The PMC liberal-left types are just as to blame imo. And even many “Marxists” have fallen into similar traps, because they all tend to be cut from similar urban PMC university cloth, and thus share similar habitus despite the labels they might use to rationalize their sentiments
I get that. I am of the PMC Left with origins in the working poor. When I was in grad school for policy. My peers who are from higher income brackets than me would call some of my positions, which would probably fall under “conservative left” as class reductionist or populist. I see your takes here as pragmatic and realpolitic.
I want to say i disagree with this, but i've seen way too many new DSA members who get sucked into completely unproductive pipelines about cultural hegemony while having none of the theoretical basis to understand or debate any of these position properly, eventually resorting to moralizing and 'doing the right thing'. Wisdom and acceptance of pluralism is very much lacking today
I often wonder why the fake left have screwed up so badly in the first place? They have destroyed half of the world in the name of socialism, and it becomes evident that there is no socialism.
The problem is that here in France, Michea is coming from a false predicate, the left is already conservative, in fact the only real conservative force is the left.
They don’t even read their theoretical corpus anymore, I have each volume of the Capital and Grundriss at home, I have yet to meet a left militant for whom that’s the case.
What was the name of the 10 September movement? Block everything.
What was the word of order of any protest in the last 20 years? Maintain gained advantages ( even the chants are the same “we will fight to maintain our advantages” ).
How are the union funded here? By governments and entreprise comités of course. What is the goal? Maintain what we have.
Most leftist militants if not the majority of professional ones, mainly because of the law on funding political parties ( 5% to be refunded by the state, which makes most party a business ), work in a state funded NGOs, which represents around 2.9 million employees dependent of state funding. The other ones work either as an a local government aide or in a university if not a cultural profession. So that’s the material truth, in order to criticize the system, to have a job funded by the government they must maintain the said system.
What happened in the last elections here? Well of course the revolutionaries made an alliance with Macron, in order to protect the republic from “Fascism” and make sure than nothing would change.
Why is immigration defended? To maintain the pension system of course, for growth, to represent our values.
I have yet to heard any left militant from any serious parties ( Anars don’t count ) say anything else than a variation of: “Society must be defended”.
But what is the political subject of the left today? Simply nothing.
But here is a fun observation, the right started as a defensive movement first of a small caste, the aristocracy, then of still small class but larger portion, the bourgeoisie, then it became the defender of the middle class before finally becoming an offensive force in the name of the patria in which different class were represented.
The left did the exact opposite movement, first an offensive force in the name of the patria, then of a smaller class: the proletariat, then of an even smaller class, students and cultural elites, then a defensive force in the name of an even smaller subset of that: Those who are of left wing values, minorities of sexual orientations and ethnic foreigners.
That’s why the 21st century will be a siege, a very long struggle session for whatever calls itself left, the left has been contracting upon itself since 1848, this cannot be helped.
In my view, you so seem to occasionally take "consciousness first" jabs at the left. That's where I sometimes take issue substantively or strategically. But good to know those situations are the exception, not the rule.
Obviously, nobody's perfect, including at being a moral anti-perfectionist. <3
Pluralism under the left umbrella is no longer possible imo. Culture now substantially dominates economics in that sphere and it can't stop feeding on itself.
Every normie the economic left has to grapple with this black pill..."If you call yourself a leftist, you can get away with embracing non-socialist economic positions, and won’t be kicked out of the club by peers. You cannot get away with not affirming black worship, trannyism, and replacement migration. Therefore that’s what leftism is."
Even many on the right now define themselves less by a program than by 'the absence of leftism', increasingly open to economic pluralism yet more reactive against the left’s sacred cows.
I think it's a little too late for this in the US right now. The authoritarians have the levers of power and now that they've had a good taste, they will not let go, no matter what they have to do. Within the right wing coalition that has formed under the Republican Party, not everyone agrees on everything, it's true, but they *do* all agree that the rest of us are their enemy, and there are "no enemies to the right".
The opposite is true. PMC identity politics ends up addressing the concerns of identity groups at the level of representation and ends up only helping a small number of them, mostly who are PMC already while leaving the everyone else in the dust. Read Musa Al-Gharbi’s book “we have never been woke” or my interview with Prod Touree Reed. The idea that the New Deal only helped white men is the biggest lie ever. The opposite is true
Minor editorial note, nothing about the meaningful content:
> Elite overproduction, as described by Peter Turchin, provides a complementary structural explanation: when societies produce more would-be elites than available elite positions, intra-elite competition and status conflict can fuel moralized political zeal.
> If you want one more lens on this, consider “elite overproduction,” the idea that modern societies can generate more credentialed elite aspirants than there are elite jobs and status positions to absorb them, producing intraclass conflict and cultural radicalization. Peter Turchin has argued for versions of this structural dynamic in American history, and it is at least a plausible backdrop for why parts of the professional class have moved sharply left on cultural symbolism even as the broader public has not. [21] [22]
"Elite overproduction" is introduced twice, the first instance is probably a holdover from a previous edit.
This article is exactly how I have felt about left wing spaces for awhile now. I blame anarchist types ofc.
