Friday 17 December 2021

Progress, Or Restoration? Which Way For The Left?

God Given, Or Man Made? Historians might quibble that the “rights and freedoms” which a great many nineteenth century industrial workers (especially in the English-speaking world) believed their forefathers had enjoyed were more imaginary than real. But, for English socialists like William Morris and Oscar Wilde, the “Revolution” was, indeed, about a restoration of the social equilibrium and mutuality which many workers were convinced had characterised the pre-modern era.

YOU GOTTA LOVE the pseudonyms people come up with. “Pope Punctilious II”, for example, combines orthodoxy and accuracy, with just a hint of the nit-picker. Not a bad combination of talents to bring to the wild and woolly business of political analysis. The comment he appended to my recent Daily Blog post really set me thinking:

One beef with this article. Trotter claims the country’s current isn’t ‘progressive’, suggesting he’s still attached to a word which has become thoroughly disreputable. I wonder, do we need ‘progressive’ policies, or ‘restorative’ policies?

Progress or Restoration? That struck me as a particularly interesting question.

Does human progress actually have an end-point? Or, is it something that goes on forever? And, if it is continuous, then what will happen to us? If every aspect of the human experience is subject to improvement, then, surely, it is at least theoretically possible that the species will one day “progress” to a point where it becomes something else – something non-human? And is that really what most human-beings want?

A few years ago, I recall watching an animated propaganda film from the Soviet era. It anticipated the evolution of “Soviet Man” – a superhuman being capable of subduing all things to his will. Although it was clearly intended to be inspiring, the film struck me as horrific. Its Soviet makers defined super-humanity as the power to subordinate the whole material world (i.e. the planet) completely to Soviet Man’s progressive will. His monstrous machines consumed forests, straightened rivers, levelled mountains and drained seas. Nothing was impossible. The film ended with Soviet Man boarding the ultimate machine, an interstellar spacecraft. Off he went to spread his planet-consuming socialism across the universe.

Soviet Man reaches for the stars.
But, before all you conservative readers out there start shaking your heads knowingly and getting ready to tap out a comment identifying the above story as just one more example of the historical and moral bankruptcy of socialism, I would invite you to pause, and think.

How different, really, is the vision of those “progressive” Soviet animators from the vision of today’s charismatic billionaires? The Bransons, the Bezoses, the Musks: aware of this planet’s imminent descent into the doom-spiral predicted 50 years ago by the Club of Rome; haven’t they also succumbed to the fantasy of exporting their special brand of superhuman, hyper-capitalist, progressivism across the universe?

Is there a fatal flaw in progressivism?

As with most things, the answer lies in its beginnings. The post upon which Pope Punctilious II was commenting, identified the emerging social-liberal revolution as the ideological defence mechanism of the Professional-Managerial Class (PMC). Tellingly, the “discoverers” of the PMC, American academics Barbara and John Ehrenreich, linked its rise to the related and simultaneous rise of the so-called “Progressive” movement in the United States:

The generation entering managerial and professional roles between 1890 and 1920 consciously grasped the roles which they had to play. They understood that their own self-interest was bound up in reforming capitalism, and they articulated their understanding far more persistently and clearly than did the capitalist class itself. The role of the emerging PMC, as they saw it, was to mediate the basic class conflict of capitalist society and create a ‘rational’ reproducible social order […..] ‘Class harmony’ was the stated goal of many outstanding PMC spokespeople, and to many in the capitalist class as well, it was clear that ‘professionals’ could be more effective in the long run than Pinkertons [professional strike-breakers].

So, Progressivism – far from being a simple synonym for “socialism” – was actually a way of entrenching the principles, and modernising the practices, of capitalism.

In the professional opinion of PMC reformers, the raucous and rowdy conduct of American democracy, with its “machine politicians” and their disreputable knack for “delivering”, in the most unprofessional (not to say corrupt) fashion, the big city, mostly working-class, immigrant vote, needed to be reduced to something altogether more manageable. Democracy, the Progressives argued, was much too important to be left to the people.

The “primary” system of winnowing candidates; the recall of governors; the placing of “propositions” on the ballot-paper: all of these were Progressive initiatives aimed at breaking the power of party caucuses, and curbing the influence of the men who wheeled and dealed in smoke-filled rooms.

New Zealand’s own progressives, gathered in the Liberal Party, were no less dedicated to professionalising capitalism than their American counterparts. New Zealand’s arbitration-based system of industrial relations was intended to obviate the need for union militancy. The Liberals may have attracted working-class voters, but socialists they most emphatically were not!

If the PMC was busy making plans for the proletariat’s own good, what ideas were driving the workers themselves? Were they “progressives” too? Or, were they actually more inspired by the notion of restoring to ordinary working people the independence and autonomy which they fervently believed to be the birthright of all “freeborn” human-beings.

