Why Do People Keep Coming Back To Socialism?
Right-wingers often try to explain young people's interest in socialism by saying they don’t know history. They say things like: "they didn't live through the cold war", and "they dont have the education, they didn't learn about Stalin and Mao's purges" etc. The main reason right wingers say that is to make them feel better about their own point of view. To make them feel superior and evade any uncomfortable process of self reflection. It's certainly not done to try to really understand people's interest in socialism.
First of all its not just young people who are interested in socialism or who vote for left wing parties. YouGov has: " conducted the largest survey yet on last week’s general election, interviewing over 40,000 British adults to discover patterns across demographics: age, gender, class, education and previous votes." This is a graph of their findings:
Right-wingers often try to explain young people's interest in socialism by saying they don’t know history. They say things like: "they didn't live through the cold war", and "they dont have the education, they didn't learn about Stalin and Mao's purges" etc. The main reason right wingers say that is to make them feel better about their own point of view. To make them feel superior and evade any uncomfortable process of self reflection. It's certainly not done to try to really understand people's interest in socialism.
First of all its not just young people who are interested in socialism or who vote for left wing parties. YouGov has: " conducted the largest survey yet on last week’s general election, interviewing over 40,000 British adults to discover patterns across demographics: age, gender, class, education and previous votes." This is a graph of their findings:
We can see that 56% of people in the UK between the ages of 18-24 voted Labour and only 21% Tory, so there definitely seems to be an age pattern here. But still, people in their 30s still voted more left than right, and even 35% of people aged 40-49 voted Labour. That means parents, people with a mortgage, full time workers, mature and experienced people - and yet some many of them vote for those whacky lefties! And the last election is not quite a reflection of the general trend, because of the influence of Brexit. The difference between the age groups is even less in most elections. For example in the 1997 election which swept Labour back to power we see that even the 55 to 64 age group voted more for Labour than for the Conservatives! (39% to 36%). That is to say that even a group who had directly experienced WW11 as kids, and the cold war in the 50s, and Thatcher in the 80s, voted left. As, did the people directly after the war, of course, in the 1945 election. Were they, also, ignorant of history?
Also the study notes that Labour voters have a higher level of education that people who vote Conservative. Which means, presumably, they may know more about history than the average conservative voter, no? That will no doubt be explained away by saying they are 'arrogant' and its just 'book learning'. Make up your mind right wingers! Which is it? Do people who disagree with you have too little education or too much? And isn't it right wingers who are closing sociology and history departments and decreasing funding of humanities and socials sciences? If young people lack knowledge of history and society and politics, is that not YOUR fault?
But, in any case, the whole false view may not be as comforting an 'explanation' as right wingers think. Because if people keep coming back to socialism - despite all the troubles and failures throughout history - then it means there may be something inherently interesting and useful about it, no? If not, why would it keep coming back? After all those young people are not turning to 'flat earth' explanations, or voting in human sacrifice favouring pagans, or voodoo priestesses, or candidates from the monster raving loony party. They are not supporting ANY old wacky ideas from the past. The support is overwhelmingly focused around socialism, anarchism and environmentalism (often some mix of the 3).
So...the REAL basic reason people keep coming back to socialism and anarchism, even after 200 years of trouble, is that they usefully address a fundamental issue which is still with us: that capitalism is not a good enough system and we need a better one.
That feeling is reinforced in 1000s of millions of people everyday, by their bad situation in the reality of capitalism’s factories and shops and offices, which leaves them thinking at the end of each tiring, soul destroying day: ‘There must be something better than this.’
That feeling, that tendency, may be ill formed and vague. Most of us may lack the knowledge to understand it fully, and not have a clear focus on what we can do about it. But the basic feeling is there anyway, and approaches of socialism and anarchism present us one powerful way to learn more about it, and to focus our efforts on positive change. And that is why young people keep coming back to those approaches.
Evade that issue all you like - but it will not go away, until we radically change the economic system to something better. We dont have to call that better system socialism or anarchism, we can call it whatever we like…but it will certainly not be capitalism.
Also the study notes that Labour voters have a higher level of education that people who vote Conservative. Which means, presumably, they may know more about history than the average conservative voter, no? That will no doubt be explained away by saying they are 'arrogant' and its just 'book learning'. Make up your mind right wingers! Which is it? Do people who disagree with you have too little education or too much? And isn't it right wingers who are closing sociology and history departments and decreasing funding of humanities and socials sciences? If young people lack knowledge of history and society and politics, is that not YOUR fault?
But, in any case, the whole false view may not be as comforting an 'explanation' as right wingers think. Because if people keep coming back to socialism - despite all the troubles and failures throughout history - then it means there may be something inherently interesting and useful about it, no? If not, why would it keep coming back? After all those young people are not turning to 'flat earth' explanations, or voting in human sacrifice favouring pagans, or voodoo priestesses, or candidates from the monster raving loony party. They are not supporting ANY old wacky ideas from the past. The support is overwhelmingly focused around socialism, anarchism and environmentalism (often some mix of the 3).
So...the REAL basic reason people keep coming back to socialism and anarchism, even after 200 years of trouble, is that they usefully address a fundamental issue which is still with us: that capitalism is not a good enough system and we need a better one.
That feeling is reinforced in 1000s of millions of people everyday, by their bad situation in the reality of capitalism’s factories and shops and offices, which leaves them thinking at the end of each tiring, soul destroying day: ‘There must be something better than this.’
That feeling, that tendency, may be ill formed and vague. Most of us may lack the knowledge to understand it fully, and not have a clear focus on what we can do about it. But the basic feeling is there anyway, and approaches of socialism and anarchism present us one powerful way to learn more about it, and to focus our efforts on positive change. And that is why young people keep coming back to those approaches.
Evade that issue all you like - but it will not go away, until we radically change the economic system to something better. We dont have to call that better system socialism or anarchism, we can call it whatever we like…but it will certainly not be capitalism.