I really like this topic. I consider myself a strong liberal Democrat, but can't find myself going to those antiwar marches (I went to the one in February in DC) and I still believe that there are threats in the world, and we can use our power for good.

. . .is my dilemma, but I see it in slightly different terms.

The reiteration of liberal-left principles against "crude anti-imperialism" is precisely what attracted me to the Euston Manifesto, which properly notices that in the ongoing struggle against slavery, theocracy, obscurantism, misogyny, fascism and tyranny, we do have enemies on the left, and we have some friends on the "right" with whom it would be useful to strike up a conversation.

It isn't against anti-imperialism that I find myself positioned. It isn't so much the ludicrous anti-imperialist fetish "that has come to dominate the voice of the radical left" that concerns me. What concerns me is the extent to which liberal-left politics in the Anglosphere, very generally speaking, has been swallowed up by the counterculture, where the adoption of radical-left positions is commonplace because the radical-chic posture is fashionable and desirable (and ultimately useless). This is a political method that doesn't exactly require much thought - which is precisely why it's the preferred method.

So, the rubbish rises to the top, class politics is largely replaced by identity politics, robust internationalist solidarity is absent except in those cases where it can be cast in an anti-American frame, and anti-Americanism becomes a substitute for political analysis. When "left" politics is hollowed out to this extent, it is rendered incapable of mounting an effective offense against real tyranny and barbarism, and the "left" exposes itself to be completely useless to the people who really need the kind of solidarity the left once stood for - the people of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Burma, China, Zimbabwe, and Darfur, to name just a few current examples.

I don't think we need to spend too much time questioning our instincts or our basic principles just because we find ourselves attracted to the lively anti-totalitarian polemics that occasionally show up in, say, Commentary magazine. Why shouldn't we have anti-fascist friends to the right of us?

Besides, there's a lot that socialists (social democrats) like me could stand to learn from the right. For instance, turns out it's buy low, sell high. Who knew?

The counterculture left is ascendant at the moment precisely because it demands practically nothing of its cadres beyond fashion statements, slogan regurgitation, submission to pieties, and participation in occasional parades. It's ascendant because it's manageable, and it demands nothing of consequence from the prevailing order.

So long as these circumstances obtain, the "left," as a movement of people and ideas, will do little to alleviate the very real suffering that faces billions of people, every day. It will also have little of consequence to contribute to the great decisions currently facing humanity.

This is not to argue for abandoning the "left." It's an argument for reviving the historic mission of the left - the struggle against slavery, theocracy, obscurantism, misogyny, fascism and tyranny.

Off my chest, then. Sorry to carry on. I look forward to your series, Comrade Bradshaw, whoever you are.

So, why has the leftist movement of our parents withered? Their positions were based more on stubborn adherence to the same discredited means rather than a continually refreshed approach to achieving their ends. It's fine to support egalitarianism, rights, peace, and a host of other leftist ideals. It's not fine to advocate fulfilling them with FDR-style policies.

There's been a lot of economic advancement since Keynes. Leftists need to stop pretending the economy works the way he described it.

You are exactly what I would call a 'neo-con'.

The problem with the world today is that individuals who are in favor of an interventionist American foreign policy are unfairly lumped together ideologically with people like you.

I'm way too much of a social liberal to be a neo-con. I'm more of a leftist who's studied economics, founded a business, and worked successfully with non-governmental non-profit and charitable organizations. I've also lived in a co-op, which is about as close as you can get to a commune without walling yourself off from society.

There are no revolutionaries. The cheering section must coalesce behind isolation or statist intervention or islamist jihad.

"despite finding Paul Wolfowitz closer
to their own views on foreign affairs than John Kerry"

 yeah...that would probably make you a Neocon.

I would like to hear David Strauss out. I accept that there have been important changes and greater understanding in economic theory since Keynes.  So before I call you a Neocon like I just did to Bradshaw (Jimmy, you are suuuuuuch a Neocon, Jesus Christ, Commentary? We all read Commentary sometimes, but for foreign policy? Which part? Podhoretz's WWVII? Oh, yeah...what Leftist wouldn't want more of the Spread Democracy in the Middle East Plan) I would like to know what is your position on the magic wand/elixer of "privatization" so frequently waved by the fiscal right? 

