Is the West Experiencing a Left-Wing Drift? (the international left politics activism, news, and strategy thread)

tbh I assumed the piece is a lot worse than it is based on whomst I saw make objections (people I generally trust) - in particular I don't detect Day inserting her own aesthetic preferences as much as ppl were complaining about, to the extent that I wonder if it underwent a post-publication edit. the more likely explanation is that aesthetic discussion of public housing just provoke automatic revulsion because it's typically a NIMBY line

I'll make it prettier than this... but more voters identified as liberal in 2018 than in any exit poll since they began back in 1976... Fewer identified as moderate than in any exit poll since they began back in 1976... pic.twitter.com/NULAKFYLZm

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) November 16, 2018

which is why it's so incredibly tactically dumb for the left-left to demonize "liberals"--like, they're trying guys! Identifying as a "liberal" is a huge step to the left for a lot of people!

when i was a baby i used to call myself liberal even tho i was p much leftist i just thought liberal was the word

until like 2013 prob tbh

I mean it is a huge step to the left for a lot of people, and also if by the 'left-left' you mean socialists or anarchists or communists, it's worth remembering that there's a century's worth of betrayals that've seeded the bad blood there. It's not all snarling for fun's sake.

Yeah, I remember how betrayed Glenn Greenwald felt by the Taft-Hartley act.

ah who could forget famous american anarchist glenn greenwald

will you one day learn to read, fred

"We need a mass socialist politics that doesn't get caught up in policing individual virtue!" I say, when you tell me it hurt your feelings when I walked in drunk to your party and punched your cake

— Yiff In My Back Yard (@HanginOutOnline) November 19, 2018

sorry i punched your cake fred

Yiff In My Back Yard

i'm still a lib

never really understood the left-lib divide though, tbh except for real far-left nutjobs who i just discount to zero. i feel affinity to both in spirit; there are libs that annoy me, and leftists that do. but it's more contrarian to id as lib now

in my world of ppl, at least

have u never heard "Love Me, I'm A Liberal"? it's a pretty succinct overview of the problem IMO (given that leftists can be just as annoying, for sure)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw

and then of course there's the slightly-less-nail-on-the-head but similarly themed 'baby i'm an anarchist!'

more in line with the mockery of the original is david rovics 'i'm a better anarchist than you'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvlWSnLxrrc

I don't eat meat; I just live on moldy chives
Or the donuts that I found in last week's dumpster dives
Look you people in that restaurant, I think you are so sad
When you could've been eating bagels like the ones that I just had
I think it is a shame all the bourgeois things you do
I'm a better anarchist than you

I don't wear leather and I like my clothes in black
And I made a really cool hammock from a moldy coffee sack
I like to hop on freight trains, I think that is so cool
It's so much funner doing this than being stuck in school
I can't believe you're wearing those brand new shiny shoes
I'm a better anarchist than you

I don't have sex and there will be no sequel
Because heterosexual relationships are inherently unequal
I'll just keep on moshing to Anti-Flag and Clash
Until there are no differences in gender, race or class
All you brainwashed breeders, you just haven't got a clue
I'm a better anarchist than you

I am not a pacifist, I like throwing bricks
And when the cops have caught me and I've taken a few licks
I always feel lucky if I get a bloody nose
'Cause I feel so militant and everybody knows
By the time the riot is all through
I'm a better anarchist than you

<3

Feels like a lot of open left-lib beef (excluding specific criticism of powerful centrists) is people being very online, confusing the remaining dumbasses who are still mad about Bernie as a group representative of American liberals (who overwhelmingly approve of social democrats like Bernie and AOC every time they're polled).

Side note: I have to say as someone who was increasingly meh about AOC over time I've really been enjoying the extent to which she drives both that tiny slice of extremely online anti-left Dems as well as seemingly the entire right absolutely insane. Also it's refreshing to have an A+ poster in government.

never really understood the left-lib divide though

Come to the UK and we can explain the history of the Liberal Party and Labour Party to you.

Upsetting, but also props to DSA SF:

http://www.sfweekly.com/news/democratic-socialists-distribute-more-n95-masks-than-the-city/

I thought this thread critiquing the Angela Nagle immigration article was good

what she's concerned about is that wages in rich countries would crater if immigration controls on labor were not maintained. she's not wrong, since the wages we enjoy here are largely at the expense of wages elsewhere, and "free market" trade policies are exploitative BS.

