fujee wrote:jcnporter wrote:I'm not referring to its use by anyone in particular here, but 'utopian' or 'radical' are words often used to exclude and narrow a discussion down to only the concepts that are considered acceptable to the powers that be.
Capitalism has been superb at this, now only discussions on variations of capitalism are seen as 'realistic'. Even extremely long-established and existing concepts such as land taxes (favoured by both Winston Churchill and Adam Smith) and common ownership, have been successfully saddled with with these labels.
Indeed a functioning economy without slave labour was no doubt once considered 'utopian'.
There is a difference between what is unachievable in the short or medium term with our current two party neoliberalism and what can actually work, those in power would prefer that we conflate the two.
I think even the NHS as a universal, free service will be considered a utopian folly in a generation or so, not because it cannot work as a concept, but because the constant chipping away by individualism and capitalism will make it so.
I understand that it could be perceived that using a lexicon like Brand could be seen as actually diminishing/alienating the cause that he preaches, narrowing the conversation to something which is seemingly unattainable/ridiculous to the current situation. Though, I reject that the use of such words actually legitimises the neoliberal/capitalist power structures in general.. people seem to forget that the socio-economic system which Marx describes has never actually been realised (any so called Marxist state of the 20th century onwards is a complete misnomer). So in this sense the Marxist principles which Brand attests to are truly radical, in the genuine sense of the word and I don't see their use as disparaging because they hint at the huge shift required to reach for a greater sense of equality.
It's not that using such words legitimises neoliberalism/capitalism, it's that the words are used by those power structures themselves to attack the credibility of left-wing thought, painting themselves as the rational realists and the left as unrealistic dreamers.
Anarchism is another misused word - it's not really an absence of government/hierarchy/state, but rather an absence of imposed structures - in an anarchy as I understand it, it would be perfectly possible to have a health service, for example, but it would be voluntary, much like the way a union is organised.
I'm not defending Brand, but the arguments against what he's saying are exactly what the establishment want to be said - the Daily Mail, for example, are going to town on him. The problem with Brand is that they're probably right - he doesn't appear to go beyond dreaming and 6th form 'revolutionary' rhetoric.