"I would like to know what is your position on the magic wand/elixer of 'privatization' so frequently waved by the fiscal right?"

I do not believe privatization is a magic wand. It it difficult to administer a fair bidding process. No-bid contracts are rife with cronyism. And once a company wins a contract, they must be held accountable for the required work. Such oversight requires substantial work and ethical strength.

However, I do believe privatization introduces one form of reality that is embarrassingly absent from most bureaucratic institutions: some link between the work required and the cost involved.

Many bureaucratic institutions functions as chronically underfunded and over-mandated. The Census Bureau and the EPA are prime examples. As part of the bureaucracy, they can't go back to Congress and demand, "If you want X to happen, you need to fund us Y more money." So, Congress tells them to make X happen (which is politically popular) without providing Y (which would be politically unpopular). It is also a classic political move to cut an agency's funding as a means for ensuring the mandate never happens.

One way to balance out the problem is controlled privatization. A company won't voluntarily agree to perform a task for an unprofitable rate.

Of course, for privatization to work, you have to have higher ethical standards than most people administering privatization initiatives have demonstrated. Does this mean privatization is unworkable? I'm not sure, but the bureaucracy has problems we need to solve.

It's all well and good for us to support the struggle against tyranny... I support it. The question becomes: how the hell do we do that?

I just got back from 4 years in Iran: there are few things that can change you more than living under an oppressive regime. I've lost all my idealism. (what little I had... I've almost always been a raving moderate: not very sexy, is it?)

Democracy and freedom are messy and do not develop simply by removing tyranny. This is true no matter how opposed to tyranny one is. It is true no matter how much force is used. Democracy requires institutions and public debate. Free speech is more important than voting, yet people always point to elections when they talk about the success of democracy.

The Left has made nonjudgmentalism its preeminent value. The Left cannot bear to criticize non-Western tyrannies, since in doing so it would judge those societies to be inferior. So by practicing appeasement the Left is actually standing on its principles, while those who don't like it have to make unprincipled exceptions until they find some other ideology,
or give up on politics altogether.

I agree with everything Bradshaw says but fail to see anything that wasn't exhaustively covered in the Euston Manifesto. I hope that instead of merely reaffirming the left's ant-fascist, universalist credentials, you suggest a workable economic vision that might actually reduce poverty.  Because the real decline of the left didn't materialize in the fall of 2001, but in the fall of 1989 when the wall came down and it became apparent to everyone that socialism doesn't work.  Of course, that doesn't mean you have to embrace full-fledged wild-west laissez faire capitalism, but I have yet to see any viable alternatives coming from the left.  The innovators nowadays are centrists who believe in the free market but also "have a heart," as the saying goes.  Tony Blair and Robert Reich and maybe Lula come to mind on the government side, or Gramin Bank on the private sector side.

--Z

The main problem with the left right now is that foreign policy is talked about to the near exclusion of everything else. Zbird is correct that the left is missing "a workable economic vision that might actually reduce poverty", or indeed economic inequalities in general. Where has the class analysis gone?

"Where has the class analysis gone?"

It has joined other tedious, outdated theories in the dustbin. This is not to say that poverty isn't a problem, just that the class warfare perspective of firm economic tiers at battle for a bigger slice of a finite economic pie doesn't providing a useful model.

"Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking." --P.J. O'Rourke (1999)

"Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking." --P.J. O'Rourke (1999)

Ugh, status anxiety as the preeminent political grievance. The left obsession with relative poverty instead of absolute poverty is pathetic and total. They end up babbling about how people who are slightly less well-off than their neighbors have more cortisol in their bloodstream. "Workers of the world, catch up to the Joneses!" 

Strauss and Kurtzman,

 I agree that class is a bad focus, absolutely. However, I do not approve of the Left abandoning fiscal issues in favor of social issues. The Democrats should focus on those critical fiscal issues and necessary new public works projects and programs (specifically health care, energy alternatives, and public transit, etc) instead of just "the most needy," and the  supreme *benefits* of diversity.

