Left wing or Right wing

Originally posted by Free Enterprise


First question: Are they socialist anarchists? Or are they Marxists? If so they are either not really anarchists or they believe in a state of 'society' that cannot exist. There is no possible way to maintain a egalitarian system without a government.

The only true anarchy is the lack of all government therefore pure undiluted freedom of action regardless of type. Other types are purely a pipe dream or require a government to actually implement their ideas. No society in anarchy nor 'community'.

Let the Anarchist speak for themselfs. So Marxism is not the way to go. Its not a excuse not to try, and inprove society.
I am a socalist anarchist. The reason the Soveit system didnt work was becuase it was run by a powerfull unanswerble goverment. People who believe in that system are marxist. I realy dont know a Anarchist who believes in no goverment, they just believe in more freedom for people, but then again there are most likely many types out there.
 
The only thing dumber than a right winger is a left winger.

And there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to be a 'socialist anarchist'. An anarchist, by definition, believes in no government. So it looks like you don't know any anarchists.
 
I was going to formulate a lengthy reply, by thestonesfan covered it nicely.

I think the ultimate test would be to lynch all rich people, as the collectivists would have, and see what happens to society.
 
Originally posted by Cactus_Jack

This is so wrong on so many levels. Ok look at it like this. Who did the west suport in the 30s up untill the world war? The facists thats who. The capitalists would rather have a facist system than a comminist one. Powerfull industrialists loved the Nazis, who do you think they backed them finacing them??

This has nothing to do with the question. "Powerful industrialists" have trade with all forms of government. The West or most of it did indeed fight the Nazis and the Italian fascists.

Originally posted by Cactus_Jack
What is the USA's pentagon milltray complex funded by public money then? All goverments control the economy to some degree or other. A lot of technology research is subsidised by tax payers money. Forc example computers wouldnt exist in a free market, cuase they where not profitable. When will people realise that the free market is a myth. If there was such a thing how comes third world countrys dont get to trade fairly? How comes so many parts of economy in the USA and britain get subsidises to help them out?

As for the military part, many leftists governments have had large militaries and have been nationalistic. The right supports less government spending and less taxation. The moderate right is not the same as the extreme right. In other words, the MODERATE right does not support abolishing all government funded projects whilst the far right does or wants by far most gone.
Subsidies violate the free-market principles. Politicians act in self interest(reelection) therefore than BUY votes with subsidies and tariffs. Hmmm, the labor unions seem to be voting for people who levy tariffs against the third world to "keep the jobs". The superiority of free market has been proven therefore there is no need to prove it again on this thread. Also, do not presume your enemy is always the absolute extreme opposite of you.

Originally posted by Cactus_Jack
If you consider facists left wing cuase of that, you would have to consider the USA leftys as well.
In certain ways the U.S. is left in certain ways right.



The association theory makes no sense whatsoever. The problem is it seems that the leftists on this site seem to either think the moderate right is completely totally different from the far right or the two are both identical. The scale is a slow progression from one end to the other. Each end is the opposite and there are only TWO sides no more no less. Left------Center-----Right. Autocracies come in both flavors right and left. Dictatorship of the proletariat.
Being an autocracy, oligarchy, or 'democracy'(nearly impossible). Does not automatically make you right or left wing nor does it even effect it.
 
Originally posted by Cactus_Jack
I am a socalist anarchist.

Originally posted by Cactus_Jack
I realy dont know a Anarchist who believes in no goverment, they just believe in more freedom for people, but then again there are most likely many types out there.

How can you(or other people) be an anarchist who does not believe in no government? You actually are not an anarchist then. All true anarchists believe in no government whatsoever, hence no socialism is possible.

Now picture a libertarian who goes a step farther with their theory. Now they could easily tip into anarchism. Libertarians hate and despise socialism.
 
This site has an interesting take on "the extreme right". The site also has a political quiz (I think it's been posted here before), but I only partly agree with their political spectrum since I consider the achievement of political freedom to be impossible without economic freedom.

