Have you noticed how conservatives, both with a big and a small 'c', are always on about freedom and the importance of living in a 'free society'. Not only that but they are always sounding off about the enemies of freedom, and its not difficult to guess who those enemies are - socialists and trade unionists usually come top of the list. So it was with interest that I read Charles Moore's latest diatribe in the Telegraph. Tory cheerleader Moore has identified another one of the great enemies of freedom - equality! Not only is the promotion of equality for all a threat to 'freedom' but apparently the desire for more equality is a form of madness as this revealing quote shows:
"The doctrine of Equality is mad. Like extreme
post-Reformation Protestantism, it perverts a good inclination and turns it
into a lunatic theocracy."
I'm sure that even on a good day Moore would be deeply perturbed by the idea of equality but what seems to have particularly upset him is David Cameron's attempt to bring in gay marriage. Apparently if gay people can get married that is a threat to the 'institution of marriage', which as every good person knows is a union between a man and a woman - only. But why so much angst? I could quote more from Moore's article including some pretty tortuous, cringe-worthy stuff about marriage being about procreation - something gays can't do! - but I'll spare you that.
Moore suffers from the same problem that all conservatives have - a morbid psychology in which it is essential to feel superior to other people at the expense of their freedom. In this case the freedom of all people to get married. That is why so many conservatives are racist, sexist, and homophobic, and that is why they loathe political correctness so much. For example, you see that white working class conservatives, even though they are shat upon by the likes of Moore and his class, can still feel good because they can sleep soundly at night knowing that, downtrodden as they are, they are still superior to gays, women and blacks. That is why the more extreme of them support the likes of the BNP. Take that away from them and what have they got - nothing! And that is also why so many 'middle class' conservative Americans hate Obama.
Equality is a terrifying concept for conservatives because they will no longer be better than others. No wonder Moore thinks the desire for equality is a form of madness. But there is one more important form of equality I need to mention. The one, that along with equality for people of all races, women, and gays, that socialists and trade unionists are fighting for - economic equality. This is the equality that conservatives fear most. That is why socialist and trade unionists are the enemy. Cameron and Osborne may be able to accept gay marriage, but economic equality, with workers obtaining the real value of the wealth they create, will never be acceptable to them. Economic equality would undermine the most important inequality in our class-ridden capitalist economy. That is the final frontier without which the ruling class would have nothing. They would then merely be the same as the rest of us.
The reality is that equality represents a huge threat to conservatives. Its something they really fear. It not only threatens their superiority to gays, but more fundamentally their self-serving class superiority. Its the grouse moors and London clubs, the yachts and apartments in Manhattan that are under threat from economic equality. That is what really scares them, the freedom that they have to inherit wealth and to be kept in the style to which they are accustomed, by the labours' of others. That is why they really mean when they talk about freedom, because its their freedom that counts, and they must hang on to that freedom at all costs, at the expense of freedom for the rest of us.
We live in reactionary times. Times, in which, the political left appears to be unable to respond to the dominance of the political right. Capitalism is everywhere triumphant. The left is in crisis. So what has happened?
Firstly we need to go back to 1989 the year in which the Soviet Union collapsed. The champagne corks must have been popping in every capitalist boardroom. Why? because as long as the Soviet Union existed it was possible to believe in a viable alternative to capitalism. That gave the left an awful lot of strength. There isn't the time and space here to go into the pro's and cons of the Soviet Union. Was it really a workers state? Was it state capitalism? Was it just a brutal dictatorship? Suffice to say the Soviet Union was not a bad as Western Capitalist propaganda made it seem. People had housing and healthcare and it was a much more equal society than anything we have ever experienced. An awful lot of good people gave their lives trying to create a better world. Their efforts deserve to be acknowledged.
But back to the left. After 1989 it became seized with doubt - trapped like a rabbit in the headlights of the oncoming capitalist juggernaut. But how did things fold so easily? I think there are a number of reasons. One key one is the fact that a lot of the old Marxists and Socialists, people like E P Thompson simply died out. The people who replaced them didn't have the experience of war, conflict and struggle that those those old Socialists did, they were tough cookies. Socialists had gone soft and Socialist politicians in Europe had been sucked into the Eurocracy, expense accounts, and (largely) meaningless debates in Strasbourg.
So where do we go now? What next for the left? Well socialism of course! But hang on isn't that a bit 20th century? Isn't socialism dead as Martin Kettle claimed recently? Well no it isn't. Broadly speaking there are two kinds of socialism; Socialism with a big 'S' and socialism with a small 's'. Socialism with a big 'S' - the Socialism that arose from the work of people like Marx, Engels and Lenin. By the the late 1960s Socialism
had become dogmatic, doctrinaire and sterile That does not mean that Marx, for example, was dogmatic, just that Socialism had become riddled with a particularly deadening kind of dogmatism. Socialism had ceased to be empowering and vibrant. Changing economic circumstances and disillusionment with the Soviet Union helped to bring about the decline of this mainstream Socialism.
But socialism with a small 's' is, and always has been, alive and well. Socialist ideas pre-date Marx by a very long time. Wat Tyler was a socialist, so was John Lilliburne. Because socialism with a small 's' is simply the politics of putting people first - of need not greed. You don't need to have read Das Kapital to understand that kind of socialism - anyone can.
Of course Socialism is so unpopular that some people believe the 's' word should never be mentioned. If they can think of a better word to describe the politics of need not greed then I'd like to hear it. 'Progressive' politics just isn't enough. If David Cameron can call himself a progressive - he's not really - then that's a good reason for not using the word. The fact that Cameron would never dream of calling himself a socialist is good enough for me.
To be honest I'm glad that doctrinaire Socialism is dead. Too much focus on theory, rather than practice, too much self indulgence, too many varieties, too many meetings, too much sectarianism - too much baggage by half.
We need to learn from the mistakes that Socialists made in the past without underestimating the great value and contribution of socialists like Marx. We need to unite and move forward with the simple politics of social, economic and environmental justice. That's what socialism, at its core, is really about.
