Speaker 1: Let's start with something different today. We're going to talk about the conflict
or the tension or the hypocrisy or the double standard that exists between two sides of the
left wing. Tell me if this is interesting. Tell me if you're interested in more segments like this.
Now here are the two wings of the left that I want to compare today. You have your anti-capitalist
left and then you have your woke left. And I'm not using any of these terms pejoratively by the
anti-capitalist left, we mean the anti-capitalist, the Marxists, the communists, the socialists that
exist in that space. And by the woke side, I mean the critical postmodern identity based left. I'm
going to tell you what each subscribes to, and then we will talk about this. Now, there are many
on the left who casually believe themselves to be both anti capitalists and woke. Or, you know,
maybe we call it a postmodern critical identity, part of the left. What I want to argue today
is that these are two fundamentally different ideologies that actually conflict significantly
with each other, and many of the people on the left who at least believe that they are both
anti-capitalist and woke, as defined by critical postmodern art. Maybe, I don't want to say
confused, but maybe just unaware of what these ideologies are. So let's start first with the
anti-capitalist left. Sometimes they are Marxists or communists or socialists. The core idea here
is we are against capitalism at its core. Now, they aren't exactly the same. Marxism, based on
the theories of Karl Marx, criticizes capitalism's inherent inequality. It foresees a class struggle
that will eventually lead to a classless society. Communism is a political and economic ideology. It
wants a society where property is publicly owned. Everybody works and is paid according to their
abilities and their needs. And then socialism may be the least extreme of these, for lack of a
better term. And socialism wants to socialize the means of production and distribution. In exchange,
it should be regulated by the community as a whole, not by the government, as communism
might say, but by the community as a whole. So that's our anti-capitalist side. We then have
the woke critical postmodern identity side, and this has its roots in becoming awakened to social
injustice, especially as related to race and other identities. It now has kind of broadened,
and it means we are most concerned with social inequality. And that includes
inequality based on gender inequality based on sexuality, race, ethnicity and other forms of
identity. And the critical postmodern identity based ideas really come out of critical theory
and post-modernism. It's a very different origin then the anti-capitalist ideology,
and the critical side of this focuses on power dynamics, social construction of identity,
critiquing universal narratives, emphasizing the lived experience of the individual. That's where
identity politics come from, and recognizing the inequalities that come from identity. So
the tension between these two sets of ideas is not trivial. If we think about economic ideas versus
identity, focus on the anti-capitalist side. The focus is we have a class struggle based around
economic inequality. We want to redistribute wealth to achieve a classless society. On the
woke, critical postmodern side, the priority is identity and cultural dimension of inequality.
So the emphasis is we recognize and we validate identity and experience. There's much more of a
focus on race and other identity factors. That's a significant difference in approach. And we'll
get back to that. If we talk about universalism versus particularism, Marxism and anti-capitalism
is far more universal in its approach to societal change. We have shared economic
conditions. We need class solidarity. It's much more reductionist economically. On the other hand,
when we talk about woke and critical identity, it's about the particulars of this group. Has this
experience based on race, gender and sexuality. This other group has a very different experience,
and even all middle class people have very different experiences. And thus the approach
should be different based on race, sexuality, gender, etc.. One other element of difference
materialism and cultural ism. The Marxist anti. Capitalist critique is materialist. It focuses on
the economic structure, the relationships between classes, the woke critical identity perspective,
on the other hand, is way more cultural. It wants to examine language. And, you know, Latin X, Latin
X is something that exists on the woke critical side. Latin x is not something you would find
on the anti-capitalist, Marxist side, cultural practices and how they perpetuate inequality,
etc.. Okay, now let's be thorough. Can you synthesize both of these ideologies into something
that kind of encompasses both? You can certainly do it right. I mean, you can basically say I'm
both anti-capitalist and woke. My critique in general is an anti-capitalist critique,
but then you lay your identity on top of it, and I want to kind of deal with both. You can do that.
The problem is that it's a little bit low effort to find what are actually two competing ideologies
based on very different scholarship and say, I kind of subscribe to both where they overlap and
especially it can be difficult to do because you come up against really specific conflicts when you
look at particular issues. So like, for example, if we look at free speech and cancel culture,
there is a tension between advocating for free speech and in general, you see, free speech is
a value upheld by traditional leftists. There is a difference between saying we are going
to uphold free speech, period, as essential to democratic society and to class struggle. Versus,
on the other hand, the view that is more common on the woke critical postmodern side,
which is sometimes you've got to deplatform, sometimes you've got to cancel. We need to
consider that as a tool. And what that can lead to is a conflict in terms of what's the acceptable
discourse. When we talk about criticisms of capitalism or discussions about identity, if you
have this conflict as to that the speech is part of the class struggle. The, proletariat has it,
and we need to maintain it for everybody. Versus actually, sometimes you've got to deplatform,
sometimes you've got to cancel, sometimes you've got a limit. You might have a speaker advocating
for radical economic reforms, and they get invited to a university. But if they don't consider that
race, gender and sexuality are a part of that, you may see the woke critical side say, this is
not someone who should be allowed to speak because their view reduces to class and doesn't include
those identity elements. Okay, that's an example. I'll give you another example intersectionality
versus class reductionism. This is a tension between the anti capitalists and the woke
postmodern intersectionality is a key component of the woke ideology. It says overlapping social
identities are complex race gender, sexuality. Ensure we include class in that as well. When
you try to combine that with the anti-capitalist view, you can be accused on the anti-capitalist
side of just being a class reductionist. And it is absolutely the case that on the anti-capitalist
side, as envisioned by Marx and others, you don't really deal in the same way with, well,
if you're a black lesbian lower middle class that is very different than white lower middle class,
the approach is different. The solutions, the critique, it's all different. That doesn't
exist historically on the anti-capitalist side. So again, it's easy to say, well,
I believe in both. It doesn't strike me as the most serious thing to take two ideologies that
conflict and say, I believe in both. I find it to be sort of low effort now. I'll tell
you how my ideology interlocks with this. I'm a social democrat. Social democracy diverges from
both anti-capitalist and woke critical identity based ideology. Social democracy, which is what
I subscribe to, advocates for democracy within a capitalist framework with significant regulation,
significant state intervention to ensure social welfare, equitable distribution of resources,
equality of opportunity. And it wants to balance efficiency innovation within the market with the
need for social justice and protecting people against economic and social insecurity. So social
democrats usually would support a strong welfare state, progressive taxation, comprehensive public
services. We want a high standard of living for all citizens, regardless of economic contribution
and regardless of identity factors. So the social democracy has capitalism as a base. Marxism,
communism and socialism want to overhaul or abolish capitalism? Social democracy accepts
the capitalist system, and we want to humanize it by managing the excesses instead of dismantling
it entirely. Reform over revolution is a big difference as well. Social Democrats want to
reform through democratic means. The problems that we have there is a more revolutionary view
from the anti-capitalist group often, and we can kind of go through the list. I think most people
in my audience understand social democracy, so I'm curious to hear from those in the audience.
What do you make of this conflict, and why hasn't this tension come to the forefront to the degree
that it should, based on the ideologies that these movements come from? You know,
even when you look at pragmatism over purity, when you look at the woke critical side, social
democracy is far more pragmatic and doesn't tend to fall into these purity tests and litmus tests,
whether whereas the woke critical postmodern side often does. So let me know your thoughts.
Let me know if these sorts of discussions are interesting. Where do you hear yourself falling
within this, spectrum of the left? And remember, this is all on the left. Every movement I just
mentioned are movements on the left. Let me know your thoughts and we can follow up the discussion.