For realism, and against utopians in balaclavas

Evo Morales, former president of Bolivia

I reject capitalism. I reject militarism. I reject racism.

I reject the whole concept of billionaires. I reject the ‘too-big-to-fail’ banking system. I reject big pharma, big oil, big tobacco and big tech. I reject the dictatorial ownership of workplaces by a small handful of executives and managers. I reject usury as unnatural, and the idea of making money off of money. I reject the whole œconomics of exploitation and predation and fraud. I reject the whole idea that our œconomy is the best of all worlds. I reject abortion – the in utero democide of the working class – as any kind of solution to poverty or œconomic stress.

I reject wars of aggression. I reject sanctions aimed at the poor. I reject hybrid wars. I reject colour revolutions. I reject torture. I reject drone strikes on civilians. I reject starvation tactics. I reject them especially when my own country does them. I reject the whole idea that I need to condemn other countries for defending themselves from mine. I reject the worship of flags (but not their existence). I reject the idolatry of gods and generals made of stone and metal. I reject the corruption of defence contractors. I reject the military-industrial complex.

I reject the militarisation of police. I reject ‘urban renewal’. I reject big-box corporate architecture. I reject redlining. I reject the application of the death penalty. I reject for-profit prisons. I reject neoliberal school ‘reform’. I reject all harmful, demeaning and condescending stereotypes of black, brown, red and yellow people. I reject any idea that I should have more in common with a white man living in some other country or some other state, than I do with the Black and Latino folks living in my own neighbourhood.

Full stop. But. Ideological pacifism and anarchism are themselves false solutions, even – I would go so far as to say – forms of idolatry. I am convinced of this by people like GK Chesterton, Vladimir Solovyov, Mother Maria Skobtsova and Nikolai Berdyaev - all of whom also rejected capitalism, militarism and racism, every bit as stridently as I do here.

Pacifism by its very nature attempts to equate the robber with the victim of robbery, the aggressor with the aggressed-against, the exploiter with the exploited. Pacifism cuts off at its root any wholly natural feeling of pity for or of righteous anger on behalf of the oppressed. However admirable the nonviolence of a Dr King, the endless drumbeat of disdain and doubt and tone-policing and moral censure from ‘white moderates’ against people who defend themselves is a kind of poison. There is something self-satisfied and self-serving in this demand that the weak and the wronged lie supine, docile and passive while they are beaten and raped and killed by the powerful – and this in particular is what Solovyov and Chesterton militated against. (Note, however, that this is not an argument for ‘just war’. I have never seen a just war. I simply do not think a just war is possible given the modern technologies of killing that are at the disposal of modern governments, or the technologies of psychological warfare that make it easier than ever to dehumanise those that states would have us consider enemies.)

And notwithstanding my intellectual admiration for Georges Sorel, Franz Kafka, and some certain others in the historical anarcho-syndicalist tradition of thought, anarchism is nowadays little more than the ideology of the feeble-minded, foolish, ignorant and irresponsible. The ‘in defence of looting’ ideology cheered on the nighttime looters in Minneapolis (who, it turns out, were not left-wingers at all, but instead a mixture of opportunists and far-right agents provocateur), and made it easier for society to blame and scapegoat the daylight-hour marchers for justice for George Floyd who were respectful and well-coordinated. A white anarchism that smashes and burns storefronts, then runs and hides for cover behind black bodies when the police crack down, is no sort of ideology that I can respect.

And internationally, the same pattern plays out with the rejection of even imperfect states in the Third World, because they are states. When anarchists reject the populist governments of Evo Morales in Bolivia, or of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, or even Baššâr al-’Asad in Syria – they manufacture consent for military intervention, and then enable and give licence to the very worst, most racist elements in those societies that opportunistically seek advantage for themselves. The fascist Áñez government rode to power in a Western-backed coup in Bolivia last year, and was cheered on by white Western anarchists who bought into media lies about Morales and in general just hated him for, um, leading a state. The same anarchists hated Chávez and hate Maduro in Venezuela, such that they supported the neoliberal Juan Guaidó (or else adopted a cowardly position of neutrality once their job in delegitimating the democratic government was done). The same also happened in Syria with anarchist support for the ‘Free Syrian Army’, which was from the very start controlled by violent far-right fundamentalist elements.

I would much rather stand for realism and wu wei in foreign policy: recognising contingencies and imperfections in the administration of states, making a good-faith effort to try and constrain the worst aspects of militarism, seeing the value in leaving other countries alone when the safety of our own citizens is not threatened. I would rather stand in solidarity with progressive leaders like Morales and Maduro, and leave states alone that do not threaten our fundamental security or national (not private) interests. That beats embracing an impossible idealism which ultimately only serves Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. I would rather stand for a broad, non-sectarian left economic policy with a preference for worker-ownership and an independent monetary policy. And I would rather stand for a reformist approach to community policing so that we can actually successfully demilitarise the police and put an emphasis on public safety as something responsive and trustworthy. In short, what I would rather stand for is something like a realist left.