The Left Trumped?

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, November 21st, 2024 - 25 comments
Categories: capitalism, class war, democracy under attack, Donald Trump, labour, uncategorized, us politics - Tags:

We woke up last week to the post-mortem on the US election. How and why Trump won, and their implications for political alignments everywhere, are front and centre. A fundamental issue, explicitly identified when Trump won in 2016, is the presence of large sections of the working class vote into the Trump camp.

In simple terms, this presence captures two important dynamics, found internationally. The first is the consequence of the end of Keynesianism, a subsequent half a century of neo-liberalism, and the failure or unwillingness of the political system to speak to working class interests. The bizarre thing is how, only now, this is being recognised widely in popular political coverage.

Second, parties of the Left have come to be dominated by professional, middle-class, tertiary-educated leaderships and interests, distanced from, and sometimes talking down to, the majority of working people. Commentaries from the 1960s of Robert Kennedy quoting Aeschylus in stump speeches come to mind, but the phenomenon has been a concern in the US for decades and is observed elsewhere.

This has been exacerbated by a narrative of political professionalism, in which politicians present themselves as a professional cadre, to be left to their tasks without measurement against manifesto or party membership preference. This echoes mid-20th Century US theories of democracy in which we, the hoi-polloi, should choose in elections between contending “elites”.

The gap between working class concerns and the configuration of traditional Left parties has been filled in many countries by a resurgence of populism and its associated anger against “the other”.  Parties of the Left have neglected a lesson of history. Working class support is not guaranteed, and is fragile across many issues – for example, cost of living, labour market opportunity, personal security, difference. Syren voices from the Right, melding prejudice with nationalism, claim that they offer the solution to these challenges. Half a century of eroded wages and conditions, unaffordable housing, declining services, reduced voice and marginalisation by social-democratic traditions, and a barrage of propaganda about immigrants and spongers (again, the “other”) make palatable those claims.

New Zealand is not immune to such pressures. Many saw the inchoate populism that arose during COVID as a threat to New Zealand’s liberal democracy. Perhaps commentary at that time underestimated the intensity of the political challenge implicit in the Wellington occupation and the wider anti-vax movement. The technocratic, managerial way of the current government, linked to attacks on the professionalism of state sector employees, does little to counteract populist tendencies.

Hence, there arises the question of a new “accommodation” between Labour, Capital and the State, rooted firmly in strengthened democracy and a compelling voice for working people. The forces that gave rise to Trump in the US are ever-present here in New Zealand. They must be counteracted actively. There is nothing sacrosanct about our political order. It is as fragile as all others and, as Trump shows, open to a rapid and dismaying decay. I have posted before on the need to reinforce political democracy, and institute more industrial democracy, as a safeguard against right-wing populism. When one looks at the pace of decay in the US, complacency about conditions in New Zealand is misplaced.

Strikingly, the 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics was given to work by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson, which, looking at the relations between institutions and economic behaviour, seeks to show the economic advantages of democracy. It’s fair to say that the award is highly controversial, with critics carping about counterfactuals and “first worldism”. The volume of criticism also owes a great deal to contemporary ideological settings that reject positive accounts of the engagement between institutions, ideology and economic drivers. It’s a criticism that fears that the half-century dominance of market economics may be weakened by the political economy of the Pikettys of this world, and by arguments for recast accommodations. It’s a pre-emptive strike against economic transformation.

The coming period may well descend into a confrontation between three futures: chaotic populism, a renewed accommodation, and, more distantly but just as real, a shocking chaos. Of those options, it behoves Labour to support the second, and renew policy and argument in its favour. A failure to act leaves the field open to populism, New Zealand-style, and there are more than enough demagogues willing to take on the mantle of leadership.

25 comments on “The Left Trumped? ”

  1. Dennis Frank 1
    21 November 2024 at 9:57 am

    Nifty triad you wield there:

    a confrontation between three futures: chaotic populism, a renewed accommodation, and, more distantly but just as real, a shocking chaos.

