What is leftism? What is rightism? Why are there so many different interpretations?
Before I begin, let me make it clear that this post is likely to anger you, and that is not the intent of the article.
Here are two interesting takes on the anger in politics issue:
Why People Are Irrational about Politics
This Video Will Make You Angry
If you have a long lazy day ahead, it's worth it to dig into these before dipping into the article, but they aren't really relevant to the issue itself.
Why is the Left/Right split so poorly defined?
I can't answer that. I can answer HOW it is defined, and some possible causes, but the main thing to understand is that people use labels to define their opposition...and sometimes themselves...based on secondary characteristics, and not on primary definitions.
The primary characteristic in assigning a label on the Left/Right Continuum is governance, or the mode of rule. The farther one goes to the Left, the more absolute the level of State control, up to the point of determining each subject's economic restrictions. You can not have economic control of a person without State control. Thus Far leftism is socialism, communism, etc. The farther one goes to the Right, the less State control over the individual, up to Pure Anarchy on the extreme Right.
However, supposed "Right-wing" movements are defined by secondary characteristics such as racism, religion, or nationalism.
One of the problems in this is that many of these definitions are disseminated by the Left, which as far too much influence over our educational and cultural systems. Racists are "Right Wing", for example, which is nonsense. Geuevara hated blacks for example, and anti-Semitism has been a long time propaganda tool of the Left as well as some "Right" groups. By defining any movement not in line with leftist thought as "Right-wing", a false dichotomy is established.
Groups such as the Nazis, Christian or Islamic extremists tend to confuse people. However, by applying a clean and honest understanding of the Left/Right Continuum we can see that these political groups should properly be defined as closer to the Left than the center.
The Four Asian Tigers are another example of poor definition on the Left/Right Continuum:high levels of capitalism and high levels of tyranny. These countries should still be defined as being further to the Left than the center due to the absolute nature of their governing systems
Capitalism is a description of the natural laws of economies; it is not a governing system; it is a secondary characteristic.
The problem with Bi's
Political scientists in the 1960's were frustrated by the Left/Right Continuum in defining some dictatorial movements. They did not recognize that economic control necessitates State control.
Indeed, these political scientists took the economic control characteristic out of the one dimensional Left/Right continuum and added a second dimension; resulting in a bi-dimensional chart. Nolan defined this second dimension on the economic basis while Pournelle (whom I regard as a genius - see Chaos Manor ) redefined the second axis on the basis of belief in "rationality" in governance.
Pournelle chart
Nolan Chart
The Pournelle vs. Nolan Chart: Political Throwdown
These attempts to make political movements easier to define had the opposite effect. The reason for this is something that I will repeat , in bold, again: They did not recognize that economic control necessitates State control.
What about the Nazis?
I am not going to simply say "The Nazis were National Socialists". That is too flip. Industry that was not nationalized by the Nazis was subject to central control. Labor was controlled by the Nazi Party via party-controlled unions. These are examples of leftist ideology in Nazi statism.
However, the Nazis are a good example of something that I stress in my writing; there is usually not just one factor in any human situation. the Nazis also employed identity politics (but on a nationalist basis, not as a leftist device), and opposed capitalism more as a "Jewish conspiracy" more than on a "workers united" basis. Hitler's writing is contradictory on some points, and he personally had a bit of contempt for economics. What Hitler did well was to synthesize power by aligning with the positions of power blocs until he could overwhelm them (the idiot Prussian officer class, for example). So you can see not just Straaser's SA as a leftist wing of the Nazis, but the inclusion of the anti-Jewish Freikorps from the "right" as well.
OK then, smartass Steve, then WHY did the Nazis and Soviets fight?
We make the mistake of assuming that leftism is one united, conspiratorial movement. Instead, leftism is comprised by different groups who want their OWN group to be the ones deciding power. Nazism vs. Communism was not an ideological struggle, it was a power struggle.
