The role of liberalism, as so well detailed by Losurdo (Liberalism: A Counter History), was to free the growing bourgeoisie/merchant class from the limitations placed upon them by the sovereign and their state apparatus.
Imagine a faraway country whose leaders' only interest is serving their people and where class interests are subsumed in a shared vision. Imagine, says Braudel, "the impact on European civilization of a series of Imperial dynasties maintaining the self-same style and significance from Caesar Augustus until the First World War. Now imagine such a civilization existing on the other side of the planet unaware of Greek philosophy, the alphabet, Roman governance, Christianity, feudalism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment or democracy, but with its own, unique cultural and institutional correlates that exceeded all of them in intellectual subtlety and material success". (A History of Civilizations).
We haven't felt that impact yet, but it's coming and it's going to be huge.
In the social sciences they have the term "ontological security", the feeling of intellectual and even emotional safety within one's own ideological worldview; China deeply threatens the ontological security of the Western elites through its separate cultural and philosophical development. That worldview is also of course a part of the Western hegemonic discourse that legitimizes the ruling class, and China represents an alternative vision that can shatter that discourse. Why the Western state, media and even academy lie so outrageously about the reality of present-day China.
Yes, an excellent summation of the situation Roger. Now your followup piece should do the same for the virtually non-existent left, socialist 'opposition'. What are the essential elements that led to its failure? Eg, reformism, anti-Sovietism, social imperialism and lest we forget, its offspring, racism. Perhaps Jack London's 'The Iron Heel' should be required reading?
Losurdo's "Western Marxism" would be a very good start, also Gabriel Rockhill's work. Also, the anti-communist left controlled opposition has been a very successful project of the capitalist oligarchy.
I will be publishing a piece soon on Perry Anderson, one of the pied pipers of the "left" leading those that really want change into dead ends.
Roger, I already have a stack of unread books a mile high! But in the UK, it can be traced back to the creation of the Labour Party and its decision to participate in Parliamentary 'democracy' and its pursuit of socialism via the electoral process. But I will check these tomes out.
Rockhill runs a summer school that publishes the lectures. This is a very good one "The Global Theory Industry & Left Anti-Communism", there are quite a few good ones.
The failure of the socialist movement arose neither from its seduction into parliamentary politics-dangerous and damaging as it was always understood it to be- nor from its critiques of Soviet government- although much of that criticism was little more than an excuse to cosy up to imperialist ruling classes.
The problem was and is that socialists have not been faithful to the task of building an alternative culture outside of and in opposition to the ruling class's culture.
Few, perhaps, remember now that historically socialists have separated themselves by means of Trade Unions, Co-operatives, Political Education and other institutions from capitalist society. In many European countries in the C20th socialists married according to their own rites, brought up children in socialist competitors with Scouts etc, educated them in socialist sunday schools and night schools, shopped at co-ops and, as far as they could, kept capitalist society at arms length.
And, of course, that parliamentarism was based upon robustly democratic constituency/ward organisations debating, developing policy programmes and doing all that could be done to control the campaigns of candidates and the legislative work of elected councillors or Members of Parliament.
And, of course, socialists were always well aware that the capitalist media was inimical to popular interests and that because the ruling class controlled culture we had to have our own media, tell our own story, understand history from the viewpoint of the poor, the peasant and the wage worker. We had our own songs and our own clubs and although the proportion of the working class completely committed to the separate culture varied enormously in part because of national or regional conditions ( coal mining communities were often almost entirely separated from the culture of the bosses. And where different languages, as in Wales, or dialects were available this barrier against the bourgeois world was particularly strong.)
It is still my view that the building of a socialist mass party which is necessary to overthrow the lunacy of capitalist rule, will involve the development of socialist media, socialist education independent of the corrupting Kindergarten-University brainwashing institutions and organisations capable of defending the alternative culture and institutions.
It would be instructive to study, for example, the long history of the Communist Party in China and the pre-1914 history of the SPD but there are very many, now obscure and largely forgotten, tales to be told of working class organisations, struggles and cultural achievements from every corner of the globe that need to be reclaimed from the wreckage left by reformist treachery and sectarian suicide pacts. It is the real history of humanity and it has never been unearthed or studied as it must be.
Incidentally talking of Losurdo and Gramsci, "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and ..." by Mattei is a contemporary Italian contribution of great relevance.
The War of Position was very thoroughly won by the Western capitalist oligarchy in the past eighty years, with the destruction of the ideological and organizational infrastructure of any alternative hegemonic project. Then the co-option of those wishing for change through the corporate Democratic Party (and Labour Party etc.), identity politics (on both "left" and right), and now the usage of "populist" right wing parties that can facilitate a move to authoritarianism and fascism if necessary.
