Continue to Ask Al Anything

[Lincoln Republican]

Who was the best Prime Minister the United Kingdom has ever had?

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Who do you think was the best (or least bad) Stuart King of England?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What is the best Terrence Malick movie for someone who has never seen a Terrence Malick movie to start with?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What's your favorite city as an urban historian?

I actually have two, though they have quite a lot in common: Birmingham and Berlin. Namely that perpetual sense that 'ah, but you see the city will look great once they finish building it!' and having a bear as a traditional symbol. Their respective histories are both bound up with a historical process that I find completely fascinating: the development of the 19th century industrial city and the Modernist reaction(s) against it. They are cities with histories that tell us a lot about the State and about particular individual states. Of course I like them in different ways: Birmingham to write about, Berlin to read about - so far anyway.

[Badger]

If Jeremy Corbyn fails to win the December 12 parliamentary election this year, will this be the last we will see of him as Labour Party leader?    

There's a mild degree of ambiguity around it all, but he has more or less confirmed that if the election is lost, he goes.

Then that should clear the way for London Mayor Sadiq Khan to run as head of the Labour Party. If he wants it, that is.  

Which leads me to my next question -if Jeremy Corbyn loses this December and steps down by early next year, how good are Sadiq Khan's chances of becoming Labour Party leader?  

I second this query. And as a follow-up, how good of a candidate do you think you would be Nationwide? Is Great Britain seriously ready for a Muslim pm?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Would you say that the political thought of Giorgio Agamben represents (consciously or not) an appropriation of the thought of J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists (in emphases and ambience even if not in the actual content of their ideas) and its transfer out of religious studies and into a field in which it actually has some merit? If not, what would you say?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1) Would you agree that internal migration is an understudied driver of electoral movement in the UK? It strikes me that there's a tendency to discuss, say, the student vote, or constituencies in London and the South swinging away from the Tories as though the voters somehow sprang fully-formed into existence, when in the past, these voters might have been padding out Labour majorities in constituencies in the North and Midlands, but now they have moved out to get their degrees and/or pursue employment elsewhere, leaving an older, more conservative cohort more likely to own property in those constituencies?

2) What do you make of the unification of the Polish left and how would you assess its medium-term prospects?

1. The biggest theme in British social geography over the past fifty years or so has been the relentless transformation of everywhere in the country into everywhere else in the country, as a result of the shift from an essentially a regionally-based industrial economy into a thoroughly nationally-orientated service economy. Internal migration is a huge part of this - in all parts of the country you will now find people from all parts of the country, and in the sort of numbers that you did not used to see outside London and to a lesser extent Birmingham. I doubt we have even begun to see the full range of electoral implications of all this (I tend to suspect greater and greater fluidity), but what you mention would be one manifestation, yes.

2. Polish politics is even more of a chaotic cabaret than British politics so it's hard to be certain about this sort of thing, but I think it's essential for the newly unified Left to address the problems the country faces now and to focus on the need to build something, rather than seek to be a vehicle for the politics of resentment. Though I would say that about everywhere, it is particularly necessary in Poland because that other route, the politics of resentment, is not available to any form of Polish Left for historical reasons, and not only those of 1945-89 but more recently as well. Heading down that route would strain hard-won credibility to breaking point and end in yet another political fiasco and electoral meltdown.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

You have recently regularly written about the idea that as 'Britain' (left somewhat ambiguously undefined at times) has been transformed into a services dominated economy it has grown more homogeneous than it was as an industrial economy with regional nods, holding this what do you think is relationship between this and the rise of Scottish Nationalism as a political force in the UK? You often hind that Scottish Nationalism is a phenomenon that, should it fail to achieve independence, has a limited life span. Why precisely do you think this and how, if at all, does it relate to your above thesis? And finally, where does Northern Ireland fit into this? I'd argue that over the past 50 years Northern Ireland has grown less, not more, British. This is likely to accelerate massively should the current EU Withdraw Agreement come into force, so where does Northern Ireland fit into this 'Single Market' vision of the UK?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What are your thoughts on the PCI, especially over the course of its gradual transformation from 1968 to 1991? Do you think Berlinguer's vision of Eurocommunism is something that could, in different circumstances, have blossomed into a real path for the European left, alternative to both Third-Wayism and the backward-looking self-referentialism of much of the current hard-left? And what do you went "wrong" for the PCI after Berlinguer's death (aside from the obvious international context) that led it down its path?

