The Economist’s mid‑August intervention was not a neutral exercise in transatlantic political comparison. It was an unmistakable act of class politics. By urging the Democratic Party to “learn” from Neil Kinnock’s purge of the Labour left, the magazine issued instructions, not analysis. Its framing of how to stop “extremists” from making a party unelectable reveals its real audience: the American ruling class, increasingly anxious about the erosion of its political instruments and the electorate's growing volatility.
The historical parallel is telling. Kinnock’s assault on the
Labour left in the 1980s was not about electoral strategy; it was a decisive
effort to destroy any organised socialist tendency within a major party and to
prepare the ground for the neoliberal transformation later carried out by Tony
Blair. The Economist’s call for Democrats to replicate this process is
therefore a demand for pre‑emptive political cleansing. It reflects a fear that
social anger accumulating in the United States over inequality, war, and the
decay of democratic institutions might find expression in forces the ruling
class cannot control.
The magazine’s tone, dressed up in jokes about Joe Biden’s
1987 plagiarism scandal, cannot conceal its purpose. It tries to discipline the Democratic Party, warn it against even mild gestures toward the left, and insist its role remains what it has been for decades: a
stabilising mechanism for American capitalism. The Economist is not worried
about “unelectability.” It is worried about legitimacy. It senses that the
traditional political order is fraying and that the Democratic Party, long a
pillar of that order, must be fortified against internal dissent. In this
sense, the article reveals more about elite anxiety than about the actual
dynamics of American politics. It is a defensive manoeuvre by a ruling class
confronting a crisis it cannot resolve.
A Fear Disguised as Advice
The Economist’s sudden alarm over the Democratic Socialists
of America is not rooted in fear of the organisation itself. It stems from fear
of the conditions that produced its growth. By fixating on Zohran Mamdani's
election as mayor of New York City- the highest-turnout election since 1969-
the magazine tries to frame the DSA as a contemporary analogue to the Militant
tendency in 1980s Labour. The comparison
is politically motivated rather than analytically serious. Militant was a
disciplined pseudo-Trotskyist faction with a defined programme; the DSA is a
diffuse, ideologically inconsistent formation whose elected officials operate
comfortably within the Democratic Party. The ruling class knows this. Its
concern lies elsewhere.
What unsettles The Economist is the emergence of a broad,
generational shift in political consciousness. Decades of falling living
standards, grotesque inequality, endless war, and the authoritarian turn under
Trump have produced a situation in which millions of young people and workers
are willing to embrace anything labelled “socialist.” One poll widely cited in
responses to the article found that more than half of Americans under 30 view
socialism favourably. This is not an endorsement of any particular organisation.
It reflects deep social malaise. The magazine’s invocation of Kinnock’s purge
is therefore not a warning about the DSA’s strength but a demand for pre‑emptive
containment.
The Economist proposes a prophylactic: identify, isolate,
and expel any tendency that might channel this sentiment into an independent
political form. It argues that the Democratic Party must be cleansed before
discontent crystallises into something uncontrollable. In this sense, the
article is less a commentary on the DSA than a reflection of elite anxiety. It
reveals a ruling class that recognises the fragility of its political
instruments and fears that the crisis of American capitalism may soon produce
forces beyond its reach.
What Kinnock Actually Achieved
The magazine’s history is a fable. Kinnock’s purge did not
make Labour electable. He led the party to defeat in 1987 and again in 1992against
a Tory government hated across Britain for the poll tax. What his witch‑hunt
did achieve was the beginning of a transformation that Tony Blair later
completed: the scrapping of Clause Four, the conversion of Labour into an open
instrument of big business, and the launching of the criminal war against Iraq.
The “electability” The Economist celebrates is
electability on terms acceptable to the banks. Under Keir Starmer, the same
method was used against the hundreds of thousands who joined Labour behind
Jeremy Corbyn. Members were suspended or expelled for opposing the Gaza
genocide; Corbyn himself was barred from standing as a Labour candidate. The lesson
Britain offers is not how to win elections. It is how to bind the working class
to a party of capital by bureaucratic force.
The Democratic Party needs no tutoring on this. It is the world's
oldest capitalist party. For more than a century and a half, it has buried
every social-opposition movement that entered it, from Populism to the antiwar
movement to the Sanders campaigns.
The Pseudo‑Left and the Dead End of “Realignment”
Rejecting The Economist’s crude smears does not mean
accepting the DSA as a socialist alternative. The DSA is not “ultra‑left.” It
is a faction of the Democratic Party and has said so openly for decades. Its
strategy is to win office inside a party controlled by Wall Street and the
intelligence agencies.
The record of DSA officeholders is decisive. In power, they
confront the realities of municipal budgets tied to bond markets and the
police. Mamdani’s mayoralty is the clearest example: cuts to school and
homeless programs, abandonment of free bus service, praise for the NYPD amid
fatal shootings, reaffirmed support for Democratic House leader Hakeem
Jeffries, and even hosting Trump at Gracie Mansion. As one socialist critic
concluded, Mamdani staffed his administration with figures “intended to convince
the political establishment and big business in New York that the DSA is not a
threat to their core interests.”
