"we can see that there are no organised groups capable of taking on western governments, no matter how weak those governments might be."
except there are, its Corporations. And they already have control of all the relevant power structures in the West, and soon hope to Globally. There's a reason the rioters acted like consumers instead of citizens looking for Justice, because a Consumer is what a Citizen used to be in the West, as consumerism has replaced any other ideology, by decades of careful manipulation by powerful private interests. The Billionaires are your new unelected Kings, ruling their private de-facto Kingdoms, its a new Crypto-Feudalist Age.
Different issue. Corporations can influence governments but not replace them. And governments can close down corporations; No-one is going to die forGoldman Sachs.
Really? Corporations cannot replace governments? What have I been watching then? Uber and Skip the Dishes and and Air B&B are not rewriting labour and zoning laws? Big banks and social media companies and Apple and Amazon, et al are not shrugging off multi-billion-dollar "fines" as licensing fees, the cost of doing business, something far less expensive than paying actual taxes?
I enjoyed the essay, but am tired of neoliberalism being referred to as the left or part of the left, tired of Asian Americans, wealthy or not, being denied spots at Harvard to accommodate African Americans, even if their last name is Obama, and when the SCOTUS upsets this apple cart, the PMC bemoaning the racism behind it. I'm tired of the very existence of a working class being denied, of hearing liberals blathering on about "Good Middle Class Jobs" and jabbering about those "aspiring to" said MCJ's". If you want to elevate the existences of black people, indigenous people and whatever "racialized" people are supposed to be, plus poor, working class white people, and give them all a shot at attending Harvard (perhaps a dubious ambition?), use a means test. Until we shake everything out with a class struggle (a class war?) of course people will loot and destroy, of course they will not have a clue who the enemy is, and who their comrades are.
Corporations can replace one instance of a government with a preferred one (e.g. by destabilizing the current one and trying to replace them with politicians they prefer) but a corporation cannot replace government, as in abolish it. Corporations actually need a government.
Nope, its the same issue, you are simply blinded by the deliberate surface level presentation of the whole picture, which by now has reached near transparency. And people HAVE died and are dying for Goldman Sachs, heck, people have died for a Banana company, and that was even decades ago, when Citizens still had some say in issues. Things have only deteriorated since
But that's the status quo and has been since mercantile imperialism came to dominate the European economies. Money can be exchanged into power and visa versa. Organizations that command a lot of capital have more power than you or me.
And it's the status quo that leftist (and in the US Populist) politics in the past challenged and I think what our host is saying today exists in no well organized form. I completely agree.
What's missing here is any discussion of the evidence that this disorganization of any organized challenge to the domination of politics by capital is itself the result of something very well organized and deeply undemocratic.
Thanks Aurelien, an excellent analysis. On one point I disagree, and from the whole of the article I believe you don't really consider that “they smash things for the fun of it”. This violence is no more just out of boredom, the hate is cathartic now.
I feel "they smash things for the fun of it" seems to contradict "hate is cathartic now".
Violence being cathartic suggests there's an underlying problem, a reason for the violence, something that can be addressed.
Violence 'for the fun of it' seems to suggest the lack of rhyme or reason to any of it and thus prevent anything from being done about it aside from forcefully 'stopping the fun being had'.
It also seems to suggest a radical otherness, as in: there are those who do these things, who are irrational, fundamentally deranged, and those who don't, who are rational and reasonable. That otherness then seems naturalised (i.e. independent of context, instead defined by a fundamentally corrupt psychology or culture) and then imply the legitimation of a different treatment as well as disappear the reasons why some people might start to act in this way.
I understand any response will necessarily involve both approaches (force as well as addressing underlying causes), I just think it worthwhile separating analytically.
When I was a teenager pre 87 I found myself caught up in a spontaneous riot that erupted during a concert in the middle of a major city, one moment the crowd went from intoxicated young people listening to music, to a window smashing and looting rampage in the centre of the city. The catalyst was over policing but the anger was all about haves and have nots, alienation from a culture that openly worshipped the excesses ofthe greed is good ethos, the deregulation and heartless politics of the day.There is no thinking involved in rioting, it's intoxicating, raw and illogical. As you mention its a response to how people feel about their lives and future, the destruction of property is on one level sending a message "if we cant have a share of the good life then we are going to break it" but the difference in France is the protracted nature of it, its only spontaneous once.
But through the first intoxicating spontaneous experience of rebellious public violence and destruction you may learn that you enjoy it. And then you have the choice to seek it out again. And if you do you may furnish the choice with some political stories that maybe you believe, more or less.
The Wikipedia page about Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence quotes a well chosen paragraph where Buford suggests it is a generational anti-social kick. I can buy that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Thugs
Let's not confuse protests and riots. Political protest are extremely boring and often involve lots of speeches almost nobody wants to quietly stand there and listen to. A protest can at best hope to impress by enormous size and persistence (hard to muster) or disrupting normal communications. Protests make for dismal TV and have little impact on politics unless they are huge, in which case they can work (e.g. the Canadian truckers seem to have ended Covid pandemic).
Riots are quite a different thing. Rioters seek trouble and loot. Every population has its share of potential rioters. Bill Buford's "Among the Thugs" is worth a read to understand the psychology. I grew up in Glasgow in the 70s and know the type well: frightening. But they are basically opportunistic, much more interested in fighting than policy and government. Rioters are often attracted to big protests for the obvious reasons.
Riots tend to break out at big protests, unless the protesters are especially well prepared to prevent it. Often riots are arranged (by whom? we never really find out) at protests to stymie the protesters' political goals. I did not take part in the mass protests in the USA at the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. But watched and I well remember thinking that the cops will love it. They love to start a fight and how can they fail? Then these boring protests will turn into fire and riots and the TV will love it. In a few days the script will be all about the violence and destruction and the cops will get even bigger budgets, even better benefits and even more support from politicians.
So I don't think we get far trying to read the meanings of political protest by examining riots. I don't see why we would expect to find it there.
Absolutely agree. I grew up somewhat remote from, but aware of, the culture of violence in Glasgow in the 70s. Knew a few folks who would happily take part in "riotous behavior". I also blame the media for inciting and encouraging these folks. They weave among the rioters with their press badges and riot gear and cameras.... almost egging on the rioters to commit some "acts".
Interesting that no mention of 1/6. In spite of all the PMC mewling about "existential threat to Muh Democracy ZOMG!" it's not as 1/6 could have prevented Biden from becoming president because the magic ceremony wasn't performed properly and the haruspex detected Bad Juju.
Anyway, one of the beauties of an AK-47 is that just about any foolio can operate one well enough to kill people. But the French PMC doesn't care if a few cops get killed, as long as their sinecures are not affected.
What I suspect we will see is a fusion between Macron and the Far Right. The French, European and American PMC are all fine with this, as long as and to the extent that the resulting bouillabaisse does not question France's Atlanticist orientation in general, or the war on Ukraine in particular.
I did make a very brief reference to the 6th of January, but I tend to stay away from directly commenting on internal US politics. As a non-USian I'm not sure I really know enough to say something useful. But don't let that stop others ....
Hi Aurelien. Thanks for your writing. It is appreciated.
I'd love to better understand your take on LFI and Melenchon, you are one of the increasing number of people whose take I respect who seems very critical but I don't quite understand why.
I went back to your article on 'more victories for the left please', to see if I had missed anything but, even though I am mostly on board with what you write there, I haven't really found anything to answer my 'confusion' about some of your statements above.
In the above article LFI is seemingly depicted as part of the notional Left close to the PMC which you wish to distance your views/argument from? I have a few objections.
LFI and Melenchon are largely the red target at the moment whether it be from the Macronistes, LR or RN. They are called, 'Islamo-gauchiste', 'intellectual terrorists', 'La France Incendiaire', etc. so quite clearly they are not the easy to handle 'notional left' of Hollande or Cazeneuve (and the rift there is quite obvious).
