I attended the Edinburgh Festival in the summer of 1954, at
the beginning of my fellowship-underwritten wanderjahr
after earning my M.A. at Harvard. By
then seven years old, the festival was supplemented by an assortment of
low-cost uninvited unofficial performances collectively known as the
Fringe. That was mostly where I hung
out, since I could not afford more than one or two of the toney shows that were
part of the official festival. Something
quite similar sprang up in New York after WW II. Young actors and playwrights who had not yet succeeded
in breaking into the Broadway scene set up shop in low cost venues Off
Broadway. Eventually, wannabees who
could not even get invited to perform Off Broadway started mounting shows Off
Off Broadway.
Those of us who espouse one or another variant of socialism
have for some decades now been living on the intellectual and political version
of Off Off Broadway. Indeed, we might
lay claim to the title of a very successful post-war Dudley Moore vehicle,
Beyond the Fringe. Convinced that we are
smarter, deeper, more trenchant, more interesting than mainstream theorists and
talking heads, we debate with one another endlessly about what, with pathetic
yearning, we call Late Capitalism, blithely oblivious of the fact that no one
beyond our little circle cares.
Suddenly, in what can only be considered a world-historical joke,
“socialism” has come to mainstream Presidential politics. I write “socialism,” not socialism, because
it is entirely unclear what those who celebrate it, condemn it, vote for it in
polls, or put it on their yard signs mean when they use the word, but we who
lurk beyond the fringe cannot afford to be picky.
The principal “socialist” demands – a higher minimum wage,
universal health coverage, massive green
infrastructure spending – are little more than 1940’s New Deal Light. I have yet to hear anyone utter those fateful
words, “collective ownership of the means of production.” Still and all, I must be grateful for
crumbs. Perhaps I can pitch a talk show
to MSNBC. I could call it “The Wolff is
at the Door.”
3 comments:
Isn't it precisely the role of people like you, who have studied socialism for decades, to be more picky now that the concept has become mainstream? If we (I will use the first personal plural even though I lack your expertise and learning) are not picky, who will be?
We know that this society cheapens everything and turns everything into a commodity and a form of instant gratification, that really isn't a gratification at all. Now that for once in your life people (as a mass) might listen to you, tell it like it is! We have to insist that "socialism" means something, while of course voting for those who offer more nutritious crumbs.
In part, we have Right wing framing to thank for this. We would do well to remember how skilled the Right is at packaging economic arrangements that mainly benefit the elite as universally beneficial. Just as they successfully promoted the theology of neoliberalism, the Chicago School, and trickle-down economics as the ideal distribution mechanism, so has anything less than free-market fundamentalism come to be branded as "socialist."
But we also have the Great Recession (and Occupy Wall Street) to thank for being able to "name" capitalism in polite conversation now as well as to utter the word "socialism" with perhaps a tad less stigma.
I saw Beyond the Fringe and it was not a Dudley Moore vehicle. It was very much a four person car.
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