The US Left Has Only Four Tendencies

Objectively, most inherited tendency divisions are obsolete. For instance, your evaluation of the USSR (and its rivals) mattered 50 years ago, because the right line could get you Soviet or Chinese money (with strings attached). Today, the USSR is not a live issue with practical implications, and the PRC no longer funds revolutionaries. Nearly all 20th-century tendency demarcations emerged from the contingencies of 20th-century geopolitics. Nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, though, those geopolitics have ceased to be a driving force behind the US Left’s internal dynamics. There are differences between leftists that matter, but the nature of those differences has changed. (Obviously, much of the Left defines itself in 20th-century terms, but that’s for reasons other than their actual applicability.)

Leftist theory must be materialist. It must begin with empirical investigation into how social phenomena play out in practice, rather than beginning with the ideas that people have and assuming that social dynamics flow from there. The history of ideas is a reflection of the history of actual events, not vice versa. As Marx said, “social being determines [people’s] consciousness.” The subjective beliefs Organization A and Organization B have may differ profoundly. They may claim radically different tendency heritages. However, if their internal organizational sociology and real-life practice are the same, then from a Marxist perspective, their ideologies are equivalent.