The left is often described and identified with parties such as the Democratic Party (US), the Labor Party (UK) or equivalents. For the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist left, these are not left parties, they are at best progressive liberals, nowadays controlled by rabid neoliberals. The left advocates a socialist political economy, universal public services, sovereign currency, public banking and a classless society.
The conservative right defends traditional values, private property and proprietary rights, unlimited capital accumulation and a class-based society. The primacy of private property, capital and class society unequivocally defines in which side of the ideological-political spectrum an organization, movement or party places itself on. Any political party is defined by the political choices it makes, not by the facade it presents.
Progressive liberals, centrists and social democratic parties are often identified as left and even radical left, pejoratively labelled as communists/socialists. Progressive liberals, social-democratic and centrist parties were partially or totally co-opted by neoliberals or at least deeply influenced by the neoliberal doctrine.
In western or western-controlled countries, only the anti-capitalist left resists being bought by neoliberalism and, consequently, has been politically marginalized and culturally ostracized for taking positions deemed unrealistic.
Environmentalist movements and “green” parties uncritically support the policies dictated by green capitalism. A substantial part of the non-profit Industrial Complex (NPIC), which most people rely on, is used to spread capitalist propaganda and promote policies aimed at strengthening the system that created the problems.
The far right is pro-capitalist and will gladly implement neoliberal policies even more radical than their liberal counterparts. Fascists love to impose austerity, structural adjustments, anti-labor measures, social security cuts and anything that resembles a public safety net.
Waving the flag of nationalism and denouncing social and cultural degeneration is an easy way to manipulate the public. These people have not the slightest intention of draining the swamp or weeding out the malignant tumors that are destroying the fabric of society in order to supposedly restore the original purity and the lost normalcy. What they have in mind is to oppress the working class and criminalize poverty.
Lower-class citizens who allow themselves to be seduced by far-right and fascist rhetoric and help them seize the reins of power are shooting themselves in the foot. Far-right and fascist politicians are skillful manipulators, presenting themselves as counter-power and restorers of dignity and values, while feeding on the disappointments of ordinary citizens by resorting to incendiary slogans to instrumentalize them, not to solve their problems.
The anti-capitalist left was politically marginalized by the triumphant wave of neoliberalism. The primacy of globalized capital, the financialization of the economy, the privatization of public services, the liberalization of the labor market, the opening of the economy to international investment.
A new world order of entrepreneurship, innovation, growth and development, an opportunity for all nations to be recolonized by the second wave of globalization. The honor of contracting a perpetual debt with the institutions representing the Anglo-American financial empire.
The new paradigm of geopolitical economy was instituted as a set of organizational rules for the post-end history civilization. For several decades, neoliberalism has been the dominant, almost exclusive, doctrine of geopolitical economics, ubiquitous in all areas of activity and corners of society.
Neoliberalism is much more than a political economy project, it is a social, cultural and civilizational project with the "responsibility" of writing, dictating and imposing the rules of global economic, monetary, financial and geopolitical governance.
Citizenship means equal rights and opportunities, not just equality before the law, but democratic, political, economic and social equality. The capitalist economy is the opposite of a participatory economy, in the absence of economic democracy, democracy is just a set of formalities to maintain the facade.
In liberal capitalist regimes, it has become the norm that electoral programs presented to the electorate are not to be taken seriously. There is no harm in voting for a party based on ideological identification, but the electoral program is the document that should serve to confirm that we are voting for the right project.
No, lying is tolerated as if it has no impact on people's lives. Living in a democracy requires responsibility, if we lightly accept giving a vote of confidence to those who lie to get to power, then we are disrespecting ourselves. Our obligation as citizens who want to live in democracy is to defend democracy. Politics does not cease to influence our existence because we despise it, politics is not the struggle for power, it is the struggle against power, that is, it is the struggle for political, economic, social and cultural democracy.
Collective welfare must be the objective of any democratic government and the guidelines for implementing that objective must be clear in the electoral program, which must be a binding document, not a promotional leaflet or a piece of misleading advertising.
