Leftists should take pause when contemplating that the socialist movement is two hundred years old and things are getting worse:
The venerable leftist social justice orientation is understandable, creditable, and righteous. But it’s whack-a-mole. We should have no illusions about it. What’s needed is social transformation.
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When there are transitions of worldview there is a tendency for believers to hold on to as much of the old as possible while, at first, deigning to incorporate some elements of the new. There can be a crisis of consciousness when observing that aspects of the new are diametrically opposed to aspects of the old.
The notion of progressive development has been a fundament of the Red worldview. “History is moving forward.” It figures to be jarring to consider the idea that what we call “history” (the relatively short period of five millennia since the rise of the states, commerce, urbanization, writing, etc.) has, rather, been going in a disastrous direction. Yet doing so would help explain the failure of the socialist movement and of leftism in general.
There is technological progress, no doubt. It has enabled the “advance” of problematic civilizational trajectories such that now we are arriving at a point of catastrophic unsustainability and cultural malaise. There is little progress re: militarism, inequality, power elitism, hypertrophy, ecological overshoot, and the tribulations of “everyday life”: atomization, alienation, complexity, withering of community, spiritual impoverishment. For 250 years the industrial machinery has been pumping out enough in the way of commodities to give a sense of material compensation. But at this point humanity is choking on the surfeit of stuff, “information,” and stimulation (people all over the world have phone-walkie-talkies and thus suffer from the surfeit that internet hyper-communication entails). The sense of compensation is dwindling. All manifestations of hypermodernity—industrialism, capitalism, socialism, nationalism—have disappointed.
The bourgeois and the socialist both used to believe in the notion of progress. The former tended to conflate democracy and freedom with capitalist “free markets.” The latter said that the next “higher stage” would inaugurate “truly human history.” There were skeptics during the 19th century (Thoreau notable), but in recent years debates about progression have become ubiquitous.
Surely it does make sense to see a certain kind of progress in regard to the sophistication that ecological consciousness and social responsibility advocacy entail. And, of course, wealth generation has accelerated; on that basis (and its effects on social statistics) techno-optimists like Steven Pinker say we’ve never had it so good. In response, Richard Heinberg suggests that our times will be remembered as the era of “Peak Everything”—i.e., levels of population, production, consumption (even pollution and depletion) will be headed down from this point.
Heinberg associates unsustainability with pending energy shortages. The truth may involve a deeper critique. After all, it’s possible that the wizards will master fusion. Maybe they’ll learn how to harness 0.12% of the solar energy coming into Earth each day instead of just 0.04%. We should never bet against their ability to do more.
Material peaks can’t be sustained because the institutional-technological megamachine is degrading habitat. The flora and fauna are dying off and people can’t feel at home within it. That’s the source of the malaise. That’s why there is less and less sense of general improvement of the human condition. That’s why we observe the populace exhibiting dissatisfaction, even disorientation. That’s why the electorate careens between voting in the right, tossing out the right, voting in the left, tossing out the left.
In regard to the supposedly two-sided political spectrum, both “sides” are under the influence of industrial modernity. Rightism advocating less taxation and less regulation; leftism advocating more government, more jobs, more welfare … both fail to resonate. Both are stuck. The electorate is stuck. The populace feels stuck. Leftism has been stuck.
“Alternative: the Greens” . . .
- degrowth is necessary, so we need to find a way to make a case for it
- ecosocialism is imperative for transcending capitalism and opening pathways toward the greening of society
- Big Government is anathema (so we need to disassociate leftism from it)
- the mega-states are imperial formations; the mega-corporations are economic empires
- against empire / for community (as per: “Community-based Economics”)toward living more simply, more lightly, and more locally
- decentralization and simplification as liberatory
- toward bioregionalism and devolution of power
The above is not your grandfather’s leftism. It’s not Marx’s socialism. It calls into question Bookchin’s assertions about “liberatory technology.” Based on a radically alternative worldview, it’s “new paradigm” and “off the spectrum.” I believe it’s how the Greens can contribute toward the salvation of leftism.
