Required Listening 🎧
Today’s left is fractured and profoundly confused. Few people have much of a plan or even a clear vision for what we are trying to accomplish.
To make things worse, many of our commonly held positions are at odds with one another: Are we ‘abolishing the state’ or giving people ‘free healthcare’? Are building affordable housing or giving the land back? Are we trust-busting big companies or nationalizing monopolies? Are we part of an international struggle or trying to win democratic elections at home? All of these questions (and more) are essential for us to have clarity on if we hope to win the majority support of working people.
This week, I’m unlocking an episode from the Doomscroll private feed with Vivek Chibber:
Vivek Chibber is a professor of sociology at New York University. He is the author of several books including; Confronting Capitalism, Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital and many others. You can find him on Substack at: Confronting Capitalism.
In this episode, we get in the weeds about strategy. Of course, not everyone needs to be a scholarly expert in economy and political theory. But as advocates for an unfamiliar program like “socialism”, we do need to be able to point regular people to where these answers can be found. (Particularly in the US, most people don’t believe that these answers even exist.)
Right now, our political problem is that many working people distrust that the left can deliver on common sense social democratic programs, much less our loftier aspirations. When given the choice between a familiar form of exploitation or an unspecified fantasy, most people will choose to weather the storm they already know.
Today, neoliberalism is in crisis. If we hope to take advantage of this moment and achieve certain Sanders-style programs (or more), we first need to have clarity among ourselves.
If you enjoy this week’s episode, I also encourage you to follow and listen to Vivek Chibber’s recent talk on 21st century designs for socialism:
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Lastly, if you find yourself fantasizing about a distant, revolutionary subject who conveniently lives in a far away place (that you don’t visit and have never been)—you’re probably rigging together a few memes that make you feel good about the ideas you already have. And *checks notes* doing nothing at all. Unsurprisingly, things continue to get worse — damn bro, looks like you were right all along! This kind of self fulfilling belief system might feel cool and edgy as a teen. Meanwhile, the rest of us have rent due on the 1st and are paying out the nose to see the doctor. People have kids dude. Come on.