"However, I do not approve of the Left abandoning fiscal issues in favor of social issues."

Neither do I. How about they focus on, like, poverty? A billion people live on less than a dollar a day. How about re-evaluate economic realities in light of 159 years that have elapsed since Communist Manifesto, and figure out how to decrease that number. Problem for them is exemplified by fact that China's deregulated economic zone in Shenzhen is probably most effective anti-poverty program in human history, so to truly fight poverty you have to take that sort of thing on board, adjust the old models, and ultimately change the way you relate to power. Who wants to do that shit? Much easier to bitch about neocons, George Bush etc. 

Okay, Joey, that's true. Let's start domestically. Let's get universal domestic healthcare for U.S. citizens. But let's also demand co-payments for all -- including those on Medicare and Medicaid. 

You are DEFINITELY not a leftist. Stop deluding yourself.

Zbird - Socialism was not proven a failure with the 'collapse of the wall'. The economic system in place in the Soviet Union and its satellites was Socialist in name only. Actually if we are to take the Communists at their word, then Communism is a huge success, at least in modern China. But as we all know that system is not Communist either.

Finally, leftist 'concern with poverty' (I don't see it, who on the left gives a shit about poverty these days, its all about Iraq), is not a relativistic vs. absolutist position. Thats neocon balderdash. Of course comparisons will be made between rich and poor. But thats not 'keeping up with the Joneses', thats pointing out the obvious injustices where so many American's are unable to afford healthcare while so many others can.

"Finally, leftist 'concern with poverty'...is not a relativistic vs. absolutist position. Thats neocon balderdash."

No way, that's neoliberal balderdash. A good rule of thumb: if it makes you want to shout "People before profit!" or "Another world is possible" it's neoliberal. If it makes you want to shout "Bush lied, people died! or "Not in my name!" it's neocon. I'd love to see neocon and neoliberal conflated into a single catchall epithet, but sadly we're not there yet because the neocons, to their everlasting shame, have been rather slow to jump on board the neoliberal agenda. I'll see that rectified.

Faced with the utter failure of an economic model despite 75 years of its imposition over 1/3 of civilization, the Socialists lean on the only peg they have left--it never really happened.  Lenin and Stalin of course weren't real Socialists, just opportunistic authoritarians masquerading as comrades.  If only Trotsky or Che hadn't gotten themselves killed, maybe the Revolution would have succeed. Keep dreaming, and maybe some day Santa or the tooth fairy will bring you a real Socialist who can actually give everyone what they need and take from they what they can produce. 

 Meanwhile, kindly ignore the hundreds of millions in India, China,
Ireland, Southeast Asia, etc., who have been lifted out of poverty
thanks to their governments' relative openness to free markets.

Face it: there's a reason the only Socialists who get advertised in T-shirts nowadays were killed before they had a chance to govern.  Because if they had come to power they would have become authoritarian Stalinists just like every other Communist leader.  "Real" Socialism never happened becaue it's a mirage, a messianic era that will never come to pass as long as human nature remains the way it is.  

--Z

NEOTUCHES!

You are completely off base refering to the economy of the Soviet Union as socialist. Nor were Lenin or Che Socialists in any sense of the word. Marxist Leninist revolutionaries, but certainly not true socialists.

As far as my own leanings go, I am far from being a socialist, but I am certainly no proponent of the current neocon and neoliberal political economy which is rapidly deforming the United States into a third world nation.

In my view neocons and neolibs are nearly identical in their preference for a substantial reduction in government intervention and anti-poverty efforts including support for a globalist economic policies at the expense of American workers.

Bill Clinton is a good example of a neolib. It was he who authored the current repressive workfare system as well as NAFTA which has hurt American workers. That legislation is hardly making me want to shout 'people before profit'.

Neolibs and neocons have more in common than they care to want to believe.