Universal public services are structural democratic pillars that guarantee that all citizens, without exception, have access to minimum welfare. The purpose of the economy is to satisfy the basic needs of society.
The pursuit of profit is not the objective of the economy, it can stimulate innovation, increase production and sales. The objective of the search for profit is the accumulation of wealth, and if possible, to be part of the rentier class, that is, the unproductive parasitic class, a caste of usurers who earn money with money and thus contribute to the increase of social inequality.
Not all capitalists become rentiers, but the capitalist ideal leads many oligarchs and plutocrats to pursue the goal of becoming part of the rentier class. The unlimited accumulation of capital is a way of guaranteeing the governance and control of society by the capitalist class. The FIRE sector in a financialized economy is the example of rentier capitalism, a form of capitalism that does not contribute to the real economy but generates inflation by creating "wealth" through financial and real estate speculation and is responsible for increasing social inequality. The problem is that we find this normal, and even worship people, who individually may be good people, but as a social class they represent a danger to society.
It is crucial to know the trends, processes and systems on which political and ideological actors/manipulators rely to shape historical events, so that we can better understand what is happening in the present and what are the prospects for the future.
We need to learn to identify patterns and trends that denounce the evolution of the historical process so that we can consciously avoid falling into mistakes similar to those of the past.
A culture based on narratives with heroes on one side and villains on the other is an infantilized culture that promotes dependence on saviors and the use of scapegoats to divert attention from the heart of the problems.
Understanding the present requires more than focusing on political actor A, B or C. We cannot ignore/circumvent the importance that a single politician can have in triggering, unfolding and resolving a historical event, a war, the institution of a political regime, an economic system, etc.
It is also true that bringing down the main political actor can be enough to end a crisis. But if we never assume that political actors do not operate in a vacuum, we never focus on systemic problems that persist over time. We can be naive and believe in the bad apple theory and not even think that the problem could be the basket, or we can choose to live in denial so we never have to take a stand.
Looking for facts, interpreting them as part of a process that takes place in an artificially complex system. Human societies do not function impartially, laws, rules and regulations, values and principles are designed by influential groups that implement political ideologies that defend their interests.
Individual actors can play a decisive role in the unfold of historical events, nevertheless, the mass of the governed must cultivate a systemic view of the problems instead of focusing almost exclusively on political leaders.
Political agency is almost nil, ordinary citizens, apart from voting, are not encouraged to participate in anything relevant in terms of effective political choices and decisions.
Instead, ordinary citizens are subject to psycho-cognitive and behavioral conditioning to accept the rules of a system designed to serve the minority at the expense of the common good.
If we truly believe we have the right to resist being used and abused, then we shouldn't spend our lives waiting for charismatic saviors, heroes and leaders. We have to consider changing the system so that we can have political agency in modeling the historical process. History, like life, happens while we are literally being milked, in every sense of the word.
It is equally important to know why we believe what we believe. Politics is the means by which ideas can become reality. Ideas have two kinds of consequences, the ability to turn us into useful idiots or to contribute to the development of a free and just society. There are ideas that liberate and ideas that appeal to blind faith and obedience to established powers. Liberating ideas do not demand to be followed blindly, they encourage us to learn how to identify forms of fallacious reasoning, to identify manipulative perception techniques, in short, everything that can cloud the capacity of discernment. Liberating ideas do not demand sacrifices in vain, nor do they impose third-party sacrifices to save the world. Liberating ideas do not impose absurdities. “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” -Voltaire
Leftist values for an ecosocialist society:
social equality, classless society, reduced working hours, universal public services, social and ecological economy (steady-state economy), public banking, sovereign money, definancialization of the economy.
The aim of the economy is to meet the basic needs of the population. An ecosocialist economy should follow the precautionary principle for ecological guidance. We must reduce and in certain cases prohibit the production and consumption of products, goods and services with excessive negative impact on the environment, due to the volume of consumption or the destructive poisoning potential.
