There is a charming encounter, like a scene from a picaresque novel, in a recent issue of Canadian Dimension, the serious socialist magazine (“For people who want to change the world”). It is an interview between the new, perky, bouncy leader of the NDP, Jack Layton, and two serious Marxists, poli-sci professor Leo Panitch and longtime Canadian Auto Workers theoretician, Sam Gindin. They simply don’t connect.

“Capitalism is a social system with its own internal logic,” intones Sam. “At some point it stops working and this poses the question of what you will be replacing it with.”

“It is something to think about,” chirps Jack. “If you’re on a truthful journey, you can’t be sure where you will end up.”

Ahem, says Leo, “Is the old language of socialism still relevant?” “I find the language of storytelling more effective,” pipes Jack. “Like, ‘Let’s get this housing project built.’” You can picture Leo and Sam thinking glumly, This guy doesn’t get it. While Jack burbles on: “Socialist, I’m proud to call myself a socialist. But I don’t go around shouting it out.”

It strikes me, too, like a scene from The Pilgrim’s Progress which is emblematic of the stall our society is in politically, and from which we (the Pilgrim) seem unable to advance. Here’s what I mean: More than two centuries after the French Revolution, almost everyone agrees on certain basic rights, which are not only political but economic. It took awhile. Much of the 19th century was taken up with the struggle for everybody’s simple political right to vote. The battle for equal economic rights — in areas like health, education and subsistence — took up much of the 20th century. Largely under the threat or fear of socialism and communism, even hardy supporters of capitalism eventually bought in. There may be holdouts, but most proud right-wingers like Stephen Harper (and Belinda Stronach) do not deny those universal social rights any more. Yet if capitalists gave in on equal social rights, socialists gave in on the economic route to reach them.

The premises of capitalism and the free market are now as widely accepted on the left as the social agenda on the right. The trouble is, the two agendas seem to falter more than they mesh. Take Tony Blair from the left. He wins power with promises of more equal access to, say, the universities. But he accepts basic market premises that impede public revenues, and ends up raising tuition which, this week, almost cost him power in his own party.

Now take Paul Martin from the right. He starts by eliminating the deficit through cutting public programs and, from the resulting surplus, promises to generate greater equality through social programs. But it’s dependent on that surplus. When it declines, he threatens to treat the programs as mere frills, which may come and go. Everyone gets stuck at the midpoint, between the goals, and the system.

What is a poor voter to do? You tilt a little to the right, but when the wealth generated by the pro-business policies of a Mike Harris or a Brian Mulroney fail to improve life for ordinary folks — you know, the water, the waiting lists — you tilt a bit to the left. But they let you down as well and tell you to tighten your belt.

Down this political path trips Jack Layton. Everyone agrees the NDP is on a bit of a rise. “NDP inching past Conservatives, poll indicates” . . . “Jabs from the left bruise Liberal expectations” . . . “Someone’s closing in from left field.” . . . But you know, if he ever got to power, he’d run into the same thicket of contradictions that ambushed Bob Rae and Tony Blair, or Paul Martin and Dalton McGuinty. This is a circle not easily squared.

By the side of the road, like Foulfellow and Gideon waiting for Pinocchio, are Sam and Leo. Psst, they say — and then repeat what the Old Left always claimed: Capitalism is an economic system with inequality built into it. If you want to beat the inequality, then you have to change the system. The willingness to face this antagonism — between the goal of equality and the inherent, systemic disdain of capitalism for it — was once socialism’s calling card: that you cannot deliver on the promise of social justice until you democratize economic as well as political power; that true change and reform are impossible without economic transformation.

I know all these arguments were supposed to have been packed in with the fall of the Soviet Union and the End of History. But what did you expect to happen when capitalism got a chance to be itself unimpeded and unchallenged? The great old issues rise again, as is the nature of basic questions. (Freedom, Evil . . .)

The socialist challenge makes a strong point. Whether it is true, is, like most questions of truth, hard to settle. But it makes you think. As my old friend, John (not Ralston) Saul has always liked to say: The Marxist tradition may not have had the answers, but it always asked better questions.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.