My Answer to the question "What does it mean to be on the left"?

Simplifying somewhat, there are people who work for a living and people who own things for a living. The vast majority of people are required by random circumstance to work; while a fortunate few inherit or acquire enough wealth that they don't need to work.

On “the left”, we believe that people who work for a living, the majority, should be in charge, and that public goods (like land, oil, gold etc) should be owned collectively and exploited for the benefit of all.

We believe that people who own things for a living are simply parasites who benefit from the work of others without making any contribution. Political systems designed by and for people who own things for a living are invariably systems of institutionalised violence and tyranny.

We believe that no one ever gets to the point of owning things for a living by "their own efforts" or by "working hard". In reality, a community of humans is interdependent: we all rely on each other. Rich people are invariably born into fortunate circumstances and exploit everyone around them to get into a position of owning stuff for a living. Wealth is not a measure of value, but of luck and cunning.

We believe that work is necessary and that given the necessity, everyone should be able to live a comfortable life by whatever contribution they are capable of making. No one in our society should ever go hungry. 

This can be contrasted with “the right”, who believe that people who own things for a living, the tiny minority, should be in charge. Public goods are amongst the most valuable stuff that the people who own things for a living own and claim exclusive access to. They believe that exploitation of public goods should only benefit the owners.

People who own things for a living are often unwilling or unable to acknowledge the contributions that friends, family, educators, coaches, and especially workers, have made to their success. Indeed, people who own things for a living see workers as a burden and an expense. One result is that they aim to eliminate as many workers as possible, or to replace them with machines and computers.

On the left, we recognise that owning stuff does not lead to contentment or happiness. Nor does owning stuff make anyone wise or trustworthy. Hoarding is a recognised mental illness, if it’s newspapers or string, but if one hoards wealth, it is somehow a measure of “success”. A billionaire is simply someone with a mental illness that used the leverage of their wealth to assert the normality of their pathological condition. No one can earn enough wealth for 1000 or a million lifetimes. And hoards are, in any case, an extremely inefficient distribution and use of resources. Billionaires are economically incoherent in a country that has millions of people living poverty.

On the right they are not bothered by people living in poverty or even starving to death. They will happily pay a worker considerably less than it costs to stay alive; or nothing, if they can get away with it. And at the same time, they are vocally critical of attempts to uplift workers to a position in which they can stay alive. If the government gets involved in helping those who work for a living, those who own things for a living are apt to become apoplectically angry (while with the other hand greedily accepting lucrative government contracts and subsidies).

One might say that people who own things for a living have a Hobbesian view of humanity as chaotic and requiring tyranny. And people who work tend to a Rousseauean view in which humanity is better off without any form of tyranny.

On the left, we think that if all the people who worked disappeared overnight, the people who own stuff for a living would probably be dead inside a month. But if the people who own stuff for a living all disappeared, it would only benefit those who work for a living. Working serves a purpose and benefits the community. Owning does not serve a purpose and does not benefit the community.  

At best, owning things is a completely and utterly useless activity for any human being to pursue. At worst it is actually threatening life on earth via climate change, pollution, and ecosystem destruction.

Unfortunately a substantial portion of people who work for a living are convinced, by pro-owning-stuff propaganda, that they can pursue happiness through owning stuff. However, this never leads to owning stuff for a living, because the fancy stuff that workers buy—cars, TVs, computers—doesn’t provide them with an income. Indeed, consumer goods are next to worthless almost as soon as get them home,  they are designed to break and/or fail, and they often end up costing the owner money. Still, a lot of workers are enthusiastic supporters of people who own stuff, and of rule by the owners of stuff, because now they too have a lot of stuff.

On the left we don’t see how those people who own things for a living can possibly rule to our benefit, since at best they see us as a burden and an expense; and at worse they see us as resources to be exploited. The phrase human resources is a a chilling reminder of this. Given power, history shows that people who own things for a living arrange whole societies solely to their own benefit. 

And all of this has been blindingly obvious

to those on the left for around 150 years.

The great problem on the left is disagreement over details of how to put workers in charge, leading to militant factionalism. As, (former) Marxist-Lenninist, Alexei Sayle, once put it: “The people we hated the most were the wrong kind of socialists”. This is beautifully illustrated—at least as far as the UK is concerned—in the political satire of Monty Python’s Life of Brian (which has fuck all to do with religion as far as I can see).

This is one way of talking about what it means to me to be “on the left”. I don’t particular identify with labels like “socialist”, “communist”, etc. I’m certainly not a Marxist, though I do think that Marx’s 150 year old articulation of the problems of capitalism are as relevant as ever. 

I’m probably some kind of anarchist, in the sense that I don’t think having a ruling class is necessary at all. We are grown ups and we can govern ourselves, thanks all the same. But if we must be ruled, then let it be workers who rule, not parasites who make no contribution beyond owning things that ought to be public goods anyway.