[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are it behooves you. This Reader is about what The Left is and what-it-is-not today and the implications of this for HR . For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
–Charles De Gaulle is said to have said of himself: “I am neither on the right nor on the left, but above”.
In the first half of the 20th century… who would have thought to ask, ‘What is The Left?’
1. The answer seemed obvious and was associated with the struggles for decolonization, for the rights of the ignored majority, for the fight against discrimination, against exploitation and war. It was associated with the ideas of a nascent socialism and of the utopia of a better world in which the recognition of man would put an end to centuries of suffering and arbitrariness.
2. Names that are illustrious today –Mandela, Ben Barka, Lumumba, Ho Chi Minh, Allende, and so many others– illuminated the political practice that deserved to be identified as The Left.
In the 21st century, however, the same question, ‘What is The Left?’, encounters twisted, accommodating, even shameful answers
3. The inglorious demise of ‘Real Socialism’ –stifled by dictatorships with monolithic pretensions, corruption and various forms of capitalist restoration– eliminated with a stroke the chance that allowed millions of citizens to choose sides.
4. Since the early 1980s, when left-wing parties began to implement right-wing policies, the confusion has only grown. Today, it is difficult to differentiate between the economic policies of social democracy and those of the ‘popular parties’, a label behind which the right wing hides.
5. Currently, figures such as Jeremy Corbyn (Great Britain) and Bernie Sanders (USA) are described by the press as extremists and radicals, even though their long political careers show that they are simply faithful to the original form of social democracy. Neither of them are Bolsheviks, extremists or radicals; they simply demand what is advocated by the US Constitution or what seems legitimate in Great Britain.
6. In the immediate postwar II period, Charles de Gaulle believed that France’s future and greatness required state control of entire sectors of the economy: the banking sector, energy, telecommunications, transport, a significant part of the electrical and electronics industry, part of the steel and metalworking industry, agro-industrial research, the aerospace industry, the military industry, etc. De Gaulle protected health, education, and social security from eventual commercialization, which continues to this day. For him, such a policy was an indispensable condition for a society in which progress would reach all French people. However, Charles de Gaulle was not a leftist.
7. Less than half a century ago, a brief period of time in the scale of history, the forces that defended the interests of the most modest sectors of the population, advocating a substantial change in the running of the state, considered the nationalization of basic resources to be an essential element of progressive, patriotic, left-wing and, why not say it, revolutionary policies.
The mutation of The Left did not happen overnight, nor was it confined to any particular country or region of the world
8. In the 1970s, a discourse of ‘breaking with Capitalism’ prevailed, adopting the Marxist tradition of The Left: it was dubbed the ‘Second Left’. The main characteristics of the Second Left can be summed-up as the practice of policies acceptable to the business world and financial markets, as well as the development of trade union activity that was complacent towards employers. In the 1980s, some social demands began to be met. However, from then on, economic policies veered towards unbridled liberalism, leaving the social considerations behind.
9. In Great Britain, a ‘Third Way’ thesis was developed, a form of social democracy that unashamedly assumed Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. So much so that Thatcher considered Tony Blair her heir. (Is Tony Blair left-wing??) The Third Way disappeared as quietly as it had arrived. In an unlikely turn of events, Jeremy Corbyn emerged as the leader of the British Labor Party. Curiously, Corbyn’s worst enemies are not in the Conservative Party, but on the right wing of his own Labor Party that, incidentally, managed to oust him from the leadership.
10. In Spain, after holding power for 14 years, Felipe González, discredited by a long series of corruption scandals, gave way to the hard right of José María Aznar. Is Felipe Gonzalez left-wing? (At least now, he has taken an anti-Iran war stand…).
‘The Left of the left’
11. In the prevailing ideological confusion, in a reality where words lose their meaning and language has been perverted into a tool of domination, ‘Socialism’ or ‘Leftism’ today refer to any organization, any charlatan, any wolf in sheep’s clothing who poses as a progressive while serving the worst interests of The Right.
