Has Rudd bought the intelligentsia?

It is true that in a recent essay published by The Boston Review Chomsky writes, "it is a propitious time to revive such efforts, though it would be necessary to overcome the effects of the concerted campaign to drive our own history and culture out of our minds". But these are not the efforts that Manne would have us believe they are. In The Boston Review essay Chomsky writes favourably with respect to anarchosyndicalism, but communism and anarchosyndicalism are not one and the same. Chomsky has also stated that the most important task now for the Left is to use the state to tame markets. His most important statement to this effect was made while visiting Australia in the 1990s.

Chomsky has been an anti communist and an anti bolshevik throughout his life, as Manne well knows. Chomsky had regarded the Bolshevik revolution as a "right deviation" that, moreover, destroyed socialist movements and autonomous workers' organisations in Russia immediately upon its consolidation of power. Chomsky has stated that if Bolshevism is a part of the Left then he would disassociate himself from the Left. For Manne to again, effectively, tar Chomsky with the red brush beggars belief.

Klein might well be a socialist, but hers is a socialism that has no relation to the debates of the 1930s or 1950s. In being a young person and new social movement activist such debates carry little weight and resonance with Klein; if anybody is a part of the "democratic Left" then surely it is Klein. Manne does cite Slavoj Zizek as declaring himself, post financial crisis, to be a "Stalinist". This declaration is neither here nor there. Zizek was surely speaking with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

We should note that Manne's position is much closer to Bolshevism than that of either Chomsky or Klein. Central to Bolshevism, and its non democratic nature, was the notion that an elite vanguard should be entrusted with holding political power. For Manne the task before us is to choose which group of intellectuals we should follow, rather than to actively participate in political processes ourselves. Manne, like much of the intelligentsia, is an elitist.

Manne, in his historical rendition of neoliberalism and social democracy, neglects to mention a very important point. During the neoliberal era there has been a good measure of policy convergence between the neoliberal Right and the social democratic Left. In fact, because of this convergence "social democrats" like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder have played important roles in both bringing the current economic crisis into being and cementing neoliberal hegemony. The best mainstream explanation for this convergence in Australia remains Mark Latham's invocation of the Michels thesis in the first chapter of his diary. Yet Manne would have us believe that social democrats have always constituted "the alternative party" to neoliberalism.

Indeed, the underlying thinking behind the Michels thesis was previously used by the libertarian Left to point out the inherent bias that social democrats had towards policy convergence with conservative centres of power, for instance during the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) (Social Democratic Party of Germany) support for German militarism at the outset of World War I. Contra Manne it might be argued that the depredations of communism and the social democratic convergence with neoliberalism could be construed as reasons to re-examine the case that was made by the libertarian Left against both doctrines in times gone by.

Krugman, Stiglitz and Shiller are good economists who have many interesting things to say. But Manne would have the Left accept new Keynesian economics and then leave things at that. Manne provides no reason why the broader Left should not accept the more leftish post Keynesian economics of a Steve Keen, Hyman Minsky, who advocated the socialisation of investment and whose parents were Mensheviks, John Eatwell or Lance Taylor. They all provide a more thorough rejection of neoclassical economics and all predicted the present crisis in its essentials.

In fact, even on Manne's own terms his thesis is nonsensical. Consider Obama's plan to relieve banks of their toxic assets. The harshest critics of this plan have been precisely Stiglitz and Krugman. Why? Because they argue, correctly, that the dynamics of the plan actually are a form of socialism for the rich. Obama and Manne's social democratic pals continue to engage in policy convergence.

In the US when the Democrats control the White House and Congress the Republicans continue to rule. In the UK when Labour controls the Commons with thumping majorities the Tories continue to rule. In Australia when the ALP controls Federal, and most State, Governments the Liberals continue to rule.

Because the social democratic Left has been, and continues to be, convergent with prevailing doctrines and institutions of power it follows that Manne's position is not a position that is founded on principle.

What is really going on here?

When Manne tells the Left that it should follow the "social democratic Left" what he is really saying is, follow Kevin Rudd. This conclusion follows because, when looked at in terms of principle, there is no such thing as "the social democratic Left". All that remains is Rudd, Obama and Gordon Brown.