The right is the only show in town (UK Guardian)

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1355532,00.html

The reason for the collapse of the left could not be clearer - or more fundamental. Its parameters, its confidence, its mode of organisation, its narrative, its very being, depended on the existence of the labour movement. And it is the latter that has effectively disappeared. The trade unions are a shrunken and wizened version of what they were, pushed to the perimeters of political life, while the party itself has, in its New Labour guise, been reconstituted, such that in style, funding and apparat, it looks much like what a modernised Tory party might be. Labour has been shorn of its roots and meaning. The collapse of the labour movement is not just a British phenomenon, but one shared with much of Europe. There are two underlying reasons for its demise.

The first is the loss of agency, the decline of the industrial working class and its consequent erosion as a meaningful and effective political force. It was the working class - in terms of workplace, community, unions and party - that invented and gave expression to the labour movement. The second reason is the collapse of communism. Of course, the mainstream labour movement in this country never subscribed to its tenets, but both the social democratic and communist traditions shared, in different ways, the vision of a better society based on collectivist principles. It is that vision that was buried with the interment of communism. For over a century, European politics was defined by the struggle between capitalism and socialism: suddenly, capitalism became the only show in town, both in Europe and globally. The result was the rapid deconstruction of the left such that it now exists as but a rump of its former self - not just in Britain, or Europe, but everywhere.

There is also a specifically European dimension. Europe was the intellectual and political birthplace of socialism. It was the home of the modern labour movement. And it was from Europe that the idea was exported. The worldwide socialist project was a product of the expansiveness and self-confidence of Europe. But the latter has turned into the opposite. Europe itself is a declining continent, squeezed between the overweening power and influence of the US and the irresistible rise of east Asia. The latter, in their different ways, embrace very distinct values, cultures, histories and institutions from those of Europe. The global contraction of European influence has served to accelerate and deepen the crisis and confusion of the left.

And yet, when all is said and done, there is something profoundly paradoxical about this story. The left may have been marginalised - but the imperatives that gave rise to it and which it sought to address are now more glaring and insistent than at any time since the second world war. Inequality, at both a global and national level, has been steadily increasing, an integral product of the neoliberal model of globalisation that has dominated the world order over the last quarter-century. And the consequences of this inequality have played a crucial role in helping to shape the present phase of global politics, namely Arab Muslim grievance, terrorism and American unilateralism.

[starroute]

1. In other words, the left needs a new power base

Power comes naturally to the right -- it has the money, the corporations, the major cultural institutions, the old boys' networks.

The left doesn't have any of that. The left is, by nature, a fragmented mass of individuals without power, without much money, without cultural visibility.

The labor movement was the one major area in which the left was able to come together, exert a certain amount of leverage over both business and government, and develop a self-image of being the crucial progressive force in Western society.

But the labor movement was a product of industrialization -- specifically of the factory model of production, which exploited its workers unconscionably but also gave them a framework in which they could organize and unite.

There is nothing like that today, and the few areas in which the left does have some small amount of visibility and influence -- tv, movies, even the gay rights movement -- are under merciless assault by the right.

There isn't any easy solution to this lack of a left-wing power base. Looking around, the closest thing to a progressive community today seems to be rooted in quality-of-life issues (from health care to the environment), and I'm not sure that there's enough urgency or total dedication there to form the basis of a mass movement.

There's also no handy tool for such a movement to exert leverage. Consumer activism (boycotts, etc.) comes the closest -- it attacks present-day capitalism at its point of greatest vulnerability, just as strikes and slowdowns did during the era of industrialism. But at least so far, there's no real power there and not much sense of mutual support.

Well, perhaps as they move more jobs out of the US and people simply become *unable* to consume as they have in the past, the balance may switch.