Left versus right seems like deeply antiquated politics from another era to me. The fight between labour and capital makes no sense when we have to live in a mixed economy. Much more important now is the question “do you care?” because that's the question that now decides how resources are allocated in our society. Which side are you on?
The audio version of this video is here:
The transcript is:
Are you on the left, or are you on the right? That has always been the great political question and I'm not sure that it is very relevant anymore.
I can't tell the difference between Labour and the Conservatives anymore. Yes, a little bit around the fringes, there are some Labour people who are clearly, in old-fashioned terms, to the left of some of the barking-mad members of the Tory party who are clearly on the far right now. But, overall? They both seem to be dedicated to the same fundamental economic policy these days, which is all about austerity.
So, is there any real difference between left and right in politics now? And is the dividing line in politics now anyway really about who controls the means of production, and therefore on which side of the fight between labour and capital you might find yourself on when there is enormous confusion between those roles these days?
Instead, there are much more important divides in politics these days. And that's what really concerns me. We're still talking about 19th and early 20th century arguments about capital versus labour, and left versus right, and wealth versus poverty, and all those things. But the reality is that because that rhetoric has remained stuck in the past era, arguing about situations that no longer exist, and because we don't have - and let's be honest about this, and I'm grateful for it - the deep poverty that we had in the 1930s, the rhetoric should move on. And if it did, we'd talk about much more important things.
For example, about care or not caring. To me this is the most important divide in politics we've now got.
Do you care that there are people who haven't got opportunity when some have?
Do you care about the people who are stuck in mouldy social housing, provided by the rented sector but paid for by local authorities, when there is the opportunity for them to have something so much better?
Do you care about those who are left unemployed because the Bank of England wants there to be a buffer of unemployed people because it can't get its inflation calculation right?
Do you care about the fact that some children are not provided with the opportunity that others enjoy?
Do you care about the fact that young people are burdened with debt if they go to university, and yet we want them to go to university because we want their skills in the future, but we will be denying them the chance to save for their own homes, let alone their pensions as a consequence?
'Do you care?' seems to me to be by far the most important question that we can ask in politics now.
And too often, I see politicians who seem not to care at all.
It's what fundamentally my politics is all about. I will always be on the side of the underdog. I have a bias to the poor. I have a bias towards the young because I can see that what my generation has done to the world that we live in that is not providing them with the opportunities that they need into the future, particularly when it comes to climate change.
I believe we should care. And that, to me, is where we should be going and how we should be talking about the dividing lines in politics in the future if we are to have a politics that makes sense for the 21st century. Because whether you care or not defines how you allocate the resources within society.
And if you don't care, the consequence is terrible for vast numbers of people.
And if you do, you can make the lot of humankind better.
Which side are you on? Do you care, or can't you be bothered to?
I think that's a question we should all be asking.
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Yes determining whether the left/right approach is the right one now is difficult. Could you not say that you still have a left/right division but that the major parties would be defined as right wing these days?
I agree it does come down to whether people care or not and I am afraid that a lot don’t!
All the major partiues are right of centre now
And it is clear Labour and the Tories do not care
Care does, then, give a cause for differentiation
Seems to me it does not matter if you are on the Right or Left if you care because if you care you can work with anyone else who cares to find a solution to a (the) problem(s).
If you do NOT care, then your response is to absolutely nothing.
Too many people simply do NOT care.
Caring, in political terms is not some residual derivative from a core left/right division, but the reverse. Left/Right is a political derivative of not caring, or indifference to the harms people cause in pursuit of success; typically money and power. And Left/Right is a political distinction for an age that no longer exists. Before Left/Right adequately described the politics, there was a political consensus, in which people managed the problem by distinguishing between the deserving and undeserving poor (NB. neither category had a vote). The undeserving poor deserved nothing; and the deserving poor were entitled only to rely on charity. We are returning to that supposed consensus in our politics today, save the poor now have a vote (but nobody to vote for).
I would respectfully disagree that the “left” & “right” political distinctions are no longer relevant — it is just the case that the Overton Window has been shifted so far to the right that all the mainstream political parties are now right-wing.
Political beliefs can be described along 2 orthogonal axes: the “left vs right” economic axis and the “authoritarian vs liberal” social axis. All three main parties in this country are firmly in the Authoritarian RIght sector, which is why we have no real choice.
I would argue for an additional axis then, care v don’t care
I have always considered the left to encompass caring as a central tenant: socialism is all about supporting each other. The right prefers the primacy of the individual, the nastiness flows from this.