The current paradigm is unsustainable and what will happen, in fact what is already happening is that we will have an economy producing luxury goods, products and services for a small elite that simultaneously owns properties, mansions, resorts, private jets , yachts, and everything else imaginable to satisfy the whims of an out of touch class. Around 10% of the population at the top of the social hierarchy will be rewarded with substantial privileges and the majority of the population will be condemned to survive in a techno-feudal regime.
More individual freedom and less material accumulation. An ecosocialist society does not have to ban private property rights altogether, but private property, as well as capital accumulation have to be limited by law. Ownership and wealth controlled by the private sector becomes a political lever, that is, the wealthier the citizen, family, company, organization, the greater the ability to influence political choices and decisions and over time, society will gradually become controlled by the wealthy minority.
A class-based society does not stand on the shoulders of giants, stands on the shoulders of the underprivileged. Social equality begins in a culture that does not encourage, normalize, justify, and reward inequality. Humiliation is more common than many people are willing to accept. Who has never been subjected to a top-down look, a manifestation of superiority culturally accepted and in certain cases encouraged. Prejudices affect primarily minorities, disadvantaged citizens and all commodified living beings.
The left ideology is incompatible with social liberalism, social democracy and center-left, because these political currents defend the capitalist economy as the standard model.
It is an undeniable fact that productivist industrial capitalism has contributed to economic development, but we cannot forget that this development is indelibly linked to access to mineral resources and cheap raw materials in third world countries controlled by the West, under colonialist or neocolonialist domination.
Productivist economies, capitalist or socialist are environmentally unsustainable. The first seeks profit and capital accumulation, therefore consumption growth is inseparable from the logic of unlimited economic growth and consequently the market has to be flooded with appealing products capable of stimulating consumption and debt, another structural pillar of the capitalist economy.
The status of consumer replaces that of citizen and, in order to fulfill the obligation of being a consumer, the citizen is led to buy what he doesn't need with the money he doesn't have. A substantial part of the goods, products and services purchased or contracted are unnecessary but still contribute to environmental devastation and produce waste.
The socialist productivist economy should only be used in cases where the economy of a country is in a state of underdevelopment, as it is desirable for socialist economies to abandon the productivist model.
Energy consumption continues to grow, as does waste production, soil contamination, freshwater aquifers and ocean pollution. It is imperative that the European population leaves the capitalist cocoon and begins to realize that the neoliberal elite that dictates the European policies will lead us to fascism. The question is not if but when.
Ecosocialism with European characteristics is the solution for a green and democratic Europe, but for this to happen it takes a great effort to raise political, ideological and cultural awareness, but it is achievable and it starts by bringing politics to the table, less virtual and more real, more mobilization and organization and less opinion thrown into the bottomless pit of social media.
Current western capitalism is based on the financialization of the economy and ecosystem services, as part of the vision for a green society. Proprietary rights are used as legal instruments by the FIRE sector and the rentier class to accumulate more and more capital with the blessing of the political class.
Public-private partnerships represent the merger between capital and the state in order to benefit private stakeholders at the expense of impoverishing everything that is or should be part of universal public services. Economic fascism is already a reality, and political fascism is on the way.
The benefits of productivist capitalism were largely outweighed by the economic, social and environmental losses. Financial capitalism is a lethal weapon for the real economy, society and the environment. The capitalist political economy practiced in the West represents the degenerative stage of Western society/civilization.
As long as we continue to look the other way and keep kicking the can down the road, hoping the problem will go away, it won't. What will come true with our consent, is the institution of a techno-fascist dictatorship.
The West is dominated by a single ideology, or to be more exact, the lethal mixture of two ideologies, neoconservatism and neoliberalism. Center-left socialist, social democratic, and progressive liberal parties, to some extent, attempt to reconcile the values of social democracy with the principles of neoclassical economics, the standard school of economic thought. Center-left socialist parties gradually gave in to neoliberal onslaughts. But the main reason that led center-left socialist and social-democratic governments to implement neoliberal policies was the pressure from the international institutions behind the expansion of neoliberal capitalism. Financial capitalism requires open economies, lifting controls on capital flows, removal of tax barriers, privatization of the economy and public services, drastic reduction of social protection and liberalization of the labor market.
