My sympathy to all those who still cling to the idea that (even moderate) left-wing politics should be the way to a better future. Many upright, courageous, likeable people are among them, including many of my friends. In many cases, especially the most likeable ones. And yet it is probably time to rethink the historical left identification.

A friend of mine once put it this way: “Those who vote left are for the poor people, those who vote right are for the rich people”. My comment on this: If it were that simple, indeed if it were really like that at all, then I would also (still) be on the left.

The deeper problem is that socialism, communism, Marxism, Maoism, feminism, critical race theory and wokeism (queer theory) all belong to the same family of Marxist theories. These first postulate an evil, oppressive class enemy that (currently still) dominates society and, in a second step, deny it the right to live.

With the original Marxism, it is about the bourgeoisie (the civic capitalist exploiters), which shapes all living conditions through capital and must therefore be overthrown; with critical race theory, it is the white population, which always exercises structural racism through its whiteness; with feminism, it is men in general who prescribe all values; with wokeism (queer theory), it is the sexually binary and family-oriented population that shapes the whole of society. And therefore, these theories say, the respective enemy class must be disempowered, reduced and finally destroyed. Quickly with Marxism, slowly with socialism, but the difference is gradual.

The structural similarity of all these theories has recently been pointed out by Dr James Lindsay in particular; but it was noticeable to alert observers with a spiritual connection long before.

Three problems with this from my point of view:

1. Peaceful coexistence between different classes, in which each class contributes to the success of the whole, is not envisaged from the outset (already from these theories), but the goal is the disempowerment, if not the extermination, of the class perceived as an opponent or threat in each case.

Currently the whole thing follows a two-step process. In the first step, an appeal is made to people’s sense of justice by saying: The hitherto oppressed (in Marxism the proletariat, in critical race theory people with non-white skin colour, in feminism women, in woke theory queer people) should please no longer be oppressed, should have equal rights. The justice-loving person naturally agrees.

In a second step, it is then postulated that equality can only be achieved if the previously oppressed class is promoted more, given more privileges than all the others. Thus, this class is now elevated to the new ideal, and all others are increasingly deprived of their livelihood. Just as in the French Revolution the aristocrats ended up under the guillotine, which continued in the “purges” of the Russian Revolution and in Stalinism, Maoism, etc., so now it is the enemy image in general, the “Old White Man” together with his family (husband, wife, children), who must disappear. The tendency is for the young, sexually non-binary, non-family-oriented and preferably also coloured person, as the greatest possible contrast to the “old white man and his family”, to be raised quasi automatically to the new ideal, the role model, the only right thing. All others should at best be tolerated temporarily and gradually, but no longer serve as special role models. This is the direction it will take.

2. Most adherents of these theories do not think them through consistently, do not observe the development with sufficient awareness. Therefore, most leftists have not even noticed something that is actually obvious, namely that for modern Marxism (in all its forms) the proletariat (the working class) has long since become dispensable. The concerns of the ordinary people who go to work every day are in most cases no longer of any concern to the political left. The people who still go to work every day are now – surprise surprise – voting increasingly to the right.

3. These various enemy images and categories have long been used mainly to establish a blatant two-class society in reality. On the one hand, a wafer-thin upper class of super-billionaires who (directly or indirectly) own and control almost everything (what shall we call them? Super-bourgeoisie? Super-exploiting class?), and then all the rest of humanity, who are to be prevented from seeing through this and organising against it.* One means of doing this is the constant sprinkling of such Marxist, socialist, feminist, Wokeist theories and thoughts into this underclass, which leads to internal conflicts and thereby everyone weakening each other.

These are the problems I see, but which most of the political left don’t seem to notice.

Hannes Frischat

*Note: The richest 1% of all people in the world achieved six times as much wealth growth as the bottom 90% between December 2019 and December 2021, according to Oxfam’s study “The Survival of the Richest”.