You might have heard someone say, at some point in a political discussion, something like: “Everyone is simply too extreme, we need moderate politics,” or “I’m not a liberal or conservative, I’m a moderate, I take a third way.” The Atlantic reported that more than a third of Americans identify as Moderate. This is not a recent development at all. In fact, it’s existed for centuries and has been at least partially responsible for many of the world’s greatest atrocities. In the Weimar Republic, Social Democrats were crying for a third way between the extremes of Communism and Fascism, when just the previous decade, Fascists in Italy claimed to be the moderate third way between Capitalism and Communism. The next decade, Hitler was claiming the same thing for Nazism. In the 90s, Social Democrats and Neoliberals once again picked up the mantle of a “Third Way.” These regimes had much in common. All promptly abandoned whatever platform they ran on and dropped the illusion of being anything but status quo. Certainly, the Nazi’s and Fascists sure shook things up quite a bit, but if you reduce things to their basis, class politics, the similarities are revealed. All engaged in privatization, had support from the ruling class, and fed off of discontent with the status quo while actively reinforcing it. The goal of Moderate Politics has always been the same: Offer a seeming alternative to the establishment, to ensnare would-be radicals, and, if possible, roll in new reforms to support the ruling class.

The harmless but more annoying cousin of Moderate Politics is “No Labels” politics, but unfortunately there is some overlap between the two groups. The typical No Labels politician claims to be such a special snowflake that they can’t be labeled politically. Not only is this rather infuriating but it’s downright delusional. Harmless, but delusional. Slightly less harmless are the people who go around arguing labels are bad in politics. At first, it might seem they have a point, but it vanishes when investigated further. This type is the ultimate form of sectarianism. Sure, labels may sometimes force people to conform to positions they wouldn’t otherwise take, but the alternative is much much worse. You need a large group of people to bring about change in general, and without a label for these people to gather around the are worse than useless politically. Everyone would be simply going off of their individual views and naturally nothing would get done because it would be impossible to have collective action. They object that it is best for you to do individual research to develop your own unique position, which is idealistic at best. Any source of information besides your own two eyes – and even that is up for debate – will be filtered through both ideological and personal bias no matter who you are. This naturally leads to smug self-confidence under the guise of appearing a wise skeptic. Essentially, these people want everyone to be Trotskyists and that wouldn’t be politics, it would be hell.

The earliest modern Third Way ideology was Fascism. They argued that their economic policies would be a third way, and supported so-called class collaboration. Anyone with half a brain can see that in unequal relationships, such as class relationships, any form of collaboration will not be free of coercion. The facts of what happened supported this. Almost immediately, privatization and laissez-faire programs. In Germany, the Völkische Beobachter (June 7, 1936) reported: “Nobody concerned with economic questions will believe the capitalist system has disappeared. Although it is true that methods of public financing have assumed a different character – a character of coercion – capital, or at least what is generally understood by this word, has never been so powerful and privileged as at the present time …” Very early on, the dishonest nature of moderate politics is revealed. It is well known that both Fascism and Nazism had large amounts of at least initial support from the working class, especially Nazism. Nazism thrived among the destitute and the aimless people of postwar Germany. Goebbels himself said “Sometimes, I’m afraid to get out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing to get up for,” in the 20s. Third way politics snatches up these people, ripe for radicalization against the ruling class, and gives them a safe alternative they can use to deal with their personal problems without endangering the businessmen. Not only this but it actively undoes the work of past radicals, since these regimes were unquestionably reactionary in nature. However, even nominally progressive moderate movements bring about similar results.

Social Democracy had long been identified as “Social-Fascism” by much of the revolutionary left, and by extension they discovered the disease of moderate politics long ago. The idea of Social-Fascism was that Social Democracy was a peaceful form of Fascism; it gathered would-be radicals to it’s cause and slowed the contradictions of capitalism, stalling revolution. A synthesis of ideas is required for the idea to be applied usefully to the modern world though; it isn’t useful to call everyone a fascist and call it a day. However, what is useful is viewing them as subsets of Third Way ideology. The Social Democrats of Wiemar Germany claimed to be the sane defenders of democracy, between the extremes of communism and fascism. However, in practice they outright collaborated with fascism. The German paramilitary Freikorps received considerable support from the Social Democratic party, who used them to crush the Spartacist league and kill Rosa Luxemburg. Ironically, the same Social Democrats would be ousted by Fascists using a similar rhetoric. The modern Third Way politicians like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair also painted themselves as a synthesis of opposing viewpoints, but the actual results of this were the same as the ones above: pro-ruling class politics. Tony Blair, an alleged social democrat now weakly argues for austerity measures. In all of the examples the tactic is always the same: in a time of crisis, create two “extreme” groups and paint them as irrational and unworkable, and then paint yourself as an “Alternative” while simultaneously claiming to be a compromise in some twisted form of dialectics. It is as delusional as thinking that by averaging together negative numbers you will eventually reach a positive one. The fact is, in a time of systemic crisis, there is a problem with the system, and to solve a systemic problem you will need a new system, not an averaging of current views. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

This is not to say I am against alternative politics. If I was pro-establishment then I would not be a very good communist. The point is to be wary of people who make being an alternative one of their main selling points, it likely the only thing they have going for them. Alternative politics need to make it self-evident that they should be the mainstream, not wallow in their own self-important uniqueness. There is a need for offensive propaganda strategies, to attack the establishment directly, but one must prove you are truly an alternative not merely in a political sense, but in the sense of everyday life. The real, dialectical, alternative will be revealed in hindsight, through natural conflict, after the crisis is resolved, not by some loons claiming to be an alternative. The latter are no better than conspiracy theorists.