The left needs to stop self-marginalizing
[WS:] Not a bad piece. I would add two points.
1. The left whatever that means is popular largely in the academic circles, and not much value comes out of the academia, just endless hair splitting and and pointless disputes. That is very much different form the situation 100 years ago where left ideas were formulated by practitioners: unionists, revolutionaries, organizers. If the left is to move to the mainstream, it must come out of the practical realm, not out of the academia.
2. The left does not have any institutional power base (the academia does not count as such). Without such institutional base, it is just mere empty talk of frustrated academics. Here, I would like to reiterate the idea pushed by Gar Alperovitz that political change is not enough, we need to to look into institutional transformation by developing those institutions that offer an alternative to the top-heavy corporate structure. There is a variety of cooperative forms, employee ownership, or local government-community partnerships that are both democratically governed and distribute wealth equitably.
These institutions are the natural power base of the new New Left. But that requires a practical action, not literary analyses of holy scriptures.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."