— single white ML🌹 (@uhshanti) November 20, 2018

can anyone recommend some pro-open borders left writing that deals the implications of this point, that open borders would lower wages and living standards in rich countries? how the left in rich countries should organize around this issue, rather than just retreating into nativism?

some stuff

most of the left arguments I see making the case for open borders deny that there would be any negative effects for workers in rich countries, or at least play down the idea, e.g.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/16/democrats-immigration-policy-open-borders-dreamers

that tweet thread was interesting because it made the case for open borders while also acknowledging that open borders would not necessarily be in the interest of workers in rich countries. it's difficult to disagree with the argument she makes, there's no moral case that can be made for a "socialism" where solidarity ends at national borders - but how does the left builds mass support for open borders in rich countries if/when it is not in the self-interest of workers in those countries to support it? or is there a way for the left to push for open borders without gaining mass support for the idea?

(I suppose some on the left argue that open borders *are* in the self-interest of workers in rich countries, but as part of a wider long term movement to abolish capitalism and establish global communism?)

(or point out that even if fully open borders would have negative consequences for workers in rich countries, the limited levels of immigration taking place now do not? but that seems to lead to a position that there's an 'acceptable' level of immigration, and arguments about where that level should be set, which a lot of the left would reject?)

I think your first parenthetical is accurate - like the 'abolishing student debt isn't progressive' thing that went around a day or two ago, at our status quo open borders and abolishing debt aren't necessarily good for most American workers - they have to be combined with a socialist or socialist-adjacent movement ('abolishing student debt' with a benefit for people who couldn't afford to go to college in the first place + free college henceforth) to benefit someone other than the upper-middle class that has $100k in college debt and employers who want to futher dilute the power of labor.

I know what katy's going for here in this thread but I think being prescriptive about this is fucking delusional and I wanted to vent about that briefly here so I didn't dare do it on twitter

you can’t be a socialist and have hiring/firing power or power over someone’s wages. even if not, if you’re a manager, your job is to be a snitch.

— spectre haunting labor (@itsbreadtimebch) November 21, 2018

Like yes, that is in the job duties for managerial roles but a. have fun organizing your local starbucks without getting all your friends fired and b. anyone who';s ever worked for a corporate behemoth knows that these managerial roles often come with very lax oversight and it's very easy to deliberately be a lax or outright fraudulent snitch. but sure go ahead and tell people who may have dependents at home to turn down that extra three bucks an hour so you can feel more righteous or whatever.

ok rant over

I think snitchdom is the general expectation but, depending on the environment, the actual implementation of snitchery is kinda down to the individual.

(That said, I've declined every managerial offer I've ever received because fuck that shit.)

Oh as a personal choice it's completely valid and even laudable if you have the flexibility. I just hate it as a prescription. It's the lefty version of liberal scolding.

(I would like to emphasize that I have not nor have I ever been a manager of anyone.)

The strongest force pushing for open borders right now is capital, and the capitalist version of open borders basically amounts to precarious people shunted or forced back and forth in search of subsistence and safety and without rights. Precarious immigrant labor is not only cheaper but less able to speak up for itself or fight back. The capitalist goal is labor in a state of permanent flux and insecurity.

The left case for open borders is good in the abstract but I don't think it can be the priority as long as this is the reality, especially since, as noted above, we need to build support. Labor rights for immigrants is a better near-term goal.

Also agree that it's kind of counterproductive to call out people who make an extra $2/hour and have some glorified title and a couple extra responsibilities like they're the gestapo.

yeah I don't personally envision spending a lot of energy talking about open borders in the near future, except to call out bad takes like angela NAGL's

re: managers, yeah I've been discussing this w/ others and they have, correctly I think, pointed out that these roles exist in part to keep workers divided, so reinforcing those divisions seems silly

oh what the hell my last post had some good links in it when i hit post

I did find it unusually curt.

for one there's the historical side of things -- why socialists have always fought for open borders (emphases mine):

The socialist movement has been debating this question for more than a century. Over 100 years ago, an international congress categorically rejected all border controls. A resolution passed by the majority of the delegates at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart from August 18-24, 1907 declared categorically:

"The congress does not seek a remedy to the potentially impending consequences for the workers from immigration and emigration in any economic or political exclusionary rules, because these are fruitless and reactionary by nature. This is particularly true of a restriction on the movement and the exclusion of foreign nationalities or races."

A right-wing minority at the congress wanted to only place limits on deportations, proposing the amendment: “Regulation of the expulsion of foreigners, which must not be ordered for political reasons, and not by administrative means either, but only by court order." But this was rejected in favor of opposition to all border controls.