Anyway, here's what the site says about the extreme right for the ones who can't be ar*ed to click on the link :) :

Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the "extreme right" refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.
Similarly, the "extreme left" identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies.
It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as "extreme right". The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism - as authoritarians - is clear.
This mirrors France's National Front. In running some local governments, they reinstated certain welfare measures which their Socialist predecessors had abandoned. Like similar authoritarian parties that have sprung up around Europe, they have come to be seen in some quarters as champions of the underdog, as long as the underdog isn't Black, Arab, gay or Jewish ! With mainstream Social Democratic parties adopting - reluctantly or enthusiastically - the new economic libertarian orthodoxy (neo-liberalism), much of their old economic baggage has been pinched by National Socialism. It's becoming the only sort of socialism on offer. Election debates between mainstream parties are increasingly about managerial competence rather than any clash of vision and economic direction.
In the United States, the voices of dissent over unfettered market forces (ie extreme right economics) are heard from social authoritarians like Pat Buchanan as well as social liberals like Ralph Nader.
As an example, take a look at the ground that the main parties in England's 2003 local elections (May 1) occupied in reality. The difference between the BNP and the Greens in economics isn't great, but there's a huge gap on the social scale. Neither scale, however, reveals enormous distances between the Conservatives and New Labour.
 
About anarchy:
While it certainly is not compatible with socialism, at least in the classical sense it's not compatible with libertarianism either. The main formulator of "scientifical anarchy", Bakunin, believed that the working class should own the means of production, just like Marx. However Bakunin and the other anarchy theorists strongly opposed the dictatorship of the proletariate, that Marx described as one of the stages towards communism and that he also called socialism. So there is no such thing as a "socialist anarchist".
Socialism requires a very big state, and the anarchists want to destroy the state. But calling them libertarians is also wrong.
 
On the political spectrum, anarchy fits in the "Idiot Student Belief" range, which sits alongside the "Totally Contradictory Therefore Impossible" range.
 
Originally posted by Cactus_Jack

Thats why theres 5 million homeless people in America, and 95% of the wealth is owned by 5%. Its could be even worse now, as that was a statistic i heard a few years back.

First, as you point out so eloquently, the US is not a right wing state.

Second, as you fail to point out in your typically singleminded example, while 95% of the population is behind the most wealthy, that 95% remains more comfortable than most of the world's population. Greater food for the greater number, right? Or is failure that is more successful as a form of envy a more important basis to plan your economy around?

Third, given that neither left wing nor right wing beliefs have yet delivered on the paradise they both promise, I think a little bit of softening of your self-righteous tone might be in order; humanity is work in progress. So far, no planned economy anywhere has succeeded in doing anything but improving the ability to fight a war. Free - or freer - markets have succeeded in clothing, feeding and sheltering populations much more successfully. Perfectly? No, on the contrary. But to presume that perfection is the only standard to judge by is a little silly, given that you'll have to hit the same standard with a left wing government to succeed...

And on that note, as for "socialist anarchism," there was a noble experiment with such an economy in Catalonia. It was, simply put, a disaster. A pity, that, but that's the way it is.

R.III
 
Originally posted by Richard III

Second, as you fail to point out in your typically singleminded example, while 95% of the population is behind the most wealthy, that 95% remains more comfortable than most of the world's population. Greater food for the greater number, right? Or is failure that is more successful as a form of envy a more important basis to plan your economy around?

This is a very valid point. I sure as hell am not in the top 5%, but I make a decent living and have nice stuff, a lot more than I need to be happy.
 
It's not just "a" valid point, it is THE point. If everyone is equally poor, how is that economic success? If some people are filthy rich but the mass of people are better than poor, how is that failure compared to the former situation?

