Socialism, ethics, and humanity (III)

(Last in series here)

Socialism could provide us with a chance to flourish, to fulfil our natures, in a way that is not possible under capitalism. There's a bitter irony about this, since capitalism itself is responsible for transforming both what it is to be human and the capacity to realise the possibilities inherent in this far beyond the imaginings of any previous age. Technology has stretched our potential for creativity, communications have broadened our imaginations and deepened our needs, and labour-saving innovations offer us the hope of producing all that we want in a fraction of the time and with far less effort than could ever have been contemplated. All of this has been conjured up by the very same capitalism that stunts its potential, producing as it does for profit rather than human need. The task of realising capitalism's potential falls to socialism. More concretely, it falls to another of capitalism's creations, the working class.

What does this picture mean imply about our politics, which was after all where this series started? Socialism, as I've sketched it, is about the big picture. It concerns how we organise the world in a way that our lives can be good. This is not the fare of those who for whom the horizons of politics do not go beyond marginal tax rates or urban traffic schemes. The picture is not naive; contrary to almost every textbook portrayal of Marx's thought, socialism is not inevitable. It might not even be particularly likely; still we socialists, with a cold hardened realism, think that it is the only option for an unfulfilled and divided humanity threatened with environmental catastrophe. The diagnosis becomes even more severe now that capitalism cannot afford social democracy.

This picture has to be communicated. In our conversations, not least with all those new Labour Party members, at meetings, in print, we should be talking about socialism. It is a persistent temptation for the Left to play its ideas close to its chest, keeping a conspiratorial silence about its thoughts on the means of production and preferring instead to talk about the minimum wage and Trident. Delicate judgements need to be made here, of course. There are times for forming broad alliances, and no profitable conversation has ever been had by not meeting somebody where they are at. Yet, meeting somebody where they are at is one thing, leaving them there something altogether.

Now is a time for laying out the socialist stall. Thousands of people have wandered into a place where they can inspect its wares, because of the so-called Corbyn surge. Contrary to all that excitable stuff about entryism, the politics of this group are mixed, and often vague. Retaining these people will need something that warrants commitment: we have that and we should share it. This is the case not least because there is a rough road ahead, the present purge being one intimation of this, and without a framework within which peoples' experiences can be situated, a good number are likely simply to walk away. Even if the party bureaucrats tire of purging, the initial enthusiasm of Labour's new members will either fade away, or worse be converted into the reality-denying optimism that pollutes too much of the Left: the stable alternative lies in the realm of ideas.

The mention of optimism leads me to another aspect of this understanding of socialism that deserves mention. A political outlook that recognises the animal, embodied nature of human beings, as this one does - it is this nature to which socialism speaks - can be far more nuanced in its view of our prospects and more sensitive to our fragility than is often the case on the Left. One popular story goes as follows: conservatives have a dim view of human nature, which is enmeshed in Original Sin, or held back by genetics, depending on the conservative account in question. Humanity's grand projects are doomed to fail; society will not improve, at least not consistently, and the best that can be done is to insulate ourselves from violent motion with a generous layer of tradition and order. Progressives meanwhile (note the word) see human beings as perfectable. With a good amount of social progress, and perhaps a bit of luck, the New Jerusalem can be built on earth.

There is a very obvious sense in which human beings are not perfectable. People are not going to stop dying, or mourning. No matter who owns the means of production, it is likely that couples will still have acrimonious break ups, people will be thoughtless, and lives go inexplicably wrong. It is certainly true that human history is littered with progress and triumphs, and to be a socialist is not least to hope for a good deal more progress. It's just that a genuinely radical, rather than deludedly progressive, outlook recognises that progress is itself not without ambiguity, tragedy even. The capitalism that lends substance to the hopes I have been describing also led now forgotten children to deaths in hellish mills. The 20th century witnessed victories for women's liberation and anti-colonialism; it also saw the doctrine of human rights that had motivated many participants in this struggles used to justify brutal wars. The light-headed and cheaply upbeat attitude that has, unfortunately, followed in the wake of the Corbyn victory, if it is to give rise to a sustainable socialism, has to mature into a more sensitive and ambivalent take on our species and its history.

Stripped of unwarranted euphoria, counting the costs of struggle, the aim of this politics is to allow us to be ourselves. That is what the emphasis on fulfilling our nature amounts to. Ours is not a programme for angels or robots, but for the wonderful, tormented, ageing, animal beings that we in fact are. It cannot offer us limitless possibilities, because our possibilities are not limitless. However much the Situationists asked us to demand the impossible (and there is a sense in which that is the right thing to demand), we cannot travel faster than light, live a thousand lives, resurrect the dead, or do more than our energies, physical or emotional, allow us. Fashionable though it is in millenial circles to talk about 'self-definition' I cannot define myself, and much unnecessary anxiety has been caused by suggesting otherwise. Nor does our politics promise to do away with flaws, mistakes, irritations, or limitations. Socialism is a politics of human frailty: its simple suggestion is that we live in the world as the kind of beings that we are in fact. To make this more than a pipedream would indeed take a revolution, but perhaps one a good deal more compassionate in its aims than many think.

If we think this it should affect the way we conduct and understand ourselves. There is a relentlessness and puritan earnestness about parts of the Left, the latter being a correlate of underestimating the scope and difficulty of transformation. Taking frailty more seriously would be an important counterbalance here, and is one of our most urgent tasks.