One of the best communicators to regular people on political economy in a long while
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I watch Gary occasionally. I do admire his focus on economics rather than the highly emotional beast that is social issues.
I do think more economic equality would naturally lead to more social equality.
The core motivation is more or less correct, as is the base of the analysis: the political duopolies in the UK and US are a reflection of ruling class interests and preside over policies that pick your pocket.
But it is robbed of its essential political economic essence via an anemic look at history and politics, and the biggest indicator of this is that the only “solution” provided suggests a liberal policy outcome (“tax the rich”) without any vehicle for doing so. You can also see how detached this is from the actusl mechanisms of struggle and geopolitics, as he describes your great-great grandparents as being poor and the only reason things got better was that people voted for taxing the rich and voting for the NIH, etc. Were the politicians of yore not beholden to ruling class interests? If not, why not? It is easy to say, “oh they just had different opinions” without questioning why they carried weight or why ruling class politicians would capitulate or why there were parties not fully aligned with the immediare interests of the ruling class that were permitted to exist. There was no discussion of colonialism or neocolonialism, imperialism, the primary source of differential wealth for the OECD countries. There was no discussion of the historical development of the welfare state and what powers were at play, the role played by labor, the role played by imperialists getting shamed by socialist-run countries and made to fear their iwn workers doing the same.
There was no real discussion of what Starmer and his faction represent, which is not “sensibilism”, they are just a bulwark against the left. Starmer is the punch left, he does not have any real policy changes outside of placating his TERF base and he will turn (and increasingly has) turned on immigrants. Starmer is in power because ruling class interests aligned with taking down Corbyn and his faction. They threw their entire media apparatus at him with bullshit accusations of antisemitism and turned this into a loss and a purge if the left, such as it is, from labour. Starmer’s faction led that charge internally. How would “vote to tax the rich” ever contend with that? Your votes are fptp and subject to a duopoly. You at least require the death or subjugation of labour by a new party, something that requires much more than voting. It requires organizing an institution not beholden to ruling class interestd, an organization that will oppose them, and that requires having an anti-capitalist program, not a “tax the rich” slogan.
At the very least Gary is out there spreading his message in a way people can understand and trying to help people understand that the rich are stealing from us.
Yes but he’s doing it in a way that is not a threat to the ruling class and arguably even helps it. They like it when people that would otherwise radicalize adopt a false catharsis of arriving at nice-sounding conclusions with no concrete actions to take. They also like the implicit nationalism in his selective telling of history. They will also like his hand-waving away of “left vs. right” about anything that isn’t explicitly labeled economic, as rather than forcing a focus on the political economic basis of oppression and poverty, it lends itself to a liberal class reductionism where you cannot align your thoughts and demands with those marginalized and oppressed at the behest of the ruling class. “The culture war” is not just distracting rhetoric, it directs violence and oppression. It is a false consciousness for those who follow it and do the oppressing, e.g. racists, but it is generally not that for the oppressed, it is, for example, poverty and alienation and exclusion and internalized racism.
Presenting it like Gary has done fails to reach the correct synthesis, again likely because of his poor understanding of history, politics, and economics, and it creates a choice for the marginalized who listen. Do they:
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Just try to look past it, seeing yet another guy that mostly doesn’t get it but has useful tidbits?
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Buy in and begin denying their own experiences and robbing their politics of oppression that is not explicitly economic?
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Reject him as someone dismissive of oppression and their experience?
I am normally pretty charitable with people trying to spread even vague class consciousness but Gary’s ignorant, liberal, and reductionist form tends to backfire on top of being incorrect.
That’s a hell of an analysis to fit into a short YouTube video. That would require a major video essay, something which Gary doesn’t do.
It doesn’t. It only requires summarizing, which he is already doing. The problem is not that he’s oversimplifying for brevity, it is that his analysis is ignorant and incorrect.
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If you think he will “fail” it’s because you misunderstand his intentions.
he’s missing a word because he clearly understands their intentions.
They will fail YOU