"Because the dissenting voices that have emerged on the left in the past five or six years have been fairly confident in asserting that, despite supporting 'Bush's wars', despite finding Paul Wolfowitz closer to their own views on foreign affairs than John Kerry, despite finding more to nod along to in Commentary than the magazines of the left, they are still the torch-bearers of real leftism and it is the rest of the left who have sold out."

That's what you call a big, fat lie. "Bradshaw" is still persisting in the myth created by Christopher Hitchens that those who support the war in Iraq are the "real" leftists. I don't know how can possibly believe this, but it appears that some still do. Has it occurred to Bradshaw that Commentary magazine and Paul Wolfowitz are self-identified neo-conservatives? That the so-called "real" Left represented by Hitchens and, I guess, Jimmy Bradshaw, is merely saying the same damn things as The Weekly Standard and the National Review?

If Jimmy Bradshaw is a leftist, then up is down, black is white and this keyboard I'm typing on is made out of liquid.-

In your opinion, what qualifies you as a leftist? I mean, aside from naming a series of words, i.e. "the struggle against slavery, theocracy, obscurantism, misogyny, fascism and tyranny", which, for some reason, you listed out for us twice, by the way.

I don't know one person in the world arguing in favor of any of those things; well, I heard that Michael Medved just came out in favor of slavery, but he's an exception.

Seriously, how do you distinguish yourself from, say, William Kristol?

I should say that the prose on this site often reads as if it were produced by some sort of machine or robot. You guys aren't robots, are you?

"You are DEFINITELY not a leftist. Stop deluding yourself."

I never said I was simply a leftist. I said I was a leftist (read: person with many leftist ideals) with a whole bunch of differences stemming from education, real world experience, and philosophical considerations.

Honestly, I don't understand how someone could hold leftist ideals and still cling to the traditional leftist means proposed to realize these ideals. Are you implying that being a leftist requires endorsing the traditional methods as well as the goals?

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." --Thomas Sowell

"[...] as well as NAFTA which has hurt American workers."

I have to laugh at leftists/liberals who are so "enlightened" that they want to extend prosperity to every breathing person in America -- but God help people who live outside America's borders. Their economic prosperity isn't worth a single American job (if such an tradeoff actually exists).

"I never said I was simply a leftist. I said I was a leftist (read: person with some leftist ideals) with a whole bunch of differences stemming from education, real world experience, and philosophical considerations.

Honestly, I don't understand how someone could hold leftist ideals and still cling to the traditional leftist means proposed to realize these ideals."

Huh?

David, you've made several posts on this thread, but not once have you given any evidence of holding "leftist" views. Sure, you claimed to, but that's not good enough. Neither is once having lived in a bourgeois commune or whatever it was.

You quote O'Rourke and Sowell, which makes me think they might be your political heroes. If such is the case, you are certainly a fine candidate for the neo-conservative cult. The cult is so dangerous that most of its members don't even realize they are members. Some serious 'denial' issues going on in the cult...

"David, you've made several posts on this thread, but not once have you given any evidence of holding 'leftist' views."

I believe in democracy (including the necessary expenditures to ensure that citizens can be effective participants in society's democratic institutions), human rights, civil liberties, environmentalism, nondiscrimination, peaceful foreign relations unless absolutely impossible, and nearly boundless social liberalism. Does supporting strong property rights and rejecting a government-controlled economy somehow negate the ends I stand for?

That said, I'm not what most people would consider a "leftist." I just used to be one.

"You quote O'Rourke and Sowell, which makes me think they might be your political heroes. If such is the case, you are certainly a fine
candidate for the neo-conservative cult."

O'Rourke has never been a neoconservative, and Sowell has gone on record denouncing many neocon positions. See Republican Party Reptile and Barbarians Inside the Gates: And Other Controversial Essays.

"I believe in democracy (including the necessary expenditures to ensure that citizens can be effective participants in society's democratic institutions), human rights, civil liberties, environmentalism, nondiscrimination, peaceful foreign relations unless absolutely impossible, and nearly boundless social liberalism."