I think most people do care – a lot.
The problem is no politician is listening.
The large majority of people don’t believe in austerity and want decent public services. The Conservatives were dumped at the election at least party because of 14 years of austerity. Most people want nationalisation of essential monopoly public services such as water, rail, and post. Politicians steadfastly refuse to nationalise.
And yet, the Labour government hasn’t listened and is implementing the same austerity politics. Nor do Reform or the Libdems listen. This is happening in other countries too, leading to the rise of populist parties who claim to listen but don’t. We need a populist party (i.e. democratic) that actually listens. There are none. That’s the problem.
The politicians don’t listen because they’re either amateurish or corrupt or both! Can’t remember when I last heard an intelligent and honest one much like the rare birds Richard hopes to spot on his days off!
The world would be better if they did.
I think you are right to suggest that in every day discussion of politics, the concepts of left and right have become corrupted into slogans and sound bites, and are often used to distract from the essence of the political realities.
And I would say that in every day discussions, it makes a lot sense to say to my (Tory) neighbour, if you care about the Ukrainian refugees, and support the local homeless charity, then let us talk about the causes of homelessness and flight. Left and right, Tory and Labour, do not facilitate reasonable discussion. In fact, they inhibit it.
However, if we do look at root causes, I think we will never get away from the underlying class analysis, capital and labour, that you mention in your video. You don’t have to be a Marxist to know that many of society’s ills are the direct or indirect result of unequal power in the hands of the wealthy.
So, we have at least two axis to discuss, not one
Even that would help
Many people care. In my work I meet with new groups routinely and they care. I get that left and right aren’t useful, if ever they were, and to simply equate that with two political parties is even less useful, for the reasons you describe, and I’d argue that has always been the case to some degree. I also think, as you do here, that a much better approach is via a focus on care, kindness, compassion, solidarity and the extent to which people hold or oppose these values. However, when analysing our current condition, we have to ask about spheres of influence and power. Those I work with who care, they do what they can, but they, as I, have small spheres of influence, and their lives, as mine is too, are dominated by powerful interests who certainly don’t care. In my view, the problem we face isn’t, fortunately, a lack of care, it’s how we wrestle free of the subjugation by the powerful minority who don’t. Michael Moore noted that the US is full of lefties (his words) but the govt isn’t, and the govt holds all the cards, so the US is as bad as it is. A different system of govt would allow that care to shine through. With the current system – elite rule – what shines through is cruelty and greed. We see the effects ripple through society because they have a massive bureaucracy at their disposal which controls, regulates and directly intervenes in people’s lives daily, and is something to be feared. In the degraded world around us we might assume that it is because most don’t care, but that’s not true. Most of us do care (in my experience), it’s just that we’re walking in the rubble created by those who don’t. I can’t get the govt to act differently, and even MPs in the Labour party can’t, and even when they disagree with govt they vote in favour to save their own careers. I have no involvement in govt decisions, they don’t call me up and ask me what they should do, and whenever I write to my MP I get a stock reply. The UK’s problem is Westminster (the govt could end poverty tomorrow, so poverty is the policy). And a population cannot overcome that, because work occupies so much time, and the battle front will simply shift – maybe higher prices, higher taxes, recession, inflation, anything that keeps people stuck and entirely at the disposal of govt (which includes corporations, business, any beneficiary of cheap labour). I think a good question would be: why doesn’t government represent the electorate when we live in a “representative democracy” and voting is supposed to give power to the electorate?
Or maybe: why isn’t the care that people feel for each other (their families, friends, colleagues, neighbours, etc., so, everyone ultimately) reflected in govt policy?
Or: what is it about “representative democracy” that makes all such governments hostile and cruel to most of their populations?
Or: what form of governance would allow people’s care to be enacted in policy in ways that can’t be overturned by a tiny, bad faith minority?
Yes. I care. I care deeply. If I didn’t care quite as much as I do, I would be having a much quieter and considerably more peaceful retirement.
But then I wouldn’t be me.
Agreed!
Well said.
I’d just add my despair at politicians and investors who seem to think money is an end in itself. You are different because you always care about what people need; your thinking about money (its creation, monitoring and use) is always subservient to that.
Human beings have purposes and use money to fulfill them. Money in itself also facilitates a purpose that of saving. Hardly anybody makes the effort to understand the technical mnetary arrangements to make this happen in an equitable way.
