The Optimistic Leftist by Ruy Teixeira

Author:Ruy Teixeira
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

FOUR

The Optimistic Leftist

Why is today’s left so pessimistic? One reason is that inequality has been rising for decades and the left has not succeeded in stopping it. This promotes a sense that the left is losing ground and is likely to lose further ground in the future.

Another is that an era when mass left political parties enjoyed great electoral success (pre-1970s) has been succeeded by an era in which success has been far harder to come by, even when capitalism was on the ropes in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis. Pessimistic leftists look at this and despair.

Perhaps even more important is the feeling that problems like global warming and resource depletion are so big and so advanced that the left has little chance of solving them in time. It is five minutes to midnight and the clock is ticking. Pessimism, in this view, is only realism.

Then there is the fact that, with socialism off the table as an alternative form of economic organization, we appear to be stuck with capitalism, warts and all. For some leftists, those warts are so severe that all we can really hope for now is to contain the damage. That’s a depressing prospect.

But this is all wrong. In fact, capitalism can be made to work better, in fact much better, and the problems we face can and will be solved. That’s the left’s job and it is entirely feasible. But to do so the left first needs to realize that their pessimism about the state of the world today and its future is profoundly mistaken.

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