Words and expressions

Realistic - What are realistic policies? Social democracy of the old school is not realistic, even in its own terms. Capitalism can no longer afford it. We live in a world where people starve, die from preventable disease, lie homeless on the streets, and are threatened by war and other forms of violence in their millions. To even begin to address this questions will involve a politics well beyond the bounds of normality. That is realistic. The thought that a firm, pragmatic, hand on the rudder will make the world, liveable, let alone better than that is naive utopianism.

Electability - Give the people what they want, as though you were selling a product. Even people who sell products don't do this. They tell the people what the people want but don't know that they want yet. Hence advertising. But politics isn't a product. Peoples' political beliefs, generally a confused bag, are generally pretty right-wing in contemporary Britain. That much is true (although on some questions they are well to the left of, say Angela Eagle). However, this is not a fixed thing. Political beliefs are fluid, changed by on the ground movements, the experience of politics. That is already happening to an extent. And it needs to happen, because of what is realistic (see above).

Government or Protest - This is a false dichotomy. The labour movement historically wanted government in order to express protest. What is true, however, is that no socialist should want to use government just as a ready-made tool to serve their own ends. The state, and its instruments, is far from neutral. Thus Ralph Miliband on the effect of office on Labour. In governing, a socialist party which genuinely provided political representation to the working class would need to transform government itself. Fear of this possibility, dimly perceived, is part of what is behind the current Labour coup.

Unity - Of whom? To which ends?