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Ideological opposition to opposing ideologies is a defining feature of the Western political landscape. The stated ideals of centrism dominate discourse: compromise, pragmatism, and rationalism are the guiding lights for generations raised in a system that is said, despite its faults, to be the greatest moral achievement of humanity so far. On the eve of the 350th anniversary of the Glorious Revolution 1, however, and after 350 years of war, of poverty, of class struggle, and of violence, these ideals ring hollow. It is time to examine how the West’s unwavering commitment to political realism hides an essential unreality, whose workings must be understood in order for it to be negated and overcome.
Centrism is essentially tied to conservatism. By the classical definition, conservatives stand for tradition and against large-scale change: centrism provides for this through systems that, by design, consolidate and centre political power in the hands of those willing to compromise. In addition, modern conservatism has always favoured free-market capitalism over other forms of economics. Thus, because centrism lends itself to allowing conservative control, and conservative control centres capitalism as a core pillar of the state, any government focused on maintaining the core liberal ideals ends up giving a share of its power to the raw machinery of capital. This impact has been felt since the birth of liberalism, and is especially clear when considering the circumstances of the French revolution. Foucault notes that although “the bourgeoisie had accepted, without too much trouble, the illegality of rights, it found it difficult to support illegality when it was a question of its own property rights”, and in practice used their newfound power, freed from “feudal burdens”, to tighten the grip of capital over the life of workers 2. From the beginning, the foundations of centrism were tied to capital, and so the question becomes: why does capital need this conserving force?
To create more capital, is the answer. It is the answer to any question of motivation or direction, as its only reason to exist is to create more of itself, to multiply infinitely. Centrism is special in that it tends to create the most ideal conditions, in which the steady growth of capital embeds itself as a fact of life. It may seem that, in recent decades, this goal of unstoppable, ponderous growth has been left behind in favour of the “hyper-scalers”: nation-sized corporations that disregard the traditional sources of money (natural resources, commodities trade, finance), and that expect the rate of profit to continuously increase, let alone the profit itself. It is true that many of the historical restrictions on industry–restricted labour pools, wars within the ‘home countries’, limitations on natural resources–have lessened due to globalisation of the world economy. In addition, the invention and massive utilisation of virtual capital instruments such as futures or mortgage-backed securities allows for exponential growth without exponential use of resources, freeing those resources to instead become political tools. However, even these expanded limits will at some point be reached. Data centres are running out of power and water. The EU depends on Saudi oil. Even abstract growth, it seems, is capped by nature and science.
This cap on their potential frustrates the hyper-scalers, but there is another, deeper frustration: trillion-dollar valuations and customer bases in the billions still do not seem to afford the same level of power that smaller amounts of traditional capital commands. Virtual capital, as with all capital, relies on labour as its base. However, it is not as closely tied to this base, and thus does not derive as much power as if it maintained direct control. There is a lack of efficiency in the capital-labour-power relationship that perhaps stems from these corporations (and the individuals behind them) having to spend money for every inch they gain, rather than relying on their connections to power in the way traditional interests perfected. It is ironic that G.K. Chesterton’s famous fence 3, a parable beloved by conservatives, applies perfectly here: in clearing from their path all the restrictive groundwork, the gathering of labour power and consolidation of political support, these upstarts also removed the potential for long-lasting power. Elon Musk, who has abandoned any pretense of impartiality in favour of public sycophancy, exemplifies the desperation of the new generation of capitalists in the face of this realisation. Steady growth, then, is the marker of a mature system, one that does not need to scale beyond its self-imposed bounds, and one that both serves and controls the structures of power efficiently and effectively.
Conservatism favours capital, and centrism favours conservatism. Thus, centrism favours capital. This results in political positions that exist far outside of the mainstream necessarily opposing capital, as they are harder for centrism to accept and enfold. Any sort of ideological motive outside of money is therefore in opposition to the goals of the system. That isn’t to say, however, that extremists cannot be useful.