Historians might quibble that the “rights and freedoms” which a great many nineteenth century industrial workers (especially in the English-speaking world) believed their forefathers had enjoyed were more imaginary than real. But, for English socialists like William Morris and Oscar Wilde, the “Revolution” was, indeed, about a restoration of the social equilibrium and mutuality which many workers were convinced had characterised the pre-modern era. Morris’s focus on traditional craftsmanship, and his horror of the cheap, machine-produced, commodities pouring out of William Blake’s “dark satanic mills”, stands in sharp contrast to the “scientific socialism” of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

It is no accident that the vast working-class crowd which gathered outside Transport House (headquarters of the British Labour Party) to celebrate their historic electoral victory in 1945 did not sing The Internationale, or The Red Flag, but William Blake’s Jerusalem. And the words of Blake’s great poem do, indeed, have more about them of Pope Punctilious II’s “restorative” politics than anything today’s “progressive” politicians would own up to:

Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.

I shall not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.






This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 16 December 2021.

12 comments:

Guerilla Surgeon said...

The working class in the US, Australia, Britain, and to some extent New Zealand has been seduced by the misinformation put out by the generally neoliberal press, into thinking that unregulated capitalism is either inevitable or a good thing. Of course, it is neither. In Scandinavia, France, and Germany, it seems to me that the working classes more active, although some aspects of it have been co-opted by the state. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I do know that Germany for instance has a higher percentage of union members than New Zealand and its average income is much higher. Australia didn't eviscerate its unions quite as badly as New Zealand either and their income is higher than ours. And I think research has shown that unionised jobs in the US tend to have better wages and – God help us all – medical coverage, as if that should come with your job. :) But the power of large firms to either influence governments into enabling antiunion laws, and then using them to smash unions is notorious, particularly in the US. They also have the advantage there of many poorer people believing in the American dream and being antiunion themselves. Which is ironic considering there is less social mobility and the free market US than there is in "socialist" Scandinavia. Which again brings us back to propaganda and misinformation. I'm pretty sure that most journalists, particularly young journalists want to inform and educate, but their bosses just want clicks.
And conservatives - along with the misinformed really don't care about social inequalities, we have people living in garages, kids going hungry, people begging on the streets, and yet they seem more concerned with a few Maori words in the media. Well, if you regard that as a problem – the rest of your life must be pretty sweet right?

David George said...

The idea of the all conquering socialist superman was a feature of that materialist creed from the get-go. Even God, reality itself if you prefer, is to be subordinate.

"So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me! […]

I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark—superstitious dread,
For its Marshall—blackest agony. […]

And the Almighty’s lightning shall rebound
From that massive iron giant.
If he bring my walls and towers down,
Eternity shall raise them up, defiant."
Karl Marx.

David George said...

Contrast that appalling vision of Marx with these sublime words from Jordan Peterson.

"In the Palace of Westminster I stopped for a moment at the precise centre of the heart of that remarkable building and lifted my eyes upward directly under the immense chandelier suspended under the beautiful and ornate domed octagonal ceiling. I perceived then that I was standing at the base of the realisation in stone, wood, and the air itself of the Cosmic Tree, Yggdrasil itself, the liana joining heaven and earth, the object of the most ancient of sacred visions and religious transports, the very lifeline between the skies that beckon forever above and the suffering and fallen ground we tread upon.

If I could have asked for something more to befall me at that moment it would have been the music of the divine to accompany that vision, perhaps Bach’s great third Brandenburg Concerto, although I would have settled for the British national anthem, God Save the Queen. That lobby is most certainly not the untrustworthy, corrupt and damnable site of power, dominance and oppression, but the very place where the practical redemption of a great people is continually undertaken, governed by the transcendent and necessary principle of the unalienable right to express the Logos as conscience, soul and rationality itself dictate.

That lobby, enshrined in that Palace — that cardinal Castle of the Word — has been a very light unto the world, concretised and embodied there simultaneously in stone, tradition and living action. It is the very place where the sovereign voice of the people meets the voice of its representatives, to be carried forth into its eventual incarnation into the body of laws we separately and jointly accept, adopt and act out.

We are all carriers of the temptation to resentment and the desire to compel and force those who disagree with our presumptions that poses an eternal threat to the integrity of our souls and our societies. We are all possessed by the attributes of the Auschwitz capo — the Gulag trusty: the willingness to turn away and to consciously deceive, and the capacity to delight in oppression and cruelty. We are each and all of us tainted by the blood that soaks our soil.

But the people of Great Britain have granted the world a gift whose power stands in permanent opposition to our most appalling proclivities as individuals and societies. That gift is the political expression of the sanctification of the word — freedom in speech, imagination and thought: freedom to engage in the very process that builds and rebuilds habitable order itself from the chaos that eternally surrounds us. And that freedom is expressed in many ways, small and great, in the British Isles: in the wit of its people, in the effectiveness of its institutions, in the beauty of its art and literature, in the political and psychological presumptions that guide private discourse and public conception and action.

