How do the Left win?

[garbed_attic]

That's important for our nation but I'm thinking globally, multilaterally.

The kids strike for climate change is one thing capitalism can't touch because children aren't wage slaves, their employer won't sack them, there is no real fear factor for kids other than the prospect of permanently polluting our environment. Capitalism hasn't invented a robust or enforceable set of crimes to motivate parents to keep these kids in check.

This has enormous potential.

Agreed - thus why it's not front page news that over a million kids worldwide protested

I don't think Greta Thunberg will be easily bought off

[rjd2]

Demographics and getting the vote lowered to 16 in nations where its not.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I think not enough people know how alternatives to capitalism work or how they could be implemented. They know capitalism doesn't work for the 99% but the right have convinced them there is no workable alternative.

[undeliberated]

Stop living in terms of left-team right-team and instead work on achieving specific policies. Basic social-democratic ideas are hugely popular throughout the UK, but the complacency of Labour and the Tories knowing that one or the other will be in power if the other one fails means that there's almost no concrete public work toward making particular things happen, only the show grind of my team trying to take the place of your team. Proportional Representation is the big goal in this respect - without it the Labour party has no incentive to be anything other than inert. See how that worked out in Scotland.

Work outward on creating policy/legislation and building broad-based policy-focused coalitions rather than using all the energy on intra-organisational Hunt the Heretic micro-beef. What's the ratio of posts in the Corbyn/Labour threads here between posts that talk about how to organise for specific legislative achievements at the local or national level, and posts about which apostates need to be purged for insufficient loyalty to The Leader?  1/100? 1/500? Anyway, it's an embarrassment. Same thing in the US. ALEC work relentlessly to get right-wing legislation written and introduced at every level of government. "The Left" mainly avoid concrete legislation in favour of pointing out that right-wingers are bad and patting each other on the back for being good. One of these approaches has actually succeeded in getting its agenda into law.

Stop treating perfection as a minimum requirement. Related to the above. Better to actually improve people's lives with small changes actually achieved than to talk a utopian game and stigmatise anybody who doesn't agree on the exact definition of utopia so that everything dissolves into squabbling and nothing at all gets written into law.

[Zetetic]

The biggest threat to the power of global finance capitalism is a powerful nation state working in the interests of its own people. We see that when those things assert control in foreign countries outside of the Western order, because we regime change them.

That seems to suggest that, ultimately, they're not much threat at all. S?S! is right that any opposition to "global finance capitalism" has to plan better about how it deals with the return fire.

(A slight tangent but out of all the parts of "powerful nation state" ... the UK is - at best - only the last of them. And any positive government in Westminster has to act accordingly. )

[Bryan Cocks]

This has enormous potential.

Purely out of curiosity, how old are you, Shoulders?

[Sherringford Hovis]

Just explain to the tories why they're thicc.

Julia Hartley-Brewer for PM.

[Paul Calf]

That's important for our nation but I'm thinking globally, multilaterally.

The kids strike for climate change is one thing capitalism can't touch because children aren't wage slaves, their employer won't sack them, there is no real fear factor for kids other than the prospect of permanently polluting our environment. Capitalism hasn't invented a robust or enforceable set of crimes to motivate parents to keep these kids in check.

This has enormous potential.

"The kids are on strike"

"We'd better cut teacher hours then"

[Absorb the anus burn]

I'd argue we're holding our own well and on the course to a significant win.

- The Overton window is shifting all the time.
- The shit the ptb are having too pull to stop the left is unsustainable.
- The media has long jumped the shark.... Each smear is taken apart and thrown back at them.
- The Conservatives need time out of power to reinvent themselves (which they will)

Hopefully soon the question will be......

How do the left keep true to their principles when they win?

[greenman]

Stop living in terms of left-team right-team and instead work on achieving specific policies. Basic social-democratic ideas are hugely popular throughout the UK, but the complacency of Labour and the Tories knowing that one or the other will be in power if the other one fails means that there's almost no concrete public work toward making particular things happen, only the show grind of my team trying to take the place of your team. Proportional Representation is the big goal in this respect - without it the Labour party has no incentive to be anything other than inert. See how that worked out in Scotland.

