Trump voters. Brexit voters. The AltRight. The people who read Infowars, and Breitbart, and the Daily Mail. They’re all early stage socialists, who just haven’t figured out that’s what they are yet.
Here’s why.
For most of the 20th century, global capitalism was a pretty good deal. If you were a white western citizen.
Most of the stuff you bought was manufactured by low paid labour in Asia. Most of the drudge work was done, either at home by women, or by immigrants. Life kept geting cheaper, and you kept earning more, assuming you were a white male, even in a relatively low paying job. Global capitalism, clearly an unfair system that exploited millions of people, was widely supported by white Americans, because they benefited from that exploitation.
“As a citizen of a western nation you are now much more likely to be exploited by capitalism.”
My how things have changed! Not. But, if you’re a highly priviledged citizen of the US or Europe, you can see that they are changing. Asia and other less developed areas are quickly catching up with the West. Women play on a more equal footing, and the immigrants who came to work in developed nations are now citizens, demanding and fully deserving equality. People aren’t stupid. Especially when it comes to protecting their own social status. Those who benefited from these inequalities can see those benefits slipping away.
Capitalism remains a deeply unfair and unequal way to organise the global economy. But in one regard it has become fairer. As a citizen of a western nation you are now much more likely to be exploited by capitalism. Capitalism has become trully global. Corporations, banks, hedge funds and billionaires move freely around the world. They are equal opportunities exploiters, as happy to profit from low paid labour in England as in China.
And the benefits of capitalism have also moved around. New middle classes in Asia, South America and Africa are being given the deal that the US and Europe got before them. Capitalism now has many new fans and supporters, in places like China that previously tried to get rid of it. But back where it began, in the US and UK, a lot of people are furious with global capitalism, and the “neo-liberal” agenda that today drives it.
Right now, what the people of the US and UK are demanding is a return to the capitalist deal of 40 years ago. They want jobs brought back from Asia, immigrants sent back beyond their borders, and women back under the thumb. That’s the agenda that got Trump elected, that leads to Britain voting to exit the EU, and is powering audiences for sites like Breitbart. The winners of capitalism can see they’re at risk of being made the losers, and they’re terrified by the prospect.
I don’t think it takes a genius to realise that global capitalism isn’t going to roll back 40 years because some old people in Idaho and Bolton are unhappy about it. And I think anybody with half an eye on the future can see that new technologies and automation are going to make the capitalist deal much, much more unequal.
So what happens when Trump and Brexit fail to deliver a temporal shift back to 1957? This is one of the last campaign advertisements run by Donald Trump before his election as president.
Anyone familiar with socialism will recognise the message of the Trump ad as a radically socialist one. Trump is no socialist, but he was willing to say anything to win. And Steve Bannon of Breitbart, alongside other altright political sites like Infowars, had devised a winning formula. Nationalist yes. Dog whistle racism yes. But also radically socialist, for a huge audience of Americans in the very early stages of questioning capitalism.
In the UK much the same trick was played. Brits were told that £350 million a week would be taken back from the EU and spent on the National Health Service. This lie was believed by many because, for at least 30 years, the British tabloid media has been equating the EU with global capitalism, via the issue of immigration. There’s a deep irony here of course, because the EU actually acts as a bulwark against the worst excesses of capitalism.
“In 5 years or so, the vast majority of Trump voters will be calling for nationalised healthcare, tax hikes on the rich, and free college tuition.”
In the US and UK a huge section of the population, who previously voted to support the free market capitalism of Reagan and Thatcher, are for the first time in their lives questioning that capitalist model. In the short term that’s pushed them towards nationalism, protectionism and racism. But regressing to racist political ideals will only hurt the economies of the UK and the US more deeply. And as that pain kicks in, those people are arriving at exactly the same socialist ideas that exploited people all over the world have been arguing since Karl Marx – socialism.
Socialism is a dialectic. Robbed of their faith in capitalism, Trumpists, Brexiteers, Breitbarters and AltRighters are now at stage 1 of the socialist learning process. That’s why so much of what they say sounds like communist revolutionaries shouting “down with the elite”. But as they learn, they’re going to arrive at the same democratic socialist ideas that were squeezed out of US politics decades ago. In 5 years or so, the vast majority of Trump voters will be calling for nationalised healthcare, tax hikes on the rich, and free college tuition. Because these socialist ideas are neccesary to balance a modern economy. Even Trump voters are on track to realise they are socialists, whether they know it now or not.
Why does this matter? Because the political left just lost its best electoral opportunity in decades. A huge swathe of the voting public are looking for answers to failed capitalism. But the left offered the same compromise position that brought it victory in the 2000’s. The left lost because it refused to argue for its own ideals, and stood watching as the right wing stole it’s ground. We can’t afford to make the same mistake again.
No comments here, come shout at me on Twitter.
Damien Walter 