I agree that many socialists have tended to think this was the revolutionary moment (you allude to 68), and that does seem quite misguided given the raw chaotic nature of the latest riots, nevertheless the diagnostic you produce is quite similar to that put by LFI: neoliberal impunity has a cost, that eventually blows up in your face if not addressed. Calling for calm (as the PMC constantly does and as LFI is said to insufficiently do) is largely performative and proof of our impotence. Clearly the mainstream media and the political centre seems to be taken by this moral stance as if it had substance. LFI's position is that this posturing is empty, what is needed is an analysis, followed by a program, budgets, policies.
You say there needs to be an ideology, a narrative, etc. Melenchon is one of the only politicians I can think of who actually publishes his thoughts on theory, strategy and pragmatic program. He has been doing this for years, we can in fact agree and disagree with him on specific points, he is far from elusive or vague in comparison to most.
Given that the two main parties scored so dramatically low at the last presidential election, I also find it quite surprising to state that LFI is 'insignificant' or more or it being dismissed in the way it seems to be above.
Further, with the NUPES and the pensions protests (e.g. the intersyndicale), and despite the internal tensions, it also seems to me that LFI has actually done relatively well at focusing on the pragmatics, forming alliances, putting pressure on the government in the assembly but also in the economy with inciting the right to strike, etc. I understand that all of this has still been too little to move the needle, however I don't quite see how it could have been done that much better (more grève reconductible perhaps? as mentioned in the article, it is quite likely that more violence would play against the left politically as well as against its own agenda).
Most of the coverage of the riots after Nahel's death has focused on immigration. Call me a die hard leftist, but I find that quite unsettling. And this is not because I am against talking about immigration but because only weeks ago, Darmanin's police were beating up environmentalists and pension-scheme protesters, I see little reason to consider these events as radically different. They are clearly all manifestations of the impunity with which the PMC runs the show. The indiscriminate destruction is only telling of how much more disenfranchised these populations are in the 'cités'. I think it a fairly well established anthropological insight that alienated people who have nothing to lose and no stakes in society can do things that to anyone who is in the fold looks completely irrational and counter productive.
The point here, from the left (at least of the scientific socialist variant), is that moral judgement is hollow. Norms are important for sure, however we need to acknowledge what is happening empirically, de facto, and understanding why it is happening, rather than simply state 'it shouldn't happen'.
While I agree that the violence will play right into LR and RN's hand, and that indeed some of the left's 'revolutionary fantasy' was somewhat laughable, I also think the left's agenda is harder to bring about by nature. It doesn't play on scapegoats and fears, it is about long term planning of improving material conditions, it's a hard 'sell' and I don't think there are any easy for the left to win politically without corrupting its own aspirations for solidarity (and the internal debate of means and ends has been raging since the inception of 'the left'). Indeed, unlike ISIS which you take as an example, you can't in fact bring about 'inclusive society' by shooting anyone who disagrees. So what remains available? Numbers (and so: how to make the political aspiration stick?).
And finally, the reason why the left does not bring about immigration, is not in my view mostly out of 'moral superiority' (although it is that too), it makes perfect political sense not to. Immigration as a subject has a frame and basic assumptions most people go into the discussion with, and that frame has largely been defined by the hard right. Therefore, when the left engages on those grounds, it engages at a serious disadvantage from the outset, it needs to talk way too much (to establish another frame) before it can even begin to make a point. Just as we all engages at a serious disadvantage from the outset when talking economics given how established the neoliberal mindset has been internalised.
In any case, sorry about the long comment, I'd love to hear from you or anyone else here who can tell me why, if committed to leftist aspirations (as defined in your article on victories for the left), LFI is not fulfilling its role adequately.
*I couldn't agree more with the Anglo-Saxon's take on this or the pensions protests. Truly atrocious. It makes me quite mindful of reading international takes these days.
I think the answer to your question simply lies in your conclusion.
On the contrary, during decades, immigration frame was never defined by the "hard" Right (despite all their efforts to do so) but always by (a large part of) of what become of the Left. Whoever tried to object was immediately labelled racist or worse. And politically ostracized.
But, under pressure from the hard reality, things are now changing.
And this Left has a lot of issues trying to adapt, leaving more and more people who usually support it disagree with its views on the matter.
When I read it, I feel that what you are saying (but correct me if I am wrong) is that the people amongst the left who have been advocating for restricting immigration have been ostracized (by the left). Is that right?
But that is the thing, when I read Aurelien's article above, it is quite clear that the problem cannot be reduced to, nor is it primarily of (current), immigration policy (let alone lefty immigration policy). And this is exactly why I think it's a decent article even though I am still confused about what Aurelien would like the left to do now.
In typical lefty style, my grid of analysis tends towards a holistic and systemic one. That is, I will mostly see immigration as a symptom for which I will want to identify and address the causes instead of simply raise a baton or a security fence which I tend to see as morally reprehensible but also simply analytically misguided (at least long term).
When talking of immigration, I will want to ask why people are immigrating and what can be done about this (if it is seen as a problem at all, some immigration is clearly not seen as a problem but rather as an asset but that's another topic). Are they refugees, victim of political violence at home, are they climate refugees, are they joining family, are they economic migrants, etc?
You could easily argue from a lefty perspective for example that the disenfranchised populations involved in the recent riots wouldn't even have been in France in the first place if capital hadn't needed cheap labour during the heavy industry era in Europe (but then you'd still have no explanation for the Gilets Jaunes, pension-scheme protests, environmentalist protests, which is exactly why RN remained incredibly silent on those types of protests and violence).
In the case at hand, it is simply empirically true that the recent riots have next to nothing to do with recent immigration (say Syrians for example) but instead to do with the disenfranchisement of a large section of the French population (due to de-industrialisation, poor town planning, gutting of public services, etc.). It is also simply empirically true the political situation in France is incredibly volatile, independently of its immigration policies: quid of the Gilets Jaunes, the pensio-schemes protest, the environmental protests?
So what I see when we let the recent riots being reduced to an immigration problem is a conflation of much larger issues onto the clearly marked identitarian hard right trope with clear political gains and losses attached (I agree with Aurelien, that the recent riots will definitely play in the hands of LR and RN).
Yet still, I struggle to see how a change in immigration policy would address the political instability in France (and in the West) at large. All I see is emotionally charged and electorally salient knee-jerk reactionary response that is bound to constantly escalate the rhetoric and inhumane policies with no end in sight (fundamentally altering what France and the West seem to understand themselves to be in the process).
For a concrete example, in terms of diagnostic, LFI will tend to want to underline that today's riots have barely anything to do with recent immigration, and that previous rounds of immigration are not in fact much of the left's doing (but rather that of capital needing cheap labour or imperialism or colonisation, etc).
And in terms of prescriptions, it will tend to argue that moral condemnation, quasi de facto making a part of the French population Other, is in fact the empty posturing that in fact solves nothing and is only an identitarian electoral ploy rather than an actual solution to anything. Aside from the fact that, as Aurelien shows in the above article, escalating security measures as a response is in fact delusional and not logistically doable (at least as sole measure) LFI and others on the left will instead want to argue, that 'condemning violence' is a given, but what actually really matters is our commitments to address the underlying causes of violence (i.e. economic and political disenfranchisement of large sections of the population). And this requires thought, programs, budgets and long-term commitments and planning, rather than the empty moral posturing and the short-termist managerialism that Aurelien so despises. None of those things gel with either the identitarian right (who wants to exclude not include) or the liberal right (who doesn't want state planning or public expenditures).
To go back to your observation that those concerned with immigration on the left have been ostracised, I have a couple of observations to make. First, I think the left is quite comfortable talking about immigration in scientific terms (i.e. here is a social phenomenon, what kinds of immigrations are there? why do they exist? how do they work? how would we like them to work instead?), but it is reluctant to engage on the reactionary identitarian level (i.e. immigrants are bad, we should keep them out). Maybe it is true this makes for bad short-term political strategy, but in my opinion there are rather good moral and analytical reasons to stake out this position.
