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> Also state == leftism? Precisely. > What about fascist and quasi-fascist states? Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism

> Also state == leftism? Precisely. > What about fascist and quasi-fascist states? Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism.

icebraining 12y ago
Now I'm curious to know where you put (left) anarchism, such as mutualism and anarcho-communism.
- muuh-gnu 12y ago
  > left anarchism If it is not statist, what actually makes it "left"? > anarcho-communism Same question, how could a stateless communism possibly work?
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Same question, how could a stateless communism possibly work? In even Marxist theory, communism-as-a-system (communism-as-an-ideology is simply the ideology which seeks communism-as-a-system as its ultimate goal) is what happens to socialism (which uses the State) when it succeeds and the State withers away. If the State hasn't withered away, you have (in Marxist parlance) socialism-as-a-system even if you have communism-as-an-ideology that motivates the present use of socialism-as-a-system. You can't have communism with a State. (Whether you can have communism at all in practice is still an open question.)
  - icebraining 12y ago
    If it is not statist, what actually makes it "left"? Lack of private property over the means of production would be a big difference.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    By the way, just for kicks, here's a quote from Marx: The contradiction between the vocation and the good intentions of the administration on the one hand and the means and powers at its disposal on the other cannot be eliminated by the state, except by abolishing itself; for the state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities, since the scope of its own power comes to an end at the very point where civil life and work begin. Indeed, when we consider the consequences arising from the asocial nature of civil life, of private property, of trade, of industry, of the mutual plundering that goes on between the various groups in civil life, it becomes clear that the law of nature governing the administration is impotence. For, the fragmentation, the depravity, and the slavery of civil society is the natural foundation of the modern state, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation of the state in antiquity. The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery.
vdaniuk 12y ago
>Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism. Now you are just changing the definitions to suit your agenda. I see no point in the further discussion.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> > Also state == leftism? > Precisely. The effort of the American Right to coopt libertarian identity (one of a series of such attempts that arose in an effort to regain electoral ground in the realignment after the rise of the New Deal Coalition -- including the effort to coopt white racial identity in the Southern Strategy, and the effort to coopt Christian religious identity thereafter) clearly has met with some success. In the real world, however, right authoritarianism and left libertarianism are real things. > Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism. They are generally subsets of statism (presuming by "communism" you mean Leninism and its descendants; with Marxism-qua-Marxism the issue is less clear, and "communism" is even more general and includes some things which are probably more accurately seen as left-libertarian), but only some subsets of that list have any real relationship to the left. Fascism and Nazism are probably best seen as pure authoritarian; each borrows rhetorical approaches from both the Left and the Right to support authoritarianism, but neither really orients toward the Right or Left in anyway that is distinguishable from its orientation toward authoritarianism, except perhaps to the extent that one sees nationalism vs. internationalism as tied to the right/left divide (there's some traditional association of nationalism with the Right and internationalism with the Left), as both Nazism and Fascism are strongly nationalist.
- ameister14 12y ago
  There's also the growth of institutional power that characterizes much of Fascism; that's usually associated with the Left.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > There's also the growth of institutional power that characterizes much of Fascism; that's usually associated with the Left No, growth in institutional power is not "usually associated with the Left". Left and Right differ on who holds power and how it is used, authoritarian vs. libertarian split on the degree of institutional power. In a sense, libertarian and left are both different generalizations of classical liberalism to a new environment -- in the environment in which classical liberalism arose, political and economic power were conjoined and distributing political power was equivalent to distributing economic power. Libertarianism (in ideal -- practical effects may differ) focusses on continuing distribution of formal political power by limiting the power of central political institutions even as economic power has become increasingly divorced from the central institutions, Leftism (again, in ideal) focusses on continuing distribution of economic power among individuals irrespective of whether its present locus in central political institutions or not. Leftists will generally argue that distributing economic power is the best way of distributing political power, while Libertarians will argue the reverse.

