When another age dawns, and the heroes of the present age have been tossed to bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and all that, to be reviled forever as fiends and monsters, the bill of indictment about how the left betrayed the workers will look something like this:
They led the working class into the wilderness of welfare state dependency instead of into middle class responsibility.
Why did they do this? In part because of the Marxist doctrine that the way to understand the 19th century was as a class conflict, a war to the death between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, because what else could it be? And the Fabian and Progressive idea that, while class warfare was a bridge too far, the working class certainly needed a wise and educated elite to guide it into proper channels.
If there is a clue to what is wrong with these two notions, it must be that -- well I'll be blowed -- the Marxist doctrine amounts to the dictatorship of the Marxists who will lead the proletarians in the war to the knife against the bourgeoisie, and the Fabian/Progressive doctrine that amounts to the oligarchy of the educated elite that will advise and administer the wise programs that will benefit the workers and soften the hard edges of a laissez-faire economy that only asks "will it pay?"
Let us be clear about this. In the Marxian outcome, the Marxist dictators run everything; they obliterate private property and any right to disagree with the rulers, and the kill millions of people and they impoverish the rest. Marxism is slavery.
In the Fabian/Progressive outcome, the economy gets rigidified with money-losing state enterprises and the workers get reduced into modern day serfs that the educated elite regards as "deplorables," really not quite out of the top drawer.
The fundamental error of the Marxists is that the bourgeoisie had it in for the proletarians. No they didn't. The fundamental error of the Fabians and the Progressives is that capitalists are economic robots and the that workers are helpless: thus both need supervision. Oh, the capitalists got pretty mad if the workers decided to strike to keep their wages up in a depression. But the normal bourgeois capitalist just pays his workers the market rate -- and not because he is a moral exemplar or moral degenerate, but because paying his workers more is risky on the profits front, and paying them less makes it difficult to find good workers.
And the fundamental warrant for the good faith of the bourgeoisie is that it did not have a problem with giving the workers the vote. Did the bourgeoisie rise up in fury during the campaigns to extend the vote from the middle class to the workers? It did not.
But the Big Thing is this. The bourgeoisie does not believe in political power. On the contrary, it believes in the limitation of political power. That's because the basic philosophy of the middle class is live and let live, trust and reciprocity. Again, there is no moral wonder in this. In middle-class life you quickly find out that trust and reciprocity is the way to prosper. Of course, the capitalists also know that there is money to be made in catering to the power-driven chaps in the political class: money in return for contracts, subsidies, privileges.
The big problem for the workers, in the aftermath of their adoption by the Marxists and the Fabian/Progressives, is that once they have been enlisted in the political army of the left it is almost impossible to leave. This is the way of all armies: once you have joined the colors your leaders will lead you hither and thither in their various wars, threatening you with frightful penalties if you "desert." But when you are no longer useful to them, they will demobilize you and expect you to pick up the pieces, or, if things go badly in their power project, they will just abandon you along the route of march.
The fact is that if you want to thrive in the cities of the industrial economy you need to become a citizen -- for that is what bourgeois means -- and you need to learn the ways of the city, its culture and its moral code. It's not exactly a walk in the park, but millions have done it.
But if you enlist in the Marxist movement or go along with the Fabians and the Progressives you won't learn the skills and the culture you need to be a responsible citizen that can wive and thrive successfully in the city. And that is a crime against humanity.
The point is that if the Marxists and the Fabians and the Progressives has never been, then the workers and the capitalists and all the folks in between would have wived and thrived and everyone would have lived happily ever after. Because the market economy rewards people that do that.
Instead, the Marxists came along and divided us, and the Fabians and the Progressives came along and dominated us. And the world is a worse place because of it.
They led the working class into the wilderness of welfare state dependency instead of into middle class responsibility.
Why did they do this? In part because of the Marxist doctrine that the way to understand the 19th century was as a class conflict, a war to the death between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, because what else could it be? And the Fabian and Progressive idea that, while class warfare was a bridge too far, the working class certainly needed a wise and educated elite to guide it into proper channels.
If there is a clue to what is wrong with these two notions, it must be that -- well I'll be blowed -- the Marxist doctrine amounts to the dictatorship of the Marxists who will lead the proletarians in the war to the knife against the bourgeoisie, and the Fabian/Progressive doctrine that amounts to the oligarchy of the educated elite that will advise and administer the wise programs that will benefit the workers and soften the hard edges of a laissez-faire economy that only asks "will it pay?"
