[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are it behooves you. This HR Reader is aboutwhy politicians are not‘all the same’ when it comes to forging a new political future and organization.For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. Today’s Capitalism is extremely aggressive, it is not just neoliberal. It is a mistake to keep calling it Neoliberalism, as if we were still in the last century. What we are facing now is a very aggressive, accelerated, highly technological Capitalism that operates in alliance with a small group of corporate owners, i.e., the giants who control Big Data. In this context, Big Data means knowledge –practically all of humanity’s information– captured and commodified by a handful of actors who make billions of dollars from it. That is what Capitalism is today: a system that produces and reproduces inequality, deepens social problems, concentrates wealth and power, and thereby leads to even more exclusion and migration.*
*: Note: Racism, patriarchy, discrimination, gender violence, injustice and submission existed way before Capitalism found its roots so that Capitalism is not their primary cause; it came to worsen all these blemishes.
2. Universities must help young people by creating much more awareness of this (and beyond…?). It is often said that youth is the hope of the people, because new ideas come from the young. That is fine. But what about the hegemonic culture shaping youth today? Why do the young still believe that everything better lies in the North? This is devastating for a culture, for a country, for a society. A mindset of general dependence, cultural, political, and otherwise, continues to dominate. As a result, others keep dictating what we should do. We can no longer afford to live like this. (J. Breilh)
But dependence is only one part of the problem.
In many countries, street violence has superseded ideology as the new political currency; it has overshadowed the traditional debate on redistribution and other political priorities. (Jeffery Tobin)
3. Candidates must face this uncomfortable truth: Today, security, not ideology, has become the decisive measure of political power; it is what now animates politics more than anything else, i.e., the pervasive fear of insecurity. These pressures make ideology look secondary. Insecurity cuts across class and political identity; fear is now the universal denominator. In this sense, security is not just about crime, it has become shorthand for stability, predictability and control.
4. Too many political leaders now accumulate legitimacy, not by ideology, but by their performance in trying to bring back public order. Whether measures taken succeed in reducing crime long term is almost beside the point; what matters is that they look like forceful actions. Voters, weary of abstract debates, reward the actors that seem most willing to act decisively.**
**: The turn towards security comes with costs. Militarization may deliver short-term reassurance, but it can and does erode democratic institutions and weakens civilian oversight. Governments risk normalizing emergency powers that outlast emergencies.
5. Bottom line here: Where past generations judged leaders by their economic models, today’s citizens make assessments based on whether they can walk home without fear. Inflation still matters. Jobs still matter. But fear is the hardest currency –and the one that decides elections. (J. Tobin)
So, is the Left/Right divide still of relevance?
–Into how many ‘Rights’ is the Left divided today? (Politika)
6. Right-wing parties bring about a radical rupture in our political practices, promoting a revolution that, they say, will allow them to govern for a long time and, of course, bring about legal proceedings to condemn what they call the ineptitude and corruption of the Left in power. (Juan P. Cardenas)
7. It is not that fascism, the extreme version of the Right, is returning; it simply never left. (Politika) The rise of fascism should be a lesson for ‘legalistic socialists’ in the Left, who believed –and alas! still believe– that we can overthrow the right-wing bourgeoisie with the votes of half plus one of the voters; …“and they did not want to believe us when we told them that if they ever achieved a majority in parliament and wanted –just to make an absurd assumption– to implement socialism through parliament, they would get their asses kicked”! (Errico Malatesta, Italian anarchist and revolutionary socialist, 1853–1932)
8. If we focus on left-wing parties, they are criticized for having little representation of the working class among their deputies and senators (not to mention the Right, where their absence is a hall mark). Today, politics is dominated by professionals with university degrees. But politics has nothing to do with academic merit, it has rather to do with militancy, commitment, honesty and ethical and human rights (HR) values that link words to deeds.
9. The idea of politics as an opportunity to obtain gifts is becoming more widespread every day. Cases of personal enrichment, bribery, and kickbacks abound –in the North as much as in the South. However, despite corruption, bribery, and influence peddling, there are thousands of elected representatives in cities, towns, and villages who do their jobs honestly.
10. Bottom line here: We have all, at some point, said: “Politicians are all the same.”*** That is why anti-politics is gaining ground. If politicians are all the same, what is the point of participating? Democratic disaffection and high abstention rates are intertwined with this assertion. Social unrest tends to be managed by xenophobic demagogic, racist, far-right-denier leaders. The lack of utopia is the prelude to a new totalitarianism –whether we want to call it fascism or not. We must rethink politics as a civic practice. Otherwise, we will be in the hands of Führers, whatever their political persuasion. (Marcos Roitman)
***: Moreover, politics has become a profession for mediocres. The phenomenon is global, and the worst examples are in the so-called ‘West’. The absence of a guiding principle, of what was once called ideology (or cosmovision), gives license for any kind of nonsense. (Politika)
11. Keep in mind: Crises always present options. Which ones prevail depends in part on dominant conceptions of what might be possible thus the need to unveil the deceptions of the false solutions the capitalist system consistently attempts to proclaim and put in place. (Nora Mckeon)
The contradiction between Capitalism and Socialism (Right and Left) remains as valid when it comes to assessing the decisions of those who govern us (M. Roitman)
–Politics consists of disputing spaces of power in a field of forces that oscillate from one side of the ideological spectrum to the other.
–For others, more than anything, politics depicts a current façade phenomenon; it is often pamphletary, manifesting itself more as a series of slogans that can be read in wall graffiti that zero-in more on consent alliances or dissent disputes than on moral and HR issues. (Victor Venegas)
12. A couple more of my iron laws, in this case about politicians
–Sometimes prestige is a well-dressed lie. (Lautaro Rivara)
–“Lie, lie, lie, something will stick”. (Goebbels)
–The rivalry between politicians is to be managed; it will not wishfully disappear. (Ruth Ferrero)
Bottom bottom line
13. If it does not want to perish, humanity is currently compelled, across the entire planet, to give itself a new political organization. The predominant feature of the global and national situation is that there is no one to lead the mass movement and steer it into a new era –towards the beginning of a new phase in the history of humanity. This, because today, Capitalism threatens the very foundations of human civilization. Electoralist proposals within the framework of the current system will solve nothing; they represent the perpetuation of the model of exploitation, so that the struggle against these false illusions becomes a task for those who truly aspire to transform society. The immorality of the global financial system, that throws millions of human beings into misery, is reason enough to rise up and redouble our commitment to fight for workers and for a social system based on equity, equality and HR. (Luis Mesina)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com
Postscript/Marginalia
—An afterthought: Why do we need to so painstaikingly organize for structural changes in so many areas when our capitalist strategic enemies do not necessarily need to do so much organization? It is because they are all motivated and unified by a strong profit seeking drive and we lack an, as strong a unifying leit motif to counter them. We end up being overwhelmed.
–American Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson says that under Capitalism obedience is enforced not really by law but by culture and paycheck.