And two it is also probably true that, regardless of the subject, the left will tend to want to frame things systemically, and thus refuse to frame any issue in isolation (in either space or time), the left framework intrinsically means that most issues are symptoms that have causes which problematised rather than rationalised. Consequently it will tend to 'push out' of its ranks those who wish to go down this political strategy path. This is obviously super blunt, clearly all lefty movements and parties live in the actual world and know, as Aurelien suggests they should, that sometimes strategy comes ahead of greater commitments.
And as we know from the history of the left as whole the tensions barely ever have to do with ultimate goals, and rather with strategy and priorities.
But who said it is only possible to effectively act on the distant causes ? So it might be that it's only possible to act on the local consequences.
The first responsibility of political leaders should be to protect their own population. And only after that, taking care of populations from other countries. In this order.
So what we've seen recently is not the consequences the last immigration wave. It's a result of 50 years of mass immigration policy in a country in economic and demographic contraction (or at least stagnation) and deep cultural doubt.
It was and still is a kind of tacite agreement between the economic elite (the PMC who control the media) to keep pressure on real wages (and keep the best part of the remaining wealth for themself) and this Left, under claims of moral superiority, to get new voters (as the popular classes tended more and more to look elsewhere).
All the people who advocated to keep immigration under control have been ostracized. But among the Left, some people knew full well what it means. After all, Marx himself wrote about how mass immigration played against the working class interests*.
Until it breaks. Hence the popular GJ revolt and recent immigration riots. And the bigger and bigger cultural divide among the general population.
Of course, changing policies will not sort out the problem overnight. This is now a cultural and demographic one. But it can definitely avoid the situation getting even worse. And then, past the emergency, it might be possible to think again about programs, budgets and long-term commitments...
* it's very well documented in the US. As in Peter Turchin's last book for exemple.
I fully agree with the inescapable tension between theory and practice, long term and short term goals, etc. All political actors have to face this. It’s just unavoidable and pretty well described by Aurélien in his article on victories for the left.
I guess where I differ is that in my view it is the left wanting to engage on immigration on more similar lines to what the right is doing (nationalist, cultural lines rather than as one of many social phenomenons say) that has been closer to the electoral strategy approach, as opposed to what you seem to state?
The pro-global solidarity left knows very well it isn’t electorally popular (the basic fact is that they are elected by French people not foreigners), it merely thinks it has a moral and analytical duty to keep immigration being dealt with as any other social phenomenon should: systemically (but yes also more localised fixes should also take place provided they are humane, etc).
It’s worthwhile noting this is not exclusive to immigration question either.
You could also argue that bringing about actual leftist policy will create a backlash from capital which ‘will create objectively difficult conditions for voting workers’, and so, as the ‘notional’ left argues, we should actually agree to basic neoliberal policy from the outset.
The thing is that with this shift, the notional left isn’t just saying the radical left is wrong in terms of strategy, it is in fact necessarily also saying the radical left is wrong for wanting what it wants.
Whereas from the radical left perspective, the wrong is reversed: the notional left is not just wrong for strategy reasons, it is wrong because it is no longer left.
If that makes sense.
I got a piece on Singer’s utilitarianism that goes over these some of tensions.
Yes indeed. On the other hand we may also face another paradox that could be cause for optimism: it may be that as conditions become more difficult, the way out and willingness to cooperate become clearer and easier.
I usually get something like that when I go hiking or things like that: it is objectively/physically harder, but there is a clear psychological relief, I know exactly what needs doing.
There’s something along those lines in Aurélien’s article on the formation of the public service as vocation in England (it was adversity that necessitated it and therefore produced it). Perhaps the West’s ethics, politics, and now economics has ‘suffered’ from lacking adversity. As we can all clearly sense these days, that time is coming to an end.
Of course, on such a complicated subject, there will be arguments both ways.
But that doesn't change my point of view: importing low-cost labor has always been a way of putting pressure on wages, from the Roman Republic to now-days Europe through XIXth century England or USA.
Especially as many of the arguments here are actually fairly biased: of course, importing a new population induces a change in quality. At least in cohesive quality. It's not so much a problem of skin color, as is fallaciously claimed here to equate those who would think otherwise with racists, as of cultural differences.
And the problem isn't whether one culture is inferior to another, it's the difficulty - potentially exacerbated to breaking point when economic conditions deteriorate - of making them cohabit on the same territory.
In other words, the world workers' union is an old socialist utopia. Especially when the same ones claims that people have the full right to keep their own culture wherever they happen to settle and manage to convince them that whoever asking them to do otherwise is a racist, a colonialist and a criminal.
This is just the making for an Lebanese or balkan-style explosive situation....
Clearly the philosophy of nihilism as expressed in writing and action going back to the 19th century doesn’t really describe what we’re seeing now. In the US it’s become fashionable to talk about deaths of desperation. We’re categorizing thinks like opioid overdose this way. Desperation is a pleasant, PMC way to say poverty.
I think that as western states fail, and almost all of them are failing, events like the French riots will become more common. They won’t have any underlying meaning of goal, just people who are feeling the failing of states first lashing out. The poor in developed states already know what life in a failed state feels like in many ways. Though it will get worse for them and it will get worse for them first.
Living in Russia in the 90’s leads me to caution people who discuss civil war, insurrection and the like when contemplating a failed western state. It almost certainly won’t look like that. A better picture can be formed by visiting the poorest section of the nearest city.
Civil war in Bosnia&Hercegovina started when an Islamic leader of a minority reneged on his signature on a deal (after he was visited by the USA ambassador). The other ethnic groups said what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I agree with you that there is no ideology, no leaders and no concerted plan. There were no group of people meeting together at some point, right before the riots or earlier, to decide to send young people fight the police and burn down buildings.
But that doesn't mean there is no goal. The goal is a secessionist and feudalist one.
It is to send a message : "Don't interfere with whatever happens in our neighborhoods and let our own do whatever they want. If you don't comply, you better be ready for some razzias in your own neighborhoods." Because that's exactly what it was, razzias. Burning and looting. Making as much damage as possible.
And you can be sure that the government received the message full well. They will do exactly what they are asked to do : nothing.
Not because there is nothing to do. Just because doing something would show how much they were wrong so far and because, all in all, on the short term, it is much easier to do nothing.
As they rather see public buildings going up in flame and shop looted to the ground than take the political risk to hurt one of these rioting little angels, they will withdraw, drop some more buckets of borrowed cash and just hope that drug dealers and religious guys can keep the peace. Until next time. Until they ask for more...
In most historical accounts, the peasants rising up in the provinces and the hungry mob in Paris didn't really have a clear political agenda in 1789 either: they certainly didn't like the taxes/rents/etc owed to the landowners (for the former) and the steeply rising prices of bread (caused in part by "market" reforms introduced by the physiocratic ministers in the government.), but, beyond that, not much of a program, and once the riots actually became violent, there was even less of a program. When I first began reading about the French Revolution in detail, I found myself being confused by the apparent lack of linkage between the demands of the Estates General, or, a little bit later, the National Assembly, and the peasants/urban rioters, especially since, not too long later, the same peasants were marching against the Revolution and calling for the return of the old ways (the Vendee and all). I think it's a mistake to take the riots for the revolution. Riots open the way for a possible revolution, but they are not the same. The revolution will be attempted, if it does happen, by the members of the elite in an attempt to seize power through some unscrupulous means, using the social disorder as the excuse, but they won't be able to consolidate until and unless they can restore the social order somehow, at least long enough for things to return to some sort of "normal." The French state, one way or another, will have to put a stop to the rioting. Who exactly will be running the French state, how they will attempt it, and whether it will "work," whatever that means, though, is difficult to tell now.
Yes, this is no revolution. Some people at the far left dream that this could be the beginning of the revolution they are waiting for and blow on the embers.
But this is not the case. It's not about hunger or tax, rents or whatever. It is not really a political issue.
