[layman]

A better alternative for anti immigration policies is to give legal residency to any immigrant with a union card.

If that’s all it took then any old reactionary would get themselves a card just for the passport... If you think there is any chance that some 30 year old afghan is going to give up his faith and join your workers revolution then you are mistaken. The left already tried importing voters and it has been a disaster. Try to learn.

Keynesianism is 'left wing'. I shall say no more.

It is part of the mainstream left like the labour party in britain. Corbyn etc.

Commies like you are not really part of this discussion. You are not the audience it is aimed at

Identity politics are the only form of left-wing politics proper left. Don't be surprised when black people and gay people turn to identity politics to have their voices heard.

Yes, as i said above I think they would turn to the liberal party in the UK.

So would all the refugees klass war invites in with their union cards.

[Zamuel]

Is it such a BAD thing that decisions are left to unpolluted minds ... ?

[All knowledge is indeed a form of mental pollution, Zamuel. However, without it, we would still be living the existence of the animals rather than living in cities and exchanging our opinions via the communications technology of the internet.

The artful dodger does it again !

I might agree that certain peoples minds are full of garbage ...

Some of us are a bit more selective of what we keep in them, not all knowledge is garbage. It's selectivity that's got us to where we are today. Surrendering that selectivity may be a requirement for many political ideologies which, given the chance, will pack your head full of all kinds of crap. Those who have managed to avoid that predicament are much better equipped to make important decisions. So if you're a "dedicated anything" don't judge the "American Voter" based on the crap you've committed yourself to.

Zam

[Conscript]

Tl;Dr become a nationalist social democrat, marxism is bad because it's not liberal

[Heisenberg]

To be fair, the blog is called "Social Democracy for the 21st Century", so of course it's going to say people should become social democrats. And it's certainly true, from a social-democratic perspective, that left wing parties have been tainted by their association with communists.

To be honest, I agree with most of the points raised in the OP, with the exception of #6. I definitely agree that we should rethink foreign policy, and stop getting involved in civil wars we know little/nothing about, but prosecuting Blair et al for war crimes is and always has been a Trotskyist fantasy. I'm all in favour of ostracising and ridiculing Blair as much as possible, and always find it amusing when he gets "arrested" by a bartender or waiter, but it's silly to imagine he'll ever be prosecuted for war crimes.

[KlassWar]

If that’s all it took then any old reactionary would get themselves a card just for the passport...

If they fail to remain union members in good standing, they should lose residency: No residency for scabs!

If you think there is any chance that some 30 year old afghan is going to give up his faith and join your workers revolution then you are mistaken.

Those who join right-wing organizations they should be deported without mercy. To their home country if foreign, to a reeducation camp if local.

The left already tried importing voters and it has been a disaster. Try to learn.

The useless center-left tried it under a liberal-democratic paradigm that made it impossible to filter the immigrants ideologically or force them to unionize. I'm arguing for doing it under a ruthlessly partisan socialist paradigm, keeping the socialists and kicking out the rest.

[quetzalcoatl]

I'm loath to give up on Marxism, as it has vital things to say about class and history.

Nevertheless, I will say this: Bakunin was right and Marx was wrong about the worker's state. The worker's commune never scaled up to the state level, and it was doomed with advent of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The village was destroyed to save the village.

Something is amiss here. It is not about the achievements of the scientific socialist state in the twentieth century, although they were very real. It is about what they ended up destroying: the very concept of socialism itself.

[layman]

The useless center-left tried it under a liberal-democratic paradigm that made it impossible to filter the immigrants ideologically or force them to unionize. I'm arguing for doing it under a ruthlessly partisan socialist paradigm, keeping the socialists and kicking out the rest.

Fair enough. A ruthless regime with draconian powers like the su has better control of the population aft all.

I have to wonder though why you would want to go through the bother. What's wrong with the workers he who are already urbanised and don't have the cultural baggage.....

[Potemkin]

I have to wonder though why you would want to go through the bother. What's wrong with the workers he who are already urbanised and don't have the cultural baggage.....

Precisely. Back in the 19th century, British capitalists used to import unemployed Irish workers (of whom there was an endless supply) as strikebreakers and scabs. It is difficult not to conclude that the same motivation underlies the current immigration 'crisis' - to undercut the political and economic power of the native working class.

