It seems inevitable that Andy Beckett's
feature in yesterday's G2 would receive a lukewarm reception. The
comments thread at
Socialist Unity illustrates the kind of mixed reception one might expect for a Guardian future on the divided and unfocused nature of today's left. For some, the article was 'vacuous and boring' or saw it as deliberately playing down glimmers of hope such as the performance of the left in Ireland, workplace occupations and community activism. For others, the scale of the defeat endured by the left has been underplayed.
While the article maintains a relatively sympathetic tone, Beckett, as a writer in the mainstream press, is writing from the outside. Beckett, like many of his broadsheet colleagues, tends to highlight the more fashionable contributors to the debate on left strategy - Naomi Klein, Hardt and Negri, Wilkinson and Pickett - and some of his sources, most notably Geoff Mulgan, formerly of Demos, are good bets if you want to see left-wing hackles rise.
But despite its faults it is a worthwhile read, and highlights some important issues (and points of contention) that the Left will have to deal with if it is to escape its current impasse. It may indeed be true that Beckett is making points that are to many on the left, axiomatic. It may also be the case that there are more reasons for hope than he suggests. Whilst the centre left did badly across Europe, new forces like the NPA in France give hope for the future.
It is hard to resist the conclusion, however, that as despite the collapse in the financial system and the exposing of capitalism's weaknesses, there is little sign that large sections of society see this as a sign of fundamental systemic failure. The left has failed to communicate an effective negative critique or a postitive alternative vision.
This does not mean that the left has been ineffective in mobilising around specific campaigns - against the war, fighting the fascists and so on. But it would be foolish to downplay the danger that on a wider level, there is an ideological vacuum which should be ours which is being targeted by conservatives, nationalists and worst still, the fascists of the BNP.
Hillary Wainwright says in the feature: "The crisis of the financial markets has become a crisis of public spending - it's incredible." She is right.
If Beckett's piece has a serious failing it is the tendency to caricature the positions of many in the debate. Alex Callinicos's arguments are positioned as councils of pessimism, for example.
A realistic assessment of the state of play has to be the point of departure for any new strategy. Neal Lawson, highlights, the way in which the left alternative has been weakened by the failure to fill the gap left by the collapse of communism and the implosion of post-war social democracy.
These two events should have been an opportunity for the transformational left - an opportunity to leave behind the crimes of Stalinism (and the increasingly sterile debates over its nature) and the dead-ends of reformism. Instead, we watched as many of the values and fundamental ideas of socialism began to be eroded. As the Stalinist and reformist tides went out, other ideas were caught in the ideological undertow.
The left needs to rebuild an alternative vision and an alternative world view. This does not have to be homegenous and monolithic. Indeed, the reverse is true. We need a vibrant, intellectual and cultural space which shares key values - empowerment, democracy, equality, diversity - and recognises that different perspectives can be applied to agreed ends.
Can we do this at a time when the industrial base of the movement is fractured and still on the defensive? There is much sense in such concerns but we cannot afford not to focus at the same time, on the political. A left movement that once more provides a
critique of capitalism and begins to voice an alternative is a vital rallying point. Ideological purity and consistency is surely not the solution. There are many who feel that left unity is chimerical and risks wasting effort and resource better deployed elsewhere. Surely the opposite is the case?
Initiatives like the SWP's
open letter (ignored, unsurprisingly, by the Beckett article), the Socialist Party-initiated
Campaign for a New Workers Party and the
People's Charter are perhaps starting points.
To make them work the left has to learn new habits and ways of working. No one says that we can agree on everything or that there will not be sharp debates but we have to build a plural, consensual left and leave behind the sectarian impulse to always dominate and control. If we can't we will be doomed to see recent left history repeat itself again and again, not as farce but as tragedy upon tragedy.