Consider the relationship between Western governments and the far-right over the past 80 years, from the immediate post-war period through to contemporary times. “Denazified” West Germany was largely run by ex-Nazi judges and industrial figures, a clear sign that the goals of remembrance and atonement entered cultural memory, but materially didn’t extend past the Nuremberg trials. Neo-fascist groups formed a key component of NATO strategy through the bulk of the Cold War as part of “stay-behind” forces: secret organisations that both prepared to fight a guerilla war in the case of a Soviet invasion, but also in the meantime directly opposed indigenous left-wing movements. The most well-known of these organisations were created as part of Operation Gladio, a joint CIA-MI6 plan that, at its peak in the 1980s, ran shadow armies in every major European country. These armies used Neo-Nazis in a utilitarian fashion: useful idiots, a fount of violence that could be directed at anything, as long as the target was nominally left-wing. The body of national socialism was kept, zombified and subservient, for exactly as long as it was needed and then cast aside. Nowhere is this pattern clearer than in Switzerland: the Swiss version of Gladio was P-26, a secret “special services” branch of the military that recruited civilians. P-26 would not only activate to fight the Russians, however–it would also begin its war in the case of a left-wing majority gaining power in parliament. Note that this organisation was built from 1981-1985, and with the full knowledge and material support of MI6. Clearly, the neo-liberal structure that was at that time consolidating its power had no qualms about the use of violence within its own territories, against its own people, if it was in service of creating and maintaining the burgeoning world order.
The usefulness of these blunt instruments, with their output of bombings and assassinations, was always limited. Overt (what Zizek calls “subjective 4) violence was no longer needed, and was replaced by the silent mechanisms of soft (”objective” 5) violence that could carry the status quo into the next millennium. When the European Union was formed in 1993, 10 out of the 12 signatories of the Maastricht Treaty had been compromised by Operation Gladio. The secret militias were not exposed, or foiled: they had simply completed their mission.
Note that while individuals, groups, and even entire societies can be driven by ideology, capital is not. Instead it follows the path of least resistance, whichever option will facilitate its continued growth; once it has begun, it will build momentum, and in turn bolster the path that it flows along. A microcosm of this process can be seen in the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. There is a kernel of truth in the notion, emphasised by ‘ordinary’ Germans after the war, that no one was a true believer. At some point, the option of fascism simply became the path of least resistance for the German bourgeoisie, and once past this point the Nazis were embraced enthusiastically as a calculated gamble. This shift in the alignment of capital, allowing access to its vast resources, reinforced the growing fascist state and made it even more appealing to champion–and so on, until the bitter end. Rebuilding a razed country was not the ideal future for German capitalists: a perfect capital system would be self-sustaining, and would not require or permit a force as destructive as the Nazis. The conditions post-World War One were not stable, however, and faced with loss of control capital inevitably picked the side of the right.
It was inevitable because the original principles of the left are fundamentally incompatible with the constant growth of capital. Even the most liberal version of left-wing ideology includes regulations governing corporations, and some form of wealth distribution in the form of social protections and taxes. On the other hand, the power structures of the right (from milquetoast neo-liberalism to hyper-accelerationist military juntas) stem directly from historical power structures, and as such are always guided by what would be best for the ruling class. The European reactionary monarchists of the turn of the 19th century still have an outsized influence on right-wing thought, even for “small government” conservatives: what else is modern American libertarianism that a return to the system of feudal lordships, with all the strict class structures that are implied? The bond with capital taints any moves towards liberalisation. Monarchical bureaucracy gives ground to a stronger parliament, which in turn leads to the revolutionary liberals. The freeing of power is co-opted by the gentry and the new bourgeoisie to serve themselves, gifting them even more power than in the time of kings. Attempts at the emancipation of labour are met with violent reactionary force, which leads to the spread of communism as a viable idea. The end of Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet system begins a new era of globalisation.
From this history there emerges a clear motivation for the left: to be as incompatible with the interests of capital as possible. Not one single part of the ideology of the left should be attractive to capital, or even anything less than actively repulsive. In addition, any part of leftist thought that does not actively work against capital, or that could be considered as compatible with it, should be intensely examined. Without this, it will meet the same fate as liberalism has: a catalyst for right-wing power, and nothing more.
A clear example of this compatibility is the shift in focus from labour to identity (at least in America and western Europe). Post-millennium, much of the progress made has been towards ideals of acceptance or equality, rather than concrete goals of any sort, and organised labour or attempts at concerted anti-government action have largely fallen by the wayside. However, the past decade has made it clear that corporate interests are more than happy to provide surface-level appeasement to match the undefined nature of these demands, and furthermore that this appeasement can be revoked at any time because it does not (cannot) require actual irreversible action. Opposing the far-right elements that constantly seek to regress society back to the conservative ideal is important, but blows dealt here should not be confused with dealing damage to the actual structure of capital.