And that is most particularly why I love Great Britain. And that is why, people of that realm (and not only of that realm), you should love her too, despite her sins, with your eyes lifted upward, your hope to the future, and the word of truth and faith on your tongues."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/14/love-great-britain/

DS said...

The working class in the US, Australia, Britain, and to some extent New Zealand has been seduced by the misinformation put out by the generally neoliberal press, into thinking that unregulated capitalism is either inevitable or a good thing. Of course, it is neither. In Scandinavia, France, and Germany, it seems to me that the working classes more active, although some aspects of it have been co-opted by the state.

Couldn't be more wrong. The working class in the US, Australia, and Britain have swung hard-right because all that matters in the modern West is Culture War. No-one votes on economics any more.

I wouldn't get my hopes up about Scandinavia, France, and Germany either. Those old industrial areas are turning up some truly hair-raising results.

(New Zealand gets away with it because we don't have those sorts of areas outside the West Coast. New Zealand's working class is resolutely urban, and thus more liberally inclined).

Jens Meder said...

So all this discussion about he meaning of human progress has achieved only more confusion so far.

If socialism means "socially concerned", then are not all of us who are socially and economically concerned on an all-inclusive level - socialists ?

Bur since without capitalism - i.e. the basic economic process of saving for security reserves, trading and profitable or hobby investment - nothing beyond hand-to-mouth survival can be achieved, and it is wrong and confusing to keep imagining that Socialism (defined as the social ownership of (all) the means of production - with labor included or not?) - is something else than capitalism on the economic level.

Where introduced, the Marxist version of Socialism has always resulted in State Monopoly Capitalism, which in a fascistic way has to keep suppressing the natural urge of private enterprise by the more independent minded people.

So - yes, let us celebrate our freedom of speech which may include undesirable nonsense and rude vulgarity, but from a socially concerned point of view it has to be admitted, that under the birth right of all "freeborn" human beings of spending all your money the way you "know best", without saving any capital for yourself, you are a poor "have nothing" from the moment your income ceases.

And will not dealing with climate change etc require even more investment, i.e. capitalism?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

And why don't people vote on economics anymore? Because they've been convinced that neoliberal capitalism is the only way forward.

Guerilla Surgeon said...

Sublime words? Or the usual vague waffle.

Jens Meder said...

Is not the most really progressive way for humanity where it has never been before -

spot on at the center of the wealth ownership based political spectrum between overwhelmingly Royalty ("Right") and Govt. ("Left") administered wealth management and ownership -

where there is at least a minimally meaningful level of wealth (capital) ownership by all citizens eventually ?

John Hurley said...

Blogger Guerilla Surgeon said...
And why don't people vote on economics anymore? Because they've been convinced that neoliberal capitalism is the only way forward.
...............
No because we are social animals and because society runs on trust.
https://youtu.be/AuQHrmkgHdQ?t=471

I posted a link to Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill - Committee Stage 09 December 2021. [I'm working thru the whole thing (Hansard and Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI8EaVZJ82o&t=1482s

One type of comment popped up:

I have been in the same house, one street from the countryside in West Auckland for thirty years. My quarter acre is now zoned for seven houses according to a real estate agent.
There are already high density multi story slums near my place.

,,,,,,,,
That means your property is now worth a fortune.
Sell it and move to where this won't apply.
After thirty years you must be getting close to retirement and now you can retire wherever you want with the proceeds.
If you still have a bit of working life to go you could move to Kumeu in the meantime and the vast amount of extra money you get for your property will easily cover the extra travel costs.
You have some great options.


That is what I noticed going way back. Property investment tends to exploitation. They extract and retreat to a bolt-hole. You could suggest that is at the heart of the National Party. John Key said he wanted us to be a more confident outward looking nation.

Ranginui Walker hit the nail on the head when he said "I resent all these people coming here. If this continues NZ will be ruined, it will be just like anywhere else"

Paris....? Really

He who has the platform wins the argument (you should see the $ Jacinda dishes out to her pets).

John Hurley said...

"Rare bi-partisanship"

Notwithstanding this ambivalence, there seems to be clear recognition and acceptance that New Zealand society is going to become more diverse in terms of ethnic and cultural groups over the next 20 years. Immigration will play a major part in this diversification of communities, especially immigration from countries in Asia. Fortunately, there seems to be a broad consensus among the main political parties as well as many of the minor ones that this is not something to be feared or resisted at all costs. In this regard, there appears to be some consensus of party view (excluding the position adopted by New Zealand First) that continued immigration at or above present levels will produce positive outcomes for the country's economy and society.
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/new-zealand-politicization-immigration

and immigration has been institutionalised as a public good (public discourse).

DS said...

And why don't people vote on economics anymore? Because they've been convinced that neoliberal capitalism is the only way forward.

No, because everyone's now convinced that Culture War is more important than Economics. Neoliberal Capitalism loves itself some Identity Politics, while what do you think most of New Zealand's modern Left thinks of the West Coast?

pat said...

https://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf