Matisyahu's Blog

For a long time I’ve considered myself centre left primarily because I would consider my position on social matters being that of a civil libertarian but my economic position was a mixture of moderate to centre left – basically a social democrat. Long story short, there is the old saying that you become more conservative as you grow older but for me I’ve moved further to the left as I have realised that social democracy is ultimately a dead end. It is a dead end because we’ve gone down this road and found that the forces within society who opposed it never made peace with the idea of an active state so instead they wait for a crisis to emerge then make use of it – see Naomi Klein and ‘The Shock Doctrine’. An example of ‘The Shock Doctrine’ in action would be the response to the stagflation of the 1970s was the rise of neoliberalism, monetarism and the ‘Chicago boys’ who advocated for laissez faire economic policies which argued that the state needed to shrink to allow the private sector to grow and the economy to grow overall – the famous quote from Ronald Reagan: “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

Why did this reversal happen? because the concentration of capital was never addressed and as long as there is a concentration of capital the inevitable end result is that it leads to political capture – the capitalist class using its capital to seize the state and then wield the power of the state to further its class interests. When the crisis that brought about the welfare state and Keynesian policy (utilising fiscal and monetary policy with sensible regulations to smooth out the economic cycle) subsides the next generation who take over forget the lessons learnt and thus they push for the dismantling of the state and thus the same crisis occurs over again. When capitalism is left to it’s own devices it has a tendency towards self destruction or as Alan Greenspan described it: “irrational exuberance”.

This is the reason why I’ve moved further to the left – workers owning and controlling the means of production. What do I mean by that, workers actually deciding democratically what to make, how to make it, how to sell it etc. and getting to share in the benefits of profits made, when technology comes along and allows everyone to keep their job, earn the same amount but work a shorter week. Businesses that are owned by the workers, banks owned by the customer, energy boards owned by the customer – long story short, there would be no longer be a difference between those who are employed, the customer and those who own the means of production, they are one in the same. It would lead to a distribution of economic power and thus undermine the ability for one individual or a group of individuals to consolidate power and the benefits of technological progress forward being to the betterment of workers rather than causing massive amounts of anxiety regarding job security.

On a side note, being left wing doesn’t mean you have taken a vow of poverty. It is one of the things that really grinds my gears and reminds me very much of this meme:

The idea that the moment you participate in society or maybe enjoy maybe something nice somehow invalidates your criticism of society and advocate for something better is one of the biggest gotchas that have been put out by anti-left wing people. If you spend money then you’re a hypocrite, if you don’t spend money you’re labelled envious – it never ends and god knows I’ve yet to see a quotation by any Marxist or more broadly left wing thinkers saying that the cornerstone of being on the left is taking a vow of poverty, sitting in the living room every night flagellating oneself with a cat o’ nine tails for the sin of buying an iPhone, buy a nice article of clothing or daring to have a meal that isn’t just bread and water. You can be in favour of wanting to abolish capitalism without having to take a vow of poverty – wanting to abolish capitalism would enable the bounty of what can be produced be made accessible to everyone so that everyone can have access to a life of comfort, dignity and purpose rather than having the top 1% owning 43% of the wealth (and growing by the day).