The DSA’s most prominent voices spend their time assuring
the bourgeoisie of their loyalty. Their function is not to threaten the
Democratic Party but to absorb and neutralise workers' and youth radicalisation
before it takes independent political form. The Economist’s witch‑hunt
prescription and the DSA’s self‑presentation are two sides of the same
operation.
Militant and the Historical Roots of Entrism
Militant’s reply to The Economist, published by the
Socialist Party, complains that the magazine recycled right‑wing slurs.
That is true. But Militant’s own tradition offers no way out of today's crisis
facing workers.
Militant’s decades of “deep entrism,” its belief that Labour
could be pressured into a vehicle for socialism, and its later admission that
Labour ceased to be a workers’ party only after Blair’s changes, all amount to
an indictment of its perspective.
The historical record is clear. Militant descends from Ted
Grant’s International Socialist League, formed after Grant refused to break
with Jock Haston's liquidationism in the early 1950s. Haston resigned from
the Revolutionary Communist Party declaring that Labour was “one of the most
democratic workers’ organisations in existence” and that the task was to
“adhere loyally to the mass party” and help transform it. The Fourth
International warned that these positions expressed liquidationist tendencies-
an abandonment of the fight for an independent revolutionary party.
Grant’s refusal to break with this outlook, and his
subsequent construction of a tendency premised on permanent entry into Labour,
was the seed of everything that followed. The working class lost decades to the
illusion that a bourgeois workers’ party could be reclaimed from within.
Today, the same organisation regrets that Sanders did not
run independently after 2016 and that Corbyn’s “Your Party” failed to
capitalise on its initial support. But Sanders endorsed Clinton, then Biden,
then Harris. Corbyn capitulated on every fundamental question, from Trident to
NATO to the antisemitism smear campaign, and then, through his own party,
banned revolutionary organisations by name. These were not accidents. They were
the political choices of men committed to reforming capitalism. And capitalism
cannot be reformed.
The Real Lesson
The Economist and its “left” critics share one
assumption: that the capitalist state's parties decide the fate of the working class. Britain's real lesson runs the opposite way. Every attempt to
transform Labour from Bevan to Benn to Militant to Corbyn ended in defeat. Each
defeat strengthened the right and left workers disarmed before the next attack.
The question facing American workers is not how to make the Democratic Party
electable, nor how to capture it. The question is how to break from it.
That means building rank‑and‑file committees in factories,
warehouses, schools, and hospitals independent of the union bureaucracies that
serve the Democrats. It means building an independent working-class political
party based on an internationalist and socialist programme. Such a party would
oppose war, the authoritarian turn of the Trump administration, and the
capitalist profit system that produces both. The Economist is right to
fear socialism. It is wrong, however, about where the danger comes from.
🟥 1. On the Democratic
Party and ruling‑class strategy
- “The
Democratic Party and the crisis of American democracy” Explains how
the Democrats function as a stabilising instrument for US capitalism and
why the ruling class demands internal discipline and purges.
- “The
Democrats’ war against the left” Analyses repeated efforts by the
Democratic establishment to suppress left‑wing sentiment, including
attacks on Sanders supporters and youth radicalisation.
- “The
ruling class fears the growth of anti‑capitalist sentiment” A broader
examination of why elite institutions panic when polls show rising support
for socialism among young people.
🟥 2. On the DSA and
pseudo‑left politics
- “What
is the Democratic Socialists of America?” A foundational critique of
the DSA as a middle‑class, pro‑Democratic Party formation incapable of
representing working‑class interests.
- “DSA
and the politics of the pseudo‑left” Explains why the ruling class
does not fear the DSA itself, but fears the social anger that
drives people toward anything labelled socialist.
- “The
DSA and the crisis of American capitalism” Connects the organisation’s
growth to worsening living standards, inequality, and political
instability.
🟥 3. On generational
radicalisation and polls showing support for socialism
- “Why
young people are turning toward socialism” Discusses the economic and
political conditions—student debt, precarious work, war,
authoritarianism—that are producing a leftward shift.
- “Poll
shows majority of young Americans view socialism favourably”: WSWS
analysis of the widely cited poll you mention, placing it in the context
of a broader crisis of legitimacy for American capitalism.
🟥 4. On historical
parallels: Militant, Kinnock, and Labour’s purge
- “Lessons
of the purge of the Labour left”: A detailed historical analysis of
Kinnock’s campaign against Militant and how it prepared the ground for
Blairism.
- “The
Economist and the rewriting of Labour history”: Critiques establishment
media attempts to use the Militant precedent to justify new purges in
contemporary politics.
🟥 5. On elite media
interventions (including The Economist)
- “The
media and the suppression of socialist politics”: Examines how outlets
like The Economist act as ideological instruments of the ruling class,
issuing directives rather than analysis.
- “The
Economist warns of rising left‑wing sentiment”: A direct WSWS response
to similar interventions, analysing the class interests behind them.