12. The press, controlled by financial powers, devised a way to refer to those who, at least nominally, remain loyal to the interests of those rendered poor, coining the term ‘Left of the Left’ (as opposed to the right of the left described above). Lucidity dictates that we understand that what is now called The Left has gradually become just a label. (Unfortunately, as with food products, the label hides more than it reveals).
13. Hence, it is necessary to redefine what The Left is, what it means to be left-wing, while being aware that the mere need to do so points to the extent of the current ideological defeat.
What then is The Left?
14. If we look at its historical roots, we find that the terms “left” and “right” in politics originated during the French Revolution. From this point of view, the left is those who recognize popular sovereignty as the only legitimate source of power and those that maintain that nothing and no one can claim any right or power that does not emanate from the will of the people.
15. For those who identify as left-wing in politics, there is no constituent power outside or above the people. No citizen or group of citizens, no matter how eminent they may claim to be, can impose their own will on the people.
16. A couple questions arise
- Can those who accommodated themselves to the constitutions of multiple dictatorships claim to be left-wing?
- Can those who deny the people the inalienable right to freely and sovereignly determine the legal framework that should regulate life in society, seeking to transfer sovereignty to a group of self-proclaimed experts, a select group of parliamentarians, or a bunch of former magistrates, claim for themselves the label of leftist?
- Is it consistent with being left-wing to be elected, whether as president of the republic or as a member of parliament in this anti-democratic framework as described, without denouncing any of these once elected and without doing anything to repeal their mandates?
You be the judge.
17. Be that as it may, we have a clue: As said, the historical roots of The Left in politics place it among those who reject and combat any power that attempts to place itself above the will of the people. Monarchs, markets, oligarchies, elites, experts, parliaments, churches, everything must submit to the rules imposed by the general interest and the general will. Since the 18th century, this general will has been expressed in constituent assemblies that freely gathered to debate the rules that should govern communal life. In this way, public freedoms* were guaranteed: freedom of opinion, freedom of trade, freedom to profess and practice a religion, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, as well as all social, economic and cultural rights.
*: All freedoms have limits –that of not harming or damaging the general interest–except freedom of conscience: anyone can think what they want, express their opinion as they see fit, adopt this or that philosophical view, believe or not believe in deities, without anyone being able to claim to limit or repress that right.
18. Being left-wing, therefore, means being the unyielding enemy of a vicious imposed institutionality, later disguised by the ‘Center Left’, associated in this endeavor with the ‘Center Right’ in a panoramic conspiracy to protect vested interests.
19. No one in their right mind could argue that such a Left –the bearer of an ambition as legitimate as it is democratic– is extremist or radical: it merely demands for the country the rights enshrined by the United Nations itself.
20. Put simply: The Left that does not tolerate the hijacking of sovereignty and the denial of all human rights is The Left! (Or the ‘left of the left’, if you prefer).**
**: Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, in two very different realities, do not need to insist on convincing others that their political and economic proposals embody The Left. It is enough for them to present their thinking, their track record, their actions, and their programs.
21. The single mindset, the press at the service of financial powers, the numerous think tanks that have replaced citizens reflection, the IMF, the champions of political correctness, those who suck up public resources and those who see efficiency only in private action, have for more than three decades built the corral within which it is possible to think, imagine, and express what they consider ‘acceptable differences’. This is the elite that thinks within its framework, within the self-imposed limits of what is permissible, of what is ‘politically correct’.
22. The desire and the will to break out of the framework (the corral) defines, irrefutably, what it means to be left-wing in our day. It also means breaking with the former ‘leftists’ who have become supporters of the free market and social liberalism, who remain attached to the teat that nourishes them while serving the interests of big capital.
Bottom line
23. This all makes it difficult to establish the vast differences that continue to exist between The Left and The Right, because they no longer even present themselves as wolves in sheep’s clothing: now they are wolves in wolf’s clothing, but they continue to pretend to be leftists. (all excerpted from L. Casado)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com A