Hello Nettime,
I'm sorry to see that this thread has degenerated, but I wonder whether
this was inevitable. Are the terms "left" and "right" meaningful any
more, as an axis to distinguish political positions?
We have, apparently, established that the "right" says is favours a
small state, with low levels of intervention, and the "left" favours
higher levels of state intervention, and a more expansive state.
Yet these modes of behaviour don't seem to be exhibited. Traditionally
"neoliberal" or "right" regimes seem perfectly happy to engage in
extensive state intervention, including by force, when it pleases them,
and regimes identifying themselves as further to the left frequently
engage in laissez-faire policies when they're unable or unwilling to
engage, or authoritarian suppression when they are. It has not gone
un-noted that regimes that describe themselves as "right" may engage
with a privileged layer of society (members of the Capitalist Party, if
you will) in a manner that appears to be generously (even flagrantly)
interventionist.
I propose that the whole axis of left/right is abandoned, in favour of
an alternative axis: honest (responsive) / dishonest (authoritarian).
The honest (responsive) end will tend to include:--
Openness, accountability, transparency, democracy.
The dishonest (authoritarian) end will tend to include:--
Opacity, unaccountability, deception, manipulation.
From the point of view of the individual citizen (concerned to benefit
from governmental competence), the lesson of COVID19 does seem to be
that the former―honest governance―does seem to deliver benefits that the
latter does not.
I am not an advocate of radical transparency―the world of Zamyatin's
"We" with complete transparency and the consequent abolition of the
individual personality, does not appeal. However, a generous degree of
transparency, required from both government and citizens, does appear to
deliver more effective governance. Left or right? Frankly, I don't
really care - those terms now simply seem to be descriptions of
window-dressing.
[Dives for cover.]
James
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