The Left Rings the Changes

in its life of politics

What is it with the left, wonders Jeffrey A. Tucker.

Back in the day, the left said nothing to see here with the Soviet Union when the rest of America was fighting the Cold War.

Now, it’s Russia, Russia interfering in our politics, and fight for the helpless Ukraine.

Back in the day, the left was all for “industrialization and material progress.”

Now, the left wants to shut down “fossil fuels” and not incidentally the right for people to move around.

Back in the day, the left was all for the liberation of women from ages of the patriarchy.

Now, the left wants to cancel women who object to transgenders in women’s sports.

Back in the day, the left was all for free speech: No to censorship!

Now, the left wants to shut down harmful and “hate”speech.

Back in the day the left was all for the working class, fighting for labor against capital.

Now, the left wants to order the working class class around.

What is going on, wonders Tucker?

[What’s] with the 2020s version of progressive/leftist ideology. None of it makes any sense. It’s a hodgepodge mix of crazy that stands in complete contradiction to what everyone within this camp believed only a few years ago, dating back a century and more.

Well, it all makes sense to me. Our lefty friends believe that politics is the royal road to justice. Thus everything reduces to fighting the enemy and gifting your supporters. And when you are not actually fighting the enemy, you are wielding political power.

There must be a frightful enemy. If not businessmen, then white racists. If not Nazis, then climate change. If not patriarchs, then TERFs.

I say that there are only Three Worlds for humans to inhabit. There is Life World, the face to face world of the neighborhood and the family. There is Abstract World of the market economy, where trust and reciprocal relationships are conducted in the new and strange world of buying and selling and working and inventing with people that you don’t really know face-to-face. Then there is the War World of politics and force and government and bureaucracy and conflict.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.