I'd like to see income disparity flatten too, but not at the expense of growth overall. And why want growth? Precisely because we still have homes to build for the homeless, hungry mouths that can be fed if there are more trucks to deliver our food surpluses more cheaply, more people who've never civved, and so on. I don't know about you, but a bigger pie is better than bickering over ways to carve the same pie.

R.III
 
Originally posted by jack merchant


Not true - a more likely culprit is the failure of wages to keep up with productivity, leading to oversupply. The vicious circle of oversupply leading to layoffs leading to further drops in aggregate demand didn't need a government surplus to exact its toll. Governments in the 1930s were too small relative to the economy to really have an impact before the Keynesian revolution.
While Keynesian policies worked in the 1930s, they were not quite as successful later, and the school of rational expectations emerged as a valid counterpoint to Keynesian theories. That being said, I've been known to argue in favour of a role for government in general in other threads. Note to Pontiuth Pilate - this makes me a centrist rather than a lefty ;).

hehe - at first I thought you approached it from a classical perspective, then I noticed the referance to critisism of Keynes.
Your point being very good in my eyes and ears ;)

I made the summary as an example as to a good way for the government to be an active part of society, rather than a claim that Keynes' ideas were superior. It was meant for republicans to consider...especially the younger republicans...but that is a whole different subject

Originally posted by Stapel

I'd say economic growth is the only way to get wellfare of the people.

Economic growth being growth in GDP per person, I guess you have a point to some extent, though it depends on what you mean by wellfare...
 
Saying that fascism is a left-wing philosophy is just another tool of the right to claim the left is evil. We all know the far left has features we don't want repeat (communism), so why can't the right take some responablity for theirs?
 
Originally posted by archer_007
Saying that fascism is a left-wing philosophy is just another tool of the right to claim the left is evil. We all know the far left has features we don't want repeat (communism), so why can't the right take some responablity for theirs?

Okay, fair enough. Let's simplify it down to RIGHT and WRONG.

Freedom= RIGHT
Everything else= WRONG

(everything else being the sum of collectivism and other instances of forced altrusim or egalitarianism, as well as juntas, oligarchies, theocracies, and all other variets of despotism up to and including many Western nations that still abide by very basic totalitarian ideals)

I'd also like to note that fascism and communism are both derivatives from the philosophy of Immanual Kant, so it would be perfectly correct to equate them.
 
Being left means to complain
Being right means to rant

Easy, or what?
 
Originally posted by Kinniken
Funny, I've heard exactly the same thing claimed for First French Republic's assembly, where the most extreme members (Robespierre, anyone?) sat on the left and the proponents of a constitutional Monarchy sat on the right.
No idea which version is correct (if any).

This is the correct story.
 
Originally posted by archer_007
Saying that fascism is a left-wing philosophy is just another tool of the right to claim the left is evil. We all know the far left has features we don't want repeat (communism), so why can't the right take some responablity for theirs?

Fascism is neither right-wing nor left-wing. It bridges the gap between extremes, taking some of the extremist views of the right wing and combining the with some extremist left-wing views.
In many ways Fascism defies the right left dichotomy.

Fascists are not conservatives, they are radicals, as they want to radically change their country to create an idealized state. True conservatives want little change. In actual politcal/historical terms: the far-right, conservative party in the Weimar period was Hugenburg's German National People's Party (DNVP). The fascist radicals were the Nazis.
 
Originally posted by archer_007
Then we can equally say the communism also defies the left-right axis due to its limited personal rights, which would give it an element of rightist philosophy.

So you consider Libertarianism the ultimare left wing ideology?

I wouldn't say Communism transcends the left-right axis. Rather, its possible to say that the concept of personal freedom doesn't belong to either side of the spectrum. The further you move from the center on either side, the less personal freedom is emphasized.

In reality, I don't believe in the one axis political spectrum. The two axis political grid better incorporates political thought. I'll try to find an example of it.
 
I drew this graph from memory, so the terms maybe be a bit off
 

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