I’ve been rather taken to task by David at Though Cowards Flinch over my comments on the left’s need for new ideas to carry us forward into the 21st century…
This lack of context renders useless Unity’s characterisation of the ideologues of modern politics as out of date. The age in years of each view is irrelevant without a discussion of their use and abuse in history, and the door is closed by Unity to a detailed discussion on the merits and demerits of each idea as an idea in itself by his list. Each idea, from Marxism to NeoConservatism is dismissed on the basis of flimsy historical evidence or anecdotes from its progenitor as though this formed a substantial argument.
To which I can only say that even though I’m not known for my brevity, there is still only so much you can do in a single blog post if its not to turn into a doctoral thesis.
David’s correct in suggesting that context is of crucial importance here, and my rather curt dismissal of a number of ideological positions, from Marxism to Neoconservatism, is very much founded in questions of context. Each of these ideologies evolved in a particular place at a particular time and within a particular context - a context that no longer exists. My own contention, which David and others are welcome to explore if they wish, is that each of these ideologies is a creature of its own time and if, today, most of them are looking increasingly careworn and not just a little threadbare then that is primarily a consequence of their adherents unwillingness and/or inability to re-evaluate their ideas in light of the changing circumstances around them.
The nub of David’s objections is, perhaps, most succinctly expressed is this observation:
I am not convinced, however, of the incorrectness of some of the ‘old’ ideas - class struggle, trades unions, radical democracy, and I see no argument as to why these should be left behind. Whatever 1983 meant, it is laziness to comfortably rest on the consensus supposition that it entailed the end of class politics.
Whatever David’s personal convictions may or may not be, the question that needs to be addressed is not that of whether there are arguments against carrying forward ideas such as class struggle, trade unions and radical democracy but rather whether there are any good arguments for carrying these ideas forward into the future and, if so, what are they.
How do we engage in the ‘class struggle’ in a society in which the norm is to treat class as a function of lifestyle and not as something defined by the individual’s relationship to the means of production. It not even clear whether this relationship, which Marx identified and which forms one of the cornerstones of Marxist theory, is even as relevant as it once was. Both Baudrillard, and more obliquely, Debord postulated that it is now consumption and not production that is the main driver in capitalist society and that idea certainly fits better with the social norm which defines class in terms of the acquisition of a particular lifestyle and the consumer goods that go with it.
How does that modify the radical left’s approach to the class struggle?
Does it necessitate that they take a different approach to it?
Can one even wage a class struggle when class is largely defined in what appears to be relatively superficial terms?
If ‘the left’ is the carry forward the idea of the class struggle into the 21st century then those are questions that need to be answered, along with many others - its not enough simply to play Nelson (and that’s Horatio not Ha-Ha) and announce that you’re going to keep on banging the same old drum because you can’t any reason not to.
I’m not, personally, averse to carrying forward ideas derived from the ‘old’ ideologies into the future - the left has a rich and varied canon of philosophical and political thought to draw on and it would be daft to chuck out ideas simply because they are merely old, temporally-speaking, but I do think it only right, and sensible, that those ideas and ideologies (and their adherents) should have to make their case for their inclusion in any new left-wing Weltanschauung that might emerge and that they do so on the back of having demonstrated their relevance to the context in which the left functions today and in which it will operate in the future and not on the strength of past glories, real or imagined.
As for where we might look for genuinely new ideas on which the left might be able to hang its hat in future, let me throw just one into the ring - Homo reciprocans, Samuel Bowles‘ altruistic counterpart to Homo economicus, the Economic man who so often seems to bestride the economic assumptions of right-wing politicians like a colossus, even if many right-wing economists are no less sceptical of his merits than those on the left.
There is already a growing measure of interest amongst the political classes in this newly postulated Altruistic Man, much of which has stemmed, recently, from Thaler and Sunstein’s ‘Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness’‘, interest in which seems to rest as much in Thaler’s regular consultations with Austan Goolsbee (until recently, Barack Obama’s top economic adviser) as it does in his actual ideas.
In the UK its been the Conservative Party that has recently shown a marked interest in ‘Nudge’, in the idea of Soft/Libertarian paternalism and in the use of techniques and strategies derived from behavioural economics as an alternative to New Labour’s social authoritarianism, in which citizens are treated, for the most part, as economic and social units to be managed by the state. So should we, perhaps, be concerned here that the Conservative Party might be stealing a march on what could, and perhaps, should be the liberal-left’s next big idea?
Not really.
Not only can we be fairly secure in relying on the modern political elite’s inability to do any really deep-thinking - no one has yet emerged from within the ranks of the Cameroonies who seems capable of fulfilling the role that Keith Joseph undertook for Margaret Thatcher, that of fully integrating the economic ideas of Friedman and the Chicago School in the mainstream Tory canon - but the Tory’s have still got a long way to go in dealing with the ideological legacy of Thatcherism, which for all Cameron’s efforts to colonise the centre ground, remain very much the Tory elephant in the room, for all that this elephant is very noticeable to us bloggers in the form of Conservative Home.
We can’t hang around or rest on our laurels, here, but there’s time yet for doing the kind of serious thinking necessary to fully understand and appreciate the potential offered by Homo reciprocans and there are resources we can draw upon, already, that offer routes into that kind of thinking, routes that lead to what should be familiar territory for the liberal-left. To cite just one of these, can I recommend Marc Hauser’s exploration of the evolutionary foundations of morality, ‘Moral Minds‘, in which he advances a fascinating hypothesis: that humans possess an innate, universal moral ’sense’ that functions as a Rawlsian ‘black box’ and acts as a trigger for the Humean/Emotional and Kantian/Intellectual moral thinking with which we’re all rather more familiar.
I’m very much at the early stages of my own thinking here, but what I can see is potential.
There is scope here to bring together the liberal-left’s longstanding moral concerns (Hauser) with equality and social justice with a viable theory of altruistic economics (Bowles) and a relatively well established framework for dealing with the question of Justice (Rawls) without, necessarily, compromising a commitment to personal liberty, which has so often been the element that the left, certainly, have chosen to sacrifice in pursuit of its other goals and objectives.
And that’s an idea well worth pursuing, even at the cost of a complex and seemingly abstract debate or two… or three… or however many it takes to bottom out the question of whether there really is something of interest here for the liberal-left.
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Sunny Hundal