Jimmy Maxton is dead as well: Red Clydeside long gone. There were scots Trotskyists, the rock climber Dougal Haston's family notably (he's dead too. I don't think he was political btw)
The point being made here is Scotland has a socialist history and has had explicitly socialist candidates elected to parliament in recent history. Like.. 2003-2007. I'd hesitate to call it dead just yet.
Did they tried to change how institutions work to add stuff like random nominations, split/defund the police, self determination for smaller bodies (decentralization towards cities basically)?
Or did they try to subvert capitalism by forcing half+1 workers representative on every company boards?
There is not a lot of far left ideas left to implement. Societally, there is basically nothing left since women are allowed to vote and segregation ended. Socially, it is impossible to advance without political or economic far leftism. So this only leave political far left and economic far left.
I think 'far left' implies terrorism or other armed insurrection or revolution? The things you're talking about are acting peacefully within the existing establishment. That's not 'far left'.
You are right, most people on the far left (i'd say two third of them, maybe it changed in the last ten years) would say that participating in elections is supporting the institutions and the dominant class.
But right now radical left == far left for most. Worse, right now in France, a lot of people really think the reformist left is the far left, and the rest believe they are radicals. Saner, but still wrong. This is mindblowing, but i am not a professional historian or political scientist so it doesn't really matter to me, i won't loose any sleep. It just says a lot about how low our political culture fell. They aren't even anticapitalists nor they push for worker ownership. And i've read today that the overton window was pushed to the left?
One thing still that can explain this: it seems that the 19th century history lessons were erased from our western memories. And even the years between WW1 and WW2 are not that clear for western europeans.
> try to subvert capitalism by forcing half+1 workers representative on every company boards
As an economist, this is far from far left -- it's a fairly middle-of-the-road policy that is used in market economies that are more stable successful than the UK's, e.g. Germany. (And at 33% representation, it is the default across western Europe, where you would be laughed at if you tried to characterise them as far-left...)