The PCI's transformation is interesting because it was unique: Reformist tendencies existed in most other large Western Communist parties but they were all defeated or stymied in one way or another. So we have to ask, what made the PCI different? And the answer is that whole Reformist tendencies in most of its sister parties were, basically, a consequence of 1956, in the case of the PCI they had deeper roots, going right back to the beginning. Gramsci, after all, was never cast out of the party's pantheon, and this tells us a lot, because the bulk of what he wrote in prison (as deliberately obtuse as it tends to be; as I'm sure you know first hand) is undeniably 'heretical' in terms of Marxism-Leninism. The effect of the gnawing doubts that set in after 1956 was thus quite different; it awoke (slowly) something that was always present, but which had lain dormant thanks to all the financial support granted by the Soviet Union to the PCI. It meant, amongst other things, that it was possible for a man like Berlinguer to rise to the top in the first place - unthinkable in the PCF, for instance. And it meant that he had space to act more independently, to be his own man, to try to establish the PCI as a thoroughly independent party. These issues, actually separate from the transformation of the PCI even if they were necessary preconditions, are unique enough in themselves.

Berlinguer was searching for a space between being a Communist party and being a Social Democratic party, but my view is that there was no space, none. That instead there was a wall, something that would have meant, eventually, that a choice had to be made. In the end the demands made by Communism were total: the ideology demanded complete Party control of State and complete State control of Society. The gap between that and even an extremely radical form of Social Democracy was immense, unbridgeable. Then there was the matter of relations with the Soviet Union, including the continued financial ones. Another problem: the PCI was the most independent of all Communist parties, but it was still bound to the others and thus not entirely its own creature; always an organisation somewhat beholden, at an emotional level in particular, to a foreign dictatorship. Of course Berlinguer died before the fatal moment arrived. My suspicion is that, had he lived, he would probably have managed it better and might even have tried to make it before the issue was forced: he was a perceptive enough man that he must have been aware of the growing strain his project was under.

Which, of course, also explains what went wrong for the PCI (other than, as you say, the sudden death of its ideology and the loss of its financial patron) after Berlinguer. Critical decisions were left in the hands of people who were various less intelligent than Berlinguer, less moral than Berlinguer and less intelligent and less moral than Berlinguer. And they made a mess of it. But even he would have found the going hard.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This thread was frozen not due to the election but a long anticipated but still absolutely devastating family bereavement. Anyway I'm up to doing this sort of thing again and will get round to answering outstanding questions. Feel free to ask new ones. We all have time on our hands.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

which city in the New World, in your view, is most fascinating, from your perspective as an urbanist?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What is the best Terrence Malick movie for someone who has never seen a Terrence Malick movie to start with?

Depends if you want to jump in at the deep end and immerse yourself in The Glory or have a little paddle first. I would say for the former, either Days of Heaven or The Tree of Life. For the latter, Badlands, his first and most conventional film.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This thread was frozen not due to the election but a long anticipated but still absolutely devastating family bereavement. Anyway I'm up to doing this sort of thing again and will get round to answering outstanding questions. Feel free to ask new ones. We all have time on our hands.

I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Al. I hope you and your family have been able to heal.

I don't have any new question right now, but I look forward to your answers to my second one as well as other people's.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

More generally, and building on that, what does the ideal socialist or labor party look like to you? I don't mean On The Issues as such, but rather in terms of its organizational structure, the respective roles of members, supporters, parliamentarians, and leaders within it, its relationship to unions and other components of civil society, the level of "rootedness" in socialist history and symbols, the ways in which it chooses to engage (or not engage) with other political forces in society and with the apparatus of government, how it processes and responds to changes in society that have undermined the position of labor, its relationship with intellectuals and degree of intellectual reflection, etc., etc.  There are probably more aspects than that, so feel free to expand on any you're interested in.

The trollish answer is that the most important attribute of an 'ideal' socialist or labour party is that it existed in the first two thirds or so of the twentieth century.

