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Recently, when asked if I considered my views to be left or right, I jokingly replied that today’s leftists are those who support the right in every situation … here I used an expression to denote people of a certain orientation. No sooner had I started talking about the right-wing, than my companion (interestingly enough, of right-wing persuasion) remarked, “You can’t express yourself so incorrectly!” I put my hands up in the air and said, “I was only joking. But who are leftists and rightists these days anyway?”
In the book by the writer Marlen Insarov “A Novel of the Six Unhung.” a member of the Union of Socialist-Revolutionary-Maximalists (an early twentieth-century Russian organization that fought against capitalism through workers’ strikes and uprisings; it advocated transferring factories to self-governing labor collectives), who has come to understand the realities of an era foreign to her, says: “I am not a leftist, I am a socialist.” This needs clarification.
In today’s Western world, two major ideological and political forces are struggling. Some, conditionally leftist or “liberal,” are globalists, proponents of a capitalist world market, moving factories to places where labor is cheaper, and thus non-guaranteed, temporary employment. They rely on transnational corporations (TNCs).
Firm employment and good working conditions cannot be guaranteed, because MNCs can turn an entire region into a disaster zone at any time by moving factories to India or China, for example. These “liberals” are proponents of almost unlimited migration (corporations need cheap labor), as well as supporting ethnic and sexual minorities. They advocate the blurring of all boundaries – between states, ethnicities, genders – because it is important to them to ensure the functioning of the global market, the profits of transnational corporations. Capital and labor must move freely; restrictions or prejudices that impede this nonstop movement must be eliminated. In practice, liberals sometimes support privileges for various minorities (e.g., special opportunities for blacks to enter U.S. universities), seeing them as potential voters. Their ranks are not united, minorities fight with each other, like radical feminists fighting transgender people for the right to use public toilets. These are supporters of the so-called of the “liquid” or fluid modernity of which sociologist Zygmunt Bauman writes.
They are opposed by “conservative forces” or “right-wingers” – supporters of rigid borders of national states, national values and economic protectionism. They talk about the conflict of civilizations, the clash of nations and religious wars. The right relies on a variety of business groups, from arms companies that supported Donald Trump (military spending has steadily increased since he entered the White House) to small local businesses that fear being washed away by the flood of foreign goods. These forces stand for a national industry, often subsidized by the state. Of course, the MIC benefits from acute conflicts between nations. A model of right-wing politics – Brexit – breaking with globalist culture and economy, restricting migration. Right-wingers for support of traditional religions and the family. Their goal is to protect the boundaries within which and through which they can make profits. Such are the proponents of the “hard world” (Bauman’s definition).
There are other ideological currents, but they are marginalized. It seemed possible that the rise of the Social Democrats – supporters of Bernie Sanders in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain – was possible. They emphasized economic transformation: government support for the poor through tax increases on the rich. However, both quickly disappeared from the political scene.
The Western left/liberals and right/conservatives of the globalization era have nothing to do with socialist and liberal ideas as they existed before the 1990s. While the right may insist today on government spending cuts and tax cuts and the liberals the opposite, there are no rigid principles: the parties sometimes swap places on this issue.
For twentieth-century socialists, the focus was on the struggle of the wage-earning class against the capitalists, a struggle across national boundaries. The goal was to abolish wage labor and socialize (socialize by placing it in the hands of collectives of workers, or nationalize it by transferring it to the state) property.
Advocates of liberal democracy, like Martin Luther King, fought for blacks and whites in America to be treated equally and judged not by the color of their skin, but by their personal qualities.
Socialism and liberalism are universalist ideologies. They offer freedom and equality for all (at least that was declared). On the contrary, the modern right and left are anti-universalists. According to them, people should be treated differently based on gender, color, and religion. The argument between the modern Western left and right is about who should have what privileges. Both ideologies are not for equality, but for benefits and privileges for their own.
This applies to Western countries. The reality of Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Russia, India and China is different. But, because of the West’s dominance in finance, technology, and propaganda, its ideological models are actively transmitted outward. This can change if there is a fundamental change in the world economy and if globalization is replaced by something else.
