More Holiday Thoughts On Hobsbawm

Here are some notes I found the other day while sorting through some of the papers I accumulated from Christmas Holidays. They come from my reading of Eric Hobsbawm's On The Edge of a New Century.

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Hobsbawm Talks about the history of the Left and how for all intents and purposes the Left had achieved the majority of it's historical (nineteenth century) aims by the late 1960s early 1970s, namely that of participatory democracy and economic redistribution in some form, whether through progressive taxation, welfare state benefits, or a combination of the two. This success effectively ended the Left as a force for progressive change. At the same time, the command economies of the communist countries ran into problems and were forced to make accommodations with the free market to some degree. These two instances robbed the Left of it's vision of a future independent of capitalism.

While I firmly believe that Marxist analysis can offer some insight into contemporary events, I think that Hobsbawm's comments reveal that Socialism, particularly as expressed in trade unionism, might have been nothing more than a sympathetic response to nineteenth century capitalism and now that the nineteenth century appears to be well and truly behind us, it seems doubtful to have any future left.

I found it interesting that, having said all this, he still talks disparagingly of the lack of political involvement of Western youth. Clearly the failure of any party to articulate a new "Vision" of the future is enabling youth to dismiss politics as futile. Either everything has already been achieved and hasn't quite lived up to the hype, or else has been turned back and dismantled, leaving youth in the awkward position of having to fight to inherit the footsteps of their parent.

The key to the future political engagement of youth then is to articulate a 360-vision of a political future that speaks to youth about environment, social issues, economics, global relations, personal liberty, and so forth, in a way that is not just meaningful, but that represents and speaks to their way of life. Given that the Millennial Generation is the largest demographic ascending into politics, and the Baby Boomers as the largest demographic currently in politics is one their way out, and future victories will go to whichever party, right or left, new or old, that can best capture the imagination of youth.