Aporias of the left
Norman Geras quotes an article about the Left which I thought was worth commenting on. Part of what the article says is correct; there _is_ a Left conservatism, which is theoretically committed to denying novelties in the global situation and manifests itself in a defensive practice directed to the conservation of the post-war consensus. But this is an interesting example of ideology in action:
> I get depressed hearing friends sound like paleocon isolationists or watching them
> reflexively assume that there’s something inherently tyrannical about the use of American
> power.
That is, anti-war arguments are dismissed _without having to be engaged with_ by characterising them as abstract dogmas. But of course the anti-war left doesn’t (or at least, we don’t all) merely _assume_ that American power is _inherently_ tyrannical; we have arguments that seek to demonstrate that the power of capitalist states (and they’re all capitalist states) is structurally constrained to be tyrannical.
What’s so odd about the pro-war left is that they have completely bought into this ideology. Not only do they ignore the structural arguments of their opponents, no supporter of the war (to my knowledge, I may be wrong) has put forward a structural argument to show how the global hegemony of the Western capitalist states would benefit left-wing goals. This is why liberal supporters of the war are so much more comprehensible than supposedly socialist or communist ones: you don’t expect liberals to have a structural argument (indeed, that’s pretty much the definition of a liberal, in Marxist terms). This is why pro-war leftists (and I don’t know if the author of the article is on the left, but variations of this quote could come quite happily from someone like Norman Geras, who is) can write stupid things like:
> America should be actively promoting the freedom of everyone on the planet, and the key
> question is, how would the left do it differently from the Bush administration?
It’s no coincidence, I think, that, while the traditional socialist/social democratic left has been racked with division over the war in Iraq, the other-globalisation movement has taken opposition to the war as a given, and it goes back to the conservatism I mentioned above. For those on the left schooled in the ‘balance of powers’ ideology of imperialism and the Third World War, international politics is construed in terms of state actors, and so easily collapses to the decision of which state to cheer on (or, for the most radical, which state to try and take over). But those of us fighting the Fourth World War see global politics differently. We know that states are now dead-weight, obstacles to be got around or, if need be, removed.
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so let me get this straight. Norm asserts that some anti-war types have failed to engage with the “pro-war” arguments (having worked on the basis of “reflexive assumptions” instead) and now you assert that by saying so he has failed to engage with the anti-war arguments. Hmm: “you’re not listening to me” “no, you’re not listening to me”. Insightful stuff.
and while I’m at it, perhaps you could help me engage with your arguments at little better. I fear I have been overwhelmed by you sophisticated vocabulary. what the hell does this mean?
“the power of capitalist states (and they’re all capitalist states) is structurally constrained to be tyrannical”
Are you saying that capitalist goverments are more inclined to be tyrannical than any other feasible form of goverment (like say those easy going communists?)
talking of failing to engage with opposing points of view, this takes the biscuit:
“no supporter of the war (to my knowledge, I may be wrong) has put forward a structural argument to show how the global hegemony of the Western capitalist states would benefit left-wing goals”
I apologise if I have again been left behind by your superior mastery of political discourse, but if by left wing goals you mean things like improving the lives of the poor and powerless, then you appear to have overlooked the fact that those who support the spread of western style liberal capitalism never stop talking about how they believe it is the world’s best chance of raising living standards, spreading freedom from oppression etc.
of course, those left wings goals you speak of may include more elevated aims than simply trying to make life better for those born at the shit end of the heap, but I wouldn’t know about that.
Comment by Paddy Carter @ 1/26/2005 9:06 am
First, just to be clear, I’m not quoting Norm himself, I’m quoting someone he’s quoting (who I would guess he broadly agrees with, but I may be wrong). On your point that I’m ignoring pro-war arguments, I think you’re wrong. I don’t deny that people on the left have put forward arguments in favour of the war; but they’ve all been formulated in terms of the intentions of the occupiers. They accept the claim that the invasion was intended to bring about democracy, peace, etc. When these intentions go to pot and you get a puppet government, torture in Abu Grahib and civil war, you have three options. You can take the position that the bad effects of the occupation are just abberations, and that what really matters is the intentions of the occupiers (this is the non-structural, liberal pro-war position). You can take the position that the bad effects demonstrate that, given the constraints of being the dominant capitalist powers, the occupiers could not have brought about their stated intentions (this is the structural left anti-war position) or you could argue that the bad effects of the occupation are a result of processes that will _eventually_ acheive the stated aims of the occupiers (this would be a structual left pro-war position).
We’ve seen plenty of the first type of argument, but I have yet to see anyone take a serious stab at making the third type (I suppose the stagist position that Iraq needs to become a bourgeois democracy before the transition to socialism looks a bit like a structural argument, if you squint a bit).
Comment by Tim @ 1/26/2005 5:52 pm