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It’s just a logical extension of what happens when government becomes the arbitrator of all.
The biggest issue is that so many people see it just as you do, left vs right, instead of liberty vs authoritarianism.
For decades, the libertarian movement, as seen by the left, has been largely associated with the right, simply because of their professed support of the free market, and dislike of gun control
But that same movement has been seen by the right as largely associated with the left, because of their views on things like the drug war, enforced morality, and anti-corporatism.
Has there been a large shift of alt-right into the libertarian movement over the past few years? Yes. Absolutely. And I despise it with a passion.
But there are still quite a lot of us truly anti-authoritarian libertarians out there who despise both left, and right leaning authoritarianism.
But when I bring up issues of authoritarianism, I get “BoTh SiDeS?!” bullshit responses. Because YES, as we can see, BOTH SIDES do their own fair share of this authoritarian bullshit.
They differ in methods, yes. But the bottom line is an encroachment on personal privacy. Plus, property rights are just a logical extension of personal privacy rights.
The biggest issue is that so many people see it just as you do, left vs right, instead of liberty vs authoritarianism.
For the most part the divide between “Left” and “Right” politically speaking IS the divide between Liberty and Authoritarianism. If you look up the History of the terms its easy to see this. Those terms originated during pre-revolutionary war France. The “Left” supported freedom from Tyranny. The “Right” supported the Monarchy. This has remained largely true ever since then.
Where the waters get muddy is so called ‘Authoritarian Communism’. When Communism was first being discussed it, along with Anarchism in general, were correctly labeled as ‘Leftist’ ideologies. Under both the ‘State’ is abolished completely. You can literally go no further left than voluntary association and abolishment of the state. As far back as Karl Marx, elements of ‘Authoritarianism’ began creeping into ‘Communist’ thought. While Marx was a relatively enlightened thinker- neither he nor Engels were the originators of Communism- despite having written “The Manifesto”. They were the originators of Marxism- an important distinction.
The goal- indeed one of the very definitions of ‘Communism’, even under Marxism is “a classless, stateless, society.” As such Communism is a form of Anarchism. Anarchy technically only requires the abolishment state, but the vast majority of Anarchists also believe in “Mutual Aid”, and ‘private property’ is a nonsense concept in the absence of a state- which is why so many Anarchists identify as ‘Anarcho-Communists’.
Now clearly (in my mind at least), removing one of the fundamental ideas of communism- which is that ‘The State’ (and especially a ‘strong/authoritarian’ state) inherently upholds and enforces the class system in society and is a bad thing which needs to be abolished and you replace that with it’s complete opposite- a ‘Strong’ State upholds and enforces ‘classlessness’ in society and is a good thing which should be supported, moves that type of “Communism/Socialism” from being a leftist ideology all the way over to being a far right ideology, as per the original and most commonly used metrics for determining if a position is “Left” or “Right”.
The problem with ‘reclassifying’ ‘Authoritarian Communism’ to it’s correct spot is that A) the ruling class (Capitalists) who are firmly right-wing do not want to be associated with it as it removes power from them and places it solely in the hands of the state. Likewise ‘Authoritarian Communists’ do not want to be associated with Capitalists either for similar reasons. Leaving the only people who care about the correct placement of these ideologies as the actual Anarchists and Communists- which are considered ‘fringe’, ‘extremist’, and ‘radicals’ by society as a whole and no one really cares about our opinions.
A ‘True/Accurate’ Left Right Spectrum would look something like…
Putting them in that order reflects the ‘Liberty-Authoritarian’ spectrum that is the “Left-Right” spectrum. You could of course argue placement and some of them could be rearranged depending on circumstances. For example I put ‘Social Democracy’ as further right than Democracy because ‘Social Democracy’ is still by and large a Capitalist system, yet if the majority of people in a Democracy were right wingers- then the order would flip, however this is largely right imho.
For decades, the libertarian movement, as seen by the left, has been largely associated with the right, simply because of their professed support of the free market, and dislike of gun control…
You are confusing ‘The Left’ with “Liberals”. This is an extremely common and understandable mistake to make in the U.S. as there is a lot of intentional confusion. The ‘Democratic Party’, in particular since the ‘Regan Era’ is largely comprised of Neoliberals- a capitalist ideology. Capitalism relies on, and cannot exist without the exploitation of workers. As such you simply CANNOT separate ‘Social’ policies and ‘economic’ policies. Exploitation of workers IS a social issue- one of the most important ones- so if you support ‘Capitalism’ you are ‘right wing’ socially, even if you hold relatively enlightened positions in other areas.
