So, I had a weird dream where I got banned from one of my favorite subs for an actual argument I had not long ago in which I bashed some elements of the left. It didn't happen, but if it were a lot of other left wing subs, it very well could have as those guys WOULD do crap like that, and it got me wanting to write a companion article to my previous one discussing how I feel in relation to the left.
To sum things up, the left is instrumental in criticizing, opposing, and reforming capitalism, but often times their methods either go too far, not far enough, or are applied in such an ideological way that I don't agree with that I become lukewarm on them. I guess the big issue with the left is that while we can all agree that we oppose capitalism in some form, and have solutions to it in some form, we can't always agree on what those exact solutions look like.
Much of modern hard left leftist philosophy comes directly from Marx. Marx was an interesting writer in his time and had many substantive critiques of capitalism, but in a lot of ways his ideology is divisive for a reason. As people have tried to overturn Marxism and achieve solutions with it, they end up just creating new systems that are just as bad or even worse in other ways. They have all of these criticisms of the system, but their solutions suck. Philosophically, their ideology isnt amazing ever. Most leftists are constrained to marx and his thinking that work isnt the problem, capitalism and its corresponding alienation and exploitation is. Capitalists alienate people from their work and marxists have this "if only people could work under a different set of principles, it would be fine and peachy" mentality. For me, it's different. I think work is inherently dehumanizing, that there is no good work, and that as long as work is forced, it's never dignified. Leftism almost never attempts to solve the forced labor problem, and tries to force a different set of principles on people. Work can only be dignified IMO if it is taken from a position of pure voluntariness. If people can actually choose to say no, and still choose to work, and they genuinely WANT to work, that's fine. But there is no dignity in forced labor, and as I demonstrated with the flaws of liberal "bourgeois" democracy merely needing to appease 51% of the population (and sometimes not even that), democracy under socialist principles is no better. The solution to capitalism isn't economic democracy. It's freedom for every individual to work or not to work under whatever terms they find acceptable, and to be given the ACTUAL freedom, in line with widerquist's "ECSO" (effective control of self ownership) freedom principles.
With all of that said, I'd rather avoid reinventing the wheel in a worse fashion than already exists and insisting on forcing people to work under democratic principles. So many leftists have this mentality that if only work could operate under certain principles it would be fine.
So let's focus on reform.
The problem with reformists is that, we also cant agree on what reforms are needed, and what the size and scale necessary are. And much like the leftists, they tend to adopt ideologies that love and romanticize work, if only that work is done under certain principles.
Unions are the oldest form of resistance to capitalism, and ultimately have come to define their power by their ability to organize with other workers to achieve gains within the system. As such, many of them vitriolically oppose my own ideology, based on wanting to automate and abolish work, claiming that this would undermine their power. In a sense, they develop this mentality that much like the luddites, automating work is a bad thing, and they call my own ideology and solutions "libertarian tech bro" nonsense. They think I'm aligned with the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, when the only thing we have in common is both of us believe work is about the product, not the process, and only the end result matters. if we can achieve the same results WITHOUT human labor, then I see that as a good thing, and i think we should embrace a UBI as an alternative means of subsistence. What labor unions end up doing is romanticizing work and being for the so called "dignity of work" where everyone should take pride in puttiing in a solid 8 hours of work under conditions they fought for. While union work is often less unpleasant than work in raw capitalism, it's still work, it still sucks, and i dream of a world without labor. Bite me.
Many other forms of liberalism are built on state power and using the power of the state to help people. But, many liberals are limited and don't really support liberating workers from work in general. They're satisfied to defend their past legacies and imperfect and aging regulatory and welfare systems, pushing a false dichotomy between nothing at all, and flawed garbage. Regulations are old, outdated, and difficult to enforce. They are reactive, meaning they have to react to infractions after the fact, meaning the damage is already done, and may not be consistently enforced. If one makes a rule against firing people for certain reasons or without cause for example, employers might make up their own rules to justify firings, or make the employee so miserable they're forced to quit. If one makes up a rule requiring all employers to provide healthcare to all full time employees, more jobs will insist on making all workers part time, requiring them to work multiple jobs to survive. So instead of working one 40 hour a week job, they'll work 50 hours at 2 25 hour a week jobs, yay... Some regulations might be old and outdated, like our $7.25 minimum wage fom 2009, or our 40 hour work week laws from 1938. And many fail to account for the tyrannies of modern work places like inconsistent schedules and being forced to spend time outside of work on work interacting with work related computer systems and answering phone calls and emails.
And even if we accomplish all of that, shouldnt we be focused more on work itself? Is the 21st century, why force people to work at all. We could structure society like a F2P game and be perfectly well off. But no, most liberals still believe in forcing people to work, just in terms that are more just than would exist under raw unregulated capitalism.
The welfare system operates under the same logic. We could (and should) have large unconditional safety nets. But most safety nets typically force people to work to get help. Social insurance programs are contribution based so only give according to peoples' past work. Welfare programs only help the so called "deserving" poor, claiming "it's a safety net, not a hammock" and that they only exist to catch people and throw them back into the work force. Most of these ideas are grounded in the elizbethian poor laws of early capitalism, which were based on trying to parse out the contradictions between two christian ideas: the idea that we should be charitable, but that everyone's lot in life is work. The result are cruel institutions that mght help people in limited ways, but if anything just inflict misery in their own ways.
Universal safety nets aimed at giving people their basic needs would be far better in the 21st century. As I said, we need systems that dont force people to work. Work having dignity comes from it not being forced. And work isnt really an inherent good, the product of work is. Work itself is a long, painful, arduous process, and we would be better off getting rid of it and abolishing it. But most don't wanna do that, and have developed stockholm syndrome for it.
Still, I want to point out that i do respect the efforts of the left and believe many of these ideas are better than nothing. But I see them as flawed, and not the end all be all of...well...life.
Capitalism is a cruel mistress, but as I pointed out in the previous article, its very necessary. I believe in making capitalism better. How we do that differs, and a common thread through most of these bad ideas is most dont seek to actually make work voluntary, believing it's necessary for everyone to work all of the time. So you got a lot of reforms here, and again, most are better than nothing, but none of them actually really solve the problems IMO.
Of course, this is where I get in infighting with other leftists, including where I get banned from subs. And while that dream didnt happen, i DID get banned from even r/antiwork from such an ideological disagreement. Those guys claim to be anti work, but since Doreen left, they let their obsession with anti capitalism and leftism become purity tests that are more important than getting rid of work itself. Because they dont believe work itself is the problem, but capitalism is. And because of that, I'm not welcome for being an anti work capitalist, but the weirdo leftists with brainrot who argue against UBI and other solutions im for in favor of job guarantees are allowed. Because to them work isnt the problem, work under capitalism is the problem. Therefore, capitalism is the problem.
And this is why ideology matters and why I myself can be an insufferable purity testy butthole to other lefties, both liberal and anticapitalist. Because we dont have the same ideology, or the same goals. We might sometimes align in the short term, but we diverge on values to some extent. And I aint apologizing. I am for what Im for, and that's that.
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