Now What?

We are told by the new New Left (DSA, Jacobin, etc) that power runs through the State. In her piece in The Baffler titled Seize and Resist, Thea Riofrancos writes: "the state has the capacities to reorient economic activity in the here and now. Public investment, democratized finance, stringent regulations, public and worker ownership, and trade and industrial policy all have a role to play in building a democratic, low-carbon future. In the hands of social movements, labor unions, and allied state actors, these tools can fashion a new world out of the dying old one." The age old question is to what degree is the State constrained by Capital? In the liberal view, it is contested territory, subject to the will of the people. You know, democracy. Government, courts, that sort of thing. It is to this end that leftists like Riofrancos are being mobilized to push for progressive policy and personel in the next administration. This "through the State" theory of change was ratified when this same Left went all in for Bernie running on the Democratic Party ticket. Now, even though their guy lost, they are married to it and must follow the logic to its end. Build a bloc, a popular front, mobilize "the masses" and the "working class", lobby your "representatives", shift the Party, awaken the populous. This all assumes a certain concept of the democratic citizen in a stable yet flexible civic order. Or of a capitalist class in panic mode, willing to temporarily concede a bit of power to salvage the system. And yes, in a rational world they would be plenty panicked. But we just had four years of Donald Trump. You don't get to jump back and forth Through the Looking Glass at will. Biden and his administration and the NY Times and Jacobin all want us to have faith in the illusion, in 1776, in the New Deal, in the Great Society. It is a huge leap of faith.