The essential problem now is this: class society no longer exists, but profound social and economic inequalities absolutely do. Class exists and shapes (and frequently limits and often ruins) lives, but does not now have a regimenting effect on society. This places social democratic politics in a difficult position, as its growth and development was a direct reaction to the regimentation of society along immediately obvious class lines. Which takes us back to the troll point above: one of the main reasons for this situation is the success of the labour movement and social democratic parties in the twentieth century. They wanted to abolish class society and they succeeded, they really did.* But unfortunately the abolition of class society turned out not to be the same thing as the abolition of class, and class in the absence of class society is not something that socialist politics seems to be able to cope with particularly well.

In other words, it is important to return to first principles. What is the purpose of a socialist party, of a party of 'labour', in the first place? Historically, it was to fight for the emancipation (politically, socially, economically) of The Working Class. We no longer live in societies in which it is possible to talk of The Working Class (singular) and emancipation is no longer the issue, exactly, but a simple modification to reflect today's realities is not difficult: the point, then, should be to represent the interests of Ordinary People. Is that term a dog whistle? Absolutely, but a potentially effective one, one that accounts for the strangely diffuse nature of social distinction today. And why should the political Right be the only people who get to play with tactics that actually work?

Questions of organisation and party structure should be met with Bevan's maxim about 'the language of priorities'; what works, work, what does not should be disposed of. This really is not an area where there should be any room for obsession or sentiment, and one of the problems of parties of this sort at present is that, good God, the exact opposite is true. I certainly do not think that there is any point in trying to re-create the Mass Party of the early twentieth century, for instance. Such things, as remarkable as they were in their 'thickest' forms, were a product of a very different time, when people lived much more 'collective' lives than today and trying to bring them back brings to mind Canute and the waves. Similarly, while I think a close relationship between such parties and trade unions is essential, it is not acceptable, not remotely, for them to function as mouthpieces for union bureaucracies or to adopt particular policies purely because they are the hobby horse of this or that union; individual trade unions exist to advocate for their members (fine, good, important), but a party of this sort exists to advocate for a wider range of people. When the two come in to conflict (as they often will), there should be no question of siding with the former.

Rhetoric and symbolism are interesting issues, but I think I should discuss them separately later.

_{*I suppose their tragedy is that they never realised that they did; because they always had dreams of something yet more glorious, they robbed themselves of that moment of triumph and the lasting sense of satisfaction that should have resulted. Which, I suppose, leads to a relationship with the past that is not very healthy; to obsessions with betrayal and the lionisation of 'heroic' disasters. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of utopianism plus time: perpetual disappointment.}

[Antonio the Sixth]

Many excellent points. The idea that class could continue to exist and be socially meaningful even as the class society stricto sensu ceased to be is not something I had considered before, but it actually does a great job accounting for many transformations in Western societies since the end of WW2. It is true that, in many ways, class is less obviously visible in people's everyday lives and in their interactions with one another than it would have been in the 1950s, even as material inequality has gotten considerably worse. This creates more resentment in society, while making it more difficult for people to identify the source of that resentment and channel it toward socially transformative political projects. It's the great tragedy of our time.

I do wonder to what extent the demise of the class society is a product of the success of social democracy, and how much is due to unrelated or even countervailing factors - technological change, consumer culture, the aspirational individualism of the 80s etc. Not that those things are wholly unrelated to social democratic welfare policies, but there's a difference between saying that the welfare state succeeded in tearing down the strict class barriers that existed and replace them with a more fluid hierarchy, and saying that it had some downstream effect that weakened the visibility of class but preserved its material effects. Maybe it's just a difference in spin, I don't know. But I'd like tho think it was more of the former. It definitely makes me feel more optimistic about the future.

I genuinely appreciate your atheoretical approach to what the left should do. You've referenced Bernstein before, and as someone who admires him a lot and think he was fundamental to the success of social democracy, I really appreciate that. I tend to think that we do need a little more than to know Which Side We Are On, but I do agree that knowing that is the first and most important step. The Left should always be about the have-nots, the downtrodden, the dispossessed (who, in such an unequal societies as ours, are almost by definition the vast majority). Leftists who forget that are the most worthless of all. I do tend to thing that we need a bit more than that, though. I do wonder if failing to sketch out what our end goal looked like for society has been the cause for the failure of social democracy as you describe it (of course, at the same time, adhering to a dogmatic view of what that society should look like is part of what turned the Soviet experience into such a horror show). I don't have a set view on this question, though.

