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 Sunday August 22, 2010 10:55 by Paddy Hackett maxanger at live dot ie
 Is the radical left bourgeois? In general the radical left largely consists of bourgeois activists in disguise. They are there to help capitalism maintain itself. In general the radical left largely consists of bourgeois activists in disguise. They are there to help capitalism maintain itself. They fail to understand the elements of communist thought. They consider themselves left or radical left. Yet they continue to suggest to the Government and the working class how they have a better recipe as to how the Irish capitalist economy can be restored to a healthy state. But this is not the job of revolutionaries. It is not the job of revolutionaries to suggest how to improve or manage capitalism. People like Joe Higgins, Kieran Allen, Michael Taft et al constantly criticise the incompetent Irish government concerning the progress of the Irish economy. They suggest that it is this incompetence that has led to the fall in Irish economic growth. They fail to make clear that the capitalist economy is inherently contradictory and limited. It is this internal character of capitalism that has led to the global financial crisis --not greedy or morally depraved capitalists or even befuddled governments. |
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Comments (15 of 15)
Jump To Comment: 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1BL
Paddy, with all due respect your points about the radical left are mostly bogus:
Wrong headedness
by BL - SP (personal capacity) Wed Aug 25, 2010 18:35
"Paddy, with all due respect your points about the radical left are mostly bogus: The SP has consistently stated that the crisis is not due to mismanagement or corruption but is due to the system itself, that booms and busts are an inherent part of capitalism and that this crisis is a capitalist crisis, not one attributable to corruption or incompetency, although these played significant parts in aggravating the crisis."
Sorry for my tardiness in replying to your attack on my little piece. Had not seen your reply.
If it is true that the Socialist Party views capitalism as inherently limited then why is it forever calling for expansions in the capitalist state. Calling for more this and that for the marginalised and the ordinary working person suggests that capitalism is the solution to their problems. This then means that the capitalist state, and thereby capitalism, serves the interests of the working class.
Incidentally your leader Joe is always going on about the ordinary worker. There is no such thing as an ordinary worker. Many of the electorate that vote for him are far from ordinary working people. Many of them are professionals. The term ordinary worker is an opportunist euphemism designed to conceal the absence of class politics within the SP.
Paddy, with all due respect your points about the radical left are mostly bogus: The SP has consistently stated that the crisis is not due to mismanagement or corruption but is due to the system itself, that booms and busts are an inherent part of capitalism and that this crisis is a capitalist crisis, not one attributable to corruption or incompetency, although these played significant parts in aggravating the crisis.
''In general the radical left largely consists of bourgeois activists in disguise. They are there to help capitalism maintain itself.''
And you too Paddy are helping capitalism maintain itself. This is pathetic. You are pushing me away as equally as the SWP are. Pathetic left, almost joke-worthy. Did you see the story in the Irish Independent about 'my summer of discontent'? Apart from some things that are factually incorrect and just plain propagandist, the author hit the nail on the head. Thats how I feel about the left now and your 'story' has re-a firmed my position. I'm turning more right-wing and pessimistic by the week.
I suppose I should just thank you for helping to finish off the process. I have no time for the left anymore. Genuine Communist Revolution, Jesus Christ Paddy..
Actually not relevant to what is said (you should respond to THAT).
But since curious:
a) I'm in the USA
b) In THIS case my interest is "left", doing my bit to question what makes us ineffective.
The particular in this case is the unfortunate tendency for left splinter groups to treat everybody in the other left splinter groups as the enemy instead of focusing on the real enemy. Those in other groups than our own are NOT "the enemy" because they believe the way forward is different than what our little group believes the best way forward. Not even if we are right and they mistaken.
''In general the radical left largely consists of bourgeois activists in disguise. They are there to help capitalism maintain itself.'' - there is nothing in your statement that has EVIDENCE TO BACK THIS RABID DEVIOUS PARANOID DRIVEL UP!
Some big company outsources to china and india,and take full advantage of their workers rights,builds up their economy and then outsources again..This is capitalism in action,capitalism at it's best.But there is no better alternative to creating jobs and being all inclusive to the majority and the minorities..is there?
and who the hell is mike novak?
I worked for a telemarketing company,who eventually moved to china and india,where workers rights are non existant,and money for facilities is not spent at all,whatever about adequaltely..
That is capitalism at it's best
A response to Mike Novack from Paddy Hackett
At the end of the day there is no real difference in general between the Left and Right in Ireland. The Left just want more of what the Right have been giving--an ever expanding nanny capitalist state. Bertie Ahearn was not incorrect when he described himself as a socialist since essentially the politics of the radical left is no different from his. He expanded the capitalist state.
Mike Novack comments are contained within the quotation marks.Mine are outside them.
