the left in the 21st century

[holy king]

i let slavoj zizek ask the question:

“In the good old days of Really-Existing Socialism, a joke was popular among dissidents, used to illustrate the futility of their protests.

In the 15th century Russia occupied by Mongols, a farmer and his wife walk along a dusty country road; a Mongol warrior on a horse stops at their side and tells the farmer that he will now rape his wife; he then adds: “But since there is a lot of dust on the ground, you should hold my testicles while I’m raping your wife, so that they will not get dirty!” After the Mongol finishes his job and rides away, the farmer starts to laugh and jump with joy; the surprised wife asks him: “how can you be jumping with joy when I was just brutally raped in your presence?” The farmer answers: “But I got him! His balls are full of dust!”


This sad joke tells of the predicament of dissidents: they thought they are dealing serious blows to the party nomenklatura, but all they were doing was getting a little bit of dust on the nomenklatura’s testicles, while the nomenklatura went on raping the people… Is today’s critical Left not in a similar position?

Our task is to discover how to make a step further – our thesis 11 should be: in our societies, critical Leftists have hitherto only dirtied with dust the balls of those in power, the point is to cut them off”


has today's left really been reduced to bemudding balls?

 

[Virote_Considon]

The modern Left is just Liberalism-with-slogans-I.

(Liberalism-with-slogans-II is of course the populist rasist parties).

 

[ParkCungHee]

Yes. Fivechar.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

The big problem that the left faces now is the weakness of national governments in solving transnational problems. We have a global economy which no elected authority can currently control.

If you suggest raising taxes in the UK or regulating the City of London, the right can always parrot up these arguments about how doing these things on our own while everyone else carries on business as usual will just destroy our competitiveness and these people will go overseas. It's very hard to argue with this because... it's actually true. So we're left with a situation where our governments are straitjacketed by the rules of the international economic system. Anyone who swims against the tide alone will flounder.

The only solution is to establish new governments, transnational governments, with the power to take control of the economy again. That's what left-wing politics is about- taking control of the economy and directing it for the ends of the masses, not just the rich. Unfortunately, as long as Europe's governments remain divided none of them alone will have the power to actually do anything. So even if we elected honest, hard-leftists, nothing would change.

 

[innonimatu]

The big problem that the left faces now is the weakness of national governments in solving transnational problems. We have a global economy which no elected authority can currently control.

No, no, and no! National governments are not weak, are perfectly capable of weighting in on any so-called "transnational problem", and the "global economy" you mention (as in the set of international rules enforced by treaties) exists only with the collaboration of national governments.
What has happened is that the groups in control of national governments have figured out that claiming a supposed inability to do certain things things has so far fooled most of their electorates into believing those cannot be changed.

And you are, sadly, one of the fools.

If you suggest raising taxes in the UK or regulating the City of London, the right can always parrot up these arguments about how doing these things on our own while everyone else carries on business as usual will just destroy our competitiveness and these people will go overseas. It's very hard to argue with this because... it's actually true. So we're left with a situation where our governments are straitjacketed by the rules of the international economic system. Anyone who swims against the tide alone will flounder.

Bullcrap. The UK's government can at any time it really wants crush the City like a bug. They do not do it because they're all partners in crime. The UK's citizens are electing people who are in in league with the City and do not want to spoil their own "good thing".
There is no objective reason for not levying a transaction tax on all exchanges, for example. It's well within the ability of the UKs government and would be a heavy blow to the City. They don't want to do it. There is in fact nothing preventing the UKs governments from declaring a number of trades (futures, options, whatever) void of any legal protection. They - those inbred scumbags who keep being elected to parliament - don't want to do it.

The only solution is to establish new governments, transnational governments, with the power to take control of the economy again. That's what left-wing politics is about- taking control of the economy and directing it for the ends of the masses, not just the rich. Unfortunately, as long as Europe's governments remain divided none of them alone will have the power to actually do anything. So even if we elected honest, hard-leftists, nothing would change.

More bullcrap. Transnational government would be even more distant from the citizens, even more unaccountable. The larger the country, the greater the number of layers of representation, the less easier it becomes to corrupt democracy. Iceland killed its debt, by popular Will. Greece is unable to. The USA present it doesn't even have a debt problem. Notice a pattern?

Large nations would all be dismantled. It would be the best thing for their own populations.

 

[Tahuti]

No, no, and no! National governments are not weak, are perfectly capable of weighting in on any so-called "transnational problem", and the "global economy" you mention (as in the set of international rules enforced by treaties) exists only with the collaboration of national governments.
What has happened is that the groups in control of national governments have figured out that claiming a supposed inability to do certain things things has so far fooled most of their electorates into believing those cannot be changed.

