[lbo-talk] The Crisis of the Global Left

[Carrol Cox]

Actually, neither am I referring to "some organized, membership-carded 
group," which is why I started some years ago referring to a "coherent 
left" as absent. (I have carefully avoided the t erm "unified left" -- I 
don't believe that is even desirable.) As Ted Morgan establishes pretty 
clearly, despite the wide variety of "organized" groups and the quarrels 
they had with each other, there was an overall _ political coherence_ to 
"the '60s, such as it makes sense to refer to "The Left of the years 
1963-73. I realize that "the left" can be used as a collective noun, 
merey referring to all leftists, but that would be pretty sloppy.

Moreover, I doubt that "the crisis of the left" will ever make much 
sense; it might in respect to a particvualr organization, but as I 
indicated above, we are not apt to see a day when a particular 
organization has hegemony on the left. Every time I have seen "the 
crisis of the left" referred to, the writer or speaker is merly 
bellyachng because leftists don't follow his/her wishes. Moreover, it 
also usually is prefatory to some ridiculously voluntarist scheme of 
what the left should be. But no one can will a left into existence,nor 
will the actions of any one group be able to do that. Leftists really 
have to honor Mao's suggestion: "Marxists have no crystal ball."

As I have been suggesting for several months now, there is enough hope 
for a left emerging in the next few years (following Wisconsin, Greece 
etc) that it is advisable t plan local activity on that assumption; if 
it's wrong, so be it, but if it's right, those who fail to keep it in 
mind will be rather left out.

Carrol

P.S.: By "left" I of course mean mass politics, not electoral activity.

On 9/19/2011 11:23 AM, Jordan Hayes wrote:
> Carrol writes:
>
>> I've written over and over again for over 10 years on
>> this list about the emptiness of any proposition in
>> regard to "The Left."
>
> I think you just misunderstood the original point. He's not talking
> about some organized, membership-carded group, which I agree doesn't
> exist. He's talking about the general idea of people who disagree with
> the equally vapid non-existent group "the right" ...
>
> And yet: there are people who disagree on general issues and can be
> grouped by terms "right" and "left" for the purpose of discussion of
> general issues ...
>
> Get over it.
>
> /jordan
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