Of conceptual confusion and 'ism'-flight

I was quite startled when I opened the Facebook feed the day before yesterday.

„Socialism is not the answer,“ says Helgi Hrafn Gunnarsson, MP for the Pirates, „neither to COVID, climate change, nor poverty.“

Albert Svan, his party colleague, agrees:

„Agreed, as 'isms' are too value-laden and black-and-white nowadays. Nevertheless, it should be a guideline that most basic pillars work best if they are run on the premises of the society they are meant to serve, rather than profit motives. There is no 'ism' in common sense.“

There I mostly agree with Albert. But Helgi Hrafn is talking nonsense.

I have never considered him a shallow thinker, and therefore I must admit that his simplistic statement struck me a little. I got an uncomfortable flashback to my youth within the walls of a religious institution at the phrasing: „Socialism is not the answer.“ I can hardly count how many things were „not the answer“ at Sunday gatherings in church; alcohol, drugs, devil rock, sex before marriage, a humanistic worldview, the theory of evolution, and so on. But what was the answer then? Well, Jesus of course. We sang André Crouch's song about it. Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life.

Socialists do not view socialism as the way, the truth, and the life. Those who believe that socialists are a religious sect that sings hymns weekly with a Marx-effigy on a red altar have created an amusing fantasy for themselves, but it is as consistent with the truth as the story that the British royal family consists of lizard people.

Socialism is not a religious belief but a principle. To be a socialist is to take a stand with the propertyless and subscribe to the simple position that everyone in society should be able to contribute what they can and reap what they need. The implementation ideas are then almost as varied as there are socialists, but of course they agree on certain things; e.g., that basic services such as healthcare, education, and energy utilities should not be in private hands and not run for profit.

Albert Svan is, according to this definition, a socialist.

And it is of course true for him that there is no „ism“ in common sense (as far as spelling is concerned) but the aforementioned principle of socialism is based on the sound and socio-scientifically considered conclusion that phenomena such as inequality and power imbalance due to wealth concentration are not only unjust but also make societies directly more unstable and violent. The assumption that everyone has a right to a decent life without having to prove their human worth to a soulless market system is actually a much more moderate idea than the opposite; that exchange value is the measure of all things.

One of my heroes in the field of humorous writing and performances put forth the fallacy about socialism as a religion without any single justification in the Twitterverse and I literally had to read the post over four times before I could fully comprehend it:

„what socialism and religion have in common:

Rely on writings that are both outdated and full of contradictions, and become a matter of interpretation

constantly give rise to "purist groups"

communists and social democrats are like the Catholic Church and Lutheranism“

This is indeed a very funny tweet but what kind of socialism is Jón Gnarr talking about?

I am more accustomed to seeing such arguments from opponents of feminism who take one or two extreme manifestations of the ideology and generalize from them. „Feminists are bitter man-haters.“ That statement may well apply to some who call themselves feminists, but bitterness and man-hating are not what feminism is about. Similarly, there have undeniably been branches of socialism that have grown in the wrong directions – Stalinism is a good example of a religion where a human man is worshipped – but anyone who looks at the fate of the Soviet Union and concludes from it that inequality is perfectly fine has a few loose wires in their head.

Yes, and what about capitalism? Market-oriented individuals have succeeded over the years in presenting their ideas as a kind of natural science, but neoliberalism is simply the approach of paving the way for property owners with tax cuts, deregulation, and other favors in the belief (yes: belief!) that it will lead to general prosperity. The fact that this has never worked has not dampened the religious fervor of the disciples.

All improvements in living standards that wage earners have received are the product of their struggle against the encroachment of capital. The market can create economic growth, but only labor struggle can create equality. That is why the neoliberal wave of the last four decades has led to enormous profits for the propertied class and stagnation in the living standards of wage earners. This is not a religious belief but the result of numerous studies. One must therefore conclude that the trickle-down theory of the right-wing is as credible as Joseph Smith's golden plates, but in Helgi Hrafn's mind, it is not capitalism that is ill-conceived, but the opposition to it.

He says: „It is a primitive and oversimplified approach to politics to intend to govern society according to one specific 'ism'. Good societal models are a cocktail from various directions, including socialism, capitalism, and others.“

I conclude from this addition that Helgi at least acknowledges the simple truth that capitalism is not a law of nature but an ideology, and that is good. But it's also not as if his idea of a mixed economy is something that shocks socialists. It seems to me that Helgi does not base his idea of the general socialist on anyone I know. Marx himself never spoke of everything being run by society according to a single methodology, and it is mostly the aforementioned Stalinists (a species that largely died out among socialists between 1956 and 1991) who want everything to be state-run. A socialist is, in Helgi Hrafn's mind, not Jeremy Corbyn or Sanna Magdalena but Marteinn Mosdal.

Here it seems to me that my brothers in the fight against corruption, Albert, Jón, and Helgi, have lost their compass and gotten lost in the thicket of concepts. Albert is more correct than the other two, but his hair-splitting regarding 'isms' is neither helpful nor well-considered. I wrote about this 'ism'-flight almost three years ago and stand by the arguments I put forward in that article. The following quotes are well applicable here:

„Everyone has a perspective. Therefore, it is at best pretentious self-praise and at worst dishonest intellectual laziness to declare that one adheres to no -ism or is no -ist.“

„To call oneself an -ist is to declare an informed position. The thing is, one first needs to inform oneself, and that's a hassle. One just has to decide whether it's more of a hassle to read things with an open mind or to accept injustice.“

Before one pompously asserts that socialism is not the answer to modern crises, it is advisable to read up a bit on what it is and what it is not. After that reading, Jón, Albert, and Helgi and I will most likely find that we were in agreement all along.