Real change will have to await the greater decline of the West and the preeminence of alternative models that will act, as with the communist revolutions, to undermine the legitimacy of the Western oligarchic project. In the meantime, any possibility of an alternative popping its head above the ground in the West will be met with an overwhelming ruling class attack - as with Corbyn, as with the German BSW.
The "greater decline of the West" to which you refer is a process which begins with the 1917 Revolution and its, often neglected or forgotten, appeals to The Toilers of the East.
While the appeals to the proletarians of the West had, in the final analysis, no concrete result in the east, and in east asia particularly latent anti-colonialism was organised into one after another national liberation movement. A wave of political revolution, undermining imperialism where it hurts most, which is still increasing in force, the sahel states and France's former colonies being cases in point.
While the aggression of imperialism, in the middle east and eastern europe seems to indicate that the empire remains potent, we understand that its noisy and violent policies are indications of its imminent demise and the exhaustion of its strategies. All it can do is to kill- and currently murder in the form of individual assassination appears to be the last refuge of a military which can either end the world in a nuclear holocaust or kill civilians but nothing in between-and as it does so it unites the world against it.
The next round of 'alternatives' in Britain and Europe will not make the mistake that Corbyn made of neglecting to seek out allies in BRICS countries, particularly China which can offer the plain people of Europe much more than the US ever could. And vice versa.
Those who, distracted by the fate of the Soviet Union, write off the Bolshevik Revolution are missing the point: its effects are only beginning to be understood or even evidenced.
Who gave him access to all those "facts," i. e., his incendiary terminology, for inciting the workers? Because a theory is semantically constructable in the English language, does not make a theory arise from the Grundlage of the mind. Go back, I say, to the OED, and cherry pick an edifying ideology, instead of a train wreck. Let cooler minds prevail. Edify, don't stultify.
They had no choice. But they tried the most to denude education of anything that is not strictly necessary for production, but it didn’t work everywhere
Imagine a faraway country whose leaders' only interest is serving their people and where class interests are subsumed in a shared vision. Imagine, says Braudel, "the impact on European civilization of a series of Imperial dynasties maintaining the self-same style and significance from Caesar Augustus until the First World War. Now imagine such a civilization existing on the other side of the planet unaware of Greek philosophy, the alphabet, Roman governance, Christianity, feudalism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment or democracy, but with its own, unique cultural and institutional correlates that exceeded all of them in intellectual subtlety and material success". (A History of Civilizations).
We haven't felt that impact yet, but it's coming and it's going to be huge.
In the social sciences they have the term "ontological security", the feeling of intellectual and even emotional safety within one's own ideological worldview; China deeply threatens the ontological security of the Western elites through its separate cultural and philosophical development. That worldview is also of course a part of the Western hegemonic discourse that legitimizes the ruling class, and China represents an alternative vision that can shatter that discourse. Why the Western state, media and even academy lie so outrageously about the reality of present-day China.
Yes, an excellent summation of the situation Roger. Now your followup piece should do the same for the virtually non-existent left, socialist 'opposition'. What are the essential elements that led to its failure? Eg, reformism, anti-Sovietism, social imperialism and lest we forget, its offspring, racism. Perhaps Jack London's 'The Iron Heel' should be required reading?
Losurdo's "Western Marxism" would be a very good start, also Gabriel Rockhill's work. Also, the anti-communist left controlled opposition has been a very successful project of the capitalist oligarchy.
I will be publishing a piece soon on Perry Anderson, one of the pied pipers of the "left" leading those that really want change into dead ends.
Roger, I already have a stack of unread books a mile high! But in the UK, it can be traced back to the creation of the Labour Party and its decision to participate in Parliamentary 'democracy' and its pursuit of socialism via the electoral process. But I will check these tomes out.
Rockhill runs a summer school that publishes the lectures. This is a very good one "The Global Theory Industry & Left Anti-Communism", there are quite a few good ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH2TfECsEsw&t=663s
Let there be a meritocracy across the board and worldwide.
Well I just ordered the Losurdo book for my sins.
I had very fruitful conversation with Claude about this essay, maybe someone else will find it interesting:
https://claude.ai/share/3ac61f09-16ea-4690-b969-1865cee30b1a
The failure of the socialist movement arose neither from its seduction into parliamentary politics-dangerous and damaging as it was always understood it to be- nor from its critiques of Soviet government- although much of that criticism was little more than an excuse to cosy up to imperialist ruling classes.