"The gradualists believe (rightly or wrongly) that FIRST "the people" need to see the limits of reform before they will be willing to opt for a leap into the dark. Your opponents are not necessarily "supporting capitalism" by proceeding along reformist paths. They need not believe that a reformed capitalism would be fully acceptable. But they believe that until that has been tried and found wanting, "the people" aren't going to support anything more drastic."
What you say makes little sense. The radical left in its politics concerning the present economic financial crisis suggests that if its policies were adopted the immediate problems of capitalism would be solved. It indefatigably argues that the problems facing the Irish working class are a result of the particular policies of the government and the state generally together with the particular configuration of contemporary capitalism. It cannot see capitalism, in itself, as the source of the problem. Therefore it cannot recognise the need to eliminate the capitalist mode of production replacing it with a communist, thereby stateless, society. Consequently they advance a managed version of capitalism as the solution. This being so its politics is essentially the same as that of the bourgeoisie itself. The radical left is, in short, the agent of imperialism. Consequently radical lefties can have their cake and eat it. They can live a comfortable bourgeois existence (I shan't claim that for them all) while preaching to the "mindless" masses.
"The gradualists believe (rightly or wrongly) that FIRST "the people" need
to see the limits of reform before they will be willing to opt for a leap
into the dark. Your opponents are not necessarily "supporting capitalism" by
proceeding along reformist paths. They need not believe that a reformed
capitalism would be fully acceptable. But they believe that until that has
been tried and found wanting, "the people" aren't going to support anything
more drastic."
It is not a matter of the people's "need" to see the limits of reform.
Instead it is a matter of the radical left needing to see the limits of
reform. The problem is that it fails to see these real limits. It believes
that capitalism can be reformed to create a participative democratic system
in which the class interests of the working class are met. This is the
political ideology that the radical left seek to inculcate into the working
class. This is the ideology that obstructs the working class from becoming
class conscious, from being conscious of capitalism's limits. Furthermore
this is the pathetic ideology that hinders and even obstructs the emergence
of class consciousness and the corresponding popular mobilisation of the
working class against the capitalist attack on the working class in Ireland.
It is this ideology that helps explain the present failure of the working
class in Ireland to robustly resist the attack on its living standards.
At the end of the day there is no real difference in general between the
Left and Right in Ireland. The Left just want more of what the Right have
been giving--an ever expanding nanny capitalist state. Bertie Ahearn was not
incorrect when he described himself as a socialist since essentially the
politics of the radical left is no different from his. He expanded the
capitalist state. This is just what Kieran Allen, Michael Taft and Joe
Higgins advocate. But the point is that the Right have achieved what the
radical left have never achieved in Ireland. How then can the working class
be expected to engage in mass mobilisations when there is no qualitatively
different ideology and politics available to it.
as i said, a semantic cycle of revolutions.I'll leave you to the ideological self-hypnosis.
I do agree that any positive change has to be on an organised global scale. But that is a project in hand over a long evolutionary gestation, and chilliastic millenarianism is only going to degenerate into thousand year reichs and projects for eutopian centuries.
Meantime the climate has the fucking hiccups, the food supply forecast aint that great and folding, the powers that be are stunned in the headlights, population displacements are mounting(and we aint seen nuttin yet), the implement designed out of the last set of meltdowns (UN) is sinking like the League and what democratic machinery had been assembled has been hijacked by the corporate gangsters and their Goebbeldegook pumpers in the media.
revolution as a solution sounds to me about as inspiring as prozac. What is needed, surely, is a more elaborated diagram of how we get from here to stability and sustainability(beyond the dividend at the next corporate quarter). And Ireland will have to be a part of that transition. But it must be built incrementally.And the crew operating this effort that allows ideas be exchanged, rather than the flatline of 'human-interest' tail-chasing the mainstream media feed provides, is, like all those 'workers' chisseling away at broadening democratic facilities ther building crew.
making comments like,the left are there to make the capitalist bourjoise look good is a wild unfounded and wholly untrue accusation..
To suggest the lefties are capitalists in disguise is a lot of paranoid drivvel..
What sound reasonable evidence do you have to support this claim?
You are really a big muddle!
You misunderstand what I wrote. You are the one that suggested that Marx had been tried and failed and that something fresh is needed. You then follow this with the suggestion that what you call the incremental approach has not been tried. The implication is that it constitutes a fresh approach. But reformism has been around a long time. It has been well tried and well failed. Neo-liberalism was its baby. Anyway reformism is essentially an ideology designed to rally the masses around capitalism.
The Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolution were not communist revolutions. I am talking about communist revolution. Such revolution must have a global character. It cannot take place in a tiny little place like Ireland.
What was Lenin and Mao's gigs then?Enlighten me. I have been led to believe they were communist revolutions. Is your case then that they were bourgeous incremental reforms?Well be lost in circular self-satisfying semantics down that road.
Where does Mugabe fit on your spectrum?Or does your communist revolution message have any detail that makes it more intellectually rigorous than a vague promise of a secular kingdom of heavenly fraternity?