In this sense, many political extremists are just as affected by Fisher’s “invisible barrier constraining thought and action” 6 as the ordinary person who embraces the current state of things. The system understands and even requires some level of dissent. Indeed, without the possibility of dissent, it would rapidly become clear how restricted society is: Chomsky touches on this idea in How the World Works, where he notes that “the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum–even encourage the more critical and dissident views” 7. In the reactionary swing of the cycle detailed above, and with the benefit of the internet providing almost anonymous communication, this spectrum is extremely wide and often inconsistent, allowing or disallowing certain rhetoric at different times or against different targets, but it is unmistakably in force. Not only does this controlled dissent give the sense that free thinking is encouraged, and reinforce the picture that the West has of itself, but it also acts as a form of bragging. The West needs to show itself off, to point to controversial art and imitate that the very act of permitting it to exist only further proves its superiority. A common talking point of the America right (grossly repurposed recently against those calling for peace in Palestine) is the idea that it is only by the grace of their commitment to free speech that anyone is allowed to be communist, or a feminist, or non-white. The implication is that this protection is something that is extended, and as such something that can be taken away.
Allowing this controlled extremism to exist means that the energy of the left is redirected away from the system itself and towards the right. They form the obvious threat, the component of subjective violence, that must be immediately dealt with lest the lessons of the early 20th century are repeated. Conversely, both left- and right-wing extremists serve this same purpose for the bulk of the population: they remove attention away from the constant objective violence imposed on the working classes, and provide a convenient place to lay blame for the issues that arise, necessarily, from the functioning of the system. How often are phenomena of current capitalism (rising prices, lines for petrol, omnipresent surveillance) labelled as ‘just like socialism’? The existence of these ideas in the abstract is not enough of a distraction, however. There must be a internal Other, familiar faces and names that nevertheless hold alien viewpoints, that wish destruction on both themselves and everything the common man would hold dear. Against this disease of wanton violence, the centrist perspective can be positioned as not only morally superior and more rational, but generally more intelligent. The fact that those on the extremist fringe are often minorities or outcasts in some way only serves to reinforce this position, and to imbue it with a (readily deniable but still present) air of racial, sexual, or mental superiority. Without this pedestal to cling to, without the contrast of extremism, it would be easy to see that rather than being the lack of a position, centrism requires just as much ideology as anything else.
Examining current material conditions dispels the illusion even more. The world seems to consist mainly of the abstracted instruments of capital: mortgages, bonds, options, futures, CDOs, cryptocurrencies, the uncountable ways in which money, and the fate of millions, can be transferred and transformed but never properly realised. Are these not far more foreign, more extreme, than ideas of labour power, surplus value, or social equality? These constructs of capital are often purposely abstracted and confused by their proponents in order to maintain this exact mystery that surrounds them, to make them more unreal, and to ensure an air of exclusivity. Ironically, the vice of abstracting simple ideas to the point of total incomprehension is often assigned to leftist academics attempting to explain any sort of theory, but much better fits the financial industry. It is beneficial that most people feel they cannot understand the workings of finance or economics, that some complex system created by others far smarter is in control of the world, and that at the same time that this control is unreal, is not what matters, that just because their life and well-being hinges on decisions made by twenty-something trust fund managers thousand of miles away doesn’t mean that the system is not working in their best interests. In this way the artifice is by design, and makes these instruments more effective, not less, at forcing the path of human lives to conform to the will of those that wield them.
Of course capital growth, conservatism, and the hyper-modern brand of globalised neo-liberalism are just as ideologically driven as any other political position. Subscribing states wield massive, self-sanctioned violence against rival countries and their own citizens; they construct and utilise surveillance networks that can target anyone at any time; they use abstract economic tools of their own creation to decide where people live, how they work, what they eat, what media they consume, their emotional state, and their very self-image. These actions come with spoonfuls of sugar in the form of economic and political theory or social science: practices that exist to wrap ideology, to disguise it. However, as the progression of capital moves into its later stages, it becomes harder and harder to mask the bitter taste.
Faced with this system of unreality, where dissent is expected and encouraged, and where hidden tools of ideology decide the fate of societies, how is it possible to escape the grasp of centrism? The answer is to bring the Other, the true Other, into the most sacred and conserved heartland of the West: the routine of the everyday. Anything except this, any action, any thought, that does not constitute extremism in the eyes of a centrist, that does not repulse the mind and soul of the gentry, cannot serve a purpose. The ideas of compromise and realism above all and the irrelevance of violence to moral beings are constructed social notions rather than universal truths, if only because universal truths do not and can not exist. They may be right; but the system that produced them must be examined, and it must be considered that even beliefs that are morally correct in the abstract can be weaponised against free thought and, crucially, against change. The Left must question, then, if the exclusion of radical action is because it is a moral evil–or because extremism would be one of the only expressions of an Other that could break through unreality and truly threaten capital.