Adherence to a political belief is one factor out of many in political struggle. Personal alliances, secondary characteristics such as tribalism (see above), and rent-seeking advancement all have their own place.
For a current example, we see the government of Jordan at war with ISIS. While both share the same ideology of Islam, the struggle on Jordan's side is an issue of self-control as opposed to ISIS's goal of restoring the caliphate.
Biased Argument
If you are saying that I have a bias in this definition of the Left/Right Continuum, you are correct. I am a minarchist. Rather than holding the position that "the balance is somewhere in the middle", my position is that the extremes are based on Utopian nonsense, See Utopia ALWAYS leads to Dystopia. For me, the fulcrum is the mechanism of State. I don't see the State as a "necessary evil", I see it as a "dangerous tool", to be bound by rule of law and constant scrutiny. I put that fulcrum FAR to the right on my axis, and am suspicious of everything to the left of it.
- George Washington supposedly said that "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
On the other hand, I am very often called a statist by people to the Right of me.
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Interesting, it is incredible that I had not read before about Pournelle chart. However, I still consider my political vision according to the Nolan Chart, out of habit. I believe that there can be totalitarian government of right and left, and that only the minarchism or the center, is separated from oppression. As I see it, the left gives you some freedoms and takes away others, and the right the same, but the other way around, it grants you the freedoms that the left takes away, and it takes away the freedoms that the left grants you.
As for Nazism and communism, I see that both are statist systems, but not ideologically equal. Communism is based on materialism, and is a system based on the economy, unlike the Nazis, who with exceptions, were ignorant of the economic issue (the communists too), for the National Socialism the economy was something of little importance, the Nazis they were economically dirigist, since although the companies were at the service of the objective of the State, they allowed private property, something very different from communism or socialism. I think they were kind of a modern imperial model, you just have to read about their agrarian laws, to see their sympathy with feudalism. I like to describe them as a Racial State, and because I think they are from the right, and that they allow economic freedoms, but not to all people, but only to the exclusive group that they determined. As for Communism or Socialism, they did not believe in economic freedom at all, nor did they believe in any kind of private property, and I think that what differentiates left from right is the range of freedom that they confer on private property, for I think that communism and Nazism do not belong to the same side. However, as you say, the problem between them was a conflict of power, rather than an ideological conflict. In any case, I think that the best solution is always the minarchism.
agreed 100%
it's what I was trying to sell in the first post ;>
If I had to go to the two dimensional chart, I would prefer the Nolan chart. I see Authoritarian Left as wanting government control of public life (jobs, industry, assistance, etc) whereas Authoritarian Right wants control of personal life (families, religion, orientation). But both one dimensional and two dimensional charts are wrong, as you point out but don't actually say.
We need to combine all the charts. Every person is a plenum and cannot be described by a point, but is a twisty space in perhaps 10 significant dimensions. The Pournelle chart is in there, as rationality is certainly a factor, interest from apathy to fanaticism is another dimension, ability, intelligence etc all need to be considered.
Right and left are really meaningless except in seating arrangements.
Personally, I'm a radical moderate...wonder where I get to sit???
That (in my view) just means that some of your qualities have a lower absolute value, or that you have mixed economic and personal values. That's why a one or two dimensional chart can't define you (or me), and a higher dimentional matrix is required.
I agree...I was kidding. I created a four part model several years ago and actually wrote about 350 pages applying it.
Yeah, I knew that you were kidding-ish. I just have this "no polarities" soapbox that drags me around and makes me stand on it and speak up.
My model started as a joke to prove Stanislaw Andrzejewski's Law of Nebulous Verbosity that began to make sense. Politically people fall into two of four categories...Leader/follower and rational/irrational self-interest. It works out really well.
I just went o look up Stanislaw Andrzejewski's Law of Nebulous Verbosity , and you have the top two Google hits.
well played, sir
Whatever that means! "Verbiage increases to the extent that ambition exceeds knowledge."
