issues to force change. As activism and protests continue, the pressure placed on government increases, pushing it into the public agenda and then into the consideration of politicians. In just a few years, there’s been a major movement from the left regarding climate change, and now, climate change is a huge public issue. Unlike modern politics which disempowers people by choice of the “less worse” candidate, activism empowers people as the issues are those of the people. Once you get the snowball rolling, and people start realising “oh, we did this together, now we can work towards the next problem”, people can feel empowered, will act and change will occur.
So, to conclude, in order to defeat capitalism, I believe that the political left need to mobilise on the issues of our times, those consequences of the capitalist system. When mobilisation occurs through activism and pressure is placed on politicians to reform the system to meet the needs of the people, then proper discussion can begin on how to get out of this rut known as capitalism. By putting a lid on profits, and channelling the excess into public expenditure via increased taxation on big business, while at the same time, extending democracy into the workplace by allowing workers to own their production and therefore work for their profession and not for the company’s bottom line, the world will be a better place. We have some dark times ahead of us, however “the night is always darkest just before the dawn”.
Resources
Big Ideas that Changed the World – Democracy
Arguments for Democracy – Tony Benn
Posted in Life | Comments (2)
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2 Comments »
Great set of articles Dan.
What we need is not just reform. Reform would just improve a system within its current confines. Instead we need to throw the existing system out because it doesn’t work. Hence we need a revolution. Revolution is the only way.
To give an example to my point. There have been many attempts to reform education systems. The changes these reforms make are simply just increases in the educational standards. This does not address the issues and in many ways makes it worse.
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