Ugh, I really wish I’d saved that essay, but the point I’ve seen before is this:
Communism (as a revolutionary ideology) is oppositional to liberalism. Placing it on the same scale/compass as liberal ideologies appears to equate it to an outgrowth of liberalism, which it is not. Marx and Engels’ work on dialectical materialism is oppossed to liberalism, and historic communist revolutions opposed liberalism with the aim of its destruction.
Historically “the left” referred to French Republicans but eventually came to mean Socdems as they tended to sit on the left side of European parliaments. This is a very different ideology that exists on the liberalism scale as a method of working within. Wheras the likes of Mao/Lenin blow up the scale with a bomb and build a new one out of Marxist tendencies that don’t intend to hold liberal values.
This differs from fascism in which the corporate state is a direct outgrowth of liberalism that exemplifies the most extreme form of capital decay and the deification of private property over human lives.
Edit: including anarchism, the split in the two movements and the completely different theoretical bases means that while they share lineage through the First International, they’re more like distant branches of the same tree rather than neighbors on a spectrum. Anarchist thought has a totally different focus on structures of power.
I absolutely agree with you. However, political spectrum as a concept, as you answered, does not really make sense and even if you made one that did it would be overly complicated. The way I created it is something akin of a progressive-regressive line, with more progressive ideologies being left, and more regressive being on the right. I think that is a suitable definition of left-right divide if there even is one. You have to satisfy yourself with one form of representation and with its pros and cons.
Ugh, I really wish I’d saved that essay, but the point I’ve seen before is this:
Communism (as a revolutionary ideology) is oppositional to liberalism. Placing it on the same scale/compass as liberal ideologies appears to equate it to an outgrowth of liberalism, which it is not. Marx and Engels’ work on dialectical materialism is oppossed to liberalism, and historic communist revolutions opposed liberalism with the aim of its destruction.
Historically “the left” referred to French Republicans but eventually came to mean Socdems as they tended to sit on the left side of European parliaments. This is a very different ideology that exists on the liberalism scale as a method of working within. Wheras the likes of Mao/Lenin blow up the scale with a bomb and build a new one out of Marxist tendencies that don’t intend to hold liberal values.
This differs from fascism in which the corporate state is a direct outgrowth of liberalism that exemplifies the most extreme form of capital decay and the deification of private property over human lives.
Edit: including anarchism, the split in the two movements and the completely different theoretical bases means that while they share lineage through the First International, they’re more like distant branches of the same tree rather than neighbors on a spectrum. Anarchist thought has a totally different focus on structures of power.
I absolutely agree with you. However, political spectrum as a concept, as you answered, does not really make sense and even if you made one that did it would be overly complicated. The way I created it is something akin of a progressive-regressive line, with more progressive ideologies being left, and more regressive being on the right. I think that is a suitable definition of left-right divide if there even is one. You have to satisfy yourself with one form of representation and with its pros and cons.