The German socialist Karl Liebknecht spoke a month later at the congress of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in reference to this debate (our translation):

"Down with the Damocles sword of deportation! This is the first condition for foreigners to stop being predestined to squeeze wages and break strikes. The discussions with the question of migration is a glorious chapter of the International Congress.

Stringent opposition to all restrictions on workers’ freedom of movement – this is the Marxist tradition. When the capitalists and their states use immigrant workers as wage squeezers and strikebreakers, our answer is to fight for equal rights and common organizations for all, with or without papers.

here also is a pdf of a comprehensive book that's a left look at immigration, including a chapter on wages & unemployment, which includes this:

The economic studies are, as usual, not necessarily conclusive, and are often contradictory and confusing. But supposing there was, after all, any negative effect on wages and conditions arising from the availability of the cheap labour of immigrants, the biggest effect would arise from their illegality. This is what makes it hardest for migrants to struggle for better conditions and wages, and most useful to employers in supplying, they hope, a malleable and docile workforce. Once immigrants have a secure legal and residence status, as Commonwealth migrants have since they first came to Britain in the 1950s, and as all workers would once immigration controls were abolished, all the evidence is that they are as willing to join trade unions and organise as the native workforce, or more so.

Supposing it were true that immigrant workers and their legally inferior position weakened the bargaining strength of the working class as a whole, then the obvious response is to make more effort to incorporate them as fully as possible into union structures and to fight for their full access to all the rights enjoyed by local workers. However what has the most potential to weaken and divide the working class is not the existence of immigrants, either legal or illegal, but the racism of white workers. The hostility of some of the latter towards immigrants may cause them to blame immigrants rather than their employers and capitalism as a whole for high unemployment and worsening conditions in a period of recession. It may even cause them to identify with their employers, as they obtain relatively higher status and promotion from the worst jobs which come to be filled by immigrants, and may thus weaken their will to engage in collective struggles for the interests of the working class as a whole. Some have argued that this is a reason why governments have deliberately created, through immigration controls, an illegal workforce.

Then she quotes Marx on the English & Irish:

Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the ‘poor whites’ to the ‘niggers’ in the former slave states of the USA. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker at once the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rule in Ireland.

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.

also tbh katy's obvs very sharp and often on point but i rmde @ her constant attitude of spleening antagonism more than almost anyone on left twitter

it's a little disingenuous to make these arguments without addressing that even a legal larger labor pool depresses wages

@HOOS I approve of this use of "spleening"

i'm not really sure what you're getting at, mordy -- yes, those who set wages depress them when they can get away with it. they depress them even further for marginalized people when they can get away with it. 'when they can get away with it' is a function not just of the size of the labor pool but also of the degree of structural soundness of the solidarity of working people.

this sounds a lot like "we're not worried about driving down wages through a larger worker pool bc we're planning to institute communism anyway" and i suspect not compelling to the ppl most concerned about wages.

in the present globalized economy the structural soundness of solidarity of working people is more of a theoretical construct than a reality.

dude i'm talking about a fuckin union, not collective unicorn farms

If increasing the size of the labor pool per se depresses wages then we should be seeking zero population growth. Obviously that's not necessarily the case because more workers = more people with money to buy goods and services.

It's a consistent problem on the left that people can't work out that there might be an order of operations to achieving its goals. If you do certain things out of order, like open borders before addressing imperialism or organizing labor, the whole process falls apart.

— matthew the raven (@matthewaraven) November 21, 2018

always remember PEMDAS

Patriarchy dismantling
Establish socialism
Make green economy
Destroy borders
Abolish gender
Space communism

It's a consistent problem on the left that people can't work out that there might be an order of operations to achieving its goals. If you do certain things out of order, like open borders before addressing imperialism or organizing labor, the whole process falls apart.
— matthew the raven (@matthewaraven) November 21, 2018
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 20:28 (thirty-five minutes ago) Permalink

Yes, this is what I'm getting at, and well put.

also lol bison

Come to the UK and we can explain the history of the Liberal Party and Labour Party to you.

the tory party in Australia is still called the Liberal Party

(currently holding a minority government, with an unelected Prime Minister, and 59 out of 150 members of parliament. it's great fun how the wheels are coming off the "moderate conservative" carriages in UK, US and .au at the same time but hapless cunts whom nobody wants are in charge in all of them, with no viable left leadership in any.)