It's much more a matter of tribes and territories.
As for political repercussions, while reading your article, I happened to also keep on eye on TV. According to a CSA poll, almost half of those identifying themselves as close to LFI and EEVL agree with stripping young rioters of their French nationality (70% for PS!).
Just 10 years back, Hollande was prevented to do it by its left wing for no less than islamist terrorists !
Yes, I remember that. Sarkozy had similar ideas fifteen years ago for certain crimes (killing a policeman, I think was one.) But these are fascinating figures and show how fast opinion is moving. Thanks.
I think it's potentially important to recognize that the "rioters" and "revolutionaries" usually are not the same people. In 1789, the French Revolution was preceded by food riots in Paris and peasants' riots in countryside, the burning of manor houses with the land tenancy paperwork etc and, in 1917, the sailors' mutinies were a big part of the early stages of the October Revolution. (My understanding is that much the same thing was true in Iran in 1979 and for that matter, the Arab Spring more recently.) Did these people have grievances? Yes, obviously. Were they necessarily articulate in their understanding of where the roots of their grievances lay or some kind of plan to address them? No, of course not. But were there people who were able to articulate some plan for a "revolution" (which, in practice, had very little to do with the peasants' or sailors' grievances) that just needed an opportunity (of the state being in crisis? Yes. The demands by the National Assembly, as these people styled themselves, of the French state had nothing to do with the peasants, but only the ideals of the "revolutionaries" who merely took the opportunity. Soon enough, the "revolutionaries," now in charge in Paris, were themselves crushing the peasants (the Vendee etc) who became a nuisance to their own rule. (Much the way Bolsheviks crushed the sailors when they rose up against the new power.)
In this sense, I think I'm in agreement with you in that trying to address the rioters at an abstract "what do they really want?" dimension is both untenable and undesirable. The first response by a serious state has to be to reimpose "order," just putting the social disruption to an end if it wants to preserve itself (and is capable of doing so). The paradox of the strange "Liberalism/Democracy" of today, though, is that the state lacks the ability to do so unless they make concessions to the "would-be-revolutionaries" on largely orthogonal dimensions: Liberal reforms of various kinds (that had nothing to do with peasants and probably would have raised bread prices in Paris if implemented in full) in 1789, various "social liberal" ideas (about diversity etc) today, or, perhaps, if things went in the other direction, various "libertarian" ideas mixed with "anti-social liberal" ideas--no one says only leftists are opportunistic power seekers). The thing is that the would-be-revolutionaries (like the French aristocrats) already have a seat at the tables of power. Their concession is needed for the state to act. The peasants (and the rioters today) are not. Political pluralism (if only limited to elites detached from the masses--but, really, because masses invariably can't articulate.) coupled with a weakened state apparatus are a dangerous combination. (and seems common in both pre-revolutionary state and early revolutionary stages.)
PS. One addendum to my comment is that, if a "revolution" survives, the power will invariably flow to the ruthless "problem solvers" who may or may not have intellectual attachment to the "ideals" of the revolution, but who are certainly capable of mobilizing the resources of the state to "rebuild" its power to restore and maintain order: a Napoleon, a Lenin/Trotsky combination, or, in a somewhat less violent fashion, the American "Constitutionalists"--in some sense, this was the ultimate wisdom of Alexis de Tocqueville in his reflections on the French Revolution. But since power flows out, even if indirectly, out of the sentiments of the masses, it does require that these new state builders have to have a certain sense of what appeals to the broad masses of people (usually, a guarantee of some sort of security and stability, both physical and "economic.").
The catch is that states, if properly functional (especially if they are "democratic"), should have been able to address these before the situations comes to boil. The power of a "democracy" does not come from some lofty ideals or verbose intellectual sophistry, but in ensuring that the state is sufficiently responsive to the masses, however this happens, so that you do not easily reach the point of a social crisis where public order is sufficiently threatened to destabilize the regime (edit: To that end, the state would need both some means of incorporating the sentiment of masses into its substantive policymaking process and legitimacy to employ sufficient power to implement them. The details of actual mechanisms of how this comes about do not really matter much beyond achieving the necessary measures of representativeness and legitimacy. Of course, that these are amorphous and undefinable concepts, likely dependent on time, place, and circumstances, means that there cannot be one universal formula that neatly captures them and provides easy to follow guidance for would be state builders.... "Elections" are how these are incorporated, but that's only a small step and, often, getting hung up on the technical details subvert the broad legitimacy of the process which, necessarily, has a quasi-religious flavor.). This clearly has not been the case, obviously--with the idea of "democracy" being subverted by the varied and vacuous intellectual sophistry and institutional manipulation in its service so that its ultimate role, of creating and maintaining a state that can insure itself against mass public disorder, is hollowed out. This doesn't mean, of course, that the end state of the revolutionary regime, even if a state of certain stability is reached, will necessarily be any more "democratic." It can easily mean that the state of revolution, even if in a "simmering" form, may continue on for a long time: the revolutionary state in France, after all, did not end in 1815: it continued, in one form or another, until 1871, then resumed after World War I and hasn't actually ended to this day, for example.
I wish we could ditch terms like Left and Right. Nothing we see today bears any resemblance to those terms. If anything, the polarity has reversed and it introduces more confusion than clarity. We need terms that indicate political philosophies favoring individual liberty versus Statism. Right now we see virtually every Western government in the Statist/global camp. Individual liberty be damned.
Hmm...there's one ideology that could provide people both the metaphysical answers that modern Liberalism can't, and a prefabricated political program to work towards, that I don't think you're conidering: Islamism. Musing over this article, I wouldn't be surprised if, over the next few years, we start to see a decentralized, but highly articulated and violent, Islamist ideology spread throughout Europe. Its nucleus will be in poor immigrant ghettos, but it will be just as much a protest against the traditional elites of those ghettos (caids, prominent families, establishment religious leaders) as it is against the government, and due to the European establishment's increasing inability to provide people with a meaningful life narrative, this Islamist ideology will quickly spread outside its immigrant strongholds and gain a not-insignificant amount of European converts (in particular, I think the BLM/"anticolonialist" subculture that's formed in western Europe will, for many of its members, prove to be a gateway drug to the new Islamism). However, as the new Islamism gains strength, the prospect of an Islamized Europe will prove repulsive to a large number of people as well, which will lead to the formation (or cohesion-it already exists in embryonic form) of a virrulently anti-Islamic right-wing subculture. Both of these groups will take over the functions of government-organized violence, of course, but also the policing of their members and the provision of welfare and jobs. Both will grow in strength as the ability of the "official" government to do anything declines. But ultimately, both will not be able to coexist in the same society...and well, this won't lead to a very good end, at all.
I think the Greek and Roman democracies came down because a rich class of citizens became the de facto government. The Oligarchs established an Oligarchy. In today's world it will come complete with democratic elections between nominees selected by the Oligarchs. There might even be some Oligarch Senators elected because everyone knows them and finds them agreeable. The collapse comes from the same place, greed and avarice. Oligarchs cannot stop accumulating assets. No matter how much they own. At that point there will be 'some fighting involved.'
Sorry, but the organized structures to conduct an insurrection do already exist or are in the process of being formed. It's the coagulation of crime gangs, fundamentalist networks and religious institutions working together in a myriad of ways and financed not only by the drug trade and mandatory contributions by ghetto inhabitants but also from abroad. Besides this economic, ideological and ethnic coherence, ghettos also provide geographical bases to operate from.
"we can see that there are no organised groups capable of taking on western governments, no matter how weak those governments might be."
except there are, its Corporations. And they already have control of all the relevant power structures in the West, and soon hope to Globally. There's a reason the rioters acted like consumers instead of citizens looking for Justice, because a Consumer is what a Citizen used to be in the West, as consumerism has replaced any other ideology, by decades of careful manipulation by powerful private interests. The Billionaires are your new unelected Kings, ruling their private de-facto Kingdoms, its a new Crypto-Feudalist Age.