I think part of the problem is that we are trying to apply multi-dimensional defintions instead of seperating things out on an individual basis. The Nolan chart overcomplicated a very simple political definition...What was the level of State control the person supported.
We start saying, I want government control over here, but not over here, well than at the best we're a minarchist (like me).
The more control an ideology demands over it's subjects, the farther to the left, regardless of whether that control is economic or religious.
I always used to piss off people by claiming that liberals and conservative Christians shared the same goals ;>
I think the terminology of Right and Left is part of the problem. They mean nothing and everyone has their own definition. They cloud the issue. Yes, government control is a range from zero to absolute, but that is a ray in the positive axis, not a polarity as right and left are.
Where an individual or group may want that control to apply is another ray in the positive dimension, starting at zero (control over no person), through individuals, family groups, cities and nations, to the world. All are positive values of people and separate from the actual amount of control you want to apply to those groups.
Combine those two rays and you get a two dimensional region on the chart, not a point. An area within which you think government control should operate. Add in values for the interest level (apathy/fanaticism) ray and you get a volume describing how likely you are to advocate for government control in what areas.
Greater numbers of dimensions are difficult to visualize, but in 3D space we can simply swap out one value for another to get more meaningful regions within which a person might fit. Right and Left are meaningless.
Which is the reason I simplify it down to one axis.
I agree with you that we can not define people that simply. There is no chart we could put together once we've gone past 3 factors, and and we've already discussed fanaticsim and intelligence..
So I am limiting my definition to ideologies, which can be judged on a single facor; the amount of state control.
If I got your other point correctly, once an ideology reached the far Right, there is the belief that no human should exert control over another.
Calling people Leftists on my part is just a quick defintion of people supporting economically interfering policy, which demands high level of state control.
the government itself is not some ogre with a will of it's own, but the decisions and actions of many people
As usual a good and well researched post that makes your point eloquently. Also as usual this Leftie socialist disagrees but I do love a different viewpoint to challenge my own thoughts.
Thanks for the comment. Hell, I pulled a great deal of this post from our previous discussions ;>
This isn't meant to be a "gotcha" question, but how would you implement economic equality without State control?
I think that level of cooperation CAN be had in small communities. I use the term communualism for this. Social controls replace State controls; the community "knows" who is a shitbird and who isn't.
But that approach requires some things:
And there is always the possibility the community itself is comprised of shitbirds.
Finally, at a certain point of social distance and or culture conflict, social control fails. This is what happens when folks move to big cities, as an example.
I haven't looked at communualism in any kind of scholarly way; these are just my impressions and guesses based on other things I've studied.
I agree that you can only have communualism with a society of a limited size, when there is strong ties that unite everyone. Once those strong ties weaken as the size increase to become multipal communities then human nature takes over and the need for 'looking after your own' takes over. There has to be something that unites people beyond nationalism, it has to be something more personal and shared. A Coal Miner won't relate to his boss he has met but will stand shoulder to shoulder with another coal miner he has never met from 100's of miles away or even another country. (I was brought up the son of a miner, I was in my teens during the UK miners strike of 1984 and Polish coal miners sent food that fed my family. Any story about miners such as an accident or deaths draws my attention as I can relate no matter where in the world it happens. That is communualism and defies any fake borders as it is shared experience.)
I don't think as a nation you can avoid state control to bring economic equality as money is the real god worshipped in the world. You can't unite a nation when there is no shared link of community without state control to give you the infrastructure and to work to ensure everyone can live.
This is a good point. communalism requires a common culture, and perhaps not a locality.
IF the actions of coal miners from across the globe can be used to maintain the "behavior" of any given miner, then yes there is social control.
money is needed by 99% of the population and wanted by 95%. it might not be able to buy love or respect but it can be used to buy a lot of other necessary or fun things
The Left/Right paradigm is a false dichotomy. The real split is individualists vs. collectivists. G. Ed Griffin has a great video about it. Your absolutely correct about the Nazi/Soviet conflict being over power. Ideologically there are far more similarities than differences. I used to laugh in college, all of the Marxist professors trying to separate themselves from those dreadful right-wing National Socialists. Good article...upvoted & resteemed! (You owe me one lol)
got any pics of naked chicks you wanna post? LOL
anytime you want a resteem, let me know!
