A liberal view that does not question the role of ‘liberal democracy’ in creating the ground for the growth of the far-right. Neither does question the ‘liberal democracy’s’ legacy in the rise of inequality, stagnation, complicity in crime, support of some authoritarians but opposing others, hypocrisy, double standard, racism towards and its war on refugees, the wars that generated refugees, commodification of everything, working people struggling to make ends meet in the heart of Europe, its selective reading of history, the economic diktats imposed on the ‘Global South’. And there is not even a hint to the crisis of capitalism – or the legacy of ‘neoliberalism’– and how like in previous eras has created polarisation, conflicts, fascists, revolution, etc.
A moment, a conflict, a war, or a crisis does emerge in a particular context and a particular conjuncture of a dominant socio-economic system and does not come from the outer-space. It grows within the fabric that the political economy of the era has woven.
A British woman who is not a journalist, has not studied history or sociology and she is not a professor of international affairs like Cas Mudde told me the other day: “I am very interested in systemic analysis. Everything is interconnected.” No, she is not a marxist.
“Emphasizing the decline of the left in recent decades, [Sheri] Berman argues that right-wing populism is the symptom of the left’s failure to offer clear solutions to socioeconomic problems in advanced industrial democracies. Since the 1990s, she argues, traditional leftist political leaders have come to embrace neoliberal economics in ways that made them virtually indistinguishable from right-wing parties on questions of redistribution and social protections. In the absence of clear alternatives on economic policies among mainstream parties, issues like immigration and the threat of cultural encroachment, which tend to dominate the platforms of the extreme right, became front and center in national politics. The increasing prominence of such concerns has allowed populist right-wing parties to credibly claim that they present “the real alternative to the status quo, thereby increasingly becoming the choice of those dissatisfied with it.
Analyses of public support for populist right-wing parties in Europe show that the diminishing salience of redistributive issues is indeed a key element in their electoral success stories. Significantly, the primacy of identity and culture over the economy enabled populist right parties to draw support from an unlikely demographic—working-class voters with economic interests that do not necessarily align with such parties.”
In sum, writes Hesham Sallam, “relevant global trends in recent decades have coalesced around a clear narrative: class politics and leftist parties are in decline at a time when mounting inequality and economic grievances suggest they ‘should’ be on the ascendance. Meanwhile, identity politics are on the rise, albeit under different subheadings depending on the local and regional context: ethno-nationalism, right-wing populism, ethnic polarization, religious revival, and culture wars. Analyses seem to suggest that the two developments—decline in class politics and rise of identity politics—are intertwined. The failures of the left may help us understand why advocates of identity politics have risen to prominence in recent decades. In turn, the effects and dynamics of identity politics may offer insight into why markers of class politics have declined in relevance. These two developments, moreover, are happening against the backdrop of important structural changes and exogenous shocks. These include economic downturns, regional integration, immigration, cultural change, globalization, and increasing pressures, especially from international financial institutions (IFIs), to adopt neoliberal economic policies or reforms. (Hesham Sallam, Class Politics, 2022, pp. 5-6)
Comments