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The Forum > Article Comments > A Left without class can only be left behind by the culture wars > Comments

A Left without class can only be left behind by the culture wars : Comments

By Marko Beljac, published 19/5/2015

Support for the Labor Party among its core working class constituency has thereby become tepid and tenous, a fact seized upon by the right wing commentariat and the political representatives of corporate Australia.

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The triumph of the SNP, and consequent wipeout of Labour in Scotland, in the recent UK elections shows the extent to which working people will rally to a viable, non-neoliberal Labour alternative if one is presented to them.

The SNP campaigned on issues that really affect working people - especially anti-austerity and anti-privatisation (of the NHS in particular), while Labour simply offered more of the same.

Ditto Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Whether any of these political parties will follow through on their promises is not at all clear yet. However, their electoral successes are overwhelming proof of what working people, battered by almost four decades of neo-liberalism and a kleptocratic international financial system, are crying out for.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 19 May 2015 10:59:19 PM
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I was wondering when it was going to click for today's left that their obsession with identity politics will get them nowhere. In fact, it plays into the hands of the conservatives. The left's obsession with gays, feminism, and non-whites has only led to people resenting the left and those identities they champion. The majority of people are Anglo/white and heterosexual, so the conservatives will always win the culture war around identity politics, as long as those identities remain the majority of course.
Posted by Aristocrat, Wednesday, 20 May 2015 6:05:37 AM
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Rhian; no specifically what I said was that in *proportionate* terms wages have fallen ; that is - the rate of exploitation has gone up. But *purchasing power* has increased because of productivity improvements driven by technology.

Also you still ignore Leslie's points by 'changing the topic' re: Marxism.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Wednesday, 20 May 2015 10:33:31 AM
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The only one saying anything of note or germane to the topic is Killarney.

As for Carl Marx, some of what he said may have been true or predictive.

However, the (animal farm) communism/Leninism/Stalinism that sprang from that was fundamentally flawed, in as much it did and does require slavery (re-education centres, extreme dehumanizing brutality and gulags) to survive; and not to be confused with inherently fair social democracy, the like of which is now gripping Scotland.
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Wednesday, 20 May 2015 10:35:06 AM
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Rhian: as you will not debate the validity of the arguments that Marx developed in Capital ( and trusty Rhrosty obfuscates with “the (animal farm) communism/Leninism/Stalinism”), when you change the subject to “For full-time ordinary time male wage earners, growth was 137% nominal, or 39% real.”, have you factored in the 38 million people internally displaced due to conflicts around the world; and how do you reconcile your version of “wage share” with the fact that the wealth of the 1 per cent richest people in the world is worth about $110 trillion, 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world's population- the world's richest 85 people( who could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus) control about $1.7 trillion in wealth, equivalent to the bottom half of the world's population. And you can lightly dismiss Marx’s prediction of boom and bust, but the political response to the global financial crisis - including the actions of central banks and the austerity measures introduced by national governments - has made the rich fabulously richer. In the US, the wealthiest 1 per cent of the population grabbed 95 per cent of post-financial crisis growth between 2009 and 2012, while the bottom 90 per cent became poorer.
Rhian, to readily agree that my material standard of living is far higher than that of my father in no way constitutes an analysis of capitalism which is what Marx attempted over decades
Posted by Leslie, Wednesday, 20 May 2015 2:11:12 PM
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Tristan

You wrote “wages tended to grow (I think) from the post-war period until the early 1970s. But its been downhill since then. There were tendencies for wages to fall proportionately before WWII” This suggests that wages fell in relative terms pre-war and absolute terms post the 1970s. That is wrong.

Marx expected the living standards of workers to fall in absolute, not just relative, terms. And even in relative terms, it is demonstrably wrong to claim that labour’s share of income inevitably declines over time.

Why do you equate the labour share of factor income with the rate of exploitation? Labour’s share of factor income is higher now than in the 1950s, while business income (both corporations and unincorporated businesses) is lower. The fastest growth in relative factor income has been in the contribution of “dwellings owned by persons.” So what?

I responded to Leslie’s points that I disagreed with and that can be debated meaningfully. I agree wealth has become more concentrated. I don’t think “commodification has penetrated every aspect of life” is capable of being proved or refuted. “Survival of capitalism depends on capital accumulation” may be true, but I don’t think it is a problem.

“How communist parties interpreted Marx and attempted to put their programmes into practice is an entirely different matter” is also a matter of opinion. I have often heard the claim that self-described communist governments weren’t really communist. But we have had many different self-described communist experiments, of many different ideological flavours, and they all yielded much the same result. That was the point I made earlier in reference to Stalin, Mao, Hoxha et al. It suggests either that Communism is unworkable, or that it inevitably degenerates into tyranny.

My main point in response to Leslie was that the most important plank of Marx’s argument was wrong. He was perhaps right about some things, but Marxism’s central thesis – capitalism immiserates the working class – has not been borne out by history. That has huge implications for any brand of leftism predicated on the virtue and necessity of class conflict
Posted by Rhian, Wednesday, 20 May 2015 3:58:50 PM
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