Burn It All Down

The thing about the status quo is that it is never really static. Since the height of labour power in the late 19th century, the political middle ground has shifted increasingly to the right. Societies have been replaced by markets; ethics by 'values'. Exploitation has become the accepted norm. Thomas Picketty showed us in great statistical detail what Marx predicted a century and a half ago - we are now in the looting phase of capitalism. Just as a body in the final hours of life begins to burn its own proteins, so today we see capitalism consuming itself, with the same acrid stench. But instead of opposing a system which was rotten to begin with, liberal pundits, economists  and academics seem to think it can be fixed with a fresh coat of paint.

Environmentalists warn of impending climate disaster but fail to address the root cause of the problem: a system which exists purely to extract profit. We are told that 99% of scientists agree we are living in the Anthropocene - the period during which human activity has been been the dominant influence on the climate system - while 1% disagree. We are also told that the richest 1% control roughly as much wealth as the poorest 99%, but no one seems to make the obvious connection. Carbon 'abatement' through cap and trade provides impunity to those at the top of the food chain while allowing the plunder to continue. The market is not the solution to the problem. The market IS the problem.

Even the most vocal anti-war leftists still fall silent when it comes to defence jobs. In these tough economic times anything good for jobs is necessarily good, in and of itself, so best not to bite the hand that feeds, especially when it comes to the war industry.

The labour movement, peace activists, civil rights activists, environmentalists and feminists have all failed dismally to overturn a system which concentrates power and privilege in the hands of a few. Or worse, have been co-opted by it. The American civil rights movement created black judges, black lawyers, and black congressmen, while black males now account for 40% of the US prison population.

"When feminists challenged patriarchal militarism, the resulting concession was not an end to militarism but the emergence of female generals." - Michael Parenti.

Equality feminism is me-too feminism. Like the suffragettes who fought for voting rights, not of all women, but for women of property, it flatters the patriarchy by demanding a seat at the table, rather than challenging its power. Like the civil rights movement, liberal feminists have proven every bit as opportunistic as the system they sought to replace. “Public ‘career feminists’ have been more concerned with getting more women into boardrooms, when the problem is that there are altogether too many boardrooms, and none of them are on fire.” - Laurie Penny.

A century of struggle may have done a little to transform our moral culture, but sadly our political culture remains unchanged. Rather than opposing the system of capitalist oppression, Labour, Greens, Social Democrats and the like focus on minute and short term improvements. Instead of debating power and class, the lumpen identitariat squabble among themselves, bemoaning the treatment of the indigenous in remote communities without acknowledging the criminal enterprise of colonialism; demanding equal rights for an alphabet soup of gender identities without questioning a legal code which exists solely to protect property. Land rights for gay whales was an anti-socialist trope which appeared some time in the 1980s. Ironically it was aimed more at piss-weak liberal centrists than far left ideologues. Surprisingly it wasn't Martin Luther King but Richard Nixon who admonished "there can be no social justice until there is economic justice". Piecemeal politics simply conceals the underlying relationship of exploitation.

Brexit, Trump, and the rise of right wing populism are portrayed as reactionary and racist by a gentrified left which has forgotten how to speak the language of the disempowered. Bourgeois liberals call for a better deal, not out of a genuine longing for compassion and justice, but rather out of fear of upsetting the very system which maintains their power and privilege. The climate is at a tipping point. Wealth inequality is tearing the social fabric apart. War is perpetual. Radical change is desperately needed, not piecemeal reforms and incremental progress. Now is not the time to give this rotten-to-the-core system a fresh coat of paint. It’s time to tear it down and start again.