And you are, sadly, one of the fools.

Comparitive Advantage.

Though even without international trade, global warming would still be a transnational problem.

Bullcrap. The UK's government can at any time it really wants crush the City like a bug. They do not do it because they're all partners in crime. The UK's citizens are electing people who are in in league with the City and do not want to spoil their own "good thing".
There is no objective reason for not levying a transaction tax on all exchanges, for example. It's well within the ability of the UKs government and would be a heavy blow to the City. They don't want to do it. There is in fact nothing preventing the UKs governments from declaring a number of trades (futures, options, whatever) void of any legal protection. They - those inbred scumbags who keep being elected to parliament - don't want to do it.

Sweden tried it, and it failed. It may or may not serve the common interest to have such a tax, but it only works if it is implemented world wide. Any government crazy enough to implement such a tax unilaterally would see a capital flight as if it were a 3rd world country.

More bullcrap. Transnational government would be even more distant from the citizens, even more unaccountable. The larger the country, the greater the number of layers of representation, the less easier it becomes to corrupt democracy. Iceland killed its debt, by popular Will. Greece is unable to. The USA present it doesn't even have a debt problem. Notice a pattern?

Large nations would all be dismantled. It would be the best thing for their own populations.

Transnational governments have become possible precisely because technological advances allowed to bring such things closer to the citizens than would be possible before, just like technologies such as railroads and telegraphs made nation-states a realistic option. Though I agree with you that governments with large jurisdictions in both citizens and area are by definition more distant from its citizens than smaller-sized nations, these issues are not completely unovercomable.

 

[~Corsair#01~]

No, no, and no! National governments are not weak, are perfectly capable of weighting in on any so-called "transnational problem", and the "global economy" you mention (as in the set of international rules enforced by treaties) exists only with the collaboration of national governments.
What has happened is that the groups in control of national governments have figured out that claiming a supposed inability to do certain things things has so far fooled most of their electorates into believing those cannot be changed.

And you are, sadly, one of the fools.

But how would you respond to people who say "if we impose a transaction tax then the investment bankers will move their money to somewhere without one"? How can a single nation state unilaterally put these measures in place in a global marketplace where other states haven't? Surely if all of Europe comes together and does this at the same time (as France and Germany have suggested, we can do so without the same fear of a mass capital flight? The (Conservative) UK government has said that it will put these measures in place only if the entire world does. Isn't bringing them in on a Europe-wide level a step in the right direction towards that?

The UK's government can at any time it really wants crush the City like a bug. They do not do it because they're all partners in crime. The UK's citizens are electing people who are in in league with the City and do not want to spoil their own "good thing".

Most people in the UK don't want to crush a valuable cash-cow for the country's economy "like a bug". They want to control it and tax it.

There is no objective reason for not levying a transaction tax on all exchanges, for example. It's well within the ability of the UKs government and would be a heavy blow to the City. They don't want to do it. There is in fact nothing preventing the UKs governments from declaring a number of trades (futures, options, whatever) void of any legal protection. They - those inbred scumbags who keep being elected to parliament - don't want to do it.

It's because a transaction tax would be a "blow to the City" that political parties do not want to implement it! People here are afraid that a transaction tax would hurt the City's international competitiveness and move money abroad. This is the crux of my argument. Controlling corporate greed will cause these people to move their activities to places where they will not be controlled. Bringing their money with them. This forces governments into a "race to the bottom" in order to stay internationally competitive.

More bullcrap. Transnational government would be even more distant from the citizens, even more unaccountable.

Well, I'm from Northern Ireland and we're currently governed by a Conservative government that got zero per cent of the vote here. So, unless we're going to be governed by aliens from outer space I don't see how things could conceivably get worse on that front

The larger the country, the greater the number of layers of representation, the less easier it becomes to corrupt democracy. Iceland killed its debt, by popular Will. Greece is unable to. The USA present it doesn't even have a debt problem. Notice a pattern?

Large nations would all be dismantled. It would be the best thing for their own populations.

You say that large nations will be dismantled right before putting forward the USA, the ideal of what a united Europe strives to be, as one of your prime examples of where we should be! That's completely inconsistent. Why is coming together something that works so well for the USA but is bad for Europe?

Also, on the subject of "democracy" as a Green party voter, I find the system of proportional representation in the European Parliament far more appealing than the first-past-the-post system in the UK which so benefits our 2.5 large political parties.

 

[holy king]

i think a tobin tax (or dicussion about it) is exactly what zizek means by "getting a little bit of dust on the nomenklatura’s testicles".