Why is it that so many people on this website issue us lists of broad generalities that have no meaning unless defined? That's why I'm wondering if I'm among robots here. For instance, the United States is not a democracy, but something tells me you'd disagree with that statement. You see, the devil is all in the details. You probably imagine the US war in, say, Afghanistan as an attempt to spread human rights, yes? Now, to me, that's an utterly absurd notion.

So until you start talking specifics, a dialogue with you cannot go anywhere.

I have not been keeping up on my Thomas Sowell, I'm afraid. Where does *he* on the US war in Iraq?

where does *he* 'stand' on the US war in Iraq?

"Why is it that so many people on this website issue us lists of broad generalities that have no meaning unless defined?"

"Leftist" is itself a term defined as a list a broad generalities.

"For instance, the United States is not a democracy, but something tells me you'd disagree with that statement."

You're correct. In strict terms, the U.S. is not a democracy. When I say "democracy," I'm using the more common meaning: a pluralistic government whose power derives from continued consent of the governed.

"You probably imagine the US war in, say, Afghanistan as an attempt to
spread human rights, yes? Now, to me, that's an utterly absurd notion."

I'm not familiar enough with current U.S. activity in Afghanistan to comment; it's unfortunately been poorly covered by even the better media sources. I do believe certain human rights are worth fighting for. The question is how to balance sovereignty with intervention in the genocides that seem to plague post-19th-century humanity. Or, better yet, how to avoid sponsoring the next decade's monsters.

"I have not been keeping up on my Thomas Sowell, I'm afraid. Where does *he* stand on the US war in Iraq?"

He's a supporter of the war in Iraq, and I find his opinions there pretty reprehensible. But I quoted him on economic policy, not international relations. 

"I suspect it might be men in particular who have a problem about leaving behind the passions of our youth. We can't let go of our favourite bands from our teens, we still take an odd pleasure in eating the candy we enjoyed as a kid, we have ever-lasting soft spots for those early girlfriends and spend an inordinate amount of time watching and talking about games."

yawn!

David Strauss, better to keep silent and have everyone think you're a nob than to post your drivel and remove all doubt.

"David Strauss, better to keep silent and have everyone think you're a nob than to post your drivel and remove all doubt."

You're right. Your "yawn!" really raised the standard for this debate. 

"I'm not familiar enough with current U.S. activity in Afghanistan to comment"

Familiarize yourself: http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick10062007.html

Mind you, Patrick Cockburn's book The Occupation was endorsed even by Tailgunner Hitchens, so don't just give me the old 'well, that's just c-punch, leftie propaganda' whinge.

"The question is how to balance sovereignty with intervention in the genocides that seem to plague post-19th-century humanity."

Perhaps, so long as we're not talking about the US government making these decisions on its own, which is tragically did in Iraq, esp. when it's motives are never close to pure. Any further 'interventions' should have to have the support of the UN, for one thing.

"Any further 'interventions' should have to have the support of the UN, for one thing."

Support from the UN for intervention is quite unlikely to occur and extremely unlikely to be effective. Waving banners and boycotting countries that do not buy much from us or sell much to us does not work. Assigning blame an exercise in academic pointlessness.

Sit back, put your feet up and watch Fur/Burmese/Zimbabweans die on youtube.

The conservative/strategic/monetary reasons the Right intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan are not mirrored in these places. The Right is generally against intervention in these places and quite prepared to observe from afar. If the Left says intervention shall not occur, intevention shall never occur.

Imagine that, the Left and the Right in perfect harmony. The Right able to justify isolation by there being no strategic/realpolitik interest and that the people dying are plainly too poor to matter. The Left able to justify by "details" being devillishly difficult and because trying things that are hard is a bad idea - apparently.

Enjoy the show.

Maybe the only solution is for Tailgunner Hitchens and the editors of this magazine to raise a private army to combat injustice around the world. The US military can no longer be relied upon (not that it ever should've been trusted in the first place). The UN, as you suggest, is feckless. There are plenty of private resources to recruit and establish a new, shall we call it a League of Shadows to bring democracy, freedom and human rights around the world. We have the money, no doubt, but do we have the manpower to front this organization?

