If you go back to the early and mid 20th century, it was the left who was holding the torch on free speech and that was a time when the right was blocking speakers to speak on campus(especially black speakers during the civil rights movement). The left then was criticised for ideas about economics and philosophy.
Although the Right-wing would win many of the debates, the left laid out a very strong argument about inequality. If it was not of Bright minds such as Milton Friedman, the right might even have been taken down by the left(ideologically) in many debates. The left and the right had their battles, but their was Mutual respect for each other(not politically like Nixon, but ideologically in socio-economic terms).
But, the situation now has become so deeply disturbing that it's almost embarrassing.
If you see what the left stands for right now, it's nothing related to economics, but rather the pushing of equality for races and genders and then smuggling economic theory through it. It's almost like they have given up in economics. They have dropped the torch of free speech and picked up the flame of hate speech. They gave up meritocracy and picked up identity politics.
The philosophers and economists who advocated for left leaning policies would be ashamed of the left as it stands today, polluted by people who cry about being oppressed on Instagram with their iPhone 12.
The left as it stands has not only embraced the idea of victimhood, but also actively perpetrated it.
The left did not try to ban speech or censor ideas that it doesn't agree with, but to the contrary the left once was the one defending the voices of people. When influential black people were being silenced during the 1960s, it was the left that uplifted them. But today, the left wing wants to itself abolish ideas that it doesn't agree with out of existence. The Neo-leftists call for gender abolition, radical feminism and such other things. These agendas are totally unrelated to the economics, but they are in the centre heart of the Neo-leftist Manifesto. Especially because most of the people in these parties know as much about economics as George Bush knows about nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia- Either nothing at all or false info.
The number one problem facing the left today is its invasion by people with agendas which have almost no relation to the left. Whether it be radical feminism or gender abolitionists. You can see it in the mixture of climate change and left leaning parties. If you leave the United States out, most countries believe in climate change across all political spectrums and in many cases the right acts more to tackle it than the left, yet the climate activists tend to align with the left. Whatever their personal bias may be, one can see that these biases don't do anyone any good.
Even though I consider myself a classical liberal, this makes me really sad and pessimistic for the future.
The left has many points it could introduce and win arguments, but it often doesn't utilise many advantages it has over the average leftist in the 1980s. There are many successful social democracies that weren't in the Friedman era, there are examples of those types of economies working, but instead the left focuses more on identity politics and divisive tactics that don't help the working class.
They have become elitist and have stopped caring about the same people they sought to uplift.
Their arguments have become very pale and their hypocrisy makes their arguments look pale in comparison.
In conclusion, the left need to start fresh and distance itself from divisive identity politics and start focusing on the working class.
I don't want to hear some rich white lady telling me how oppressed I am and how I need to be "protected" from ideas that are harmful
Sincerely
- A 17 year old Brown guy
Well done mate