Let us be clear about this. In the Marxian outcome, the Marxist dictators run everything; they obliterate private property and any right to disagree with the rulers, and the kill millions of people and they impoverish the rest. Marxism is slavery.
In the Fabian/Progressive outcome, the economy gets rigidified with money-losing state enterprises and the workers get reduced into modern day serfs that the educated elite regards as "deplorables," really not quite out of the top drawer.
The fundamental error of the Marxists is that the bourgeoisie had it in for the proletarians. No they didn't. The fundamental error of the Fabians and the Progressives is that capitalists are economic robots and the that workers are helpless: thus both need supervision. Oh, the capitalists got pretty mad if the workers decided to strike to keep their wages up in a depression. But the normal bourgeois capitalist just pays his workers the market rate -- and not because he is a moral exemplar or moral degenerate, but because paying his workers more is risky on the profits front, and paying them less makes it difficult to find good workers.
And the fundamental warrant for the good faith of the bourgeoisie is that it did not have a problem with giving the workers the vote. Did the bourgeoisie rise up in fury during the campaigns to extend the vote from the middle class to the workers? It did not.
But the Big Thing is this. The bourgeoisie does not believe in political power. On the contrary, it believes in the limitation of political power. That's because the basic philosophy of the middle class is live and let live, trust and reciprocity. Again, there is no moral wonder in this. In middle-class life you quickly find out that trust and reciprocity is the way to prosper. Of course, the capitalists also know that there is money to be made in catering to the power-driven chaps in the political class: money in return for contracts, subsidies, privileges.
The big problem for the workers, in the aftermath of their adoption by the Marxists and the Fabian/Progressives, is that once they have been enlisted in the political army of the left it is almost impossible to leave. This is the way of all armies: once you have joined the colors your leaders will lead you hither and thither in their various wars, threatening you with frightful penalties if you "desert." But when you are no longer useful to them, they will demobilize you and expect you to pick up the pieces, or, if things go badly in their power project, they will just abandon you along the route of march.
The fact is that if you want to thrive in the cities of the industrial economy you need to become a citizen -- for that is what bourgeois means -- and you need to learn the ways of the city, its culture and its moral code. It's not exactly a walk in the park, but millions have done it.
But if you enlist in the Marxist movement or go along with the Fabians and the Progressives you won't learn the skills and the culture you need to be a responsible citizen that can wive and thrive successfully in the city. And that is a crime against humanity.
The point is that if the Marxists and the Fabians and the Progressives has never been, then the workers and the capitalists and all the folks in between would have wived and thrived and everyone would have lived happily ever after. Because the market economy rewards people that do that.
Instead, the Marxists came along and divided us, and the Fabians and the Progressives came along and dominated us. And the world is a worse place because of it.
A very telling article about the conservative mindset, particularly the American one.
ReplyDeleteThe bourgeoisie resisted giving out the vote for a long time. I am Spanish, and it finally arrived here in 1890 (although the electoral system was still rigged, particularly in the countryside).
Look at the quintessentially bourgeois French "doctrinnaire" school of classical liberalism: Guizot, Royer-Collard, Constant. They all wanted to restrict voting rights at all costs.
Marxism rose up in a time of ruthless exploitation, and it made perfect sense back then. The fact that the economy has changed now does not alter that.
The making of the middle class is a typically post-WWII phenomenon, back when communism was on the rise and capitalists had to make concessions in order to woo workers. In that sense, the captive people of Eastern Europe were the best guarantee of higher redistribution levels in the West.
Once the Soviets gone, capitalists don't need to compromise anymore, hence neoliberalism and the erosion of the welfare state. Leftism has been utterly gutted and it is just meaningless identity activism, which is of course in the interest of the bourgeoisie.
Feminism for instance, is a typically bourgeois ideology, pioneered by upper middle class women who felt uneasy with the passive social roles attached to them and wanted to be valued intellectually. The idea that a high-flying woman CEO is in the same boat as some poor rural woman of Appalachia is ludicrous to any serious leftist.
Truth is, we could be living just like in the 1960s in the West. What is missing is the power of the worker's movement, courtesy of Reagan & Thatcher.
Of course the left is also pathetic, failing to understand how important borders are to maintain a generous welfare state from being overburdened. Capitalists know this and therefore people like the Koch brothers lobby tirelessly for open borders. The treasonous upper middle class chearfully plays along to get cheap housemaids and low wage labor.