    Populism works via charisma, yet our contenders have a deficit in this so I rule that one out for us. Chaos ain't the kiwi way: we're governed by neocolonial inertia.

    Of those options, it behoves Labour to support the second, and renew policy and argument in its favour.

    I agree Labour's path is the middle way. To partner with the control system, one must try to save its appearances. Too many are seeing the sham. More lipstick on the pig, now!

    Reply
  2. Mike the Lefty 2
    21 November 2024 at 10:10 am

    The true left got shut out of US politics over two centuries ago. What you have is the democratic right represented by the Democrats and the alt.right represented by the Republicans.

    Reply
    • koina 2.1
      21 November 2024 at 10:43 am

      Totally agree.

      Your two right wing analysis is a very astute observation.

      So in NZ we have Right wing Labour /Green and Alt right wing National /NZF /ACT.

      Same in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia and through out Europe.

      That is why I have favoured Maori not voting for a long time.

      It is pointless and simply justifies the two right wings.

      I myself voted once in 1978 but never again.

      Reply
      • Tom Hunter 2.1.1
        21 November 2024 at 12:14 pm

        Your two right wing analysis is a very astute observation.

        It may be astute but it's also as common as mud. I've seen it stated by many Left Wingers on blogs like this and other forums for decades now, especially in the wake of Rogernomics.

        Reply
        • koina 2.1.1.1
          21 November 2024 at 4:35 pm

          Yes I agree with those who say comparatively little has changed since Rogernomics and that Labour is just National with a teaspoon of honey.

          I know because I lived through the Holyoke years '60-'72 Muldoon '75-84 Rogernomics, and every other iteration since.

          I freely acknowledge Labours brilliant social policy of the time.

          So in 1986 I turned away from Labour because of Rogernomics alone.

          And all David Lange could say was I think its time for a cup of tea!!!

          Why could Rogernomics not share the economic changes evenly?

          I would have supported Labour then.
          I still admire and support totally Labours social policy.

          But the Labour working class suffered and was punished and for a further 9 years under Bolger and Richardson during the recessionary 90's while Labour disintegrated into the crazy Alliance years with the likes of good old Pam Corkery at the helm if you please.

          The Clark and key years were nothing but the same old same old.

          Covid blurred/enhanced the Ardern years.

          Its like we are still living under prime Muldoon '75/'84.

          So really Labour is now ripe for a massive rebuild, redesign and relaunch.

          If so that might lure me back to the ballot box for the first time in 48 years. Just don’t let anyone called Roger Douglas into the room

          Reply
          • SPC 2.1.1.1.1
            21 November 2024 at 5:05 pm

            I voted in 1978, because I could.

            I did not vote again until MMP, because I did not live in a marginal electorate.

            I did not vote in 1996, because I knew Peters was dividing the opposition vote to keep his National in power.

            I then voted to end ECA and end market rents in state housing.

            Then in 2002 and 2005, for the step beyond parental leave (Laila Harre said there would be more good things – why I called her good things Laila in those years). It took until 2005 though (WFF tax credits). Iwi and Kiwi are part of the same, both waka at a time.

            Neutral with Don Brash seeking power, really?

            And I vote for more state housing, not less as occurs under National, every single time.

            And for a higher MW. And for more money into public health and education.

            The road from where you are, to where you want to be, is one step at a time. And always in the “left” direction.

            The human dominion belongs to all (the way of the left), the way of empire and oligarchy is to the right.

            Reply
    • SPC 2.2
      21 November 2024 at 12:16 pm

      What "left", when the working class was neither literate, nor organised and had no vote?

      They stated that all men were created equal and then restricted the vote to those who owned property.

      Then in the 1830's the Jacksonian era began the franchise to all men over age 21.

      They then faced off the southern state slave ownership.

      Then came anti-trust legislation (and unions).

      Then income tax (then progressive income tax).

      Then women got the vote.