I believe you dont set fire to the ship just because you have a lousy skipper and corrupt crew. We cannot exterminate our problems. We have to understand and transcend them. Otherwise we get the Orwellian pruning effect of Animal Farm, where the new farm managers repeat the old cycle. I'm with Connolly, its a long slow job and we wont see it finished. Which means we'll never be unemployed. Pity about the lousy wages. Its evolution we need, away from our animal-pack mentalities, and into post superstition age of rational honesty. For every Fidel, who can resist the excesses of concentrated power despite his geo-political position, we get a Pol Pot or Mugabe or uncle Adolf out of the revolutionary spin cycles. There are times for tactical or strategic revolt, but I dont think its a viable first resort in our repair kit. Your new and untried way smacks of messianic evangelising on a verbal formula I found unconvincing since i first encountered it on the lips of Marxist-Leninists and Maoist dreamers back in the sixties. My experince is that such abstractions lead to the same objectification of people as do the imperatives of market totalitarianism. Bad as Bush was, I'd take my chances in America rather than some fresh experiment in Stalinist certitudes. We've observed where that led. Sure it modernised Russia, some might claim, from a peasantry to an industrial state, and may have kept the Russians (as Mao might be credited for blocking the predatory imperial Open Door policy)from carve up into African squalor, but I think when Paddy didn't revolve for all the famines, and when his first resort is still the uncle in Chigago, he's not going to man any barricades this week. And I think this revolutionary creed serves no-one more than the fat capitalists who can whip up their corporate security industries on the terror of the people that their hard earned pittance will be nationalised by these savage reds. Socialism without democracy is another oxymoron. Its logic is the spurious mirage of a 'dictatorship of the proletariate', managed by a jargon-locked self-appointed cadre.
How revolutionaries can BEST proceed toward their ultimate goals of change depends very much upon the society which they are attempting to change. The problem isn't that your "opponents" within the radical left are "bourgeois activists in disguise" but that you and they are in disagreement about how best to proceed.
I'm not saying that they are right and you wrong but want to point out that you are missing something very critical. In societies which are approximations of democracies your immediate problem is to convince enough people that your alternative is better. In effect all you are doing is shouting "we need drastic/revolutionary change" without presenting a convincing vision of "afterwards". Rightly or wrongly the people aren't buying your ANYTHING else message. They don't trust your "pig in a poke".
The problem is at avery fundamental level. Yes I understand, you are probably strict determinists and have faith that SIMPLY eliminating capitalism will lead to a definite "something better". But unfortunately for your approach, "the people" don't share your faith. It doen't matter whether or not you are right but whether you can convince people.
The gradualists believe (rightly or wrongly) that FIRST "the people" need to see the limits of reform before they will be willing to opt for a leap into the dark. Your opponents are not necessarily "supporting capitalism" by proceeding along reformist paths. They need not believe that a reformed capitalism would be fully acceptable. But they believe that until that has been tried and found wanting, "the people" aren't going to support anything more drastic.
How do you prove them wrong? NOT by name calling. NOT be treating your fellow leftists as the enemy becuase they are trying different approaches than what you want to try. You prove them wrong by success in organizing the masses to WANT more. And sorry comrades, but you don't appear to be very successful at that.
A comment by opus diablos on Friends of Capitalism
A brief comment on remarks by opus diablos on my Friends of Capitalism piece.
"Is that not full circle?In practise it usually proves to be.Its easy to propose rip-down ideological formulaic panaceas for our complex problems, but incremental progress may be the only way. Year zero solutions give us Rwandas and Cambodias. but that wont be done by reducing the corporate jungle to a burning tip-head. That only reduces us to animal drives again, and the revolutions continue. We need to break out of unsustainable cycles, and we need fresher expressions than the failed and , rightly, discredited cliches of Marxists. Karl did say he was not one. Marx's analysis is relevant, but forging a new opiate from his ideas is small tribute to his efforts."
The above piece contradicts itself.
You say "incremental progress may be the only way" and later you suggest "we need fresher expressions the the failed and rightly discredited cliches of Marxists." But the incremental progress approach is not fresh. It has been tumbled out continuously even by those that say they are revolutionaries. History has shown it to be a failure. It is my message that calls for a new and untried way --communist revolution.
Is that not full circle?In practise it usually proves to be.Its easy to propose rip-down ideological formulaic panaceas for our complex problems, but incremental progress may be the only way. Year zero solutions give us Rwandas and Cambodias. I agree we need a radical change of our value systems, but that wont be done by reducing the corporate jungle to a burning tip-head. That only reduces us to animal drives again, and the revolutions continue. We need to break out of unsustainable cycles, and we need fresher expressions than the failed and , rightly, discredited cliches of Marxists. Karl did say he was not one. Marx's analysis is relevant, but forging a new opiate from his ideas is small tribute to his efforts.