|
it's an unfortunate fact of life that we in the global centre tend to benefit from global capitalism. a lot of people recognise this while also recognising that for effective, anti-liberal government to be a Thing, we cannot respect all people's rights all the time. what the populist right offer is a credible alliance between mostly rural people in the local periphery with the forces of capital; this is more attractive to people than a long-term death struggle against a world order which mostly still seems to work, especially after being massaged a bit by compliant press. de facto, most 'left' coalitions have allowed themselves to become dependent on a set of urbane, educated types whose interests are increasingly being credibly represented over those of the local periphery. see brexit for a very clear example of this; when the most serious and credible mobilisation came against a specific neoliberal institution, the left pretty much all sided with the local centre in trying to preserve it, to the point of refusing to take the mandate of the referendum seriously. to be clear, i'm not sure that going the other way would've worked out either - they really are dependent on those urbane educated types as well - but in this point of friction do you get right-wing populism populist right forces look a lot more credible in these cases than anyone on the left. we're too preoccupied with grander environmental issues to look like we're serious about toll roads or petrol taxes, and our proposed solutions to people's problems are often not relevant (unionisation takes an awful lot of work, is risky amd has relatively low rewards). to join the western left is pretty much an act of masochism, so one can understand why people are reluctant before it's their own arse on the line
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2020 14:15
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 05:52 |
|
|
i do tend to think that the emphasis on masculinity of workplaces during the old left's reign is somewhat anglocentric. certainly the social democratic tendencies of midcentury scandinavia weren't culturally very radical, but issues like militarism were seriously big deals in 1920-30s norway - at the same time, typographers and matchmakeresses were big groups of very heavily mobilised female workers it's hard to find reliable demographic data from norway in this period, but i always look somewhat askance at the idea of burly men being the necessary cultural foundation of labour solidarity and militancy of the sort you had back in the day
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2020 23:26
|
|