[jessupjonesjnr87]

I agree with a lot of what's on that list but not as a leftist. However I wouldn't consider it a reformation but more of a rebirth because the warped PC leftist liberal mess we have now is beyond salvation. They may burn a few bins every now and again at the g8 but the left today has become the mouthpiece for globalisation. That's not to say that it was ever really functional anyway, it's been flawed since its conception. The shameless idolisation of its leaders is a glaring example of this.

[Conscript]

Precisely. Back in the 19th century, British capitalists used to import unemployed Irish workers (of whom there was an endless supply) as strikebreakers and scabs. It is difficult not to conclude that the same motivation underlies the current immigration 'crisis' - to undercut the political and economic power of the native working class.

So, what is the Marxist position? It seems you're either a rabid pro-immigrant, anti-nationalist, cosmopolitan ultra leftie or a left nationalist steak nazi.

[Potemkin]

So, what is the Marxist position? It seems you're either a rabid pro-immigrant, anti-nation cosmopolitan ultra leftie or a left nationalist steak nazi.

Speaking for myself, my own position is an orthodox Marxist-Leninist (ie, Stalinist) one. Immigration can be useful under some circumstances, and political asylum for refugees should be permitted (with safeguards), but permitting the unrestricted influx of economic migrants at the expense of the native working masses and at the expense of the security of the nation's borders is not acceptable.

[Ambroise]

I've been of the same view myself. I think the first leftist that I saw on PoFo making the point that socialists have to think very carefully about immigration was Vera Politica, and that it's not as straightforward as some people think it is. It's important to avoid being caught up by liberal petty-moralism (which is usually just masking economic interests). In addition to the fact that unrestricted immigration leads to the exploitation of the foreign labour that is brought in on cheap wages, it also harms the wages of the native working class, driving them down, and pits the two segments of the working class against one another, deteriorating working class solidarity. And that's not even mentioning the cultural strife that's also caused, and the fact that reactionaries tend to capitalize on this and mobilize the working class for right-wing purposes.

I can't really envision mass immigration as being helpful to the socialist cause.

[PhiloChan]

(3) the academic left needs to abandon Poststructuralism and Postmodernism, and all the ridiculous related ideas such as truth relativism, moral relativism and even cultural relativism.

I can tell you for a fact why that will never work. Dropping relativism does not disacknowledge the impact of change it posses. Economic systems are only as strong as the ethical and social behavior of the people and this makes a very evident display with the typical east vs west comparison.

[Potemkin]

(3) the academic left needs to abandon Poststructuralism and Postmodernism, and all the ridiculous related ideas such as truth relativism, moral relativism and even cultural relativism.

The OP may not believe in poststructuralism and postmodernism, but they certainly believe in him. These intellectual trends are merely symptoms a deeper malaise in Western culture - the lack of an ontological grounding for our social, political and moral values. In the past, religion provided that grounding, but the development of modern science and of social liberalism following the Enlightenment has dissolved that grounding. This accounts for at least some of the appeal of things like Communism and Fascism for many European intellectuals: Marxism provides that grounding through the historical dialectic and the messianic role of the proletariat, and fascism provides it through the concept of race and 'Blut und Boden'. Liberalism and unfettered capitalism have no such grounding and are, intellectually and morally speaking, running on empty, on the last few vapours of traditional moral values. Once the last traces of Europe's traditional religious faiths have faded away, social liberalism and economic neo-liberalism will sputter out.

[mikema63]

It's no coincidence that the most vehemently pro-capitalist American political groups are also the most rabidly religious.

[Potemkin]

It's no coincidence that the most vehemently pro-capitalist American political groups are also the most rabidly religious.

That connection doesn't really exist in Europe, which is why capitalism will probably last longer in the US than it is likely to in Europe. Capitalism, in and of itself, is a morally vacuous system. It is, after all, merely a mode of production, and rather a successful one in the sense that it has led to a massive expansion of the forces of production. It has achieved this efficiency, however, by being ruthlessly amoral in its mechanisms and in its disregard for the human cost of its operations. This means that it requires moral values from some external source (usually traditional religion) to sustain itself over the long term and to give a veneer of morality to its amoral functioning. In the long term, however, the struggle to make capitalism compatible with traditional morality will cause that traditional morality to become either a hypocritical parody of itself (as in the US) or to simply vanish altogether (as in Europe).

