I Hate Tankies

 In case you're wondering, "Tankies" is the name for neo-Leninists who actually seem to favor some form of communism. Jon Chait runs through the basic arguments that Tankies are making against liberal democracy, including its historical roots in the Cold War. Chait has been waging a long war against the illiberal Left, and much of his critique ends up covering that well-trodden ground.

I'd like to look at the broader condemnation of liberalism by the Tankie Left. Democratic Liberalism can basically be defined as a respect for rights and liberties, codified by the rule of law and organized through free, fair and competitive elections. It is a product of the British and American revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is, as Churchill quipped, the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.

Liberalism (as opposed to "being liberal" which is your attitude towards political change) is at the foundation both of democracy and capitalism. Because capitalism has been allowed to run rampant - in Keynes' phrase "red in tooth and claw" - the stains of capitalism have been visited upon liberal democracy. That is understandable, but unfair. As frustrating as liberal democracy can be, it is infinitely preferable to authoritarianism as a basis for governance. There may be a nice authoritarian regime (Singapore) and a horrific liberal democracy (....) but as a general rule, the more the rule of law exists, the better.

That we have allowed capitalism to create a class of rich people who seem beyond the rule of law is a critical problem, yet one that liberal democracy is uniquely able to tackle. The heavily redistributive regimes of Scandinavia are liberal democracies with social democratic economic systems. There is no reason whatsoever that America cannot embrace a fairer economic system. 

However, the fantasy on the Tankie Left is that America is a uniquely horrible place. Not just on race (which, America is not uniquely horrible) but on class. America is profoundly unequal, but if you think that the poor in America are similar to the poor in Lesotho or Guatemala or, yes, Cuba, you are simply blinkered and provincial in your thinking. 

More likely, you are beginning from ideological principles and forcing the world through that lens. This, as much as anything, is the problem with the Far Left. They are almost definitionally ideologues, and extreme ideologues at that. Therefore, actual evidence is irrelevant. 

I'm currently reading a book on Communist China from 1947-1957. Everyone agrees that Hitler was bad. Almost everyone agrees Stalin was bad, although, hello, Tankies. In terms of absolute number of people killed, neither holds a candle to Mao, who likely killed over 100,000,000 of his own people. This inconvenient fact is invisible to those who insist on lauding an ideology that is fundamentally wrong and has been shown to be fundamentally wrong time and time again.

Much of this is driven by young people who seem intent on ignoring the lessons of history. Or maybe they weren't taught them. Marx makes a few good points, but quickly goes off the rails. Lenin was a mess and Stalin a nightmare. Marx's "beautiful theory" keeps being trashed by the historical record.

The internet echo chamber, however, continues to give this failed ideology an Amen Chorus. As Chait notes, the Tankie Left is a hiccup compared to the cancer of Trumpism, and therefore it's perhaps better to mock them than fight them. They don't deserve real battle.