The PMC liberal-left types are just as to blame imo. And even many “Marxists” have fallen into similar traps, because they all tend to be cut from similar urban PMC university cloth, and thus share similar habitus despite the labels they might use to rationalize their sentiments
I get that. I am of the PMC Left with origins in the working poor. When I was in grad school for policy. My peers who are from higher income brackets than me would call some of my positions, which would probably fall under “conservative left” as class reductionist or populist. I see your takes here as pragmatic and realpolitic.
I want to say i disagree with this, but i've seen way too many new DSA members who get sucked into completely unproductive pipelines about cultural hegemony while having none of the theoretical basis to understand or debate any of these position properly, eventually resorting to moralizing and 'doing the right thing'. Wisdom and acceptance of pluralism is very much lacking today
Yup. Many such cases.
I often wonder why the fake left have screwed up so badly in the first place? They have destroyed half of the world in the name of socialism, and it becomes evident that there is no socialism.
Well put !
The problem is that here in France, Michea is coming from a false predicate, the left is already conservative, in fact the only real conservative force is the left.
They don’t even read their theoretical corpus anymore, I have each volume of the Capital and Grundriss at home, I have yet to meet a left militant for whom that’s the case.
What was the name of the 10 September movement? Block everything.
What was the word of order of any protest in the last 20 years? Maintain gained advantages ( even the chants are the same “we will fight to maintain our advantages” ).
How are the union funded here? By governments and entreprise comités of course. What is the goal? Maintain what we have.
Most leftist militants if not the majority of professional ones, mainly because of the law on funding political parties ( 5% to be refunded by the state, which makes most party a business ), work in a state funded NGOs, which represents around 2.9 million employees dependent of state funding. The other ones work either as an a local government aide or in a university if not a cultural profession. So that’s the material truth, in order to criticize the system, to have a job funded by the government they must maintain the said system.
What happened in the last elections here? Well of course the revolutionaries made an alliance with Macron, in order to protect the republic from “Fascism” and make sure than nothing would change.
Why is immigration defended? To maintain the pension system of course, for growth, to represent our values.
I have yet to heard any left militant from any serious parties ( Anars don’t count ) say anything else than a variation of: “Society must be defended”.
But what is the political subject of the left today? Simply nothing.
But here is a fun observation, the right started as a defensive movement first of a small caste, the aristocracy, then of still small class but larger portion, the bourgeoisie, then it became the defender of the middle class before finally becoming an offensive force in the name of the patria in which different class were represented.
The left did the exact opposite movement, first an offensive force in the name of the patria, then of a smaller class: the proletariat, then of an even smaller class, students and cultural elites, then a defensive force in the name of an even smaller subset of that: Those who are of left wing values, minorities of sexual orientations and ethnic foreigners.
That’s why the 21st century will be a siege, a very long struggle session for whatever calls itself left, the left has been contracting upon itself since 1848, this cannot be helped.
La gauche c’est le système jusqu’au bout.
In my view, you so seem to occasionally take "consciousness first" jabs at the left. That's where I sometimes take issue substantively or strategically. But good to know those situations are the exception, not the rule.
Obviously, nobody's perfect, including at being a moral anti-perfectionist. <3
Pluralism under the left umbrella is no longer possible imo. Culture now substantially dominates economics in that sphere and it can't stop feeding on itself.
Every normie the economic left has to grapple with this black pill..."If you call yourself a leftist, you can get away with embracing non-socialist economic positions, and won’t be kicked out of the club by peers. You cannot get away with not affirming black worship, trannyism, and replacement migration. Therefore that’s what leftism is."
Even many on the right now define themselves less by a program than by 'the absence of leftism', increasingly open to economic pluralism yet more reactive against the left’s sacred cows.
I think it's a little too late for this in the US right now. The authoritarians have the levers of power and now that they've had a good taste, they will not let go, no matter what they have to do. Within the right wing coalition that has formed under the Republican Party, not everyone agrees on everything, it's true, but they *do* all agree that the rest of us are their enemy, and there are "no enemies to the right".
This is how you end up with policies that only address the political-economic realities of people with privilege
The opposite is true. PMC identity politics ends up addressing the concerns of identity groups at the level of representation and ends up only helping a small number of them, mostly who are PMC already while leaving the everyone else in the dust. Read Musa Al-Gharbi’s book “we have never been woke” or my interview with Prod Touree Reed. The idea that the New Deal only helped white men is the biggest lie ever. The opposite is true
Minor editorial note, nothing about the meaningful content:
> Elite overproduction, as described by Peter Turchin, provides a complementary structural explanation: when societies produce more would-be elites than available elite positions, intra-elite competition and status conflict can fuel moralized political zeal.
> If you want one more lens on this, consider “elite overproduction,” the idea that modern societies can generate more credentialed elite aspirants than there are elite jobs and status positions to absorb them, producing intraclass conflict and cultural radicalization. Peter Turchin has argued for versions of this structural dynamic in American history, and it is at least a plausible backdrop for why parts of the professional class have moved sharply left on cultural symbolism even as the broader public has not. [21] [22]
"Elite overproduction" is introduced twice, the first instance is probably a holdover from a previous edit.
Woopsie. Yes, I put this article together kinda last minute. Will fix