One of the most frustrating and mind-bending developments during the last 18 months is the collapse of a section of the left into Covid scepticism. The class analysis went down the plug hole, and in came a laissez-faire individualism in conformity with Tory bio- and necropolitical management of the pandemic. Mask denialism, vaccine agnosticism, opposition to air filtration, there has been a straightforward take up of right wing "libertarian" talking points and arguments. Including the pretence that Covid isn't very serious, hasn't killed millions, left even more with long-term health problems, and constitutes a danger to the clinically vulnerable still. Following the publication of Toby Green and Thomas Fazi's The Covid Consensus, which attempts to put a left face on Covid scepticism while giving semi-conspiratorial arguments credence, Richard Seymour has taken them apart in his Interregnum slot on Politics Theory Other. It comes highly recommended.
2 comments:
An excellent analysis by the often interesting, and often spot-on, Richard Seymour. And why is Richard Seymour so often spot-on in his analysis compared to the increasingly bizarre positions taken by what represents today's 'radical Left' on so many issues ? Because Richard comes from a non Stalinist solidly Marxist socialist background - rooted in the centrality of class and materialism .
In contract most of today's supposed 'Left' are just non materialist , philosophically 'idealist' Left Liberals , not socialists. They have a wish list of 'nice things' they would like to see in our society , but no overarching model or theory counterposed to the individualist dominant neoliberal narrative. They have no understanding of the possibility of advancing beyond the market-driven class society of capitalism - and absolutely no interest in those basic socialist objectives and methodologies of comprehensive democratic state-led PLANNING, and socialisation of the means of production to replace the chaos of capitalism.
Having no overarching socialist theory to guide them too many on the self-identifying 'Left' are wide open to falling prey to that alternative 'anti-elite, paranoid bundle of ideological positions eminating from the libertarian Far Right and the fascist Far Right . The absorption by so many supposed socialists of the paranoid nonsense of the 'covid plandemic conspiracy' is just one example of this vulnerability of the theory-less 'Left' to toxic Right Wing ideas.
A look back at the past covid coverage by the likes of the BTL Skwawkbox posts is profoundly chastening, as with that 'OffGuardian' blog, which became a house mag on the deluded 'Left' for covid denial. Similarly today's 'Left' has proven willing to avidly accept the 'magical Keynsian' nonsense of Modern Monetary Theory , which requires a fundamental ignorance of both the basics of capitalist economics as well as Marxist economics ! This contemporary 'Left' also fell prey to that bleed-over from Libertarian Right ideology of the 'Citizens Income' - as an alternative to fighting for a generous universal Welfare State !
As Lenin rightly said - "without revolutionary (ie Marxist socialist theory) there can be no revolutionary practice". It is equally true that without a solid , materialist, socialist theory to guide us there cannot even be radical social democratic reformist practice.
Please don’t encourage him.
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