600 years ago Machiavelli’s position on the balance of power started from the axiom that ‘in every republic there are two opposed factions, that of the people and that of the rich’
Some things never change.
The current system, moreorless globally, is predicated on the power of capital over people, and neoliberalism not only reinforces but further concentrates economic inequality, and consolidates political power in fewer hands.
The ‘labour vs capital’ polarity of 19thC socialist thinking really has not been resolved at all.
Whether it is regarded as class war, or liberal egalitarianism, is not really pertinent.
The pejorative accusation of being “Marxist”, seemingly these days for anyone left of Thatcher, is deliberately obscurantist.
Marx analysed and Marx prescribed as two distinct pillars.
Marxian analysis was pretty much spot on, and is still highly relevant, from the labour theory of value to his work on alienation and technology, but the authoritarian political prescriptions that led to Marxist-Leninism were not even totally accepted during the revolutionary windows in the early 20thC.
Influential left thinkers like Rosa Luxemberg and the entire libertarian socialist groupings detested authoritarian statism.
We are now way past the age of bureaucratic state socialism as an option.
That was dismissed too, by many left thinkers of the 60s and 70s, and accusations of “Marxist” are pretty much a joke, well, outside North Korea anyway.
The existence of a ‘mixed economy’, does not automatically mean that the power equilibrium within such economies is remotely balanced.
Most western economies are dominated by corporatism and financial interests, and these are evidently not equable.
We’ve known this since the 30s, and especially after JK Galbraith lucidly described how corporate plutocracy came to dominate politics.
Yesterday we had the unedifying act of a Labour government’s £22bn “donation” – £800m a year for 25 years – to three dominating oil companies, which ought to demonstrate how far government has been captured by fossil fuel interests, and which move is right out of the plutocrat’s playbook.
Forget effective climate action with this backdrop.
In recent blogs Steve Keen, Bill Mitchell and Robert Reich, have all published posts showing how wage growth has been seriously suppressed since 1979, worker power has been eroded through anti-union policies, and how profit % levels have more than doubled through price gouging during recent periods of inflation.
Piketty , Pickett and Wilkinson had long demonstrated the entrenched growth of inequality and relative poverty, and mapped its toxic effects.
Quite simply, the power balance between people and the owners of capital and their technocracies is heavily distorted, both economically and politically.
Power over people by money has been massively extended since 1979. As well as wages being suppressed, access to easy credit has been opened up, both for the basics of life and to encourage consumerism, with the phenomenal growth of private debt being another intentional millstone round the necks of most people, and another means of popular control. Keep ‘em in debt.
The replacement of the “class war” between capital and people with culture wars based on individual issues has fragmented and diffused far too much political action, reducing its effectiveness, to the advantage of those for whom divide and rule really does help their exercise of power.
Chantal Mouffe offered the very plausible notion that the merging of centre left and right parties, with shared agendas and virtually identical programmes benefiting money power – often funded and hence dominated by corporatist interests – has inadvertently provided the political space for the growth of populism and especially the far right.
As for where future political energies need to be concentrated, it is in redressing the power balance between people and technocratic elites.
“The power to threaten poverty, to remove agency, to increase insecurity, to reduce our abilities to exert control over our lives is the ultimate power, and almost equates to the power of life and death.” Sen
These are the most malign forces.
The power of capital, to its owners and controlling interests, is value free, and its practitioners have little or no concern for normal standards of ethics and morality.
As such the power of capital is abnormal in human terms, as it divorces actions from morality, and is as corrupting now as in Machiavelli’s time.
Much to agree with
Thank you for this comprehensive and instructive analysis. The exhaustion created daily by simply refusing to conform to the demand to just stop caring and become a nihilist cynic, the impotent rage at the increasing social iniquities, will be one underlying cause for the increasing ill health of the UK population. If our governing class truly wish for higher productivity than they must enact moral leadership and act to create a society that is inclusive, environmentally just, embodying a vision of social altruism. A revolution that would necessitate that that they first of all begin to feel and care.
Much to agree with
That’s very telling Richard, and its so obvious from all your work here that you very much do care – and so do most of the commenters on here.
But although left/right may now be pretty meaningless given that both main parties more or less self identify as right, we still need a proper understanding of how the system works and thus how it might be changed to benefit the many , not the few.
You have provided much of this understanding – particularly how money works and how public investment can be ‘afforded’ and how it benefits the economy.