The US influenced the architecture and creation of the EU with the aim of aggregating the European continent into a homogeneous group managed by a centralized power. Neoliberalism would never have been so uniformly imposed in Europe without the European Commission and the ECB dictating macroeconomic, monetary and fiscal policies. A common market is a good idea, but with a caveat, the architects of the project designed it to serve a globalized financial economy excluded from democratic scrutiny. The European Structural Funds were important to develop the economy of the most "backward" countries. The funds were intended to build infrastructure and modernize the economy, but much of that money was wasted, and in that sense it was a missed opportunity for economic development rather than phantom projects and make-believe training, just to spend the money. Society's problem is always the same, lack of democratic control, and if this problem is never solved, we will never stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
The process of modernizing the economy meant liberalizing the economy and opening the doors to a globalized free market. In the Portuguese case, agriculture, fishing and the clothing industry were seen as sacrificial lambs, with the opening of the economy to imports of agricultural surpluses of the EU and imports from Asian countries. The Political class from the peripheral countries sold the EU as an opportunity that could not be missed, but never fully explained that the contract required full conversion to neoliberalism, the official doctrine for the entire EU. Aware of the risks or not, politicians at the time believed that the positives outweighed the negatives. The public was never made aware that adherence to the single currency implied the loss of monetary sovereignty, that is, the countries in the euro zone do not enjoy the right to issue currency like the US and UK, being at the mercy of the markets to finance themselves.
The ECB's mission is to provide stability to the financial markets. The ECB is concerned with inflation, interest rates and other monetary and financial issues that affect the interests of financial capitalism, not yours or mine, that is the mandate of Christine Lagarde. The creation of the single currency was another important step to integrate the European economy into globalized financial capitalism.
The main role of European institutions is not to defend the interests of Europeans, but to ensure that Europe is kept under the yoke of globalized financial capitalism controlled by Anglo-American financial imperialism. The EU does not act as an independent political entity, it follows a geopolitical strategy subordinated to the geostrategic interests of the US/NATO. Europeans are continuously bombarded with propaganda that aims to defend the globalized neoliberal order, that is, the interests of the Western oligarch and plutocrat class.
Neoliberalism, financial capitalism or market fundamentalism has institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank as partners for the liberalization of the global economy. The core business of these institutions is to place sovereign countries in a situation of perpetual debt peonage to meet the Western neocolonialist objectives, particularly the USA.
Western countries have been contemplated with austerity measures, privatization of public services, systematic attacks on the rights of the working class with the aim of weakening the bargaining power of middle and low wage earners.
The last five decades of market fundamentalism were marked by the systematic attack on the social state, the common good and public services, by the increase in social isolation and the replacement of political agency by pseudo-activities of emancipation and personal liberation.
Austerity, precariousness and all the factors that contribute to increasing social alienation, end up generating learned helplessness, which leads citizens to lose hope of having a life with meaning and purpose.
Clara E. Mattei argues that austerity paves the way to fascism. Economic and fiscal austerity is a way to enforce social, political and cultural conformity. TINA dogma supported by a barrage of public-private propaganda transformed the Western democratic regimes, the so-called liberal democracies into public-private partnerships under the aegis of neoliberal doctrine, in which the public side serves to leverage private hegemony.
It is critical, but unfortunately not to be expected, that Western citizens realize that the aim of demonizing all countries that resist being reduced to protectorates of Western neocolonial imperialism, depicting them as brutal dictatorial regimes, is propaganda designed to manufacture consent among the western population.
Western citizens are subject to a campaign of mass deception that could lead humanity to annihilation, while preparing us to accept a technofascist transhumanist society in which citizens will be reduced to the status of techno-feudal serfs.
The EU owes allegiance to NATO, the protective military alliance of financial capitalism (Wall Street and City of London), the backbone of world governance engineered by the Western PlutOligarchy.
The “progressive” liberals spread the political and cultural wokism and part of the anti-capitalist left joined the movement, a wrong strategy but they don't seem to want to let go.