I have a swell collection of naked movie stars on my Pinterest account...who do you want to see???
Salma Hayek or any short busty dark haired gal.
One of the reasons I joined the Marines was to go to Asia with all the little morenas instead of the big blond farmgirls I might have had to woo as an army guy in Europe LOL
Wow...I had to do some digging
well I was kidding about resteeming a nakid chick,,,
but I aint complaining
In a few years the likelihood is people won't speak about left/right, they will speak about centralizers and decentralizers.
let us hope they speak more of the SUCCESS of decentralization!
Further, I reject all polarities. We are entities made up of various traits in positive quantities. All the graphs should start at zero and extend in the positive directions. The desire for control (for instance), is either a zero, low, or high quantity. Never a negative amount. You can't have less than zero control over another.
Unless you go full mountain man, there is always going to be some form of control over you; even if the strength of that control is weak (family bonds, peer pressure)
I don't have the resources to define the amount of control others have over me, but I was speaking of the amount of control I wish to have over others. Once I get to the point of completely not wanting any control over others, I can't go to wanting to have negative amountws of control over them. There are no polarities.
hmm, I missed that.
I don't think there is anything that is wanting to have negative amountws of control over others.
I'm missing your point, I think
Yeah, it's just the terminology that I disagree with, because it causes disagreement with others. A leftist will point to a person who self-identifies as right wing, and show you their desire to control sexuality.
The actual meaning of Left and Right, is simply what side of the chamber you sit on. In some other countries, the political drives are reversed but they still identify by seating arrangements. In those countries the right wing wants nationalistic control of industry, health and education. It makes the terms confused and thereby invalid for accurate conversation on issues, IMO.
The desire to control others is the desire to control others, not left or right.
BOTH are disgusting forms of COLLECTIVISM. #STATISM
True far right politics is pure anarchy - no State whatsoever, no group meetings, no neighborhood watches
Strange that most people who class themselves as anarchists are put in leftwing brackets fighting against right wing control. A total reversal of how you paint this right wing, left wing divide.
No, that was the point of the article.
Defining a continuum from Left as absolute State control to Right as no State at all.
Doesn't mean I'm an anarchist, but putting economic control on capitalists requires State action.
But is right wing about no control or rather hidden wealth control.
good question
the problem with pure anarchy is there is NO rules or system of order; ergo the strong can ( and historically have conquered the weak.
capitalism in itself is neither left or right; it is simply how economies work. Goods are exchanged for services, etc. Specialization arises, including financing. wealth brings power.
in anarchy, the power of this wealth can also be used to subjugate others. In any system that doesn't establish and maintain boundaries, the use of this economic power can be used to crush others; ie. the dangers of monopoly
I had decided earlier against including a discussion of corporatism as I wanted to keep a complictaed post from getting more so.
What happens when economic power is used to control other's actions?
When a economic power takes control in an anarchy, that system is no longer an anarchy. When that power takes control in other systems, it slides the definition towards the left.
There is not any significant difference between crony capitalism and syndicated socialism and corporatism
In the US, we could be considered as suffering from corporatism these days (my gripe isn't about a singular New World Order, but rather an alliance between leftists and globalists)
Finally, control of wealth doesnt necessarily mean that those entities control others; it'ss when they damnd that you buy their product under government control it becomes a problem (car insurance or obamacare) or restrict your life outside the workplace that power becomes an issue.
Exactly! This is why I think the labels don't actually mean anything. I have never once seen anarchy associated to the right, it's always the left.
I am curious, Did anyone read...and enjoy...the articles about being angry?
Not me, I'm usually not angry and I'm busy trying to get my new Android PC working. I might get to them later.
If you get the chance, i think you will enjoy them.