      Only then was there a real democracy as Levellers wanted back in the 17thC.

      This enabled a left.

      There has been class war within democracy since then.

      FDR's success resulted in HUAC, the attempt to pose the left as unAmerican. And the anti-government ("urban liberals who live with blacks") narrative used there by the GOP (of the nativist hinterlands and south) since.

      Here the right pose the left as on the side of the Maori resistance (Labour and the Maori seats) to settler middle class rule.

      The left are not shut out of politics, they are just confronted by those who play on popular prejudice for political advantage.

      Those with privilege want opposition to be as silent as they were when there was no universal franchise. To feel inadequate to make any successful challenge to their regime and to give up.

      Reply
  3. tWig 3
    21 November 2024 at 11:19 am

    I found this discussion piece by Nesrine Mailk really insightful on the populist shift. She grew up under authoritarian rule in Egypt.

    " Authoritarian democracies recognise anger, foment it, then bottle it for their own purposes. The trick is to always have a horizon, distant but in sight, beyond which things will get better. Mainly it is through securing consent by convincing enough people that things are about to get really great. Any minute now, once the enemies of the people are thwarted, a corner will be turned."

    "Pretending to meet that need is what delivered Donald Trump’s victory. He understands that an oligarchic system that enriches a few cannot deliver economic security to the masses. If you want the majority of the public on your side, you have to promise change, but not in a way that actually reconfigures society."

    Malik shows how a leftist-centre position struggles with an alternate vision against populism, especially in uncertain times. No answers, but a great framing of the issue.

    Reply
    • Dennis Frank 3.1
      21 November 2024 at 11:57 am

      Yes, an excellent analysis. However it is a recycling of traditional leftist praxis from the 19th century, when socialism & communism used mass aspirations of a better world as the basis for ideological politics. In terms of social psychology, the ancient Greek term mythos captures the essence. The vision of a better world is mythic.

      Reply
      • SPC 3.1.1
        21 November 2024 at 12:46 pm

        Is the radical centre nothing but a nihilism, the renunciation of the man sitting in front of an idol of a sitting still man. Is this not just but one possible fate of old age, once there is no longer engagement in the world, as an agent of change?

        Is the mythic vision of a better world not just the first seeing of the world around each new generation – what might be?

        Why do the old feel entitled to say that the young will become like them … note their votes to return, via Brexit to 1950-60's UK, or via the C of C to Hannan's 1950's-1960's assimilation? Or to Trump's, there are enemies within (HUAC 1950's) to be removed from government.

        Reply
        • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.1
          21 November 2024 at 1:28 pm

          Well I've always seen the radical centre as genuinely progressive, and embodied in the Green movement – which became political via the slogan ` neither left nor right, but in front'. That only prevailed during the 1980s, unfortunately.

          Your point re old age is valid though. One does trend towards armchair analysis & computer-driven commentary. smiley And I agree the world is seen afresh by each generation as it emerges. There's seems to be a zeitgeist in which the new polarises against the old, to achieve collective identity. The extent to which this transforms into or enables mass political action is moot – hippie hedonism produced punk reaction, which went nowhere politically after hippie idealism transformed western civilisation tremendously.

          And yes, that back-to-the-future syndrome does tend to get recycled. I still await a regenerative form of advanced socialism while remaining puzzled at the left's determination not to go there. frown

          Reply
          • SPC 3.1.1.1.1
            21 November 2024 at 1:39 pm

            I was adding in the Buddhist concept of renunciation from striving to change the world, make it anew. Possibly derived from the recycling of the same collective (or cultural) karma with each new caste generation.

            Was not democracy supposed to enable change, albeit by realising consent?

            And how the failure to realise the hoped for idealism – change the world, leads to a retreat back into the nativist order of their early family life (being with their parents, before they were independent adults).

            And sure, there is the "adjective of choice" type of oversight – why did so many others not see (and still do not) what the right path was?

