Over the past year, what appeared as hopeful signs, that Left governments were emerging as powerful alternatives to right-wing pro-US regimes, is turning into a historic rout, which will relegate them to the dustbin of history for many years to come.I don't see this abandonment of the left as malicious but rather the result of ignorance. The left simply does not have a clear vision, policy, strategy and tactics worked out for actually governing from the left. Lack this, they are forced back on neoliberalism lite, but they can't even seem to get that together either. I would add other leftist governments such as Maduro's in Venezuela.
The rise and rapid decay of left-wing governments in France, Greece and Brazil is not the result of a military coup, nor is it due to the machinations of the CIA. The debacle of left governments is a result of deliberate political decisions, which break decisively with the progressive programs, promises and commitments that political leaders had made to the great mass of working and middle class voters who elected them.
Increasingly, the electorate views the leftist rulers as traitors, who betrayed their supporters at the beck and call of their most egregious class enemies: the bankers, the capitalists and the neo-liberal ideologue….
The rest is a rise of the right by default as people seeking an alternative to what's not working for them get fed up and look elsewhere for solutions.
Global Research
Lies and Deceptions on the Left: The Politics of Self DestructionJames Petras | Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
7 comments:
You are probably right Tom but the left wasn't so ignorant pre 70s Friedmanist paradigm shift.
One thing for sure, the general public will not understand our monetary system and politicians are not superhumans. Concepts like endogenous money are not easy to grasp for a person who has not invested some time in learning. There needs to be a paradigm shift, this is the only way I think. Masses will always be ignorant of monetary systems and political economy. Even phrases like aggregate demand are language of Burma for most. The left is no more ignorant than the right. It is not really about some economic theory, it is about politics. Nazies didn't even care about economics, they defined public purpose their own way and had a very successful economy.
Kristjan I dont think it is that hard to understand if it is taught correctly... and "framed" correctly...
The issue imo is 'libertarianism' on the Left... (and on the right but I digress...)
You cant be a 'libertarian progressive' the two are mutually exclusive ...
The GOP/Progressive president T Roosevelt said 'speak softly and carry a big stick'... imo thats the way it works...
the left libertarians exhibit trepidation towards the 'big stick' part of being a Progressive but it is necessary imo.... you have to have enforcement mechanisms and often these mechanisms dont sit well generally with libertarians...
iow a libertarian might say: "I dont want to be told what to do and I dont want to tell somebody else what to do...." or "I dont want to be told how to live... etc.."
Progressive policies include some such "hows" and have to be enforced...
Freidman did the whole "Free to Choose" thing Mike has podcasted about back in the 70s and that was a big libertarian initiative... which you are correct to point out was a major turning point...
imo we have to talk about the libertarian aspects of any policy and challenge them with Progressive policies without apology...
libertarians hate progressives... I follow a few libertarians on twitter they have nothing good to say about progressives... so that should be a tip-off imo....
rsp,
I agree Matt, once this libertarianish leftist asked me to meet with her to talk about MMT. She said she was thinking about money just like I did. I had been promoting my MMT-ish views on the internet. So the first argument she presented was that why not get rid of all of the taxes. I was stunned, thinking about money like I do? She ended up saying that you could do MMT only in countries like US and a few more, she had read some bs from some economist somewhere about this issue. I asked her to send me those materials about that, she never did (I considered the CAD argument to be too long to discuss at that coffe table). Don't let these leftist dreamers full you, they are searching something that matches up their dreams.
My experience tells me that very few geeks are interested in monetary operations. I agree that it is not very hard, I've had a guy who picked it up really good. You really have to be interested though, most people aren't. Most people kind of go with the flow, if everybody is talking about Pikkety then they pinch in without really understanding even what Pikkety is saying. They are more eager to take up big philosophical questions and ramble with those.
MMTers (Bill Mitchell in particular)have been pointing out for years that the left is so clueless that all it can do is copy the right. As usual: MMTers are streets ahead of everyone else...:-)
...And they can't dance.
Brazil's Rousseff has been particularly disappointing. a complete neoliberal sellout.
Hollande is another complete sell-out.
Syriza and Podemos strike me as well intentioned but naive and in over their heads.
Perhaps the most interesting POV of Petras is the following one, that deserves full quote:
..uninformed claims by leftist US writers like Noam Chomsky that, “Latin America is the vanguard against neo-liberalism” is at best a decade late, and certainly misleading. They are deceived by populist policy pronouncements and refuse to acknowledge the decay of the center –left regimes and thus fail to recognize how their neoliberal political actions are fostering mass popular discontent...
Petras seems to have a good grasp of the situation. What passes for "left", in most cases, basically accepts that balanced budgets are a virtue and that monetary resources are scarce. When such views are held, real progress will quickly become an impossibility.
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