by One of the creators of the excellent Alternative Left Facebook page called “Agent Commie” has a YouTube channel here.This is his first video below, a thought-provoking and badly needed perspective on a new Alt Left politics:[embedded content]I like this principle very much:Alternative Left Politics, so far confined to the internet and social media, centred around advocacy of a program of protecting Western civilization from decline due to an erosion of humanist values created by regressive leftism.Agent Commie sees this as the essence of the Alt Left:(1) economic leftism;(2) anti-conservatism;(3) civil libertarianism, and defence of freedom of speech and expression. I am comfortable with this, but an Alt Left really needs more than this, as follows: (1) a clarification of its economic thought and policies. In reality, the hard work has already been done here by left-heterodox Post Keynesian and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) economists. The left-heterodox Post Keynesian position supports full employment, Keynesian macroeconomic policies and management of our economies, a high-wage economy, industrial policy, managed trade in the national interest, a humane welfare state, and an end to offshoring of manufacturing and service jobs to the Third World.
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This is his first video below, a thought-provoking and badly needed perspective on a new Alt Left politics:
I like this principle very much:
Alternative LeftAgent Commie sees this as the essence of the Alt Left:
Politics, so far confined to the internet and social media, centred around advocacy of a program of protecting Western civilization from decline due to an erosion of humanist values created by regressive leftism.
(1) economic leftism;I am comfortable with this, but an Alt Left really needs more than this, as follows:(2) anti-conservatism;
(3) civil libertarianism, and defence of freedom of speech and expression.
(1) a clarification of its economic thought and policies.I urge the Alt Left community to consider these ideas.In reality, the hard work has already been done here by left-heterodox Post Keynesian and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) economists.
The left-heterodox Post Keynesian position supports full employment, Keynesian macroeconomic policies and management of our economies, a high-wage economy, industrial policy, managed trade in the national interest, a humane welfare state, and an end to offshoring of manufacturing and service jobs to the Third World.
(2) an Alt Left should take a strong stance against cultural leftist identity politics and endless cults of victimology, and the bizarre conspiracy theories that blame all our problems on the capitalist, white-male, heterosexual patriarchy and universal “institutional racism.” Third Wave Feminism is the worst offender here and needs to be subject to withering critique.
(3) an Alt Left should reject extreme social constructivism and the “blank slate” view of human beings, for a sensible understanding that many human traits are a complex mix of both genetics and environment. For example, all the scientific evidence you want and your basic experience of the world should show you a basic biological fact: that men – generally speaking and on average – tend to be physically stronger than women, and so are better suited to certain kinds of hard and difficult physical labour than women are, such as firefighting, construction work, and so on.
(4) an Alt Left should continue the anti-imperialist tradition and be largely non-interventionist on foreign policy, but not isolationist.
(5) an Alt Left, at the very least, should be open to serious and rational discussion of the breakdown of the nuclear family in the Western world, and what harm this may have done to our societies, but with humane policies free from right-wing viciousness or free market economics. The excellent work of the communitarian ex-Marxist Bob Rowthorn should be a starting point for this (see here).
(6) an Alt Left must have a sane and pragmatic immigration policy. This is crucial. You have to recognise reality: most people have a normal and natural wish to preserve their nations as homelands for their majority culture and their people. Low-level immigration and reasonable refugee quotas are fine, as long as minorities actually do remain a minority of the population, and people who wish to stay assimilate and do not bring hostile and incompatible cultures.