Dear Mr. Parkinson,

I am a university student from China who recently read the Chinese translation of your article "Faith, Family and Folk: Against the Trad Left" via the WeChat public account "Project 307." (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/H4dj5WM6wS1mfAl3JNq40w)Please allow me to first express my deep admiration for the theoretical courage of your piece. Your critique of Polanyi's "double movement" theory—particularly your analysis revealing neoconservatism as an internal stabilizing mechanism of capitalism rather than its opposite—offered me a fresh perspective for understanding contemporary Western politics.

However, as a young Chinese leftist reader, I sense a certain tension between your theoretical courage and its political translation, which leaves me with some questions I hope to explore with you.

Theoretical Courage and Strategic Translation

You paint a radical vision of abolishing patriarchy and building an internationalist community. Yet when Western workers face immigrant competition, community dissolution, and identity crises, their instinctive grasping at nation, religion, and family as defensive identities is not simply "false consciousness"—it is a rational survival strategy amid neoliberal ruins. If the left cannot address this visceral anxiety and resorts only to a moral appeal to "authentic Marxism," might it inadvertently push these workers toward right-wing populism? There seems to be a gap between the "ought" and the "is" that remains to be bridged.

The Imperialist Dimension of Immigration Policy

What particularly puzzles me is your treatment of immigration. You frame migration as a natural process of transnational working-class formation. Yet in imperialist core countries, immigration policy is often wielded by the bourgeoisie as a "divide and rule" tool: using cheap labor to suppress wages while manufacturing "native worker vs. immigrant" antagonisms to divert class hatred. The bourgeoisie's "multiculturalism" is often only superficially open, fundamentally preserving exploitative structures.

My question is: How can the left, while upholding internationalist principles, clearly distinguish itself from this hypocritical multiculturalism? How can we support immigrant rights without making local workers feel betrayed? Navigating this balance strikes me as perhaps the most intractable problem facing the Western left today.

The Cultural War's Double Bind

On LGBT and feminist issues: When gender liberation is co-opted by neoliberalism as "rainbow capitalism" (corporations using diversity performance to mask exploitation), while traditional workers view these issues as elite cultural capital imposing on them, simply opposing conservative regression is insufficient—one must simultaneously critique the commodification of identity politics. Otherwise, the left either gets co-opted by liberals or is dismissed by the working class as moralistic preaching detached from reality. Here, the left seems trapped in a predicament of being "misunderstood by both sides." Does a solution to this bind exist?

A Thought on Theoretical Framework

I noticed you intentionally avoid orthodox Marxist or Leninist terminology (like "opportunism" or "labor aristocracy"), instead using the relatively moderate label "trad left." I understand this may facilitate dialogue with contemporary Western online leftists, but I can't help wondering: Would using a Leninist framework analyzing the left as "agents of bourgeois influence within the workers' movement," or referencing Mao Zedong's "New Democracy" theory (which strategized reform rather than immediate abolition of traditional social forms), provide clearer definition and transitional solutions? Particularly, Mao's cultural policy of "national, scientific, and popular" might offer a reference point for navigating tradition-modernity relations in a way that insists on principles while being strategically sophisticated.

Of course, I recognize the difficulties of transplanting theories across vastly different historical contexts—these are merely my tentative thoughts.

On the Class Character of Language

Please allow me to gently observe: Your article is replete with academic terminology like "authoritarian causality" and "parochial forces." This might epitomize the Western left's structural predicament—that producers of theory belong to the professional-managerial class (PMC) within academia rather than union organizers. When texts are inaccessible to ordinary workers, how can we avoid becoming precisely what you critique: a PMC moral imposition?

Possible References from China

Allow me to offer some observations from Chinese practice that might provide alternative perspectives.

On the formation of internationalist community, the Chinese experience presents a more complex picture. Abstract internationalist ideals often struggle to mobilize the masses across national boundaries in everyday conditions. Reflecting on history, when the Chinese people embraced "international proletarian solidarity" or "Third World unity," it was not through theoretical indoctrination but through shared experiences of concrete crisis—whether fighting alongside anti-fascist allies during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, or mutual support with Asia-Africa-Latin America nations during Cold War imperialist blockades. These structural external pressures (war threats, economic blockades, common enemies) temporarily dissolved the "nation-other" binary, transforming transnational solidarity from abstract principle into survival necessity.

Crucially, China's internationalist practice (e.g., Korean War resistance, African aid and construction) always remained tightly bound with the lived experience of national liberation, rather than positioned above it. This suggests: The formation of internationalist community may similarly require structural external shocks (climate catastrophe, global economic crisis, or war) to break existing identity boundaries, and must be built on shared survival crises across nations rather than theoretical persuasion alone.

On secularization and religious revival, China's experience demonstrates a complex dialectic. From 1949-1978, the state, through the work-unit system (integrating employment, housing, and welfare) and militant atheist policies, established alternative community forms replacing traditional clan and religious structures. However, since Reform and Opening (1978), as the work-unit system dissolved and capitalist marketization deepened, universal education, urbanization, and nascent social security systems have replaced some traditional clan and religious functions; yet simultaneously, when capitalism destroyed traditional structures while failing to provide adequate social security, religious revival emerged (including underground Christian churches, Buddhist/Taoist/folk religious resurgence). This precisely illustrates: When market logic atomizes individuals without providing alternative communities, people seek religion as a "haven in a heartless world."

This experience suggests: The weakening of traditional structures requires material substitutes (educational opportunities, social security replacing family-based support, urban public services replacing clan mutual aid), not merely ideological critique; yet simultaneously, if the left cannot offer more solid community alternatives than religion, capitalist development may instead generate conservative backlash. Of course, these experiences emerged from specific contexts (late-developing nation modernization, land revolution, strong state capacity) and may not apply to the West, but they perhaps demonstrate that radical transformation requires material alternatives, not just moral positions.

Conclusion

These are some preliminary reflections from a Chinese university student reader. I am acutely aware that observations from outside carry risks of misinterpretation, yet perhaps this distance can offer a different vantage point. I very much look forward to your response.

Best regards,

A Chinese University Student