Why doesn't the Left have a real vision?

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Mon Mar 29 00:35:38 PST 1999


Gross stereotyping and concomitant over-simplification here, Chris, but, sadly, I know where you're coming from. I'll own up to a brand-new Verso Manifesto, but I'm with you to the extent your bitter experience reflects the way of things.

Too great an extent, alas.

Best, Rob.


>Because the "left" prefers to be oppositional. It prefers to be sectarian.
>It uses ideas to separate itself morally from the rest of the population.
>It uses the Communist Manifesto in its coffee table edition. It is
>moralistic rather than scientific. It shits, as you were shat upon, on
>people for considering reforms, because that is not revolutionary enough.
>It prefers revolutionary cycnicism. It ignores the hundreds of thousands of
>good people trying to change the world.
>
>Its real contribution to revolution is that of the revolutionary socialite,
>who knows which names to drop, rather than the revolutionary socialist.
>
>It is what Marx and Engels called petty bourgeois socialism.
>
>
>Chris Burford
>
>London



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