Work outward on creating policy/legislation and building broad-based policy-focused coalitions rather than using all the energy on intra-organisational Hunt the Heretic micro-beef. What's the ratio of posts in the Corbyn/Labour threads here between posts that talk about how to organise for specific legislative achievements at the local or national level, and posts about which apostates need to be purged for insufficient loyalty to The Leader?  1/100? 1/500? Anyway, it's an embarrassment. Same thing in the US. ALEC work relentlessly to get right-wing legislation written and introduced at every level of government. "The Left" mainly avoid concrete legislation in favour of pointing out that right-wingers are bad and patting each other on the back for being good. One of these approaches has actually succeeded in getting its agenda into law.

The degree of compromise that would allow for relatively harmonious interaction with the establishment would give us another Blair(or probably worse) and we saw how ineffective in was in the long term outside of the benefits of an economic boom.

Stop treating perfection as a minimum requirement. Related to the above. Better to actually improve people's lives with small changes actually achieved than to talk a utopian game and stigmatise anybody who doesn't agree on the exact definition of utopia so that everything dissolves into squabbling and nothing at all gets written into law.

Sorry but there has actually been quite a bit of discussion about a lot of specific issues across multiple threads and I would argue that people such as Corbyn and Sanders are very much compromise politicians rather than some form of ideological extremism. I think the unfortunate truth were seeing ever more clearly is that ideological extremism is actually much stronger within the political and media establishment to the degree such compromise politicans will still not be welcomed. That to me is really the central truth of what were seeing and to only look at specific issues is I think likely to allow it to continue and indeed will likely mean those issues are never really addressed in the fashion their needed to be.

[Twed]

Yep. undeliberated's approach doesn't really work in a society where the media and political establishment are so unbelievably hostile and deceptive. We need to be in a state of constant, unfiltered outrage until at least our most basic demands of the powerful are met. Their current way of life needs the cooperate of the general populace to function, and we are slowly turning society to our side (with the help of life becoming an absolutely chore for all but the rich).

[Urinal Cake]

History has shown it generally happens when the right goes too far. I think a couple more years should do it.

[Cloud]

They usually do it with violent revolution, I think.  Shortly before finding out that while communism makes everybody equal, some are more equal than others

Other than that I think Marx wrote a book on how to do it, it might take a while though

[finnquark]

How can the Left become the new normal? Why were socialist ideas and policies able until the late 70s to co-exist with capitalist ones?

Do you mean in the UK? Europe? Globally?

[rue the polywhirl]

Left can win if they do a couple of things :-

Drop taxes for the rich

Crack down on benefit cheats and immigration

Give free national lottery tickets to all potential new voters

Choose their leaders via talent shows

[Captain Z]

Always said Crouchy can do a job.

[Danger Man]

Abolish the secret ballot.

A bit like in Norway (or somewhere) where they have a big book that lists everybody's income, a similar big book (on the internet) that shows how everybody voted will seriously dent the Conservative vote.

[pancreas]

That's actually a very good idea. Have you considered joining the Labour Party? We could use more people like you.

[Danger Man]

Thanks for the kind offer, but I'll just wait until libertarianism becomes left-wing again.

[chveik]

Do you mean in the UK? Europe? Globally?

that's the problem with this thread, most people seem to have read it as "how can Labour win the next election?".

History has shown it generally happens when the right goes too far. I think a couple more years should do it.

what do you mean by too far?
we don't have time sadly. I wouldn't trust same old parliamentary politics to resolve anything.

[a duncandisorderly]

I think the decent folks amongst us should train as ninja assassins & roam the home counties in midnight gangs, murdering these rich fuckers as they sleep, & redistributing their wealth where it can actually do some good.

after all, that's more or less what grenfell was, murdering people in their sleep for the sake of a few quid.