The protection of individual rights and the defense of the dignity of minorities are left-wing values. The woke ideology is not a leftist ideology, it is a political weapon to generate social division. The purpose of the woke campaign is not to defend the rights of minorities, but to explore ad nauseam the divisive and controversial issues as a way to divert people's attention from what really matters, the struggle against imperialism, capitalism and the abolition of class society.
Cultural and intellectual liberalism is used as a vehicle for ideological propaganda of political neoliberalism. The anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist left defends a social and ecological political economy, the end of labor exploitation, social equality, in short, the materialization of basic human values, has to assume what it stands for and transmit it clearly, consistently with the principles it upholds.
The left does not have to apologize for what it stands for, nor feed unnecessary controversies. At the moment, most citizens do not see the possibility of breaking up with the omnipotent capitalist system. But we are in a time of transition and more and more citizens are starting to realize that the current system is the problem, and the left, must learn how to read the signs and act accordingly. In the current historical moment, far-right populism is more attractive to European citizens, but this should not inhibit the left from devising a populist strategy to reach a wider public.
We still tolerate a societal model of political economy and based on manufactured scarcity as a way of coercing citizens at the base of the social pyramid to accept carrying out tasks considered undignified, monotonous or dangerous so that the cream of society enjoys the deserved rewards for the services they render to that same society.
A society organized in classes or castes rationalizes the right to coerce the lower classes to serve the higher classes. We talk a lot about freedom and at the same time want to maintain a class society with rigid hierarchies supported by narratives that justify and normalize the enslavement and exploitation of people based on the concept of class inferiority acquired by birth, education or indoctrination to serve an unjust system and dysfunctional.
The proponents of this scheme believe, or intend to have others believe, that the system evolved organically as a rational way of organizing society. The development of agriculture, namely the cultivation of cereals, gave rise to sedentary communities. The type of personality, one of the most celebrated by the capitalist class - opportunistic sociopaths and psychopaths. As soon as they realized they could put the community to work, they developed a strategy, designed a narrative to convince them to trust their proposals to make society more efficient and organized.
Efficiency is a consensual concept, but it is not innocuous. A class system is more efficient than a system where each citizen occupies a place in the community based on age group and gender. The social division based on work is a dishonest way of assigning a place in society, but the main problem is the structure of power concentration and wealth accumulation that makes the situation irreversible, because those who control society will not hesitate to resort to violence to defend the established order.
The most common practice since human beings have existed on this planet is the assignment of social roles based on age and gender in the service of the common good. This form of organic cooperation preserves the unity of the community.
The problem is when this organic democratic system is usurped to give way to a hierarchical pyramidal system with the attribution of increasing privileges and powers. The study of the Indian caste system allows us to understand how it is possible to develop an intricate system of castes and sub-castes, devaluing the lives of those belonging to lower castes based on religious justifications.
Capitalist ideologues tend to sweep the idea of class under the rug. Society is portrayed as a collection of individuals competing with each other based on the rules of law and demand and the contribution of the market invisible hand. Diligent entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed and create the jobs that the rest of society lacks. This is a sanitized version of the free market, no monopolies, no special interests, no rentier class, no oligarchs, the invisible hand keeps the economy running in perfect exemption.
Among the exploited there are those who believe in the inherent order of the system, after all there has to be someone in charge, otherwise there would be chaos. Between performing a democratically controlled system and having the effective power to coerce, exploit, and treat one's fellow man from the top down, there is a substantial difference.
A group, movement, organization or party can bear any label that seems convenient to them, but ideological and intellectual honesty must always be above everything else. Politics has to be rehabilitated and the left must strive to play that role. A political-ideological project exposed in a manifesto must define what the party really is about. If the left concept is too eroded, we have the responsibility of rehabilitating it.
Radical Left, Democratic Left, Progressive Left, Center Left, Liberal Left, and Libertarian Left. All these politico-ideological labels share the term left, which is not completely unreasonable, but in the end it does more harm than good to the left, at least what I understand as the left, the alternative to the capitalist-imperialist order.
The ideas I defend result from a process of refinement of “eclectic” influences of decades, my iconoclastic vein allows me to admire and respect, never to idolize. Neither idols nor authorities, individual progress always depends on collective progress, instead of following the phrase "standing on the shoulders of giants" we stand on the shoulders of the LITTLE PEOPLE."
