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The left in western democracies has been pretty much in free fall since the onset of neoliberal globalization. This is quite ironic since resistance to capitalism from civil society has actually grown during the same period. This resistance is also reflected in the U.S. political landscape, where the Democratic Socialists of America are surging in support through grassroots efforts in major urban areas. Voters are clearly signaling that they are fed up with the establishment wing of the Democratic Party, whose leaders continue serving, above all else, corporate and financial interests and have displayed immense hypocrisy on foreign policy issues. The stunning results on June 23 in New York’s primaries — which came on the back of advances already made by Democratic Socialists in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, to mention just a few — speak volumes of the ideological bankruptcy of the Democratic Party in the U.S.

But on the rare occasion that left parties have managed to score national electoral victories, as in the case of Greece in 2015, public disappointment and discontent have soon set in as leaders failed to mount a coordinated attack on neoliberal policies and structures, let alone turn class relations on their head.

In the interview that follows, world-renowned radical economist Costas Lapavitsas addresses the structural roots of the left’s political crisis and explains what needs to be done for the left to become again a viable and meaningful alternative to the capitalist dystopia that has engulfed western societies. He highlights, in particular, the case of the U.K., where Member of Parliament Andy Burnham’s “Manchesterism” aims to become the future of the Labour Party’s economic vision. Burnham just won a decisive victory for Labour in the Makerfield by-election, soundly defeating the far right, and setting up the stage for a Labour leadership showdown. Lapavitsas is a professor of economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and a former Syriza Member of Parliament. He is the author and co-author of scores of books, including The Left Case Against the EU, The State of Capitalism: Economy, Society, and Hegemony, and Reindustrialize Britain: A Strategy for Wealth Creation.

C.J. Polychroniou: We live in a world of profound social, political, economic, and ecological challenges. Capitalism is in disarray, the postwar international order is disintegrating, and authoritarian rule is expanding globally. Yet the left is weak and fragmented, experiencing dramatic electoral defeats almost everywhere. What are the structural roots of this crisis, and why has the left failed to build a mass movement in the 21st century?

Costas Lapavitsas: We need to be careful about generalizations here. The left is not the same across the world, and lumping together the Brazilian left, the Indian left, the European left, and the U.S. left produces confusion. Even within Europe there are significant differences. Let me focus on the European left, and within that primarily on Britain and Greece, which are the cases I know best and represent extreme versions of the problem.

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It is true that this is a moment of historic weakness, perhaps the deepest since the left first began to emerge as a political force in the 18th century. The narrative about its decline usually focuses on leadership failures and ideological drift. There is something to this, but the deeper problem is structural and intellectual. And the rise of the far right across Europe and beyond feeds directly on the vacuum that a weakened and directionless left has left behind.

The organized working class that built the labor movement, created the welfare state, and gave the left its mass base in the 20th century was a product of industrial capitalism, with manufacturing at its heart. Neoliberalism, beginning in the 1980s, systematically undermined it. Employment was created in service sectors — retail, hospitality, logistics, care work — where bargaining power is weak, turnover is high, and collective organization is extremely difficult. Union density collapsed and collective bargaining coverage shrank. When a steelworks, shipyard or engineering plant closes, a community loses more than jobs. It loses apprenticeship routes, trade-union organization, technical skills, and often the institutions that gave working people collective confidence. The destruction of manufacturing was simultaneously the destruction of the organizational capacity of labor, and ultimately of the left.

The historic task of the left today is not simply to redistribute existing wealth more fairly but to rebuild the conditions under which wealth can be created democratically.

The historic task of the left today is not simply to redistribute existing wealth more fairly but to rebuild the conditions under which wealth can be created democratically.

The intellectual dimension is equally important. The European left gradually moved away from the political economy that had historically been its theoretical foundation........

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