...exactly why the Left is screwed. All the Right needs to do is show is the hand held mobile phone images of people being rounded up/shot and appeal to a sense of those broad generalities David Strauss provides. Broad generalities are where this debate needs to take place, because that is what the broad electorate deals in - not specifics, specialists are employed to deal with those. The Right will intervene on the basis of realpolitik, profit, strategic influence, power, leverage. If it is the Left's position that to intervene is wrong, then the Right need only show pictures of victims, offer a veneer of democratization and here we are - the Right is seen to be generally broadly trying to act in a sort of "good Leftish" way. And the Left by not acting is seen to be irrelevently isolationist.

How about Team America?

"How about Team America?"

Fuck yeah! But I'm afraid Tailgunner Hitchens and his lackeys wouldn't get the joke. The League of Shadows, led by Liam Neeson, would be a far more plausible outfit for the job. They have supported the Kurds since the 7th century, after all.

Anyway, David Strauss wrote:

'"Where has the class analysis gone?"

'It has joined other tedious, outdated theories in the dustbin. This is
not to say that poverty isn't a problem, just that the class warfare
perspective of firm economic tiers at battle for a bigger slice of a
finite economic pie doesn't providing a useful model.'

'"Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at
the bottom of most bad economic thinking." --P.J. O'Rourke (1999)'

Well, you can't be on the left if you think class analysis should be
put in the dustbin, PERIOD!

The single biggest difference between the left and right viewpoints is
that the left views society with the emphasis on classes (horizontal
layers) struggling against each other, while the right views society
emphasizing organizations (vertical columns) such as companies,
parties, nations, etc., struggling against each other. Both types of
struggle are going on, but the labels left and right indicate whether
or not the horizontal class type is emphasized.

"Well, you can't be on the left if you think class analysis should be
put in the dustbin, PERIOD!"

"The single biggest difference between the left and right viewpoints is
that the left views society with the emphasis on classes (horizontal
layers) struggling against each other."

While I reject the notion of "class warfare," I think poverty is a severe problem. Poverty certainly falls in the "horizontal layers" model.

I would certainly hope that you think a class analysis should exist regardless of all of the "class warfare" rhetoric out there in the political minefield.

In any case, it remains a fact that almost all Americans tend to stay in the whichever class or layer they are born into, making a mockery of the notion of The American Dream.

P.J. O'Rourke might be a witty guy, but I'm not sure I trust him on "economic thinking". In what class was he born into, by the way?

"The single biggest difference between the left and right viewpoints is that the left views society with the emphasis on classes (horizontal layers) struggling against each other, while the right views society emphasizing organizations (vertical columns) such as companies,parties, nations, etc., struggling against each other."

That is a nice way of describing it.

But an anti-war multiculturist may call for withdrawl, saying that the cultural (vertical column) conflict trumps the ability of extra-cultural influence to change the intra-cultural class structure by empowering the lower class (horizontal layer) through democratization. Under multiculturalism - cultures are organisations of greater significance than class which is seen as a minor intra-cultural phenomena and it is rare for anti-war isolationists to value any class analysis of foreign cultures.

Apparently this is because anti-war multiculturalists are not leftists.

And I have no problem with antiwar marches. I take a hard look at the world and find that there are so few REAL threats to America. We are always in the drivers seat and I think its fine time that instead of using the military to enforce big business decisions overseas, we should only use it for national defense (rarely if ever) and the enforcement of human rights overseas (a huge problem!).

No the world isn't plotting against us, turn off fox news for once and clear your mind of that hannity crap. But the world does want the USA to start acting like the USA. Lately we are looking more like the USSR. We're paranoid, militaristic, and we are sending troops everywhere in some bizarre attempt to push our political views and social theories on others. Thats a very Soviet idealogy, and its no surprise since the neoconservative communists are running things in washington. Marxists, trotskyites and maoists just can't help themselves ya know.

We're paranoid, militaristic, and we are sending troops everywhere in some bizarre attempt to push our democracy views and human rights theories on others.