Has the Left Blown it?
August 17,2009 
by Ben Cohen
With an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize on the utter failure of neo liberal economics, the Left has been strangely inactive, and largely ineffective in instituting serious change.
The Banking system blew a multi trillion dollar hole in the economy, and have been rewarded with tax payers money, bonuses, and an increased role in fiscal policy.
Americans probably won't get a public insurance plan for their healthcare, and the conservative party will most likely win the next election in Britain.
What on earth is going on? Andy Beckett has a fascinating report in the Guardian that suggests the Left essentially gave up too much ground on economic theory, and hasn't really formulated anything new to combat the onslaught of global capitalism.
The Left is great at complaining (this site included), but a strong, well articulated vision of a new economic order is needed to combat the ruthless system that places private profit above everything else. My particular thoughts are that it cannot be described in traditional Leftist rhetoric, but in a new language of progressive participatory economics that places less emphasis on government, and more on people.
Until then, we'll continue to be sold out by centrist liberals more concerned with getting elected that serving the needs of the people.
by Ben Cohen
With an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize on the utter failure of neo liberal economics, the Left has been strangely inactive, and largely ineffective in instituting serious change.
The Banking system blew a multi trillion dollar hole in the economy, and have been rewarded with tax payers money, bonuses, and an increased role in fiscal policy.
Americans probably won't get a public insurance plan for their healthcare, and the conservative party will most likely win the next election in Britain.
What on earth is going on? Andy Beckett has a fascinating report in the Guardian that suggests the Left essentially gave up too much ground on economic theory, and hasn't really formulated anything new to combat the onslaught of global capitalism.
The Left is great at complaining (this site included), but a strong, well articulated vision of a new economic order is needed to combat the ruthless system that places private profit above everything else. My particular thoughts are that it cannot be described in traditional Leftist rhetoric, but in a new language of progressive participatory economics that places less emphasis on government, and more on people.
Until then, we'll continue to be sold out by centrist liberals more concerned with getting elected that serving the needs of the people.
Part of the reason the left has been inactive may be because they are less affluent than the right-wing activists, and have been more effected by the recession. The right-wing protests have been organized almost solely by the affluent, powerful right-wing activists like Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, businessmen, etc. They have time, energy, and resources to invest.
I really can’t stand this alleged need for “new leftist economic theories”. They’re there. They’ve been there for centuries. There will be no new economic theories put forth unless they are hybrids of theories which already exist. There are three possible economic states – a market with privately owned resources, a dictatorship with government/singularly owned resources, or a state in which we minimise ownership in favor of democratically, communally, collectively controlling resources with everyone participating in the deliberation process. Every prescriptive economic theory that has ever been put forth has been some hybrid of these three conditions. The third has been around since Native Americans and for the past 150 years has been called libertarian socialism or anarchism. There is no need to rethink socialism. We can have government or non-government socialism (which is true socialism, since socialism is defined as workers’ control of the means of production, not government control) and that’s all.