James Ball cannot understand, and will not engage with, socialism, and here’s why

Adam Smith
Aug 28, 2017 · 4 min read

Let’s ignore my initial response to anything by James Ball and actually take what he writes here at face value, rather than as an expression of “i’m not owned, i’m not owned”. This does mean we have to imagine he was consistently attacked on Twitter for ‘policy’ differences rather than for going hard on #traingate and then refusing to apologise when that tumbled down around his ears. But it’s worth it because he provides a perfect example of a liberal journalist failing to comprehend and engage with socialism and socialists.

The gist of James’s piece is that politics ought to be about policy disagreements, rather than politics, and that those disagreements can and must be civil. It’s not difficult to see why a liberal journalist would come to that conclusion, they view themselves at the centre point of politics, as the arbiter of what constitutes ‘sensible’ and ‘common sense’. To them there is no broader politics, only the technocratic discussion which can be conducted with liberals of all stripes. That makes sense. Take a look at Activate (the new Tory Momentum) who have published a list of their positions. It’s difficult to slide a cigarette paper in between this document and the 2010 manifestos of the Lib Dems and Labour. This is James’s world, a world in which the main differences are in the technicalities of policy and not in ideology or fundamental beliefs.

It is little wonder then that the emergence of socialism as an oppositional ideology to liberalism has shaken these people to their core. Just as the post-war consensus was wrecked by the emergence of Thatcherite neoliberalism, now the Thatcher-born neoliberal consensus is being challenged by democratic socialism.

What James, and the liberal commentariat as a whole, are having to come to terms with is the fact that their belief system, their ‘broad goals’ and values, are not a representation of truth, or objective thought or neutrality but that they are ideological. James can have a constructive conversation about policy with a Tory or with a Labour MP not because they agree on ‘broad goals’ but because they agree on an ideological view of capitalism as broadly acceptable. All of their solutions to the fundamental problems in society are predicated on their ideological belief in a liberal, capitalist democracy.

What James seeks to do is “separate disagreement on policy from disagreement on goals, and on the society we want”. That is because James views politics as a sort of technocratic game where technical policy interventions are used to ‘solve’ social and economic problems. These policies are never ‘ideological’ because they always fit within the non-ideology of broad-based liberalism. This has been basically fine for the commentariat over the last twenty years, where all the mainstream parties and politicians were signed up to the post-Thatcher liberal consensus. The problem is that when an ideology appears on the scene, as it has done with the popular emergence of democratic socialism, it undermines the consensus and exposes non-ideology as ideology.

Where, up until now, the commentariat would politely disagree on the level at which tuition fees should be set, they are now confronted with a large number of politically-engaged people who have a fundamental, ideological opposition to marketised higher education. Where once they were ridiculed as a small cult of socialists, now they are characterised as a ‘mob’ of same-thinking ideologues. In reality they are young people who feel confident to say that higher education ought to be free and accessible to all and not within the constraints of a marketised economy but in a broad programme for a socialist state. If you think that represents a ‘mob mentality’ then spend ten minutes on left Twitter debating what that socialist education looks like and you’ll see it’s not.

If you’re a liberal journalist with the sense of superiority that comes from having your book on buy-one-get-one-half-price at Waterstones and being told you’re part of the intellectual vanguard then it is not hard to see how this might be something that shakes you.

James says “policies are the purpose of politics” and I agree. The reason James believes there’s a mob mentality amongst socialists on Twitter is because he is unable to see past the ideology he opposes and into the nuance that goes on within. I would argue that there is just as a much a mob mentality within the liberal commentariat, they share the same ideas, attack the same people and pat each other on the back for doing so. Just as there are a hundred different liberal positions on higher education, so there are a hundred different socialist positions. Just because you don’t make the effort to read anything more socialist than the New Statesman it does not mean that disagreement, nuance and argument ceases to exist to the left of Polly Toynbee.

James only wants people to engage within the realm of liberalism, the realm where he feels comfortable and equipped to respond to a narrow band of criticism from conservative liberals to social democrats. It is much easier for him to point at socialism and say ‘mob mentality’ than it is for him to acknowledge his own position as fundamentalist and ideological. This is why many find it easier to argue with ideologues on the right than with ‘centrists’, they at least acknowledge that their beliefs are ideological and not an expression of a neutral truth. Wouldn’t it be interesting to talk to a liberal journalist who was willing to make that leap?

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Written by

Socialist and teacher-in-training. Southampton, UK

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