Greta Thunberg: How Media can Describe her as “Far Left” when she Rejects Socialism
The UK Telegraph newspaper, for example, describes Thunberg as offering a “far-left” agenda.
Thunberg, who has no association with any Socialist movement, explicitly rejects Socialism:
The contradiction goes to the heart of what Socialism actually is and the wilful misrepresentation by those who fear it.
NHS is an explicitly Socialist policy, transferring wealth, in this case health care, from the rich to the poor by providing on the basis of need rather than ability to pay
Two Groups
There are two groups of people calling themselves Socialists. There are those like top Euro-racist Josep Borrell, Lula da Silva in Brazil and Bernie Sanders of the US Democratic Party who believe in adopting some Socialist policies but have no intention of doing anything other than managing Capitalism. They differ only in degree from Liberals and Conservatives. For example the increasingly right-wing UK Conservative Party maintains, at least on paper, its commitment to the UK’s National Health Service. The NHS is an explicitly Socialist policy, transferring wealth, in this case health care, from the minority to the majority by providing on the basis of need rather than ability to pay and funding it through income tax. Given the correlation between low income and poor health the transfer of wealth is enormous.
Fundamental Change
The second group of Socialists are those who believe in adopting Socialist policies as a route to a fundamental change in the economic model and the associated change in social relations. The final destination and the best path to take are disputed but there remains a shared goal in principle; replacing Capitalism. Contemporary examples here are inevitably pointless; to be well known means to adopt the stance of the first group. The Bolshevik Party who organized the 1917 revolution is Russia remain the best known of this group and most people have heard of Lenin and Trotsky.
So those are Socialists but the confusion doesn’t end there. What about Socialism ? Again there are two ways in which this word is used.
Socialist Countries ?
States have often been described, wrongly, as Socialist when they have had governments describing themselves as Socialist. For example the government of Venezuela, from 1999, claimed to be Socialist and certainly adopted many Socialist policies. Banking, heavy industry and oil exploitation saw limited nationalization and the profits used to fund the provision of health and education services. Profit of course is a characteristic of Capitalism and nothing the Chavez government pursued threatened Capitalism in any way or was even unique; the populist regime of Juan Peron in Argentina — a regime many regard as far right — adopted a very similar programme in 1946 with measurable transfer of wealth from rich to poor after the first five years.
It is no contradiction, then, to say that there can be a Socialist government in a country and this might well be simplified to a Socialist country but that the system managed by that government is not Socialism, not fundamentally different; it remains Capitalist.
one of the favourite claims by those on the right, liberals and conservatives alike, is that “Capitalism is the best system we’ve got”
Have we not tried Socialism ?
Thunberg thinks so and she says it has failed. In fact one of the favourite claims by those on the right, liberals and conservatives alike, is that “Capitalism is the best system we’ve got” as if there is an existing choice. In fact Capitalism is the only system we have and the best of one isn’t much of a boast. Classless early humans adopted slavery because it allowed a higher economic level. Feudalism took over because the productive capacity of slavery had allowed society to grow its expectations beyond the scope of slavery. Capitalism forced its way to the front for the same reason; economic advancement required that labour be free to sell itself and not be tied to the land.
a dozen imperialist powers, most claiming to be democracies, invaded Russia in order to crush this upstart threat to Capitalism
Capitalism, existing meaningfully for just over 200 years, has been challenged but never dislodged. The Russian revolution of October 1917 did bring to power genuine Socialists who genuinely intended to create an alternative to Capitalism. Those people were also adamant that Socialism in one country was impossible and that if other revolutions didn’t follow — particularly in Germany and very soon — the revolution in Russia would fail. Not only did the hoped-for revolutions not materialize but a dozen imperialist powers, most claiming to be democracies, invaded Russia in order to crush this upstart threat to Capitalism. By the time they withdrew a lot of people had died and Stalin was in Charge; job done. For almost seven decades the Stalinist dictatorship falsely claimed to be Socialist in the same way that the DPRK falsely claims to be democratic.
The Bolsheviks had also consistently held that even in favourable conditions — which they didn’t get — it would take decades of Socialism to achieve a Communist society, that is a society in which all aspects of capitalist relations had been eliminated. Optimistic perhaps given that it was almost 200 years from the first Bourgeois revolution, in England, until Capitalism really got going with the first industrial revolution but it is quite absurd to judge a few short, chaotic, disputed years when genuine Socialists were formally governing Russia as if it had been an actual example of a Socialist society.
In case of any lingering doubt that the USSR was not Capitalism in an unusual guise consider that in 1990 the more usual form with shareholders, conspicuous greed and homelessness could be restored with the stroke of a pen.
The liberal media, with … a pathological hatred of the left
Liberals vs Liberals
Back to Thunberg. Far left she certainly isn’t. In fact she admits she doesn’t know what to replace Capitalism with but is clear it isn’t Socialism…because she is unclear what Socialism is. There is no analysis of Capitalism as an economic system and consequently she is unable to identify what can work better. The liberal media, with no better understanding but a pathological hatred of the left effortlessly and lazily reach for their preferred stack of insults and lies, casting out one of their own.
Thunberg’s new-found enemies prefer not to risk the perfection of a child dying of malnutrition every 12 seconds
Is Socialism a solution ?
It is fundamental to Marxism that involvement changes people and only by going through the revolutionary process do people become capable of building a Socialist society. It is therefore logically impossible to know in advance exactly what a Socialist society would look like; it will be whatever those privileged to take part in its creation will make it. It follows that it is also logically bankrupt to reject Socialism as a solution. The very worst anyone with honesty and integrity can say is that it might work better. Thunberg’s new-found enemies prefer not to risk the perfection of a child dying of malnutrition every 12 seconds or the 50 million dead of World War 2 or the current nuclear brinkmanship as Capitalist states compete for resources in the only way they know how.
