The "Real Left" versus "the Left of Capital"

Some leftists demand that one recognize the vast difference between the “real left” and "the left of capital”— or “woke capitalism,” bourgeois leftism, or what have you. The left of capital is the visible leftism that permeates most of the social order today—including academia, the media, digital media, and even corporate America. The “real left” is particularly anxious to dissociate itself from the left of capital, given the daily embarrassment that capitalist leftism causes them, especially the embarrassments of identity politics, the avant-garde of which is the transgender movement.

But I have news for these "real leftists." Never in history has the “real left" undertaken anything of significance independent of the left of capital, or the bourgeois left—not even socialist revolution. The Russian Revolution was not primarily a working-class movement. I am not referring merely to the petty bourgeois intellectual leadership of the vanguard, including Trotsky and Lenin. I am referring to the funding, and organizational and tactical assistance provided by the left of capital. Without the left of capital, a socialist Russian Revolution would not have been possible.

Similarly, the “real left" regularly aids and abets the left of capital. For example, I'm told that the globalism of corporate capitalism and the internationalism of international socialism are utterly incommensurate; they have nothing to do with each other—except that the latter opposes the former. I am not going to entertain this supposed distinction, because it’s a distinction that makes no actual difference, or the difference is merely ideological. The real left’s internationalism, unwittingly no doubt, helps corporate capitalist globalism, whether the real leftists mean it to or not.

There’s no “real left” as such, no Platonic ideal leftism, but only “actually-existing” leftism. “Actually-existing” leftism includes many groups and individuals that the “real left” would scoff at, but without whom they would have no platform or visibility whatsoever.