            Reply
            • Dennis Frank 3.1.1.1.1.1
              21 November 2024 at 2:35 pm

              Hmm. That Buddhist view always seemed too defeatist, but I do agree that renouncing stuff one has long adhered to me turns out to be a method of transcendence for many. And the dimension of reincarnational karma, although essential to any profound cultural analysis, remains out of bounds to most westerners with an operational intellect.

              Was not democracy supposed to enable change, albeit by realising consent?

              Yeah, 'twas. The 20th century culture of individualism warped it away from that: to enable change, an activist must either catalyse accord, or use established method to create consensus. Individualism, as paramount ethos, inclines a person toward personal belief, so the question of accord remains moot unless the zeitgeist coheres a mass of individualists. Consensus procedure, which I used to get the Greens to adopt standing orders & constitution, is work – which people only commit to doing when necessary.

              Your point about the family is also profound: it's the primal group of our evolutionary trajectory, prior to clan. Makes sense to revert to it as default if you presume a genetic basis (not scientifically identified yet).

              Your final question is damn good. Viewing it as generic, I'm inclined to speculate that we use a dynamic balance between commonalities & differences. So we often default to disagreeing (ego sometimes but a natural faculty for distinguishing between things often), yet also default to common ground when it seems a good idea. So the right path is contingent on situations stakeholders are in at the time, which points to serendipity…

              Reply
    • Obtrectator 3.2
      21 November 2024 at 12:38 pm

      Yep – always "jam tomorrow", eh?

      Reply
    • koina 3.3
      21 November 2024 at 7:14 pm

      "Any minute now, once the enemies of the people are thwarted"."

      Yes real policies do not attract the masses.

      But prejudice ignorance fear and targeting the imagined "enemies" always works.

      Right wing Governments in NZ always use this getting rid of the enemy policy.

      It is their only election policy everytime.

      Why fix it if it aint broke?

      Reply
  4. Tom Hunter 4
    21 November 2024 at 12:08 pm

    Commentaries from the 1960s of Robert Kennedy quoting Aeschylus in stump speeches come to mind,

    Or it could be that the working class to whom he was speaking understood him very well:

    While studying Greek philosophy at night, Joseph Keating performed one of the toughest and worst-paid jobs in the mine: shoveling out tons of refuse. One day, he was stunned to hear a co-worker sigh, "Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate." "You are quoting Pope," Keating exclaimed. "Ayh," replied his companion, "me and Pope do agree very well."

    Having said that I think that you should cut out phrases such as …it behoves Labour to…, although it goes well with stuff from your commentators like “traditional leftist praxis”

    Reply
    • Nigel Haworth 4.1
      21 November 2024 at 12:16 pm

      A fair point. 50 years in adult education, especially with working people, tells me that the range of knowledge, analysis and experience likely to be present must never be underestimated. I’ll defend “behove”.

      Reply
      • Nigel Haworth 4.1.1
        21 November 2024 at 12:33 pm

        And to admit also that private correspondence has challenged the use of "syren", rather than "siren". It appears, according to some sources that the former is permitted as an archaism, but the latter is more usual today. My defence is that I am old.

        Reply
    • SPC 4.2
      21 November 2024 at 12:26 pm

      I feel compelled, or is that behooved, to say that the left is being ridden over by the cult of mammon. That is one of class war, famine and disease – for the poor, unto their old age, will always be with us.

      Of course the GOP will claim the cost cannot be afforded – so Oz and the scientific method in the reduction in the health insurance impost on government (of by and for the people) by those who are poor and or old.

      Locally those of prosperity religion will say they are sorted, soaped up and clean before their God and thus fit for the flight above.

      But such is hubris, the higher one flies the greater the chance of wax melting and wings falling off.

      The camels below seem so small at first on the fall down, the polls will be the first to indicate the dust beneath the feet of the working class.

      The sands of time, await all governments in nations where they are accountable to the people.

