There was an article in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review (July 12, 2015) – Left and right labels wear thin, lose definition – which as the title suggests tried to argue that it is hard “to know who or what is left or right wing any more”. The article used a number of examples, including the so-called Communist government of China bailing out its (farcical) share market and the Greek ‘far left’ government agreeing to austerity and on-going debt demands from the creditors, to suggest that it is no longer easy delineating what is left and what is right and dubbing policies accordingly (one way or another) “provides little illumination”. This is a recurring theme in recent years and part of the neo-liberal attempt to blur what it going on and treat ideological stances as reality or factual assessments. It is still very clear to me what is a left-wing position. The rest of the article provides in his own words “little illumination” about the issue. The argument in this blog is that the categories remain influential and meaningful but are blurred through ignorance as to how the monetary system operates. Left-wingers fall prey to right-wing policies because they have bought the TINA myth. That is the only way one could explain the Syriza disaster, for example.