Different issue. Corporations can influence governments but not replace them. And governments can close down corporations; No-one is going to die forGoldman Sachs.
Really? Corporations cannot replace governments? What have I been watching then? Uber and Skip the Dishes and and Air B&B are not rewriting labour and zoning laws? Big banks and social media companies and Apple and Amazon, et al are not shrugging off multi-billion-dollar "fines" as licensing fees, the cost of doing business, something far less expensive than paying actual taxes?
I enjoyed the essay, but am tired of neoliberalism being referred to as the left or part of the left, tired of Asian Americans, wealthy or not, being denied spots at Harvard to accommodate African Americans, even if their last name is Obama, and when the SCOTUS upsets this apple cart, the PMC bemoaning the racism behind it. I'm tired of the very existence of a working class being denied, of hearing liberals blathering on about "Good Middle Class Jobs" and jabbering about those "aspiring to" said MCJ's". If you want to elevate the existences of black people, indigenous people and whatever "racialized" people are supposed to be, plus poor, working class white people, and give them all a shot at attending Harvard (perhaps a dubious ambition?), use a means test. Until we shake everything out with a class struggle (a class war?) of course people will loot and destroy, of course they will not have a clue who the enemy is, and who their comrades are.
Corporations can replace one instance of a government with a preferred one (e.g. by destabilizing the current one and trying to replace them with politicians they prefer) but a corporation cannot replace government, as in abolish it. Corporations actually need a government.
Corporations cannot exist without a government to judge their (fictive) existence. Otherwise you have merely a workshop or a pirate band.
Nope, its the same issue, you are simply blinded by the deliberate surface level presentation of the whole picture, which by now has reached near transparency. And people HAVE died and are dying for Goldman Sachs, heck, people have died for a Banana company, and that was even decades ago, when Citizens still had some say in issues. Things have only deteriorated since
But that's the status quo and has been since mercantile imperialism came to dominate the European economies. Money can be exchanged into power and visa versa. Organizations that command a lot of capital have more power than you or me.
And it's the status quo that leftist (and in the US Populist) politics in the past challenged and I think what our host is saying today exists in no well organized form. I completely agree.
What's missing here is any discussion of the evidence that this disorganization of any organized challenge to the domination of politics by capital is itself the result of something very well organized and deeply undemocratic.
Thanks Aurelien, an excellent analysis. On one point I disagree, and from the whole of the article I believe you don't really consider that “they smash things for the fun of it”. This violence is no more just out of boredom, the hate is cathartic now.
Hey Manuel,
I feel "they smash things for the fun of it" seems to contradict "hate is cathartic now".
Violence being cathartic suggests there's an underlying problem, a reason for the violence, something that can be addressed.
Violence 'for the fun of it' seems to suggest the lack of rhyme or reason to any of it and thus prevent anything from being done about it aside from forcefully 'stopping the fun being had'.
It also seems to suggest a radical otherness, as in: there are those who do these things, who are irrational, fundamentally deranged, and those who don't, who are rational and reasonable. That otherness then seems naturalised (i.e. independent of context, instead defined by a fundamentally corrupt psychology or culture) and then imply the legitimation of a different treatment as well as disappear the reasons why some people might start to act in this way.
I understand any response will necessarily involve both approaches (force as well as addressing underlying causes), I just think it worthwhile separating analytically.
When I was a teenager pre 87 I found myself caught up in a spontaneous riot that erupted during a concert in the middle of a major city, one moment the crowd went from intoxicated young people listening to music, to a window smashing and looting rampage in the centre of the city. The catalyst was over policing but the anger was all about haves and have nots, alienation from a culture that openly worshipped the excesses ofthe greed is good ethos, the deregulation and heartless politics of the day.There is no thinking involved in rioting, it's intoxicating, raw and illogical. As you mention its a response to how people feel about their lives and future, the destruction of property is on one level sending a message "if we cant have a share of the good life then we are going to break it" but the difference in France is the protracted nature of it, its only spontaneous once.
But through the first intoxicating spontaneous experience of rebellious public violence and destruction you may learn that you enjoy it. And then you have the choice to seek it out again. And if you do you may furnish the choice with some political stories that maybe you believe, more or less.
The Wikipedia page about Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence quotes a well chosen paragraph where Buford suggests it is a generational anti-social kick. I can buy that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Among_the_Thugs
Let's not confuse protests and riots. Political protest are extremely boring and often involve lots of speeches almost nobody wants to quietly stand there and listen to. A protest can at best hope to impress by enormous size and persistence (hard to muster) or disrupting normal communications. Protests make for dismal TV and have little impact on politics unless they are huge, in which case they can work (e.g. the Canadian truckers seem to have ended Covid pandemic).
Riots are quite a different thing. Rioters seek trouble and loot. Every population has its share of potential rioters. Bill Buford's "Among the Thugs" is worth a read to understand the psychology. I grew up in Glasgow in the 70s and know the type well: frightening. But they are basically opportunistic, much more interested in fighting than policy and government. Rioters are often attracted to big protests for the obvious reasons.
Riots tend to break out at big protests, unless the protesters are especially well prepared to prevent it. Often riots are arranged (by whom? we never really find out) at protests to stymie the protesters' political goals. I did not take part in the mass protests in the USA at the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. But watched and I well remember thinking that the cops will love it. They love to start a fight and how can they fail? Then these boring protests will turn into fire and riots and the TV will love it. In a few days the script will be all about the violence and destruction and the cops will get even bigger budgets, even better benefits and even more support from politicians.
So I don't think we get far trying to read the meanings of political protest by examining riots. I don't see why we would expect to find it there.
Absolutely agree. I grew up somewhat remote from, but aware of, the culture of violence in Glasgow in the 70s. Knew a few folks who would happily take part in "riotous behavior". I also blame the media for inciting and encouraging these folks. They weave among the rioters with their press badges and riot gear and cameras.... almost egging on the rioters to commit some "acts".
Interesting that no mention of 1/6. In spite of all the PMC mewling about "existential threat to Muh Democracy ZOMG!" it's not as 1/6 could have prevented Biden from becoming president because the magic ceremony wasn't performed properly and the haruspex detected Bad Juju.
Anyway, one of the beauties of an AK-47 is that just about any foolio can operate one well enough to kill people. But the French PMC doesn't care if a few cops get killed, as long as their sinecures are not affected.
What I suspect we will see is a fusion between Macron and the Far Right. The French, European and American PMC are all fine with this, as long as and to the extent that the resulting bouillabaisse does not question France's Atlanticist orientation in general, or the war on Ukraine in particular.
I did make a very brief reference to the 6th of January, but I tend to stay away from directly commenting on internal US politics. As a non-USian I'm not sure I really know enough to say something useful. But don't let that stop others ....
Hi Aurelien. Thanks for your writing. It is appreciated.
I'd love to better understand your take on LFI and Melenchon, you are one of the increasing number of people whose take I respect who seems very critical but I don't quite understand why.
I went back to your article on 'more victories for the left please', to see if I had missed anything but, even though I am mostly on board with what you write there, I haven't really found anything to answer my 'confusion' about some of your statements above.
In the above article LFI is seemingly depicted as part of the notional Left close to the PMC which you wish to distance your views/argument from? I have a few objections.
LFI and Melenchon are largely the red target at the moment whether it be from the Macronistes, LR or RN. They are called, 'Islamo-gauchiste', 'intellectual terrorists', 'La France Incendiaire', etc. so quite clearly they are not the easy to handle 'notional left' of Hollande or Cazeneuve (and the rift there is quite obvious).
I agree that many socialists have tended to think this was the revolutionary moment (you allude to 68), and that does seem quite misguided given the raw chaotic nature of the latest riots, nevertheless the diagnostic you produce is quite similar to that put by LFI: neoliberal impunity has a cost, that eventually blows up in your face if not addressed. Calling for calm (as the PMC constantly does and as LFI is said to insufficiently do) is largely performative and proof of our impotence. Clearly the mainstream media and the political centre seems to be taken by this moral stance as if it had substance. LFI's position is that this posturing is empty, what is needed is an analysis, followed by a program, budgets, policies.