      Reply
    • Obtrectator 4.3
      21 November 2024 at 12:43 pm

      And that Joseph Keating story demonstrates why one of the first acts of any incoming Nat administration back in the day was to chop the grant to the WEA. Couldn't have the oiks learning too much, could they?

      PS: I too defend "behove".

      Reply
      • Tiger Mountain 4.3.1
        21 November 2024 at 1:57 pm

        Well, I was fortunate in late 70s to be invited to a WEA seminar in Auckland as a young worker, and the topic was the two versions of the Treaty of Waitangi–te Tiriti o Waitangi. Tutor John Benseman.

        That was the beginning of my wider political journey. The WEA was a great thing.

        Reply
  5. Sanctuary 5
    21 November 2024 at 1:58 pm

    If normal, centrist, liberal politics (i.e. the erstwhile modern “left”) won't let a normal person buy a normal house on a normal salary so they can raise a normal family, then they'll look at abnormal far right politics instead, especially when centrist liberal politicians spend their whole time doing nothing but policing the debate and gaslighting them that everrything is just fine.

    The hikoi yesterday was a perfect example of liberal politics in action. There is an enormous elephant in the room – That the treaty is between the crown and Maori and is completely silent on what rights fourth, fifth, even sixth generation Pakeha have. Maori have a relatioship with the land, but fourth generation farmers whose ancestor broke in the land and made it productive also have a relationship with the land. What about them? This is where the idea of "Maori privilege" comes from. Only one group of people is allowed to have a spiritual relationship with this land.

    But the liberal centrist eststablishment, the media landscape that buttresses that establishment and the corporate donors who fund it won't even acknowledge that question, let alone allow discussion of it. So, like Trump, ACT is attempting to fill the political vacuum left by a liberal elite that try to reduce everything to the anti-politics of identity and won’t discuss issues they find distasteful.

    Reply
    • SPC 5.1
      21 November 2024 at 2:36 pm

      Just a, yeah na, to all 3 paragraphs.

      1.Won't let – how are "they" the ones obstructing it?

      2.Are you really comparing indigenous peoples relationship to the land to those who pass on the farm to a relative, rather than make an untaxed CG?

      3.What about 2 is there to discuss, such families have not asked for recognition from others over their connection to land.

      Reply
    • Dennis Frank 5.2
      21 November 2024 at 2:53 pm

      yes The ideological blinkers that the generations born since the 1970s wear do seem rather determinative. Thinking outside the square they impose on the mind is very hard if one must struggle to make a living in a shrinking job market, so compassion is the best way to view them I feel.

      You pointed to the elephant, which will discomfort many here. I'm always inclined to agree with maori rights, since they force us to try & transcend neocolonialism, but I'm also inclined to concede the problem of antique Crown stances yoking everyone into conformity downstream. Time often does shift our priorities. The left could articulate a progressive view instead – yielding to the right seems the dumb option. Yet a vacuum persists, so progress looms from the right by default.

      If Seymour gets everyone to focus on the possibility of a better way forward, we could benefit from mass consciousness-raising. His bill will be incidental then. Maori are now brainstorming a pan-tribal political design, for instance. I saw a report of it yesterday but decided it was too soon to comment.

      Reply
      • SPC 5.2.1
        21 November 2024 at 3:20 pm

        if one must struggle to make a living in a shrinking job market

        The requirement for migrant workers is not based on a shrinking job market, but in one part replacing those who can get better incomes over the sea. That and this process enables a low wage economy to continue (employers avoiding on the job worker training cost).

        so progress looms from the right by default.

        Careless use of the word progress alert.

        If Seymour gets everyone to focus on the possibility of a better way forward

        Focus and agreement to act in accord are not synonymous. And the concept of equality via assimilation as New Zealander ethos maybe a deliberate distraction from their real purpose realising conformity to a neo-liberal economic regime.

        This is the GOP method, being some hinterland nativist American order of rule patriotism (linked inextricably to the libertarianism and social conservatism of Vance).

        Reply

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