Friday, May 29, 2015

Where are the radicals?

And why aren't they out in the streets? Because things are very bad. Why isn't every bank office, every legislature, occupied?

I wish I knew. Occupy fell apart. The trolls took over the Assemblies. Without overarching organization, there was nothing to hold it together after the initial enthusiasm.

It is not enough to gather in the street. Once you are there and gathered, you must go somewhere, there must be a destination. Which is where? Adam Smith's liberalism, which we would now call conservatism, provided a framework for capitalism which proved ultimately inhuman, which I rather suspect the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments would have rejected. Marx's Communism provided a framework for a society based on sharing, which has so far proven beyond implementation. It equally is not possible to believe that Marx and Engels would have the defended the brutalities of authoritarian Communism.

I can imagine a humane technocratic democratic socialism, rooted in Keynes and Enlightenment political values, but I cannot see how it can possibly be something people would march for, sacrifice for, even to death. A long explanation cannot be a rallying point!

1 comment:

The Blog Fodder said...

Adam Smith also warned that it would happen; that teh Capitalists would be able to control the political process to their own benefit. He warned that the interests of Capitalists was quite different from that of land owners and "The Nation" which included the working class. He had no solution which may have been why his warning was ignored. The Marx came along with a solution of sorts. Interesting that Communists consider their number one enemy to be progressive social democrats.