[lbo-talk] Response to MG -- Was Poll....

[Dissenting Wren]

And so . . . the game is not worth the candle?  I won't say why the left's program has not found an echo in Britain or elsewhere in Europe.  That is a context where a left program once mobilized workers in their millions.  Here, not.  Certainly, though, the question is not simply deployment of our own people.  We are too few and must be more.  The question of how we become more is, yes, partially a question of deployment.  It is also a matter of rethinking the socialist project, though that alone will not "find an echo" in the absence of organization.  My organization, Solidarity, is sometimes accused of bleak realism to the point of defeatism.  But I think we'll have to cede that point d'honneur to you.

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From: James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Sent: Wednesday, July 6, 2011 12:49 AM
Subject: [lbo-talk] Response to MG -- Was Poll....

The problem with the sketch set out by ‘Dissenting Wren’... ‘One key task of leftists is to build an organized left.’ ... is that it sees the left’s problem wholly as one of the most effective deployment of its own people, as if they could simply be used more effectively.

In other words, the basic ideas are sound, but they need to be given a proper chance.

I fear the problem is more profound. The left’s program has not found an echo because it is insufficient to the moment. Statist socialism of the reformist variety has been tried and failed in west Europe, of the dictatorial variety has been tried and failed in East Europe. The Labor movements allied to those political programs have languished and become a shadow of their former selves. The working class internationally has learned the lesson that the left does not speak to its concerns, but is overwhelmingly preoccupied with holding office.

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