The Specter Of The Working Class

This is an excellent analysis by Stan Hister of the issues lurking behind "right wing populism" and the November 2 election results, which like countless post-election pieces uses Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas? as a launching point for a larger discussion about the future of class-based politics.

"If Nov. 2 proved anything," Hister concludes, "it is that the old political model of 'consensus-building' is now ancient history. We live in radical times. But FDR isn't coming back from the grave and the unions aren't going to shut down Wal-Mart with sit-down strikes. If there is any alternative to right-wing populism, if there is any way of framing class anger so that it is directed at the real enemies on Wall Street instead of at liberal bogeymen, then this can only come from the radical left. But the left has to become as radical as the times, it has to find its revolutionary soul again. And nothing is more important in this respect than putting socialism back on the agenda: so long as the left has no alternative to capitalism, so long as it stands for nothing except 'inclusion', it will only merit contempt. What the rise of right-wing populism shows is that the road to popular consciousness isn't through pragmatic compromise or lesser evilism, but through a radical idealism that speaks to working people's anger. Either the working class will haunt capitalism or it will haunt the left."