We should of course fully
support democratic socialists: we have to begin with where we are.
But my fear is that beneath their concrete welfare state
proposals there is nothing, no great project, just a vague idea of more
social justice. In the long term, is this enough?
4 days ago
Now that Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez has joined Bernie Sanders as the public face of the left wing of
the Democratic
Party, with others waiting in the shadows to explode on the US national scene,
there is no surprise in the wide scope of reactions to the fact the term
“democratic socialism” has gained (limited) acceptability in one of the two US
main parties. Republican media predictably spread fear: democratic socialists
plan to abolish capitalism, introduce Venezuelan-style state terror and bring
poverty, etc.
In a more restrained way,
centrist Democrats warn about the non-intended catastrophic economic
consequences of democratic socialist proposals: how to raise money for
universal healthcare, etc? (Incidentally, one should recall here how even the
most daring proposals of today’s democratic socialists do not come even close
to moderate European social democracy half a century ago – a sign of how the
centre of gravity of the entire political field shifted to the right.)
Even on the liberal left side
of the Democratic Party, there are bad surprises. In the long list of Obama’s
endorsements of the Democratic candidates for the mid-term elections (over 80
names), one looks in vain for Ocasio-Cortez. Echoing Nancy Pelosi who stated “I
have to say, we’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is”, even the “leftist”
Elizabeth Warren declared herself “capitalist to my bones”…
The latest – and morally most
problematic – fad in this series is the charge of antisemitismaddressed
at anyone who deviates to the left from the acceptable left-liberal
establishment. Till recently, the label “antisemitism” was used against any
critique of the State of Israel and the way it deals with Palestinians; now, it
is more and more mobilised to disqualify the left perceived as “too radical”,
from Corbyn in the UK to Ocasio-Cortez in the US. Antisemites in one’s own
country (Poland, Hungary, Baltic states) are tolerated insofar as they turn
into Zionist supporters of the Israeli politics in the West Bank, while
leftists who sympathise with the West Bank Palestinians but also warn against
the resurgent antisemitism in Europe are denounced at the same time. This rise
of the weird figure of antisemitic Zionists is one of the most worrying signs
of our decay.
However, while these external
enemies and attacks can only bolster the democratic socialists’ readiness to
fight, much more fatal limitations lurk in the very heart of their project.
Today’s democratic socialism is infinitely superior to the academic radicals
who flourished in the last decades, for the simple reason that it stands for an
actual political movement which mobilises hundreds of thousands of ordinary
people, registering and articulating their dissatisfaction.
Problems begin when we raise
the simple question: what do democratic socialists effectively want? The
rightist reproach against them is that, beneath their innocent-sounding
concrete proposals to raise taxes, make healthcare better, etc, there is a dark
project to destroy capitalism and its freedoms. My fear is exactly the opposite
one: that beneath their concrete welfare state proposals there is nothing, no
great project, just a vague idea of more social justice. The idea is simply
that, through electoral pressure, the centre of gravity will move back to the
left.
But is, in the (not so) long
term, this enough? Do the challenges that we face, from global warming to
refugees, from digital control to biogenetic manipulations, not require nothing
less than a global reorganisation of our societies? Whichever way this will
happen, two things are sure: it will not be enacted by some new version of a
Leninist Communist party, but it will also not happen as part of our
parliamentary democracy. It will not be just a political party winning more
votes and enacting social democratic measures.
This brings us to the fatal
limitation of democratic socialists. Back in 1985, Felix Guattari and Toni
Negri published a short book in French Les nouveaux espaces de libertewhose
title was changed for the English translation into Communists Like Us –
the implicit message of this change was the same as that of democratic
socialists: “Don’t be afraid, we are ordinary guys like you, we don’t pose any
threat, life will just go on when we will win...” This, unfortunately, is not
the option. Radical changes are needed for our survival, and life will NOT go
on as usual; we will have to change even in our innermost life.
So we should of course fully
support democratic socialists; if we just wait for the right moment to
enact a radical change, this moment will never arrive, we have to begin with where
we are. But we should do this without illusions, fully aware that our future
will demand much more than electoral games and social democratic measures. We
are at the beginning of a dangerous voyage on which our survival depends.
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