[Rich]

In the long term, however, the struggle to make capitalism compatible with traditional morality will cause that traditional morality to become either a hypocritical parody of itself (as in the US) or to simply vanish altogether (as in Europe).

David Cameron might not be the world's greatest intellectual, he's no Spinoza, but he's not completely thick either. The more I think about it bringing in Gay marriage was a great gift to the future Tory party. I feel the American right have tied themselves far too closely to the anti Gay marriage cart. I could be wrong but I suspect Gay marriage will prove profoundly demoralising to the American Conservative right. If the Democrats have any sense they'll really stick the knife in on that one. They can walk in Republican blood.

Our message to Christians and Muslims should be that we will accept their unconditional surrender. As long as they are willing to admit to being utterly full of shit for the last 1500 / 2000 years. As long as they admit that their whole morality, their whole ethics was utter utter garbage. As long a they own up that they subjected us to fifteen hundred years of totalitarian terror for the sake of complete drivel, for pathetic childish fantasies: the place of women in society, the shamefulness of the human body, premarital sex, divorce all nonsense, then, yes then we can move on. I'm not one to be vindictive or bear a grudge.

[Piccolo]

I'm loath to give up on Marxism, as it has vital things to say about class and history.

Nevertheless, I will say this: Bakunin was right and Marx was wrong about the worker's state. The worker's commune never scaled up to the state level, and it was doomed with advent of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The village was destroyed to save the village.

Something is amiss here. It is not about the achievements of the scientific socialist state in the twentieth century, although they were very real. It is about what they ended up destroying: the very concept of socialism itself.

The problem with traditional socialism was that there was no way to keep the leadership devoted to socialism, even the problematic version of state socialism practiced in the USSR and similar countries. Once the leadership of the state socialist countries decided to abandon state socialism for capitalism there was no effective way for the population to stop them because the people had been politically demobilized.

This critique also extends to social democracy, which is the Achilles heel for the argument of Social Democracy for the 21st Century, even though I agree with the analysis on most points. How do you keep a New Labour-style clique from taking power and reversing any gains made by "real" social democrats? I am not sure if people in the industrialized countries have the mindset to really fight for change. People are too atomized, there is too little solidarity and too much individualism it seems. Maybe as an American my views are clouded. Maybe it is different in Europe. But the fact that there has been so little effective backlash against austerity and other attacks against working people does not bode well for the Left.

That being said, I still agree with much of the analysis regarding identity politics and immigration. But try making these points to Lefty activists and you will likely just get shouted down and called a racist or a "brocialist" or whatnot.

[Truth To Power]

This is from SOCIAL DEMOCRACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: A POST KEYNESIAN PERSPECTIVE, so their liberal perspective must be kept in mind. Nevertheless, they are making some cogent reform proposals (if you are at all interested in an operationally effective left in the West).

(1) end the absurd attachment that many people on the extreme left still have to Marxism and Communism. These were, and are, totalitarian ideologies, and any attachment to them is just a disgrace and embarrassment.

Marxism isn't just totalitarian. It's a nonsensical quasi-religious dogma with no basis in genuine science (see 3). Its pretense of scientific analysis is grotesque: it posits supernatural forces, and makes no testable hypotheses.

(2)the mainstream left needs to abandon neoliberalism. Return to strong Keynesian and social democratic economic policies. Post Keynesian economics is the foundation of left-wing economic thought – not Marxism, not neoliberalism, and not watered-down neoclassical Keynesianism.

No, Keynesianism is just another flavor of stupid, unscientific and dishonest. No honest, valid or useful economic science is possible as long as the basic definitions are designed to obscure and confuse rather than clarify and enlighten, and the axioms are designed to rationalize privilege and justify injustice.

(3) the academic left needs to abandon Poststructuralism and Postmodernism, and all the ridiculous related ideas such as truth relativism, moral relativism and even cultural relativism.

Right. The astonishing idiocy of such schools of "thought" -- especially deconstructionism -- is a sure sign of the socialist left's intellectual bankruptcy.