I am a self-taught citizen and I went through the hardships of living with meager means trying to survive. I have always felt the need to reflect on social, cultural and environmental issues, political awareness came later.
The words of the poet António Aleixo came to my mind: "I don't have great views, nor great wisdom, but the bitter hours give me philosophy lessons." "Eu não tenho vistas largas, nem grande sabedoria, mas dão-me as horas amargas lições de filosofia."
Unnecessary manufactured suffering has been a seminal issue in my thinking about the society in which we live. Cruelty, indifference, desensitization are normalized by the process of adapting to the conditions imposed by a dysfunctional economic system. In a system of political economy based on manufactured scarcity, most have to sell their labor power in order to survive, and have to follow orders in order to keep their jobs, which means turning a blind eye to what is going on around them and keeping focused on fulfilling the functions for which they were hired.
Competition, efficiency and productivity, technocracy and techno-scientism, optimizing results and maximizing profits, superhuman commitment to build a dehumanized and trans-humanized society.
We “invest” in interpersonal relationships with the expectation of them being “profitable”, the mercantile logic permeates the entire social fabric. As employees, we are obliged to comply with orders and follow rules and regulations established by the employer. The established ideological-cultural and socio-economic order normalizes behaviors that cause manufactured suffering and in many cases those involved are even not aware of it. Profit maximization generates a vicious cycle in which practices, methods and work processes cause unnecessary suffering, but which is not questioned because people are mentally prepared to find the situation normal, or do not even realize it due to ideological-cultural blindness.
Technological innovation contributes to improving working conditions and increases productivity. Any person of good faith recognizes that, in principle, this can be an indicator of prosperity and well-being. The problem is that profit maximization always comes before human and animal welfare. The human being is literally domesticated to perform repetitive, monotonous and mechanized tasks, in which what defines us as humans is purely and simply superfluous.
Domestic animals for meat and dairy production are treated like machines, resorting to bio-engineering to increase productivity. More meat, more milk, faster, more profitable.
In the era of financialized economies and market fundamentalism, the gap between the real economy and the world of financial markets exacerbates the dehumanization process. and consequently increases situations of manufactured, artificial and unnecessary suffering.
People and animals are subject to manufactured suffering because the dominant economic ideology does not encourage or reward citizens who put respect for life first. Compassion, empathy, solidarity and fraternity are encouraged as a parallel path to the economy. The economy is studied and implemented as a system separated from society, which is why unpaid work is not part of the economy and externalities are dropped from economic accounting. The economy exists to generate profit and accumulate capital, people, animals and the environment exist to be exploited, plundered by the economic activity for the benefit of those who control the means of production and financial capital.
A humanized, social and ecological economy is a mirage, because it does not serve the interests of capital. Capitalists show their philanthropic side by funding charities and NGOs, creating foundations and getting involved in diversified humanitarian projects.
What is important to remember is that compassion, empathy and solidarity are kept out of the economic loop. Capitalism generates artificial scarcity, social inequality, poverty and misery because profit maximization is always ahead of respect for life.
Philanthropic projects are selective and contribute to alleviating a small portion of the suffering and destruction caused by the capitalist class. Indeed the capitalist class resorts to philanthropy to expand its influence, wealth and power. Of course, there are cases of philanthropy that do not have dubious agendas, but perhaps they are in the minority. Once a capitalist, always a capitalist.
Left political-ideological principles: 1-Anti-imperialist 2- Anti-capitalist 3- Anti-classist 4- Universal public services 5-Public banking 6-Soverign money issuance 7- Public property 8-Dedolarization 9-Definancialization
1-Anti-imperialist
Anti-imperialism is the total opposition to any economic, financial, cultural and military political-ideological project with the aim of colonizing, enslaving, occupying and plundering the natural resources of foreign territories.
