Two articles were written in recent months on the subject of “socially conservative leftism,” an earlier one by comrade Donald Parkinson on Cosmonaut ( https://cosmonaut.blog/2019/12/28/faith-family-and-folk-against-the-trad-left/ ) and another by Benjamin Fogel and Paolo Gerbaudo on Jacobin ( https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/02/blue-labour-party-uk-miliband-blair-immigration ). This is intended to be constructive criticism of both of them.
At least much of the working class is socially conservative, it has been argued over and over again. Only with Thomas Piketty’s publishing of Capital and Ideology has it been proved more definitively. Despite this definitive revelation, the three aforementioned authors have argued against a strawman.
The strawman in question is the assertion that petit-bourgeois social conservatism and real working-class social conservatism are identical. They are not. Nobody these days is a full-blown social conservative.
“Faith, family, and folk” are indeed examples of petit-bourgeois social conservatism. The likes of Blue Labour, UKIP, and so on, embellish the notion that much of the working class is socially conservative, yet most of their socially conservative social solutions come straight out of petit-bourgeois social conservatism. These so-called “social conservative” loudmouths who rail against “Political Correctness” because they are right-populists or outright fascists are only socially conservative in their preferred policy areas. In others, as will be discussed shortly, they are quite socially liberal.
On the other hand, working-class social conservatism is real. The two articles above have not acknowledged this. [One of the articles goes on a character attack detour, highlighting the former Blairite backgrounds of Blue Labour proponents.]
Long ago, at least much of the Protestant blue-collar base of the pre-WWI Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), the then-Marxist and Old Bolshevik role model for a vanguard party-movement, was socially conservative.
Long ago, at least much of the blue-collar elements of Stalin’s “Lenin Levy” – those who supported him against everyone else – were socially conservative, which would explain the whole raft of socially conservative policies that were implemented not long afterwards.
Long ago, at least much of the blue-collar bases of “Eurocommunist” parties were socially conservative.
More recently, at least much of the blue-collar elements within Chavismo were also socially conservative.
“Radical Center”
What distinctions can be made between petit-bourgeois social conservatism and working-class conservatism? Enter Michael Lind and his advocacy of the “Radical Center” on sociocultural issues:
As Tanenhaus notes, the phrase “radical center” was originally used by the sociologist Donald Warren in the 1970s to describe swing voters who combined center-left economic views with center-right opinions on civil rights, illegal immigration and identity politics (though not necessarily on abortion or other issues more associated with the Protestant religious right).
[ https://www.salon.com/2010/04/20/radical_center_revisited/ ]
So-called “identity politics” beyond basic civil rights is one area of real working-class social conservatism. Comrade Parkinson was rash to use the term “economism,” because the core elements of the Marx-Engels minimum program – strictly political measures of participatory-democratic overhaul based on those enacted by the Paris Commune, all of which culminate in the strictly political dictatorship of the proletariat – did not and do not include western Maoist and/or New Left innovations. The demarchic likes of comrade Paul Cockshott could hardly be called an “economist” simply because of pre-Sexual Revolution views on certain sociocultural issues. This is, in fact, one area where petit-bourgeois social conservatism is fundamentally different, given recent alt-right tendencies to advocate “identity politics” of the majority: white identity politics.
Another key policy area of difference is one that unites these three historical measures: the banning of games of chance and gambling by the Paris Commune, the making of hooliganism a criminal offense in the Soviet Union, and the prohibition on violent video games by the Bolivarian government of the late Hugo Chavez. This is better known as Prohibition or the Nanny State. This is one area where petit-bourgeois social conservatives tend to be quite liberal, or else they would not be able to rail against “Political Correctness.”
Accommodate One But Not The Other
Petit-bourgeois social conservatism should be argued against consistently and, as comrade Parkinson acknowledged, without resorting to slurs and ad hominem attacks. However, real working-class social conservatism should be accommodated. That the class-struggle left should simply shut up on so-called “identity politics,” like Lenin did, goes without saying.
Going further into the subject of political program and public policy, real working-class social conservatism should even be accommodated. To be clear, though, only areas of concern by supporters of real working-class social conservatism can be accommodated. For example, racial prejudice would also be out of bounds, more in line with petit-bourgeois social prejudices, not to mention too close to right-populism or outright fascism. Pro-police law-and-order planks would also be out of bounds. Prohibition or the Nanny State, however, ought to be accommodated, as appropriate to working-class conditions.
– Jacob Richter
