Where is the Theoretical and Practical Leadership on the Left?

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and to a lesser degree Tony Blair and George Bush were movers in the neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideology that developed in the 1970’s just as Vladimir Lenin acted as a mover on the Left in 1917, Nye Bevan was also pivotal in establishing the post war compromise and social-democratic consensus after 1945. It may be that there are cycles to the social forces, just as Kondratiev saw economic cycles within capitalism and when these cycles come together radical social changes can occur. But the outcome isn’t predetermined, therefore we have agency and individuals as well as the state, political parties and other organizations such as the labour movement can play an active part in directing the way the changes occur.

Finance capitalism in crisis and the capitalist elite using the crisis to consolidate its restored class power and material position at the expense of the working classes, also its using this political and economic uncertainty to also consolidate its imperialist dominance of the global political world order and sources of resources such as oil. The task of communists, greens, socialists and social-democrats is to provide an alternative agency to the neo-liberal/neo-conservative movers in Britain, Europe USA and globally. As an individual we have limited agency and that’s why we belong to political parties, labour unions and the NGO’s to increases our level of agency.

The Coalition for Resistance and the TUC march gave agency to 500,000 people, this is what we need to build upon, and action is what is needed, this needs a Broad Left Movement, but it also needs leadership with the determination to win. What the Left is lacking is a level of leadership and determination and that its main problem, there are the social movements out there and a mood for an alternative to neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, the social and economic conditions for a radical change in the trajectory of human development are building from the contradictions and antagonisms created by the current crisis of British, European and global capitalism, but where is the leadership and ideological basis for the necessary social, economic, political changes necessary.