While I am significantly to the left of the democratic party these
days, with how moderate their mainstream is, I am also not a fan of the
far left. By “far left”, I mean people who want to totally abolish
capitalism and replace it with something completely different. The thing
is, if you want to change things, you need to do it in a way that is
responsible. The conflict theory lens that criticizes capitalism is a
good one, but another important sociological lens of functionalism,
where one has to ask, “does this idea work?” Many on the far left are
good at criticizing capitalism but are often awful at replacing it with
something else.
The problem with revolution
As someone who has studied political science and sociology, I’m aware that if you want to implement a policy, you need to put a TON of research into it. When I was in grad school, I put 300-400 hours of effort in a capstone project to make an relatively small change to a local zoning ordinance. I had to research the issue, look at other things people have done, look at how the new law would work within our current system and legal structure, and then implement it within the legal system. Laws are tricky. Unresearched laws passed rashly can have many unintended consequences and cause more problems than they attempt to solve.
Members of the far left often talk about having a revolution, which basically means breaking things and then hoping what comes after is better than what exists now. They literally have no plan to implement their ideas in any meaningful, controlled way. History tells us that while revolutions are occasionally successful, many are very bloody, and often make things worse for their constituents. The rise of the USSR, China, Cuba, and North Korea are testaments to this fact. Even France’s revolution was a bloody one that led to a lot of suffering and political instability for decades. These revolutions are also breeding grounds for dictators to take hold and ruin everything. Sure, maybe these forms of communism aren’t “true communism” but how do we get to this mythical infallible idea of “pure communism”? These guys don’t have a plan.
The fact is, for all the criticizing of our system, we actually get most things right. The United States is literally one of the best systems that has ever existed, and while we still have A LOT of work to do, we should build on what we have in a stable and controlled fashion, making sure we keep the good aspects of the system untouched while handling the bad ones in a controlled manner.
The problem with their ideas
Far leftists can’t really agree with what their system would even look like. Often times when I ask them I am greeted with some long, philosophically dense 500 page piece of literature that’s very vague and TL;DR, and that I’m not sure could even be implemented in real life. A lot of their ideas just don’t translate to reality very well. They are philosophical models that sound good if you have a simplified world on which their assumption are accurate, but reality is very messy. When one tries to bring these philosophical ideas into reality, human nature and the like tends to make them perform less than optimally. Revolutions turn into dictatorships as I argued above. People fight over who gets what in more democratic approaches. And quite frankly, I just can’t get my head around these anarchist approaches to the left working either. I mean, getting rid of the state and having all these self autonomous communist communities sounds like a huge regression to the past that would make people poorer, less secure, and generally worse off.
Capitalism is flawed, but it isn’t irredeemably broken
Look, capitalism is flawed, and sometimes the far left makes good arguments for its pitfalls. I’ve learned a lot from engaging these guys about how flawed our system really is, and our post cold war society really white washes these problems and pretends that they don’t exist. However, capitalism is still the best and most functional system ever devised. It has led to the most material wealth and prosperity that civilization has ever seen. It might be like battery acid, something that’s very unpleasant and damaging at times, but something that’s also necessary for modern society to work. Even if we deal with the excesses of capitalism, we should still have market systems, property rights, etc. It works. It works. It works.
These far left ideas that totally eliminate capitalism would make us worse off. Statist communism often leads to shortages of goods and a reduction of freedom. As I said, anarchist forms may very well make people poorer and less secure. The big things I would want changed from the current capitalist framework is that I would like goods better distributed, and I would like to see a push toward less work and more freedom. These other ideas may distribute goods more efficiently in theory (if a tyrant doesn’t hoard them for themself), but they would destroy the economic growth that makes the whole engine run, so everyone might be worse off. Being worse off may cause them to have to work as hard or harder than they would under capitalism. As such, these ideas defeat the purpose of making one’s life better.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while I may be pretty far left by American standards, I don’t consider myself a member of the “far left”. I see a lot of people on Reddit and the like who want to overthrow the system or something, and these ideas are dangerous, irresponsible, and harmful. It is much better to fix the system somewhat incrementally and in a more controlled fashion, than to just completely break everything, create a power vacuum, and not even have a solid plan for replacing what you just broke. I’m also not convinced that capitalism is SO bad and SO broken that the only way to fix society is to abolish it. Capitalism produces many good benefits along side its flaws, and moving to full on socialism, communism, or anarchism would likely make people worse off in my opinion. We need to implement reforms within the system we have, and do so in a way where we can monitor and address the consequences.