But we musnt throw the baby out with the bathwater – Piketty may be flawed – but who owns the ‘means of production’ – and in particular the growing global monopolisation of resources, techonology, products and services – and the system’s tendency to disposess increasing number of the the population from being able to sustain themselves – food , shelter , education etc.
Presumably most politicians and the people in the Bank of England think they ‘care’ – its just that being the slaves of defunct economists – they think they have to be cruel to be kind
I am saying left / right is not enough, I guess.
It would seem that not many people aren’t very interested in how life in the universe operates. If they were they’d recognise that two things are going on, the existence of consciousness and this enables the majority of organisms to balance meeting individual need with that of others outside of obtaining energy for survival. It is this which enables collective action to meet threat or seize opportunity.
Some religions provide an excuse that failing to do the balancing will be forgiven and you will continue life after death in a perfect environment usually called heaven or paradise. These religions forget that the point of consciousness is also to allow distinguishing between good and bad environments or situations. They offer no explanation of an alternative mental way to consciousness to experience an after-life. It can therefore be argued that there is no excuse for not caring for others and doing the needs balancing whilst we are alive and have consciousness!
At a microscopic scale there is amazing collective behaviour in bacteria. Human beings follow similar procedures because it aids survival. Collective behaviour appears to be built into the universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJpi8SnFXHs
And:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02042rf
In short balancing of needs through a process of social intelligence takes place amongst tiny organisms such as bacteria. We needs to learn lessons from them!
Separating people into ‘left and right’ at the time the term originated in France, was to simply make it easier for the president to count who backed the king and who didn’t. The was no symbolism in the actual position.
An excellent piece by Tony. It’s not so much who owns the means of production, it’s who owns the software – used to scrape data from users of such to then sell on.
But, there are other forms of ownership that those on the left, (a term whose death has been greatly exaggerated) should or do support, such as various forms of co-operative, Mondragón being an example and discussed by Richard D Wolff, the Marxian economist (not many of those around now).
No w e don’t have Victorian levels of poverty, but there are still people sleeping on the streets and working people and others in need of food parcels and those who can’t turn on the heating – in fact many of the things in your caring list are about poverty, relative poverty which is very important. (There’s a good discussion on this in The Richer, the Poorer by Stewart Langley). The right will say there’s no longer absolute poverty and think that lets them off the hook.
But as you suggest everyone deserves a decent quality of life and not one that just about keeps their head above water and avoids destitution, which the JRF said 3.8m in the UK experienced at some point in 2022.
(The general public considers people to be destitute when they cannot afford to buy the essentials to eat, stay warm and dry, and keep clean. JRF 2016}
A good question.
To not care is to enter the world of Tony Blair who concluded whilst in office last that people do not care who provides a service as long as they get one.
But of course, that has been – should have been – debunked by now by facts, reified by time and greed.
The fact that our rivers are full of sewage;
That our drinking water is under threat;
That our utility bills are now more un-affordable;
Our railways over crowded and too expensive;
That ‘low taxes’ and ‘world beating services’ are mutually exclusive ideas;
That further education is becoming too expensive, less obtainable;
That everything that the state funded and withdraws from is and will be charged for – expensively
That every new threat, every new problem can be dealt with by insurance – apparently – and presents an opportunity for further exploitation.
This gives the politicians the excuse not to worry too much – the market will take of it – for a price of course and with limitations…..erm……..read the small print.
I’m sure that there are other issues but what Blair – the arrogant so and so that he is – did not consider is that people will care when it hits their pockets as it is now, colliding with the low wage culture politicians things is so essential. And – no doubt – we will also be asked to subsidise a war when the inflationary consequences of Gaza et al take grip. All Blair was describing was the pre-condition that could be exploited to throw his country to the markets. Being a Christian, he has already been forgiven and so its all open season for him – a principle free zone. In his mind, Blair cannot be touched – even when he is dead, God will validate him.
He believes – he really does, that just ‘loving God’ will get him through. All that nonsense about living with humility like Jesus and being concerned about others less powerful – nah? Hard work that. Fools errand.
Blair was the prototype of a politician that now we have far too many of.
Forged by Thatcher in the pyre she co-built with the Labour Right, dimwitted unions and very confused, outwitted traditional Liberals who forgot that freedom in the temporal world has its limitations.
I hope this post does not disturb your well deserved ‘stand-still moment’ too much.
I read it
Thanks
In any political debate I think we need to continue to emphasise the iniquity of far right ‘libertarian’ dogma.
