Bookless and Dying

The left is out of ideas

Martin Peretz of The New Republic writes this essay in which he looks at the intellectual exhaustion of the left. Because Mr. Peretz is a liberal he gets a few things wrong in this article. His views on the free market and capitalism are part of the reason that the left is in trouble. But his larger point is correct. Political movements need intellectual fuel in order to have and keep momentum. Politics is, after all, the application of philosophy to the ordering of society through law and custom. Without ideas, a political system cannot hope to survive or to thrive. Today's intellectual ferment is not found on the left but on the right. It is the conservatives in America who have built a network of think-tanks, authors, public and private institutions and individuals where ideas are constantly developed and discussed. It has been a very long process, but the political right is now where one looks to find real intellectual debate and discussion.

The left, on the other hand, still clings to the outdated ideas of 19th century socialist writers. We get plenty of Janeane Garofalos' and Michael Moores', but no serious public or academic intellectuals are to be seen. Ideas and books are few and far between and rarely discussed by Democrats. We know what the Angry Left is against; we know that Howard Dean "hates Republicans and everything they stand for." But when questioned about what they are for, we get only gauzy generalities about 'social justice' or the complaints of a thousand special interest splinter groups who have in common only their hate of capitalism and limited government and their ever-present desire to re-distribute income which they did not earn.

The ideas of socialism have been discredited everywhere and thus the Angry Left has no unifying theory to replace their old one. They are rudderless on a wide sea, blaming everyone but themselves for their unwillingness to choose a new direction in which to sail.