The problem with revolution
As someone who has studied political science and sociology, I’m aware that if you want to implement a policy, you need to put a TON of research into it. When I was in grad school, I put 300-400 hours of effort in a capstone project to make an relatively small change to a local zoning ordinance. I had to research the issue, look at other things people have done, look at how the new law would work within our current system and legal structure, and then implement it within the legal system. Laws are tricky. Unresearched laws passed rashly can have many unintended consequences and cause more problems than they attempt to solve.
Members of the far left often talk about having a revolution, which basically means breaking things and then hoping what comes after is better than what exists now. They literally have no plan to implement their ideas in any meaningful, controlled way. History tells us that while revolutions are occasionally successful, many are very bloody, and often make things worse for their constituents. The rise of the USSR, China, Cuba, and North Korea are testaments to this fact. Even France’s revolution was a bloody one that led to a lot of suffering and political instability for decades. These revolutions are also breeding grounds for dictators to take hold and ruin everything. Sure, maybe these forms of communism aren’t “true communism” but how do we get to this mythical infallible idea of “pure communism”? These guys don’t have a plan.
The fact is, for all the criticizing of our system, we actually get most things right. The United States is literally one of the best systems that has ever existed, and while we still have A LOT of work to do, we should build on what we have in a stable and controlled fashion, making sure we keep the good aspects of the system untouched while handling the bad ones in a controlled manner.
The problem with their ideas
Far leftists can’t really agree with what their system would even look like. Often times when I ask them I am greeted with some long, philosophically dense 500 page piece of literature that’s very vague and TL;DR, and that I’m not sure could even be implemented in real life. A lot of their ideas just don’t translate to reality very well. They are philosophical models that sound good if you have a simplified world on which their assumption are accurate, but reality is very messy. When one tries to bring these philosophical ideas into reality, human nature and the like tends to make them perform less than optimally. Revolutions turn into dictatorships as I argued above. People fight over who gets what in more democratic approaches. And quite frankly, I just can’t get my head around these anarchist approaches to the left working either. I mean, getting rid of the state and having all these self autonomous communist communities sounds like a huge regression to the past that would make people poorer, less secure, and generally worse off.
Capitalism is flawed, but it isn’t irredeemably broken
Look, capitalism is flawed, and sometimes the far left makes good arguments for its pitfalls. I’ve learned a lot from engaging these guys about how flawed our system really is, and our post cold war society really white washes these problems and pretends that they don’t exist. However, capitalism is still the best and most functional system ever devised. It has led to the most material wealth and prosperity that civilization has ever seen. It might be like battery acid, something that’s very unpleasant and damaging at times, but something that’s also necessary for modern society to work. Even if we deal with the excesses of capitalism, we should still have market systems, property rights, etc. It works. It works. It works.
These far left ideas that totally eliminate capitalism would make us worse off. Statist communism often leads to shortages of goods and a reduction of freedom. As I said, anarchist forms may very well make people poorer and less secure. The big things I would want changed from the current capitalist framework is that I would like goods better distributed, and I would like to see a push toward less work and more freedom. These other ideas may distribute goods more efficiently in theory (if a tyrant doesn’t hoard them for themself), but they would destroy the economic growth that makes the whole engine run, so everyone might be worse off. Being worse off may cause them to have to work as hard or harder than they would under capitalism. As such, these ideas defeat the purpose of making one’s life better.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while I may be pretty far left by American standards, I don’t consider myself a member of the “far left”. I see a lot of people on Reddit and the like who want to overthrow the system or something, and these ideas are dangerous, irresponsible, and harmful. It is much better to fix the system somewhat incrementally and in a more controlled fashion, than to just completely break everything, create a power vacuum, and not even have a solid plan for replacing what you just broke. I’m also not convinced that capitalism is SO bad and SO broken that the only way to fix society is to abolish it. Capitalism produces many good benefits along side its flaws, and moving to full on socialism, communism, or anarchism would likely make people worse off in my opinion. We need to implement reforms within the system we have, and do so in a way where we can monitor and address the consequences.
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