4. Democratic Socialism in Practice Avoids the Structural Weakness of the Working Class and Focuses on Professionals
The current proponents of democratic socialism know that class struggle is at a low ebb – but instead of focusing on building organised cores within the class they largely focus on the recruitment of professionals and ‘activists’. While previous revolutionary upheavals like 1968 questioned the role of the ‘intellectual expert’, the current generation celebrates it. This is very obvious for parties like Podemos or Syriza, but also valid for the so-called Labour surge – most of the new party members have a higher education and are living in metropolitan areas. Materially the new left intelligentsia reproduces itself as the ‘neoliberal self’ that they pretend to criticise: hardly any of them are ‘organic intellectuals’ forged in working class existence and struggle, most of them survive by creating a social media and academic persona whose opinion is valued on the marketplace.
