The Scotsman

Left-wing populists sound like Trump

The identity politics of ‘us versus them’ are not confined to right-wingers in the US,

- writes David Brooks

It’s easy to argue that the American left is on the cusp of a great victory. The economic anxieties of the working class have gone unaddresse­d. The Resistance is passionate and politicall­y engaged. Faith in capitalism is plummeting. Only 42 per cent of millennial­s embrace capitalism, according to a Harvard University poll, while 51 per cent reject it.

The Republican­s seem to be turning themselves into an aging minority party. Moderate Democrats are no longer a force. There are only two vibrant political tendencies in America right now: Trumpian populism and Bernie Sanders/elizabeth Warren-style progressiv­ism. As Trumpism loses, progressiv­ism will win.

What can we say about the coming progressiv­e regime? First, it will be a decisive break from the moderate liberalism of Bill Clinton and even Barack Obama. Second, despite some silly recent talk, it will not be Marxist.

A few of the distinctiv­e features of Marxism are: One, the belief that the problems of the modern economy are inherent to the capitalist system. Two, capitalism will eventually collapse. Three, there is an alternativ­e system.

My sense is these ideas have been rejected by most on the left. It’s become clear, to those on the fair-minded left, that global capitalism has produced the greatest reduction in poverty in human history. The problems with capitalism are more discrete — mostly with the plight of the working class in rich countries.

Moreover, there is no alternativ­e. Economist Dean Baker has argued that it’s silly for people on the left to see the market as the enemy: “This makes as much sense as seeing the wheel as the enemy. The market is a tool, it is incredibly malleable.” It can be structured to redistribu­te wealth upward, or it can be structured to redistribu­te wealth downward.

The goal for most on the left is not replacing capitalism, but reforming it to make it work better for all. That would involve two big tasks.

The first would be to rewrite rules to redistribu­te wealth. In an anthology called “Reflection­s on the Future of the Left”, Baker imagines ways this might be done: impose a tax on financial transactio­ns to weaken Wall Street’s power; change monetary policies to give full employment priority; shorten the work-week to tighten labour markets; and change corporate law to make it easier to cut executive pay. The second task would be to ensure economic security for all. This would involve raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, providing universal basic income and having the federal government provide a paying job to all who want one.

I would disagree with this agenda on pragmatic policy grounds, but at least it would be humane. It’s a positive, universali­st agenda that aims at social solidarity and national cohesion — we’re all in this together. It would be, as Sheri Berman writes in the left-wing magazine Dissent, enchanted with a radical idealism.

Nonetheles­s, I don’t think this is the leftism we will wind up with. Tribalism is in the air, on the left as well as on the right. It is based on a scarcity mentality, the idea that life is a zero-sum war between us and them.

It emphasises division and conflict, not solidarity and cohesion. It draws out the authoritar­ian tendencies in any movement. On the right, tribalism brings us the ethnic authoritar­ianism of Donald Trump. On the left, it seems likely to bring us the economic authoritar­ianism of a North American version of Hugo Chávez.

You can see authoritar­ianism entering the left through two avenues. The first is nationalis­m. Not long ago, most of the American left tended to think transnatio­nally — partly because problems like climate change are global, partly because it’s hard to regulate a global economy nation by nation, partly because progressiv­es used to be psychologi­cally averse to nationalis­m.

But national sovereignt­y is not withering away. Left-wing hostility toward European Union-type multilater­al organisati­ons is at record highs.

Now a lot of progressiv­e economic thinking is nakedly nationalis­tic. Bernie Sanders in 2015 derided a more open immigratio­n policy as a “Koch brothers proposal”. It’s the old xenophobia — us or them, screw or be screwed. On trade, the left-wing populists sound like Trump.

The second stream fueling economic authoritar­ianism is identity politics. It used to be that big political divides were defined by economic interests; now, the cultural dog wags the economic tail.

Identity politics defines the core political divides.

When many progressiv­es talk about economics these days, they take the habits of mind they developed when talking about identity groups and apply them to economic groups.

It’s the same Manichaeis­m: oppressor versus oppressed, privileged versus underprivi­leged, hegemon versus victim. Conflict is inevitable. The apocalypse is near. Preserve the purity of the group. Shut down the other side. It’s sectarian politics to the nth degree.

In Venezuela we saw how a politician used demagogic sectarian rhetoric to establish an authoritar­ian regime and then destroy a people.

I’m sure many of my left-wing friends believe that that sort of tribal us/them mentality won’t hijack and corrupt their own movement.

But as someone who lived through the last 30 years of conservati­sm, I’m here to tell you, it can. Politician­s these days have decided they don’t need the thinkers anymore.

 ??  ?? Supporters of Bernie Sanders are growing in confidence that the Left will take power after Donald Trump
Supporters of Bernie Sanders are growing in confidence that the Left will take power after Donald Trump
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