The New Left and the shift in perspective

[perardua]

An oft mentioned fact in these times is that parts of the working class have deserted the traditional left in favour of the populist right. Now there seem to be reasons to believe (#1 (http://www.dw.com/en/are-afd-voters-the-same-as-trump-voters/a-36345438), #2 (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/white-working-class-trump-cultural-anxiety/525771/)) it is not as simple as that, but until I have researched the matter more thoroughly I will assume it is true.

Now, this study (http://www.simon-bornschier.eu/1/23/resources/publication_1404_1.pdf) (which does indeed seem to indicate a significant working class base for FN) mentions the transformation in left politics starting with the New Left wherein focus was shifted from class-based formulations to other kinds of formulations, the eventual result being that the consituency of even the Social Democratic parties changing increasingly from traditional manual labourers into more educated "culturally liberal" sectors.

This too is a notion that often gets mentioned in the debate, and I think is probably true. Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, for example, seem to have had sway as latter day theorists, and from what little I know of them they explicitly reject the idea of class as a fundamental determinator and so on.

Well then, the question is: Why? Why this shift? How come left theorists and activists at this precise juncture moved away from earlier conceptions and in the process allegedly alienated many of the people they were supposed to be aiming at? I have heard suggestions that talk of class politics was too much associated with Soviet communism, or that it was "old-fashioned" and something more "modern" had to be devised to meet new challenges and so on, but these sound too vague and speculative for me.

So, what happened here?

[Jimmie Higgins]

There are a lot of different things in your question and a lot that could depend on specific parties or regional labor movement. But the broad answer is temporary defeat of working class movements in many places. More identifiably working class struggle followed from social movements by the 1970s, but were generally crushed by the mid 80s.

For US academics this meant retreat to other areas of safety, namely universities where you could still theorize about class or oppression even if no actual class or anti-oppression movements existed. This severed the left and radicals from concrete material matters and as time goes by they have gotten worse because of the need to keep publishing or careerist concerns which make trendy schools of thought a better academic move than trying to uncover insights which might help some future class movements. [this is very very broad stroke description]

For dem-socialist electoral parties a similar trajectory but with much more careerism and opportunism. Dem-soc parties need a popular base and generally this is the labor movement. But in the post-war period they could also swim with the stream of dominant Keynesian policy. But then how does a party like that maintain an electoral base when Keynesianism is on the outs and the labor unions are loosing? Well a lot of these parties began relying on middle class supporters and so moral concerns for workers (now split into non-class subcategories like “the poor”, the “working poor” and the “middle class” or working class as a cultural description (accents and certain blue collar-associated cultural tastes). So rather than representing the political aspirations of even a reformist labor movement, these parties came to “accept economic reality” and represent an effort to soften the edges of neoliberalism. Now some of these parties explicitly see their base as the professional liberal middle class.

This process started at least a decade before the Berlin Wall came down, so the fall of “communism” was just the nail in the coffin which allowed communist parties to be more openly just dem-soc parties and dem-soc parties to openly embrace a kind of humane neoliberalism that retains some popular previous reforms.

Again, very very broad strokes. There are dynamics within social movements and within labor movements and between labor unions and the rank and file.

But fundamentally the defeat of rank and file and working class politics and the invisibility of class politics that followed changed the way class is perceived in general. The class and class struggle have not disappeared - just the post-war conditions that led to a certain understanding of class. This won’t change until workers find new effective ways to struggle independently. Then all the academics who now write about how workers are no longer central to capitalism will suddenly “rediscover” the working class like Columbus “discovered” the Americas.

[perardua]

There are a lot of different things in your question and a lot that could depend on specific parties or regional labor movement. But the broad answer is temporary defeat of working class movements in many places. More identifiably working class struggle followed from social movements by the 1970s, but were generally crushed by the mid 80s.
What precipitated this defeat? Did it have something to do with what you talk about later:


Dem-soc parties need a popular base and generally this is the labor movement. But in the post-war period they could also swim with the stream of dominant Keynesian policy. But then how does a party like that maintain an electoral base when Keynesianism is on the outs and the labor unions are loosing?
In other words, the post-war welfare state was built on Keynesian models which fell into disrepute due to economic troubles of the 70s, shifting opinions in the direction of neoliberalism? For an anti-labour counter-offensive to be mounted, there has to have been something already there to use as a spring-board, I mean.

Did disillusionment with the non-fulfillment of '68 play into it? Or terrorist groups like RAF in the '70s?



The rest of the things you mention are familiar. It's still curious though that this would result in such a massive loss of confidence for radical theorists rather than viewed as a temporary setback. I'm guessing you had to be there and all, not saying I would have reacted differently. To think that the workers' movement should meet defeat in this way after having survived fascism. But of course, then you had the Soviet Union, whereas by this time hardly anybody believed in the Soviet Union anymore. Not to mention the reasessments of history and modernity that came to the fore among intellectuals. A very different situation.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well I don’t know if it was such an easy defeat of labor (and def. not the end of class struggle) or the only way things might have played out.

If the bosses began to feel economic shifts by the end of the 60s, it still took several years for the ruling class to settle on a new ideological footing. It still took more than a decade before bosses were able to definitively turn the tide (at least in the US/UK). Workers in the US/UK (this is my example both due to their influence and just my relative familiarity) were also more militant through the 70s, so rank and file workers, at least, didn’t just roll over.

But I agree that the reason the 70s weren’t the 30s in the US is due to previous decades of liberal dominance of the labor unions. Many workers from the 30s lived through WWI, a previous labor surge, a defeat of labor in the 20s and depression. So the class as a whole had learned a lot about practical solidarity, resisting industrial war and production methods, illegal labor actions etc. Workers in the 70s had grown up in a boom where labor power had been redefined as the ability of the union staff to argue your case and negotiate. My understanding is that there was still a lot of living rank and file traditions that lasted through this period, but conditions were just different because workers could previously expect regular increases in wages and control of the job. So they were likely more blindsided than the workers in the pre-war era who expected everything to be a big fight. The lived experience of the working class makes a difference. Workers in Russia needed 1905, workers in Spain went through decades of mass strikes and urban and agrarian revolts. By the 1970s, the class was like a long-retired boxer jumped by a group of people after drinking too much at a bar.

[qnhan10a3]

thanks you that what i want to see