And yes, I completely agree with you that the left ought to be more comfortable resorting to the kind of rhetorical tactics that the right has successfully employed to leverage the Schmittian side of mass political behavior. There is no way around drawing fault lines in politics (the kind of people on the left and right who lament "identity politics" are either hypocrites or hopelessly naive). Even liberals are all too prone to separate in-groups and out-groups, even if they do so more sneakily through the use of cultural shibboleths. So the left needs to make it clear who it stands for (and thereby who it stands against). "Ordinary people" seems like an excellent framing for it (I went on about "the dispossessed" earlier, but obviously many people who are would not recognize themselves as such, so it's not a good framing from a rhetorical standpoint).

Also agreed entirely on unions, and I look forward for your elaboration on rhetoric and symbolism.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Some Pakistan-related questions for you.

1. Is class relevant to political support for Islamists in Pakistan, and if so, how?

2. I'm under the impression that Karachi-Dubai is one of the, if not the top routes in the world for major criminal activities (smuggling, trafficking, financing of organized crime and terrorism, etc.) How correct is this impression

3. You've previously said that there are multiple "deep states" in Pakistan. What are they, aside from the Army and ISI? (or are even they fractured into competing "deep states")?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Thought on Eco's "The Prague Cemetery"?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Thoughts on A Hidden Life, if you had a chance to see it?

I have not yet, but very much wish to see it. Unfortunately it was not screened in many cinemas here, and sorting out a trip to see it at the start of the year was impossible because of the flooding and then along came the virus...

[Wikipedia delenda est]

What's your opinion of Robert Walpole? How about the Viscount Bolingbroke? More recently, who do you think was worse for the Labour Party: the Militant tendency entryists of the 1980s, or the Blairites who took over in the 1990s?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who do you think was the best (or least bad) Stuart King of England?

I'm not a fan, but it has to be James I/VI simply by default. Even placing my own sympathies to one side, Charles I and James II were objective disasters, while Charles II was so incompetent at statecraft that he managed to be duped into becoming an actual puppet of Louis XIV...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Would you say that the political thought of Giorgio Agamben represents (consciously or not) an appropriation of the thought of J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists (in emphases and ambience even if not in the actual content of their ideas) and its transfer out of religious studies and into a field in which it actually has some merit? If not, what would you say?

A pretty clear 'yes', I'd have thought. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

[Zinneke]

What is the common mistake/misconception posters make (psephology or otherwise) you read on forums that makes you go insane the most?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Have you ever been to the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru? To other eisteddfodau?

I'm quite fascinated by the Welsh language, but I have no idea what is a good platform to try learn it or how difficult it would be. Any suggestions?

How/where do you make your typical political and demographic maps? They are amazingly neat and informative and I love the choice of colour shades too. They're the best I've seen.

[Continential]

What is your favorite political party (worldwide) and why is it your favorite?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Have you ever been to the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru? To other eisteddfodau?

I'm quite fascinated by the Welsh language, but I have no idea what is a good platform to try learn it or how difficult it would be. Any suggestions?

How/where do you make your typical political and demographic maps? They are amazingly neat and informative and I love the choice of colour shades too. They're the best I've seen.

1. I went to the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen once as a child, otherwise no. Incidentally, I own some tiny chairs - as in, about the scale for a large Edwardian dolls house - that my Great Grandfather (who was a conductor despite being deaf in one ear from work - he was a blaster at a slate quarry) won at the National Eisteddfod in the 1920s.

2. It is possible that you might find it surprisingly easy - there's a lot of Latin to it, both in terms of structure and vocabulary. On the other hand, the fact that there's a lot of Latin to it but not as much as a true Romance language might make it strangely frustrating. One or the other, probably.

3. Thank you! I use dear old Microsoft Paint (the extreme simplicity of the programme is actually its biggest advantage) and have a steady hand and a good eye for colour.