(4) end the climate of political correctness and even hostility to free speech that some left-wing people have. Free speech is sacred in a free society, and you will achieve nothing by demanding that governments silence people whose opinions you don’t like – except to dismantle more of our freedoms and set yourself up for having your own free speech taken away, especially if right-wing governments start imposing their own restrictions on free speech. Hate speech laws, while they are well intentioned, simply go down a dangerous route. There is a real part of the left that is better called the regressive left. It is often intolerant of free speech, is strongly connected with Postmodernism, and obsesses over divisive identity politics.
(5) following on from (4), end the obsessing over extreme identity politics, as it tends to divide people and draw attention from the far more serious issues of economic management and economic justice.

A big part of this is the pervasive idea among the modern left that the best solution to the injustice of privilege is not to abolish privilege, but to enact countervailing privileges for all those groups who feel aggrieved.

(6) the mainstream left needs to radically rethink foreign policy and even bring Western war criminals to justice. We have just been through the most bizarre periods where even some mainstream left-wing parties (e.g., Britain’s New Labour) have supported the most outrageously immoral and disastrous wars. Even more disgusting, they never been held to account for it. Just look recently at Tony Blair’s “apology” for the Iraq war. Apology, my eye. Any decent mainstream left in Britain would be demanding that Blair – and his New Labour charlatans who planned the war – face charges for war criminality.

And even more, of course, the Bush-Cheney cabal in the USA. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, that's not going to happen.

(7) the left should strongly defend modern science and secularism, and end the truly bizarre hostility to rationality and science that has emerged from Postmodernism. Related to this, the left should seriously rethink the role of religion in society. Secularism does not necessarily mean hostility to religion, but removing the harmful role of religion from politics, law and society. E.g., there should only be one system of law in a Western secular society, not parallel legal systems for different communities.

The role of religion in modern society is profoundly problematic. On the one hand, it's obviously all just odious bullshit, but on the other, lots of people are still deeply attached to it, especially in the USA. Probably the best approach is just to resolutely keep religion out of the political discourse, and if anyone brings it up, just tell them they are off topic, and move on.

(8) the mainstream European left needs to vigorously oppose the Eurozone and European Union, and stand up for national democracy and economic sovereignty. The EU is one of the most outrageously regressive forces in the world today, and it probably should be dismantled.

The problem is that the welcome internationalism of the EU has been co-opted by soulless, amoral, capitalist greed robots to further entrench and enrich wealthy, privileged takers.

(9) finally, the most painful and controversial issue for most left-wing people: the left needs to rethink whether mass immigration is a good thing, especially in Europe, on economic and social grounds. The public hostility to mass immigration in Europe is rising. If it really gets to the point where a solid majority wants an end to mass immigration and open-doors borders throughout the EU in each nation, shouldn’t a democratically-elected government – even a left-wing one – respect what most people want?

The problem is not mass immigration, as explained below, but policies that enable, encourage, and even subsidize mass immigration specifically by people who do not intend to contribute to and assimilate into the society they are entering, but to parasitize, encyst in, and destroy it.

I strongly disagree with the first point in this list, for two reasons: 1) a Marxist analysis of history needs to be separated from its prescriptive conclusions, and 2) most leftists (even of the radical variety) do not consider the Soviet Union as a viable template.

Marxism is just stupid garbage with no basis in fact, history, science or logic. No one ever understood anything any better for having looked at it in the fun-house mirror of Marxism.

I think the first leftist that I saw on PoFo making the point that socialists have to think very carefully about immigration was Vera Politica, and that it's not as straightforward as some people think it is.

Right. Because socialists have decided not to know the difference between capital and land, they are permanently unable to know the fact that immigration -- higher population -- increases per capita production, but only makes landowners wealthier, while actually impoverishing the working people whose productivity is increased by immigration. This was explained very clearly and patiently by Henry George in "Progress and Poverty," but socialists, realizing that George's analysis proved their beliefs were false and evil, decided never to know the facts that George identified.

I can't really envision mass immigration as being helpful to the socialist cause.

Of course not: mass immigration has the potential to do enormous good for both the immigrants and the existing population (as it did historically in North America and a few other places) and socialism is evil.

[Hong Wu]

The European left (and to a lesser degree the American left) do all of these contradictory things because they are afraid to admit where their policies have failed. The entire dialogue has been that everything moves to the left but a frank assessment would move a lot of things on the European left to the right. So we get parallel legal systems, restrictions on free speech, a refusal to keep track of crimes and other acts of dissimulation.