> Also state == leftism? Precisely. > What about fascist and quasi-fascist states? Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism.

icebraining 12y ago

Now I'm curious to know where you put (left) anarchism, such as mutualism and anarcho-communism.

muuh-gnu 12y ago
> left anarchism If it is not statist, what actually makes it "left"? > anarcho-communism Same question, how could a stateless communism possibly work?
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Same question, how could a stateless communism possibly work? In even Marxist theory, communism-as-a-system (communism-as-an-ideology is simply the ideology which seeks communism-as-a-system as its ultimate goal) is what happens to socialism (which uses the State) when it succeeds and the State withers away. If the State hasn't withered away, you have (in Marxist parlance) socialism-as-a-system even if you have communism-as-an-ideology that motivates the present use of socialism-as-a-system. You can't have communism with a State. (Whether you can have communism at all in practice is still an open question.)
- icebraining 12y ago
  If it is not statist, what actually makes it "left"? Lack of private property over the means of production would be a big difference.
- icebraining 12y ago
  By the way, just for kicks, here's a quote from Marx: The contradiction between the vocation and the good intentions of the administration on the one hand and the means and powers at its disposal on the other cannot be eliminated by the state, except by abolishing itself; for the state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities, since the scope of its own power comes to an end at the very point where civil life and work begin. Indeed, when we consider the consequences arising from the asocial nature of civil life, of private property, of trade, of industry, of the mutual plundering that goes on between the various groups in civil life, it becomes clear that the law of nature governing the administration is impotence. For, the fragmentation, the depravity, and the slavery of civil society is the natural foundation of the modern state, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation of the state in antiquity. The existence of the state is inseparable from the existence of slavery.

vdaniuk 12y ago

>Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism. Now you are just changing the definitions to suit your agenda. I see no point in the further discussion.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> > Also state == leftism? > Precisely. The effort of the American Right to coopt libertarian identity (one of a series of such attempts that arose in an effort to regain electoral ground in the realignment after the rise of the New Deal Coalition -- including the effort to coopt white racial identity in the Southern Strategy, and the effort to coopt Christian religious identity thereafter) clearly has met with some success. In the real world, however, right authoritarianism and left libertarianism are real things. > Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, etc, are subsets of leftism/statism. They are generally subsets of statism (presuming by "communism" you mean Leninism and its descendants; with Marxism-qua-Marxism the issue is less clear, and "communism" is even more general and includes some things which are probably more accurately seen as left-libertarian), but only some subsets of that list have any real relationship to the left. Fascism and Nazism are probably best seen as pure authoritarian; each borrows rhetorical approaches from both the Left and the Right to support authoritarianism, but neither really orients toward the Right or Left in anyway that is distinguishable from its orientation toward authoritarianism, except perhaps to the extent that one sees nationalism vs. internationalism as tied to the right/left divide (there's some traditional association of nationalism with the Right and internationalism with the Left), as both Nazism and Fascism are strongly nationalist.

ameister14 12y ago
There's also the growth of institutional power that characterizes much of Fascism; that's usually associated with the Left.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > There's also the growth of institutional power that characterizes much of Fascism; that's usually associated with the Left No, growth in institutional power is not "usually associated with the Left". Left and Right differ on who holds power and how it is used, authoritarian vs. libertarian split on the degree of institutional power. In a sense, libertarian and left are both different generalizations of classical liberalism to a new environment -- in the environment in which classical liberalism arose, political and economic power were conjoined and distributing political power was equivalent to distributing economic power. Libertarianism (in ideal -- practical effects may differ) focusses on continuing distribution of formal political power by limiting the power of central political institutions even as economic power has become increasingly divorced from the central institutions, Leftism (again, in ideal) focusses on continuing distribution of economic power among individuals irrespective of whether its present locus in central political institutions or not. Leftists will generally argue that distributing economic power is the best way of distributing political power, while Libertarians will argue the reverse.