Free marketeers are committed to ‘laissez faire”, though ‘doing as you wish’ is only partial anyway , being constrained by the laws of contract and property. However the free market version of personal freedom only really applies to the owners and managers of capital.
Those who have to transact their labour have no corresponding freedom to do as they wish, as negotiating power is very much asymmetrical, so their opportunities to do as they choose are heavily restricted, and given the unequal power between employers and employees, those endorsing ‘laissez faire’ are applying double standards.
Agreed the Libertarian rich don’t genuinely balance “freedom.” They perversely believe that becoming rich comes about without the need to equitably balance the needs of others in relation to themselves. This is narcissistic sociopathy! That Starmer should accept large sums of money from one of these people reveals his true character!
Power is one dimension that really matters, humanitarian/care the other. Labour used to have little of the first and a lot of the second. It’s now inverted. The WW2 generation learned to care and had the power. Alas Blair corrupted that.
Yes, I suppose differentiating between those who care about others,and those who don’t so much , can be useful for assessing the nature of individuals. But WHO they care about most tends to divide along Left/Right lines. Some of my relatives are clearly “caring” and will go out of their way to help. But only to help close relatives and friends. Try broadening their caring tendencies to the poor,or vulnerable or immigrants etc and you will soon be on the receiving end of a Daily Mail diatribe,delivered with surprising venom.
On the other hand, other relatives are strongly Left wing, with firm commitments to equality,fair shares for all, and they have commendably acute antennae for detecting even well hidden bigotry. Yet may seem awkward with others and are more angry with the Right than actually emotionally moved by the plight of capitalisms victims. I am more like that.
I would always support the less “caring” ones as their beliefs and policies would benefit the vulnerable,regardless of how sympatico they seem. My cuddlier but Right Wing relatives will always blame the victims not the perpetrator, and vote accordingly. With grim results.
In deciding about someone’s ‘left/right’ views or ‘care/not care’ attitudes something is missing. Namely the effect of such a very large proportion of our community, our state-wide, our national populations who take no interest. Those like Richard, and a few in my family, do understand and do take an interest and do have effects in affairs at local and at wider levels. These non-involvers usually state that if they took an interest and exerted themselves in any small manner they would occupy themselves for no good purpose. They may be identified by accepting benefits (free benefits usually) made available by concerned individuals – as we see have a willingness to offer here on this blog and in our communities.
They represent a signiificant percentage of whatever population one cares to enumerate. They represent a significant amount of potential positive energy which is missing from our normal intercourse among workers, between neighbours, not sharing whatever small effects they might bring to enrich our society’s value to each other, including themselves.
Because they may be of right wing or left wing persuasion does not entirely erase their effects upon the socially active involvement societies need which would offer us all a comfortable enviornment.
IMO, left and right are still relevant terms. Left-wing can be define as caring about other humans, and sometimes other sentient beings, whereas right-wing can be defined as not giving a damn about other people, global warming, and all life on the planet, etc. The main UK parties (Tory, New Labour and Fib-Dem), as is the case with the two main parties in the US Empire (GOP and Democrats), are right-wing (completely uncaring) and their neo-liberal politicians range from centre-right to far right. Perhaps you’re right, er, I mean, correct, and new terms to more accurately describe them would be appropriate? It’s the same with vegan and carnivore. More accurate terms would be “The kind to animals diet” and “The don’t give a damn about non-human sentient creatures diet”
Richard
Indeed; I am a socialist much like you. I have lost count of the number of times I have been told socialism is just the politics of envy. For years, at work, at social events, on the doorstep (I used to actively campaign for the UK’s only democratic socialist party – once known as the Labour Party – but alas no longer) that accusation was the same “you are just jealous”.
My response has always been the same. Socialism is the politics of concern; not of envy. I am not envious of those wealthier than me, those in better health then me, or those who have had the fortune to have better education or live in larger houses. Good luck to them. Indeed, I could quite easily be one of those very people.
My politics has always been driven by concern for those less healthy than me. Concern for those who have not had the same opportunities as me. Concern for those who have not had the same chance for a first-class education that has benefited me throughout my life.
Historically these views have chimed more closely with those on the left and those in the Labour Party. Once the two were aligned. Sadly no longer.
You are right – the divide is between those that care for the less able; and those that do not. Those that care for the environment and those that what to exploit it and those that care for the future and those that live for the now.
Keep up the good work. Your posts often serve as an inspiration and always remind me that there are still likeminded people around.
Thanks
But I have always been more politically social than socialist, I think
I mean, I have always believed in society