Right and left seen from Occhetto
“Because it is not enough to call ourselves Democrats. Ecosocialism and social justice ”by Achille Occhetto read by Tullio Fazzolari
Read “Why it is not enough to call oneself democratic. Ecosocialism and social justice ”by Achille Occhetto (Guerini and associates, 200 pages, € 18.50) involves a risk. The effect, certainly not sought after by the author, is that it could cause an attack of nostalgia for the old days: those in which before doing politics, at least to a certain level, you had to work hard on books. There were party schools such as the Frattocchie of the PCI . The sacred texts of the respective ideologies were studied but also the treatises of Maurice Duverger or Max Weber. Political culture was also among the forgotten merits of the first republic. The abysmal difference with today's, in which improvised improvisers predominate, explains and legitimizes a bit of nostalgia.
Political culture also means having a solid foundation for developing new theories. And this is exactly what Occhetto proposes with "Why it is not enough to call oneself democratic". The starting point is the end of socialism as it has been interpreted for more than a century. And it would be trivial to believe that the cause was the failure of the Soviet model. The colossal transformations that have taken place over the last few decades in society, economy and technology have affected much more. But, even assuming that an ideology has run out, this does not at all mean the end of an ideal. The values on which socialism is based remain current provided that a reality that has profoundly changed is taken into account.
It is clear that it would be anachronistic to speak of a class struggle. But social justice remains an objective to be pursued without time limits. And the pitfalls today can come from several fronts: from the new capitalism, from globalization and even from technological digitalization. It is no longer a question of defending workers and peasants from exploitation. It is society as a whole, current generations and, above all, future ones, that need protection from changes that can cause further deterioration in social justice. The concept of ecosocialism can be based on this.
Without controversy Occhetto puts his finger on the sore. If today's politics no longer attracts citizens, it is because it is poor in ideas. They have been abandoned along with ideologies and ideals. On the left (as well as on the right) it would be necessary to develop new content. In the last thirty years there has not been done or, in any case, not enough has been done. More often, as Occhetto rightly observes, it was decided to solve everything by relying on new leaders. The results are what we know: fluctuating and overall negative. Nothing more could be hoped for from a political class that chases the polls with more or less impromptu sorties and that only aims at electoral consensus and then does not know what to do with it. If on the left it is not enough to call oneself democratic tout court but something more is needed, Occhetto essentially proposes new elements of socialism. It is difficult to establish that it is the solution but at least it is a proposal to be seriously confronted with.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/destra-e-sinistra-viste-da-occhetto/ on Sat, 19 Mar 2022 08:20:49 +0000.