You say there needs to be an ideology, a narrative, etc. Melenchon is one of the only politicians I can think of who actually publishes his thoughts on theory, strategy and pragmatic program. He has been doing this for years, we can in fact agree and disagree with him on specific points, he is far from elusive or vague in comparison to most.
Given that the two main parties scored so dramatically low at the last presidential election, I also find it quite surprising to state that LFI is 'insignificant' or more or it being dismissed in the way it seems to be above.
Further, with the NUPES and the pensions protests (e.g. the intersyndicale), and despite the internal tensions, it also seems to me that LFI has actually done relatively well at focusing on the pragmatics, forming alliances, putting pressure on the government in the assembly but also in the economy with inciting the right to strike, etc. I understand that all of this has still been too little to move the needle, however I don't quite see how it could have been done that much better (more grève reconductible perhaps? as mentioned in the article, it is quite likely that more violence would play against the left politically as well as against its own agenda).
Most of the coverage of the riots after Nahel's death has focused on immigration. Call me a die hard leftist, but I find that quite unsettling. And this is not because I am against talking about immigration but because only weeks ago, Darmanin's police were beating up environmentalists and pension-scheme protesters, I see little reason to consider these events as radically different. They are clearly all manifestations of the impunity with which the PMC runs the show. The indiscriminate destruction is only telling of how much more disenfranchised these populations are in the 'cités'. I think it a fairly well established anthropological insight that alienated people who have nothing to lose and no stakes in society can do things that to anyone who is in the fold looks completely irrational and counter productive.
The point here, from the left (at least of the scientific socialist variant), is that moral judgement is hollow. Norms are important for sure, however we need to acknowledge what is happening empirically, de facto, and understanding why it is happening, rather than simply state 'it shouldn't happen'.
While I agree that the violence will play right into LR and RN's hand, and that indeed some of the left's 'revolutionary fantasy' was somewhat laughable, I also think the left's agenda is harder to bring about by nature. It doesn't play on scapegoats and fears, it is about long term planning of improving material conditions, it's a hard 'sell' and I don't think there are any easy for the left to win politically without corrupting its own aspirations for solidarity (and the internal debate of means and ends has been raging since the inception of 'the left'). Indeed, unlike ISIS which you take as an example, you can't in fact bring about 'inclusive society' by shooting anyone who disagrees. So what remains available? Numbers (and so: how to make the political aspiration stick?).
And finally, the reason why the left does not bring about immigration, is not in my view mostly out of 'moral superiority' (although it is that too), it makes perfect political sense not to. Immigration as a subject has a frame and basic assumptions most people go into the discussion with, and that frame has largely been defined by the hard right. Therefore, when the left engages on those grounds, it engages at a serious disadvantage from the outset, it needs to talk way too much (to establish another frame) before it can even begin to make a point. Just as we all engages at a serious disadvantage from the outset when talking economics given how established the neoliberal mindset has been internalised.
In any case, sorry about the long comment, I'd love to hear from you or anyone else here who can tell me why, if committed to leftist aspirations (as defined in your article on victories for the left), LFI is not fulfilling its role adequately.
*I couldn't agree more with the Anglo-Saxon's take on this or the pensions protests. Truly atrocious. It makes me quite mindful of reading international takes these days.
I think the answer to your question simply lies in your conclusion.
On the contrary, during decades, immigration frame was never defined by the "hard" Right (despite all their efforts to do so) but always by (a large part of) of what become of the Left. Whoever tried to object was immediately labelled racist or worse. And politically ostracized.
But, under pressure from the hard reality, things are now changing.
And this Left has a lot of issues trying to adapt, leaving more and more people who usually support it disagree with its views on the matter.
I feel your answer confirms my suspicion.
When I read it, I feel that what you are saying (but correct me if I am wrong) is that the people amongst the left who have been advocating for restricting immigration have been ostracized (by the left). Is that right?
But that is the thing, when I read Aurelien's article above, it is quite clear that the problem cannot be reduced to, nor is it primarily of (current), immigration policy (let alone lefty immigration policy). And this is exactly why I think it's a decent article even though I am still confused about what Aurelien would like the left to do now.
In typical lefty style, my grid of analysis tends towards a holistic and systemic one. That is, I will mostly see immigration as a symptom for which I will want to identify and address the causes instead of simply raise a baton or a security fence which I tend to see as morally reprehensible but also simply analytically misguided (at least long term).
When talking of immigration, I will want to ask why people are immigrating and what can be done about this (if it is seen as a problem at all, some immigration is clearly not seen as a problem but rather as an asset but that's another topic). Are they refugees, victim of political violence at home, are they climate refugees, are they joining family, are they economic migrants, etc?
You could easily argue from a lefty perspective for example that the disenfranchised populations involved in the recent riots wouldn't even have been in France in the first place if capital hadn't needed cheap labour during the heavy industry era in Europe (but then you'd still have no explanation for the Gilets Jaunes, pension-scheme protests, environmentalist protests, which is exactly why RN remained incredibly silent on those types of protests and violence).
In the case at hand, it is simply empirically true that the recent riots have next to nothing to do with recent immigration (say Syrians for example) but instead to do with the disenfranchisement of a large section of the French population (due to de-industrialisation, poor town planning, gutting of public services, etc.). It is also simply empirically true the political situation in France is incredibly volatile, independently of its immigration policies: quid of the Gilets Jaunes, the pensio-schemes protest, the environmental protests?
So what I see when we let the recent riots being reduced to an immigration problem is a conflation of much larger issues onto the clearly marked identitarian hard right trope with clear political gains and losses attached (I agree with Aurelien, that the recent riots will definitely play in the hands of LR and RN).
Yet still, I struggle to see how a change in immigration policy would address the political instability in France (and in the West) at large. All I see is emotionally charged and electorally salient knee-jerk reactionary response that is bound to constantly escalate the rhetoric and inhumane policies with no end in sight (fundamentally altering what France and the West seem to understand themselves to be in the process).
For a concrete example, in terms of diagnostic, LFI will tend to want to underline that today's riots have barely anything to do with recent immigration, and that previous rounds of immigration are not in fact much of the left's doing (but rather that of capital needing cheap labour or imperialism or colonisation, etc).
And in terms of prescriptions, it will tend to argue that moral condemnation, quasi de facto making a part of the French population Other, is in fact the empty posturing that in fact solves nothing and is only an identitarian electoral ploy rather than an actual solution to anything. Aside from the fact that, as Aurelien shows in the above article, escalating security measures as a response is in fact delusional and not logistically doable (at least as sole measure) LFI and others on the left will instead want to argue, that 'condemning violence' is a given, but what actually really matters is our commitments to address the underlying causes of violence (i.e. economic and political disenfranchisement of large sections of the population). And this requires thought, programs, budgets and long-term commitments and planning, rather than the empty moral posturing and the short-termist managerialism that Aurelien so despises. None of those things gel with either the identitarian right (who wants to exclude not include) or the liberal right (who doesn't want state planning or public expenditures).
To go back to your observation that those concerned with immigration on the left have been ostracised, I have a couple of observations to make. First, I think the left is quite comfortable talking about immigration in scientific terms (i.e. here is a social phenomenon, what kinds of immigrations are there? why do they exist? how do they work? how would we like them to work instead?), but it is reluctant to engage on the reactionary identitarian level (i.e. immigrants are bad, we should keep them out). Maybe it is true this makes for bad short-term political strategy, but in my opinion there are rather good moral and analytical reasons to stake out this position.
And two it is also probably true that, regardless of the subject, the left will tend to want to frame things systemically, and thus refuse to frame any issue in isolation (in either space or time), the left framework intrinsically means that most issues are symptoms that have causes which problematised rather than rationalised. Consequently it will tend to 'push out' of its ranks those who wish to go down this political strategy path. This is obviously super blunt, clearly all lefty movements and parties live in the actual world and know, as Aurelien suggests they should, that sometimes strategy comes ahead of greater commitments.
