By: Michael Kenny

Michael Kenny — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:48:22 +0000

Syriza’s weakness is that it is a coalition and I don’t see that coalition lasting. The traditional left v right split in European politics, dating back to the French Revolution, is dying. It is being replaced by a three-way split between a “consensus of the centre”, composed of moderate political parties getting about 75% of the vote between them and which will form governments composed of all or some of them, and the two extremes. Populist parties have been forming to the right of the consensus for some time and they tend to get 10 – 15% of the vote. Golden Dawn is a Greek example of such a party. What is now starting to happen is the formation of what might be called “left populist” parties, going beyond the 1% or less of the vote won by the “loony left”. The problem is that these “peripheral parties” are condemned never to enter government but to be gadflies on the extremes, pushing the centre consensus to address inconvenient issues.
That’s where Syriza will split: between those who want to take Pasok’s place in the centre consensus and those who want to keep their ideological virginity, so to speak. Tsirpas and the majority of Syriza will probably join with the rump of Pasok to form a new socialist party, with the extremist fringe spiralling off into the left margin. That split was already apparent before the election in the majority’s refusal to embrace the anti-EU and anti-euro obsession of the loony left and, indeed, if Syriza hadn’t rejected the anti-EU extremists, it would certainly not have won the vote it did. The same could be said of the Dutch SP, whose leadership firmly supported the EU and the euro and thereby held on to the 10% support it had going into the election.
What underlies all of this is the split-up of the traditional socialist coalition of the working class, the trade union movement and middle class leftwing intellectuals. The trade unions have been weakened, the workers now vote mainly for the rightwing populists and the intellectuals have been left high and dry in their middle class drawing rooms spinning fine-sounding ideological webs which are totally divorced from real life or the concerns of ordinary people. The old order isn’t going to come back, so people will just have to adjust to the new order.

By: Riaz K Tayob

Riaz K Tayob — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 08:49:48 +0000

Interesting and informative article.
The problem with reformist and radical choices is that reality rarely conforms to these categorisations – even if it helps thinking. And perhaps the left needs to reinvigorate the old categories and flirt with new ones to effectively deal with the inevitable fallout of austerity. Reform and radicalism are not discrete categories, and so neither is transformative power nor domination power. They are related, and mutually constitutive – anything else, while insightful, blind sides the progressive movement. One of the real questions related to “organising” principles is how many people you know who can AT ONCE maintain a consciousness of a reformist position AND a radical one – and given the context (time, space, structure) deal with the contradictions? Pursuit of a radical purity of theory or idealogy seems to be the game in town for progressives – and often is correct in diagnosis – but struggles for (sustained) traction with the people (mass based support). And there is no use in romanticising the Grassroots – “the people” are as often wrong as they are right. For reformists, well the problem is that when dealing with institutions – they have their own logic, path dependencies, and tickets for entry – is that guarding against dangers often occupies most time, while proactive measures are rare and over the longer term “incrementally debased” (the right wingers certainly know how to sustain an agenda).
Once a bid for power is made and there is backlash from creditor interests how would that power be maintained to discipline the “villains” who oppose such measures? If Syriza wins, and the powerful creditor interests strike back, what will be “necessary” then? Simply put, at an intellectual level, it is time for us to find those who can simultaneously balance reform and radicalism, and with some understanding of their contradictory laws of motion, and to organise recognising the poverty of power of the left and the necessity of broadening understanding…

Comments on: Essay: Political organisation in transition

By: Michael Kenny

By: Riaz K Tayob