The problem was and is that socialists have not been faithful to the task of building an alternative culture outside of and in opposition to the ruling class's culture.
Few, perhaps, remember now that historically socialists have separated themselves by means of Trade Unions, Co-operatives, Political Education and other institutions from capitalist society. In many European countries in the C20th socialists married according to their own rites, brought up children in socialist competitors with Scouts etc, educated them in socialist sunday schools and night schools, shopped at co-ops and, as far as they could, kept capitalist society at arms length.
And, of course, that parliamentarism was based upon robustly democratic constituency/ward organisations debating, developing policy programmes and doing all that could be done to control the campaigns of candidates and the legislative work of elected councillors or Members of Parliament.
And, of course, socialists were always well aware that the capitalist media was inimical to popular interests and that because the ruling class controlled culture we had to have our own media, tell our own story, understand history from the viewpoint of the poor, the peasant and the wage worker. We had our own songs and our own clubs and although the proportion of the working class completely committed to the separate culture varied enormously in part because of national or regional conditions ( coal mining communities were often almost entirely separated from the culture of the bosses. And where different languages, as in Wales, or dialects were available this barrier against the bourgeois world was particularly strong.)
It is still my view that the building of a socialist mass party which is necessary to overthrow the lunacy of capitalist rule, will involve the development of socialist media, socialist education independent of the corrupting Kindergarten-University brainwashing institutions and organisations capable of defending the alternative culture and institutions.
It would be instructive to study, for example, the long history of the Communist Party in China and the pre-1914 history of the SPD but there are very many, now obscure and largely forgotten, tales to be told of working class organisations, struggles and cultural achievements from every corner of the globe that need to be reclaimed from the wreckage left by reformist treachery and sectarian suicide pacts. It is the real history of humanity and it has never been unearthed or studied as it must be.
Incidentally talking of Losurdo and Gramsci, "The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and ..." by Mattei is a contemporary Italian contribution of great relevance.
The War of Position was very thoroughly won by the Western capitalist oligarchy in the past eighty years, with the destruction of the ideological and organizational infrastructure of any alternative hegemonic project. Then the co-option of those wishing for change through the corporate Democratic Party (and Labour Party etc.), identity politics (on both "left" and right), and now the usage of "populist" right wing parties that can facilitate a move to authoritarianism and fascism if necessary.
Real change will have to await the greater decline of the West and the preeminence of alternative models that will act, as with the communist revolutions, to undermine the legitimacy of the Western oligarchic project. In the meantime, any possibility of an alternative popping its head above the ground in the West will be met with an overwhelming ruling class attack - as with Corbyn, as with the German BSW.
The "greater decline of the West" to which you refer is a process which begins with the 1917 Revolution and its, often neglected or forgotten, appeals to The Toilers of the East.
While the appeals to the proletarians of the West had, in the final analysis, no concrete result in the east, and in east asia particularly latent anti-colonialism was organised into one after another national liberation movement. A wave of political revolution, undermining imperialism where it hurts most, which is still increasing in force, the sahel states and France's former colonies being cases in point.
While the aggression of imperialism, in the middle east and eastern europe seems to indicate that the empire remains potent, we understand that its noisy and violent policies are indications of its imminent demise and the exhaustion of its strategies. All it can do is to kill- and currently murder in the form of individual assassination appears to be the last refuge of a military which can either end the world in a nuclear holocaust or kill civilians but nothing in between-and as it does so it unites the world against it.
The next round of 'alternatives' in Britain and Europe will not make the mistake that Corbyn made of neglecting to seek out allies in BRICS countries, particularly China which can offer the plain people of Europe much more than the US ever could. And vice versa.
Those who, distracted by the fate of the Soviet Union, write off the Bolshevik Revolution are missing the point: its effects are only beginning to be understood or even evidenced.
Powerful stuff Roger.
Thank you.
Very well written
Who gave him access to all those "facts," i. e., his incendiary terminology, for inciting the workers? Because a theory is semantically constructable in the English language, does not make a theory arise from the Grundlage of the mind. Go back, I say, to the OED, and cherry pick an edifying ideology, instead of a train wreck. Let cooler minds prevail. Edify, don't stultify.
The will of humanity is so unexpected in its ability to observe .
Why the elite allowed us to be educated was a real Mistake then ? Hav
To think is a joy costing nothing terrifying those who have it all
They had no choice. But they tried the most to denude education of anything that is not strictly necessary for production, but it didn’t work everywhere