And as we know from the history of the left as whole the tensions barely ever have to do with ultimate goals, and rather with strategy and priorities.
Of course, mass immigration is a sympthom.
But who said it is only possible to effectively act on the distant causes ? So it might be that it's only possible to act on the local consequences.
The first responsibility of political leaders should be to protect their own population. And only after that, taking care of populations from other countries. In this order.
So what we've seen recently is not the consequences the last immigration wave. It's a result of 50 years of mass immigration policy in a country in economic and demographic contraction (or at least stagnation) and deep cultural doubt.
It was and still is a kind of tacite agreement between the economic elite (the PMC who control the media) to keep pressure on real wages (and keep the best part of the remaining wealth for themself) and this Left, under claims of moral superiority, to get new voters (as the popular classes tended more and more to look elsewhere).
All the people who advocated to keep immigration under control have been ostracized. But among the Left, some people knew full well what it means. After all, Marx himself wrote about how mass immigration played against the working class interests*.
Until it breaks. Hence the popular GJ revolt and recent immigration riots. And the bigger and bigger cultural divide among the general population.
Of course, changing policies will not sort out the problem overnight. This is now a cultural and demographic one. But it can definitely avoid the situation getting even worse. And then, past the emergency, it might be possible to think again about programs, budgets and long-term commitments...
* it's very well documented in the US. As in Peter Turchin's last book for exemple.
I fully agree with the inescapable tension between theory and practice, long term and short term goals, etc. All political actors have to face this. It’s just unavoidable and pretty well described by Aurélien in his article on victories for the left.
I guess where I differ is that in my view it is the left wanting to engage on immigration on more similar lines to what the right is doing (nationalist, cultural lines rather than as one of many social phenomenons say) that has been closer to the electoral strategy approach, as opposed to what you seem to state?
The pro-global solidarity left knows very well it isn’t electorally popular (the basic fact is that they are elected by French people not foreigners), it merely thinks it has a moral and analytical duty to keep immigration being dealt with as any other social phenomenon should: systemically (but yes also more localised fixes should also take place provided they are humane, etc).
It’s worthwhile noting this is not exclusive to immigration question either.
You could also argue that bringing about actual leftist policy will create a backlash from capital which ‘will create objectively difficult conditions for voting workers’, and so, as the ‘notional’ left argues, we should actually agree to basic neoliberal policy from the outset.
The thing is that with this shift, the notional left isn’t just saying the radical left is wrong in terms of strategy, it is in fact necessarily also saying the radical left is wrong for wanting what it wants.
Whereas from the radical left perspective, the wrong is reversed: the notional left is not just wrong for strategy reasons, it is wrong because it is no longer left.
If that makes sense.
I got a piece on Singer’s utilitarianism that goes over these some of tensions.
https://dronephilosophy.medium.com/is-peter-singer-committed-to-contradictory-ideas-986c064d35d8
These are all complicated considerations.
As the economic and ecological situation worsens, more and more moral dilemmas will present themselves.
But in the end, there's one moral and practical principle to apply: "Help until it hurts"...
Yes indeed. On the other hand we may also face another paradox that could be cause for optimism: it may be that as conditions become more difficult, the way out and willingness to cooperate become clearer and easier.
I usually get something like that when I go hiking or things like that: it is objectively/physically harder, but there is a clear psychological relief, I know exactly what needs doing.
There’s something along those lines in Aurélien’s article on the formation of the public service as vocation in England (it was adversity that necessitated it and therefore produced it). Perhaps the West’s ethics, politics, and now economics has ‘suffered’ from lacking adversity. As we can all clearly sense these days, that time is coming to an end.
On the topic of the left, immigration and wages, I thought this was a pretty decent take.
https://newsocialist.org.uk/workers-world-unite/
Of course, on such a complicated subject, there will be arguments both ways.
But that doesn't change my point of view: importing low-cost labor has always been a way of putting pressure on wages, from the Roman Republic to now-days Europe through XIXth century England or USA.
Especially as many of the arguments here are actually fairly biased: of course, importing a new population induces a change in quality. At least in cohesive quality. It's not so much a problem of skin color, as is fallaciously claimed here to equate those who would think otherwise with racists, as of cultural differences.
And the problem isn't whether one culture is inferior to another, it's the difficulty - potentially exacerbated to breaking point when economic conditions deteriorate - of making them cohabit on the same territory.
In other words, the world workers' union is an old socialist utopia. Especially when the same ones claims that people have the full right to keep their own culture wherever they happen to settle and manage to convince them that whoever asking them to do otherwise is a racist, a colonialist and a criminal.
This is just the making for an Lebanese or balkan-style explosive situation....
Clearly the philosophy of nihilism as expressed in writing and action going back to the 19th century doesn’t really describe what we’re seeing now. In the US it’s become fashionable to talk about deaths of desperation. We’re categorizing thinks like opioid overdose this way. Desperation is a pleasant, PMC way to say poverty.
I think that as western states fail, and almost all of them are failing, events like the French riots will become more common. They won’t have any underlying meaning of goal, just people who are feeling the failing of states first lashing out. The poor in developed states already know what life in a failed state feels like in many ways. Though it will get worse for them and it will get worse for them first.
Living in Russia in the 90’s leads me to caution people who discuss civil war, insurrection and the like when contemplating a failed western state. It almost certainly won’t look like that. A better picture can be formed by visiting the poorest section of the nearest city.
Civil war in Bosnia&Hercegovina started when an Islamic leader of a minority reneged on his signature on a deal (after he was visited by the USA ambassador). The other ethnic groups said what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Former Canadian ambassador James Bisset explains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkOoJfLQpO0
Hum...
I agree with you that there is no ideology, no leaders and no concerted plan. There were no group of people meeting together at some point, right before the riots or earlier, to decide to send young people fight the police and burn down buildings.
But that doesn't mean there is no goal. The goal is a secessionist and feudalist one.
It is to send a message : "Don't interfere with whatever happens in our neighborhoods and let our own do whatever they want. If you don't comply, you better be ready for some razzias in your own neighborhoods." Because that's exactly what it was, razzias. Burning and looting. Making as much damage as possible.
And you can be sure that the government received the message full well. They will do exactly what they are asked to do : nothing.
Not because there is nothing to do. Just because doing something would show how much they were wrong so far and because, all in all, on the short term, it is much easier to do nothing.
As they rather see public buildings going up in flame and shop looted to the ground than take the political risk to hurt one of these rioting little angels, they will withdraw, drop some more buckets of borrowed cash and just hope that drug dealers and religious guys can keep the peace. Until next time. Until they ask for more...
In most historical accounts, the peasants rising up in the provinces and the hungry mob in Paris didn't really have a clear political agenda in 1789 either: they certainly didn't like the taxes/rents/etc owed to the landowners (for the former) and the steeply rising prices of bread (caused in part by "market" reforms introduced by the physiocratic ministers in the government.), but, beyond that, not much of a program, and once the riots actually became violent, there was even less of a program. When I first began reading about the French Revolution in detail, I found myself being confused by the apparent lack of linkage between the demands of the Estates General, or, a little bit later, the National Assembly, and the peasants/urban rioters, especially since, not too long later, the same peasants were marching against the Revolution and calling for the return of the old ways (the Vendee and all). I think it's a mistake to take the riots for the revolution. Riots open the way for a possible revolution, but they are not the same. The revolution will be attempted, if it does happen, by the members of the elite in an attempt to seize power through some unscrupulous means, using the social disorder as the excuse, but they won't be able to consolidate until and unless they can restore the social order somehow, at least long enough for things to return to some sort of "normal." The French state, one way or another, will have to put a stop to the rioting. Who exactly will be running the French state, how they will attempt it, and whether it will "work," whatever that means, though, is difficult to tell now.