2- Anti-capitalist
Anti-capitalism begins with the fight against manufacturing scarcity. Capitalism uses scarcity as an instrument of socioeconomic oppression. Anti-capitalism means reversing the process of commodification and financialization of the economy. Capitalism gives primacy to private property, the pursuit of profit and the accumulation of capital. The capitalist doctrine induces and feeds the illusion of the possibility of realizing the capitalist dream. Anti-capitalism demands a social and ecological political economy that guarantees access to public housing at controlled costs, universal public services, guaranteed employment, more free time to develop personal, group or community projects.
3- Anti-classist
The abolition of class society is more than a question of social justice, it is a moral imperative. The idea of class is implicitly demeaning to justify exploitation. The conservative right understands class dynamics better than the pseudo-progressive liberals and the woke "left". The conservative right defends the existence of classes, privileges, property rights and hereditary rights. The liberal and pseudo-progressive modern left turns a blind eye to the class problem.
The idea of limiting or suppressing the rights of others dates back to the invention of civilization, prisoners of war made slaves, ordinary prisoners condemned to forced labor. The “uncivilized” Africans used as a source of free/cheap labor during the first wave of globalism.
Class ideology has to be understood as a way to rationalize power relations in which those on one side of the equation acquired the right to demand, order and partially or totally control the existence of those on the other side of the equation. There is no limit to the human capacity to accept barbaric practices, when properly rationalized. Class-based society is nothing more than the rationalization of exploitation justified, legalized and glorified by the people, organizations and institutions that control society.
The ruling classes amass the monopoly on privileges and distribute them according to the relevance of the services provided by different socio-professional groups. In short, it is not possible to talk about human rights, freedom, democracy and at the same time believe in the goodness of an oppressive and exploitative class system. Defending leftist values is not the same or enough to visualizing and wanting to build a classless society.
4- Universal public services
Universal public services guarantee psychosocial well-being because they free citizens from unnecessary and weakening existential anxieties. The essence of any society is to provide mutual protection and universal public services are the ideal way to ensure that every individual and family has access to essential goods, products and services. It is not the invisible hand of the market, but the conscious intervention of the State that can guarantee equity in universal access to basic services.
Universal public services must cover health, education, housing, transportation, basic food basket, potable water and energy as a way to guarantee social justice to all citizens without exception.
The universality of public services must be a non-negotiable principle of any societal project based on left-wing ideology.
5-Public banking & 6- Sovereign money issuance
A brief explanation of how most money is created by the banking system. Banks do not lend money, banks are authorized to create new money when they give credit. The money is credited to the customer's account and in a separate balance sheet the money/debt is "destroyed" each time an installment is paid. Banking profits of interests and commissions and are allowed to use customer debts as assets.
Today's Source of Money Creation - Prof. Richard Werner (GDI)Money creation should be a state monopoly as a means of financing the real economy, universal public services and public infrastructure.
Private banking must be replaced by public and cooperative banking. Monetary, financial and fiscal policy issues are unattractive to the general public. However, it is imperative that ordinary people understand the concepts, ideologies and interests behind the monetary, financial and fiscal policies because political economy priorities can be undermined by constraints manufactured to defend special interests.
It is impossible to implement a social and ecological political economy within the current monetary, financial and fiscal system. Supposedly independent central banks follow BIS guidelines designed to protect the globalized financial order controlled by Wall Street and the City of London.
Until we develop a comprehensive understanding on how the financialized economy really works, we will not be able to challenge the established order because we continue to subscribe to the myth of the separation between economics and the monetary and financial policies.
7- Proprietary and hereditary rights
Private property rights are not democratic rights, on the contrary, they are a way of generating socioeconomic asymmetries that tends to worsen over time. A society that institutes the right to private property without limits is a society in which the majority of citizens will end up being victims of abuse of power and influence. Private property means ownership and control over something, or living being. It is the most insidious of all established values. The right to enjoy the necessary means for a dignified existence does not imply the need for private property. Private property is at the origin of the parasitic rentier class that currently controls financial capitalism. If the lower-middle-class citizens, that is, the majority of the population, think carefully about the issue of private property and the sacrifices one has to make to own a house, it would not be difficult to devise more democratic and less painful alternatives to having the right to a shelter. Housing is the example of what should be a public good, instead of being the object of financial speculation, which obliges people to go into debt to buy a house at inflated prices to pay in thirty years or more.
