Am I losing my political ideology?
The swing between socialism and barbarism…oh sorry I meant conservatism
I’m not much of a fan of Marx, even though my brand of politics is left wing. The fact is he lived, quite comfortably, off his wife’s family inheritance and blindly spent money without any thought to that fact he was spending his wife’s inheritance. Well until the money ran out that is. In the end he was just a typical Victorian man. Watching Republican/conservative politics across the globe I am starting to understand his view that there is no third way, only the swing between socialism and barbarism. German Socialist leader, Rosa Luxemberg stated that if “the socialist movement failed, capitalism might destroy modern civilization, leaving behind a much poorer and harsher world”. Marx said there is no evolving of humanity just the swing between socialism and barbarism; describing barbarism as actions that are grossly inhuman, brutal and violent.
Maybe it’s the fact I’m now in my 50's, have lived in two countries and seen the inevitable political swings, one too many times, but the whole thing leaves me longing for a third way. I am currently watching my home country, New Zealand, which after nine years of a right wing conservative government elected a coalition left wing/right wing government. The right wing coalition leader stated that capitalism has lost its human face (barbarism) and that human face needs to be seen again. I couldn’t agree with him more.What I am intensely annoyed about is that with the new coalition government, everyone is striking, nurses, teachers, public servants etc. Unions are now rallying the troops as they try to recover nine years of salaries falling behind inflation, blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, in my time I was a unionist and a union delegate but I feel like striking is so last century. In fact I’m starting to feel like the whole union movement just needs to fade into oblivion.
Seriously has anyone ever bothered to do an impact evaluation of strike action?
I doubt it!!
And then we swing to the right
Here comes the inevitable and predictable. Anything that even slightly looks like it might have the previous governments brand, gets swept away. It has nothing to do with whether something is getting results. Names are changed, government organisations are re-branded and moved around. Wages freezes and recruitment freezes come into play and the usual line by line review on government spending completes the trifecta. This was the New Zealand story. Sound familiar?
In those nine years New Zealand saw some truly barbaric polices come into play. The most inhuman was forcing women to name their rapist on their child’s birth certificate, or women faced their welfare benefit being cut. I sat in a conference listening to the then minister for social development being openly challenged on these policies. Her response was to stamp her foot and state, “sanctions work”. Barbarism!!
Taking it to the extreme we see the cult of Republicanism defending the decision to remove children of illegal immigrants, lose track of those children so families may never find them. And of course the worst atrocity of all, children being locked in cages, but that was ok as they were big cages!! Yet if I was found to be locking children in cages, big or small, wouldn’t I be arrested for doing so?
“I’m not even sure I know what Democratic Socialism means”
And I’m not sure I really care. Maybe I read to many Dystopian novels but what I do care about is the risk that this world will implode and destroy modern civilization as we know it. I would like to think we learnt the lessons from history, the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages. But I fear we haven’t.
Am I kidding myself to think that we can find some semblance of a Utopian society…I probably really do need to stop reading so many Dystopian novels! Surly it’s time to stop all the political posturing, put aside your political ideology and do what’s right. I guess that’s the problem, my version of what’s right is different from your version of what’s right. Can we at least agree on the principles of what’s right. Instead of everyone coming out of the woodwork with their demands, can we sit down, open the books and see what can be done with what we have. Before the New Zealand election someone posted that New Zealand needed a new political party. I disagreed. What is needed is a new way of doing government. A new way of governing a country that doesn’t rely on one particular political stance as the framework for how you should govern.
I don’t know what that framework is but isn’t it time we started asking, as frameworks are always flawed!
