Call it what you will. “Progressive” or “woke” politics. MB labels it the “fake left”.
It has four major preoccupations: culture wars, climate change, open borders and the internet. Each is pursued without regard for the traditional political division of class conflict.
Ironically, this creates a mutually assured enmity between the fake left and workers. Suburban culture is not interested in fantasy genders, racial baiting, competing with cheap foreign workers, or putting climate change ahead of bread on the table.
On the other hand, blood-sucking corporations gleefully embrace fake left policy sacred cows because it is a free kick for profits.
To begin with, then, the fake left is not left at all. It is the useful idiot of the right.
Such internal contradictions are common in politics. But it is a matter of degree. The fake left has strayed so far from any traditional “left” position that it is hollow.
Into this vacuum, the fake left increasingly projects magical thinking instead of evidence-based policy.
Last week’s housing debate was an excellent example. NSW and VIC released supply-side affordability plans, and the response was telling.
NSW has a modest plan in the circumstances of material resource constraints foisted on the economy by the fake left’s mass immigration. It won’t help housing much but won’t worsen things for the broader economy.
Conversely, the VIC government released a fake left fantasy extravaganza. Melbourne will double its dwelling stock within 28 years versus the 188 years it took to reach the current size.
The fake left press – The Guardian, ABC, Crikey etc – greeted Andrews government delerium with great fanfare while the NSW version was “cancelled” with prejudice.
So much so, that the week ended with the NSW government mulling the adoption of some of VIC’s fantasies.
But does policy onanism suffice? The refusal to discuss cutting immigration. The refusal to acknowledge the environmental, water and climate catastrophe VIC’s plan will bring. The refusal to factor in material and labour shortages as Melbourne dwellings grow seven times faster than in history.
Each of these is characteristic of the failure of the fake left policy process to understand soft and hard economic constraints.
The soft constraint is the need to interact with and/or manage people successfully—the art of politics. The fake left doesn’t seek compromise. Nor does it use dialectic for its policy positions. It simply states its “truth” and cancels opposition.
The hard constraint is the viability of labour and materials to meet fantastical goals concocted in fake left echo chambers.
Who can say where such a destructive ideology arose? It is part of post-structuralism in the education system. Part globalisation, professional politics and post-colonialism.
But, to me, the fake left most resembles the Internet: a self-selecting, everything, everywhere, all-of-the-time identity that uses the delete button in place of reason and engagement.
Alas, the keyboard does not make affordable housing.