Property and hereditary rights are rationalized and ideologically framed in such a way that the vast majority accept them as morally and legally just in a society where private property is the most revered right. The unlimited accumulation of wealth and property is the main objective for most people, not only because it is the established reality, but because the alternative is destitution. Most individuals and families aspire to have a better life, fight for it and tend to cling to what they own. Most people believe in hereditary rights as part of the natural order, that is, it would make no sense to have it any other way. The hereditary transmission of property was not instituted to favor the lower classes, but to perpetuate the concentration of wealth in the hands of the most influential families. Without the imposition of a legal limit on the accumulation of wealth and property, the tendency is for the richest families to use their influence to control the structural institutions of society and with time society ends up transforming into a system in which the interests of the Wealthy minorities merge with the interests of society.
The greater the concentration of wealth and property, the deeper the social, economic and cultural asymmetries. A large part of the population knows that this is true, but the reality of the struggle for survival forces people to live in denial because they do not see a realistic possibility of change and people are fed up with promises of reforms that never materialize.
To visualize the benefits of a different societal system, we must be able to critically analyze the existing order on comparison with the imagined order. For most of us it would be far better and more just to have an economic, social, and cultural system in which private property was prohibited or controlled to prevent excessive accumulation of influence and power. The critical point of any system of political economy is the concentration of wealth and property transformed into political influence and social control.
8-Dedolarization & 9-Definancialization
The Western-controlled globalized monetary and financial system is irreformable. Sovereign countries have to develop alliances and create alternative systems to bypass the current Western-controlled payments system. For many decades, many countries of the so-called Global South have been subject to neocolonialist "financial assistance" programs by institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF.
A new international order of bilateral and multilateral relations is emerging and the BRICS already have a development bank, the New Development Bank https://www.ndb.int/ with the aim of supporting the economic development of partner countries. The de-dollarization process had to be accompanied by the de-financialization of the economies as a strategy to disengage from the globalized neoliberal order used as the financial arm of Anglo-American imperialism.
Most sovereign countries will have to choose between continuing to pay homage to Western neocolonial imperialism or look for solutions to circumvent the economic and financial sanctions applied to dissident countries. The obvious solution is to make alliances and partnerships with countries in a similar situation willing to cooperate against the globalized neoliberal dictatorship. The Western imperialism is an obstructive force to the development of the Global South. The so-called rules-based international order exists to unilaterally dictate the global economic-financial governance. Most international institutions in place were designed and perfected to defend the Western imperialist interests. Countries where most of the world's population is concentrated cannot rely on these institutions to solve geopolitical disputes. The solution is to create alternatives that effectively respect international law.
The left has to fight for an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist international order.
De-dollarization and de-financialization of the economy are political priorities for those who defend a social and ecological political economy based on internationalist solidarity.
Woke culture, virtue signaling and political correctness cannot be placed at the top of the left's political priorities. These issues have been weaponized and the "progressive" liberals and the "intellectual" left wave them as major political banners, while the far right takes the opportunity to ridicule and attack the left as a whole, undermining leftist parties focused on universal issues aimed at improving the lives of all citizens without distinction. The intention is not to diminish the importance of the problems of minorities, but to put everything in its proper place. Does the left want to be taken seriously or be a mere punching bag?
All citizens who identify with left-wing values must take a more active role in politics. The far right will continue to surf the sociopolitical discontent and cultural divisions. Left-wing organizations have to produce new ideological-cultural formats, language framing is crucial for successful communication. I have no idea what strategies to follow to deneoliberalize minds shaped by the free market doctrine, TINA. I believe we need to do it together, collectively, organized, building synergies and grown camaraderie.
What's missing is the will to get our hands dirty, overcome the inertia that keeps each of us in our little corner sharing stuff. In recent decades, we have witnessed the loss of effectiveness of protests and demonstrations, because there is a lack of structured political organization, ideological-political unity and a clear notion of what is the societal project that we collectively want to build.
