Tony Judt's Manifesto for the Left

jonnyjackhammer

I don't share your view that this is an "astonishing piece of work". It's highly predictable and merely reflects the intellectual confusion on the left. Yes - I too had my education with the Comrades. I championed the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Germinal and the German Ideology. Spoke endlessly about inequality, Orwell and the great socialist leaders. Read Marx, Althusser, Poulantzas avidly as well as the home grown Hills, Hobsbawms, Andersons. But like many of that generation, I eventually began to grow out of my “infantile disorder”. Like very many ex left wingers, it eventually dawned on me that the paradigm of "equality" of state driven social engineering and social intervention for a better society, was fundamentally at odds with reality out there. There is too much in Judt’s article that needs to be challenged – but it seems to me his history is nonsense “Much of what appears "natural" today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation” Really? I thought it drove much of the last 300 years of economic development in the UK not to mention earlier mercantile periods too. “the cult of privatisation” What cult? More a necessity. “The crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy”: Silly me – I thought that it was highly regulated (albeit very badly). The problem is that supposed historians like Judt –are totally blind to their own deeply held ideology. Marx spoke of a veil of which the wearer was unaware he was wearing. Judt appears to have no appreciation of his own paradigmatic limitations. This is not a serious contribution to a rethinking of the State. It’s an exercise of fumbling in the dark.

Rhoda Klapp

Same ole toot. Just what makes you think you are an ex-left-winger? In sentiment I mean, I know you shot somebody's fox and are PNG among the initiated. What makes you think life was really much different before 1997 than since? I mean, really different for the majority of people.

The Judt thing is all just tribalist tosh.

Beer Moth

"The welfare state is as popular as ever with its beneficiaries..."

Most popular especially with those beneficiaries who have never contributed to the system. They think it's ace.

Judy

It would be less hilarious if he didn't choose to live in that well known socialist paradise, New York USA. He can hardly argue that that's because he could find a Chair in the UK.

This comes over as a reverse version of the Guardian's notorious attempts to influence the voters of Clark County, Ohio in the second G W Bush presidential election by getting such towering figures as Lady Antonia Fraser and Jonathan Freedland to explain to the voters there why they needed to vote for Al Gore.

'Nuff said.

Kevany

Sorry Martin, regulation boilerplate from beginning to end. Gerry Cohen did it so much better.

Augustus

"A new arrangement for society". Come again?

Maoism?
Stalinism?
Castroism?
Chavezism?
Judtism?

All failures. Purely because socialism doesn't reward individual effort with its true value. In fact, it rewards shoddy work
and tries to bring everyone down to below average. It's very existence proves that capitalism has the best arrangement for society, because it has a built-in success factor which socialism lacks; namely the personal drive to succeed and to reap the rewards that success brings.

Ian Walker

I feel sorry for socialists, now that their grand idea has been comprehensively shown to be a massive failure, and they are still trapped by the sunk costs fallacy.

Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we will see Lefties Anonymous groups springing up. "My name is Jonathan Diversityofficer, and it's been three weeks since my last well-meaning-but-ultimately-patronising-and-flawed-social-engineering-experiment"

Anthony

'...nowhere in Europe is there a constituency for abolishing public health services, ending free or subsidised education or reducing public provision of transport and other essential services.' Of course not: minor matters like autonomy, quality, consumer choice and - critically - who makes the decisions when the money runs out, are all under unresponsive bureaucratic centralised control.

Marbury

I'm really baffled that you thought Judt's piece "astonishing" or contra the conventional wisdom on the left. To me it read exactly like a hundred other pieces in The Guardian, all of them seizing on the economic crisis to argue that the country has taken one, long, disastrous detour from 1979 to 2009. It's a Milne/Toynbee-esque narrative which, whether you agree with it or not (I don't) is the definition of conventional wisdom in guardianland.

As for "privatisation", I think you're making a category error. Privatisation isn't "efficient" or "inefficient": companies or industries are.

Anyway, efficiency isn't (all of) the point. Oddly, for a man of the left, you're using a very narrow definition of "collective advantage", that revolves around hard cash. If the railways are much better now than they were, then that's a massive public good/social utility that you're not including in your calculations. I'm afraid it's not Cameron who is missing the point here.

Marbury

Ps: so it's a "challenge to received wisdom" and "captures what many of the liberal left feel". Quite a trick!

Really Martin, it's just dreary boilerplate, crowdpleasing drivel.

Anyway - JJH has put all this far more eloquently than me.

Snowman

Martin, grow up, please.

An astonishing piece, is it? If you dissect the litany, it boils down to nothing more than an unworkable pap.

Martin Bright

Ok. I admit it. I got a little bit overexcited. But only because there is so little else out there to admire on the intellectual left. Blogging can sometimes (often?) be cursed by the immediate reaction.

Marbury

It's to your credit for admitting this - and you're right, blogging should be in part about getting those rushes of blood down quick. And commenters should help restore balance. When they're not being generally annoying that is.

Saul Goldberg

In September 2008, historian Tony Judt was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease or Motor Neuron Disease. ALS is a degenerative neuromuscular disorder of the motor neurons: it is related to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, as well as lesser known neurological disorders.

Tony is my former university professor, mentor and close friend. Like so many, I have benefited from knowing him in more ways than I could begin to list. In the eighteen months since receiving his diagnosis I have watched Tony transform from a fit, healthy, active, independent man to a frozen body in a wheelchair. I have witnessed the frightening speed of his physical deterioration: first, losing the power of his fingers; then his arms; then his legs; and, within eight months, becoming confined to his present state: shriveled and paralyzed from the neck down, able to breathe only with the aid of a machine.

I am writing to you today about Move for ALS. On May 15th I will embark on a cycle ride from Seattle to New York to raise awareness of ALS and to raise money for Project A.L.S., the charity that supports scientific research seeking a cure to the disease. To date, Project A.L.S. has raised over $53 million, directing 82% to scientific research programs, including the foundation of the Jenifer Estess Laboratory for Stem Cell Research at Columbia University, the world’s first and only privately funded lab dedicated exclusively to ALS stem cell research.

In collaboration with Tony Judt and Project A.L.S., we have built a campaign website (www.moveforals.com) which has already received substantial attention from web and print media, as well as professional medical organizations. In under two days since the website was launched we have received over $2000 in donations and countless pledges of support: it has been a quite incredible response. But this is only the very beginning.

We appeal to you to join the campaign. Donations of any kind can be made easily on the Move for ALS website, with attractive gifts on offer to substantial donors. Checks can also be sent directly to Project A.L.S. (be sure to reference Move for ALS): 3960 Broadway, 
Suite 420,
 New York, New York, 10032, USA.

Publicity is equally important to the campaign. We would be especially grateful if you would forward this letter to friends, relatives, colleagues and anyone else: we want to offer people all over the world the chance to take part. If you have access to media or web outlets (e.g. blogs or heavy-traffic Twitter or Facebook pages) where you could give further publicity to our campaign, it would be particularly appreciated.

I believe that, during my lifetime, a cure can be discovered for this catastrophic disease. It will come only from expensive scientific research: and when it does it will be a joy to know that we had helped a little along the way.

Please join us and Move for ALS!

Saul Goldberg
www.moveforals.com
www.twitter.com/moveforals
saul@moveforals.com