Yes, this is no revolution. Some people at the far left dream that this could be the beginning of the revolution they are waiting for and blow on the embers.
But this is not the case. It's not about hunger or tax, rents or whatever. It is not really a political issue.
It's much more a matter of tribes and territories.
As for political repercussions, while reading your article, I happened to also keep on eye on TV. According to a CSA poll, almost half of those identifying themselves as close to LFI and EEVL agree with stripping young rioters of their French nationality (70% for PS!).
Just 10 years back, Hollande was prevented to do it by its left wing for no less than islamist terrorists !
Yes, I remember that. Sarkozy had similar ideas fifteen years ago for certain crimes (killing a policeman, I think was one.) But these are fascinating figures and show how fast opinion is moving. Thanks.
This looks a lot like Spengler's formless masses. Large concentrations of people in the big cities with no structure, ethics, or identity.
I think it's potentially important to recognize that the "rioters" and "revolutionaries" usually are not the same people. In 1789, the French Revolution was preceded by food riots in Paris and peasants' riots in countryside, the burning of manor houses with the land tenancy paperwork etc and, in 1917, the sailors' mutinies were a big part of the early stages of the October Revolution. (My understanding is that much the same thing was true in Iran in 1979 and for that matter, the Arab Spring more recently.) Did these people have grievances? Yes, obviously. Were they necessarily articulate in their understanding of where the roots of their grievances lay or some kind of plan to address them? No, of course not. But were there people who were able to articulate some plan for a "revolution" (which, in practice, had very little to do with the peasants' or sailors' grievances) that just needed an opportunity (of the state being in crisis? Yes. The demands by the National Assembly, as these people styled themselves, of the French state had nothing to do with the peasants, but only the ideals of the "revolutionaries" who merely took the opportunity. Soon enough, the "revolutionaries," now in charge in Paris, were themselves crushing the peasants (the Vendee etc) who became a nuisance to their own rule. (Much the way Bolsheviks crushed the sailors when they rose up against the new power.)
In this sense, I think I'm in agreement with you in that trying to address the rioters at an abstract "what do they really want?" dimension is both untenable and undesirable. The first response by a serious state has to be to reimpose "order," just putting the social disruption to an end if it wants to preserve itself (and is capable of doing so). The paradox of the strange "Liberalism/Democracy" of today, though, is that the state lacks the ability to do so unless they make concessions to the "would-be-revolutionaries" on largely orthogonal dimensions: Liberal reforms of various kinds (that had nothing to do with peasants and probably would have raised bread prices in Paris if implemented in full) in 1789, various "social liberal" ideas (about diversity etc) today, or, perhaps, if things went in the other direction, various "libertarian" ideas mixed with "anti-social liberal" ideas--no one says only leftists are opportunistic power seekers). The thing is that the would-be-revolutionaries (like the French aristocrats) already have a seat at the tables of power. Their concession is needed for the state to act. The peasants (and the rioters today) are not. Political pluralism (if only limited to elites detached from the masses--but, really, because masses invariably can't articulate.) coupled with a weakened state apparatus are a dangerous combination. (and seems common in both pre-revolutionary state and early revolutionary stages.)
PS. One addendum to my comment is that, if a "revolution" survives, the power will invariably flow to the ruthless "problem solvers" who may or may not have intellectual attachment to the "ideals" of the revolution, but who are certainly capable of mobilizing the resources of the state to "rebuild" its power to restore and maintain order: a Napoleon, a Lenin/Trotsky combination, or, in a somewhat less violent fashion, the American "Constitutionalists"--in some sense, this was the ultimate wisdom of Alexis de Tocqueville in his reflections on the French Revolution. But since power flows out, even if indirectly, out of the sentiments of the masses, it does require that these new state builders have to have a certain sense of what appeals to the broad masses of people (usually, a guarantee of some sort of security and stability, both physical and "economic.").
The catch is that states, if properly functional (especially if they are "democratic"), should have been able to address these before the situations comes to boil. The power of a "democracy" does not come from some lofty ideals or verbose intellectual sophistry, but in ensuring that the state is sufficiently responsive to the masses, however this happens, so that you do not easily reach the point of a social crisis where public order is sufficiently threatened to destabilize the regime (edit: To that end, the state would need both some means of incorporating the sentiment of masses into its substantive policymaking process and legitimacy to employ sufficient power to implement them. The details of actual mechanisms of how this comes about do not really matter much beyond achieving the necessary measures of representativeness and legitimacy. Of course, that these are amorphous and undefinable concepts, likely dependent on time, place, and circumstances, means that there cannot be one universal formula that neatly captures them and provides easy to follow guidance for would be state builders.... "Elections" are how these are incorporated, but that's only a small step and, often, getting hung up on the technical details subvert the broad legitimacy of the process which, necessarily, has a quasi-religious flavor.). This clearly has not been the case, obviously--with the idea of "democracy" being subverted by the varied and vacuous intellectual sophistry and institutional manipulation in its service so that its ultimate role, of creating and maintaining a state that can insure itself against mass public disorder, is hollowed out. This doesn't mean, of course, that the end state of the revolutionary regime, even if a state of certain stability is reached, will necessarily be any more "democratic." It can easily mean that the state of revolution, even if in a "simmering" form, may continue on for a long time: the revolutionary state in France, after all, did not end in 1815: it continued, in one form or another, until 1871, then resumed after World War I and hasn't actually ended to this day, for example.
I wish we could ditch terms like Left and Right. Nothing we see today bears any resemblance to those terms. If anything, the polarity has reversed and it introduces more confusion than clarity. We need terms that indicate political philosophies favoring individual liberty versus Statism. Right now we see virtually every Western government in the Statist/global camp. Individual liberty be damned.
Hmm...there's one ideology that could provide people both the metaphysical answers that modern Liberalism can't, and a prefabricated political program to work towards, that I don't think you're conidering: Islamism. Musing over this article, I wouldn't be surprised if, over the next few years, we start to see a decentralized, but highly articulated and violent, Islamist ideology spread throughout Europe. Its nucleus will be in poor immigrant ghettos, but it will be just as much a protest against the traditional elites of those ghettos (caids, prominent families, establishment religious leaders) as it is against the government, and due to the European establishment's increasing inability to provide people with a meaningful life narrative, this Islamist ideology will quickly spread outside its immigrant strongholds and gain a not-insignificant amount of European converts (in particular, I think the BLM/"anticolonialist" subculture that's formed in western Europe will, for many of its members, prove to be a gateway drug to the new Islamism). However, as the new Islamism gains strength, the prospect of an Islamized Europe will prove repulsive to a large number of people as well, which will lead to the formation (or cohesion-it already exists in embryonic form) of a virrulently anti-Islamic right-wing subculture. Both of these groups will take over the functions of government-organized violence, of course, but also the policing of their members and the provision of welfare and jobs. Both will grow in strength as the ability of the "official" government to do anything declines. But ultimately, both will not be able to coexist in the same society...and well, this won't lead to a very good end, at all.
I think the Greek and Roman democracies came down because a rich class of citizens became the de facto government. The Oligarchs established an Oligarchy. In today's world it will come complete with democratic elections between nominees selected by the Oligarchs. There might even be some Oligarch Senators elected because everyone knows them and finds them agreeable. The collapse comes from the same place, greed and avarice. Oligarchs cannot stop accumulating assets. No matter how much they own. At that point there will be 'some fighting involved.'
Sorry, but the organized structures to conduct an insurrection do already exist or are in the process of being formed. It's the coagulation of crime gangs, fundamentalist networks and religious institutions working together in a myriad of ways and financed not only by the drug trade and mandatory contributions by ghetto inhabitants but also from abroad. Besides this economic, ideological and ethnic coherence, ghettos also provide geographical bases to operate from.
A couple of weeks ago Philip Pilkington was going on about a reduction in spending on food in France recently. Coincidence?
https://twitter.com/philippilk/status/1676208469173587968?s=20