Also “Gun Control” isn’t a clear ‘left/right’ divide either. Many leftists share the view of some right wingers that having access to firearms is an important strategy to resist tyranny. If anything access to guns is a Left wing position that was adopted by some on the right, as crazy as that may sound to modern American ears.
“Under no pretextshould arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”
― Karl Marx
One of the key ways that “Libertarians” try to muddy the waters of what is a considered Leftwing or Rightwing stance is the mantra of ‘Free Markets’. But what is really meant is ‘Unrestricted Capitalism’. If there was ever a “Libertarian” who believed in “Free Markets” in the absence of ‘The State’ and ‘Private Property’- well they would likely correctly categorize themselves as a Leftist and not “Libertarian” (Please note the distinction between Private Property and Personal Property, and in particular how it relates to the ownership of the means of production.) Also to note: That definition of “Personal Property” is written from the POV of people born, raised, and indoctrinated by a Capitalist system and is not exactly how leftists would define it. “Personal Property” doesn’t have to be ‘movable’ per se- ones residence or even a village collectively could be considered ‘Personal Property’ by Leftists. What really matters is that it’s property that you can personally make use of. If you build yourself a small house for you and your family- that is personal property. If you lay claim to vast amounts of land that you couldn’t possibly work by yourself- that would be “Private Property” - which would require some form of ‘State’ to enforce.
Now some so-called “Libertarians” will try to argue for something called ‘Anarcho-Capitalism’. This is a mythical state of existence where there is no State, yet the people respect ‘Private Property’ rights. Ask most ‘Anarcho-Capitalists’ how they would propose to enforce private property in the absence of a state and they will tell you that they would hire Mercenaries/ “Private Police”/ a Small “private army”- Well at that point you are a Warlord. Which is the precursor to and one step removed from Feudalism. In other words by becoming a Warlord you have recreated ‘The State’, which is incompatible with Anarchism.
But that same movement has been seen by the right as largely associated with the left, because of their views on things like the drug war, enforced morality, and anti-corporatism.
It’s unironically great that you support those things- but even ‘anti-corporate’ Capitalists are still capitalists- and still right wing- despite being more enlightened in other areas. You are basically no different than a neolib, but with worse takes on the economy. Neolibs are right wingers themselves. We basically don’t have a “Left” in the U.S. The DNC is only “Left” of the GOP by relative positioning. The actual Left is growing day by day- thanks in part to the fascist takeover of the U.S., but we are still the minority for now.
But there are still quite a lot of us truly anti-authoritarian libertarians out there who despise both left, and right leaning authoritarianism.
But when I bring up issues of authoritarianism, I get “BoTh SiDeS?!” bullshit responses. Because YES, as we can see, BOTH SIDES do their own fair share of this authoritarian bullshit.
To reiterate my point, authoritarians can only ever be ‘Left Wing’ in name only. Calling it any other way makes no sense. It’s like saying a poor wealthy person or a sick healthy person- the two concepts are complete incompatible with each other.
Plus, property rights are just a logical extension of personal privacy rights.
PERSONAL property, not PRIVATE property.
Now I haven’t even gone into why the ‘authoritarian’ shift in “Communist” thought happened- and that is a whole other discussion. This rant was largely semantic but I feel it’s important to make the distinction.
Well to be fair the left in the usa does have another reason to see the libertarian party as just another right wing party. They vote republican when it comes down to D vs R
I’ve never voted for a Republican OR Democrat that I didn’t know personally in my entire life. Why do I add that qualifier? Because I did know some older small town politicians, in both US parties, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when my grandfather was still alive, and they were his friends.
The right is typically for gun control. Only one country comes to my mind where they aren’t. Which one were you thinking about? Or is it more common than I thought?
(Or did you just happen to forget that 95 % of Earth’s population exists?)
EDIT: Oh, and also: It is important to keep in mind that it’s the same within the left. There are also left-wingers who prefer authoritarianism and ones who despise it. I do agree with your sentiment: The left-right division does not work very well in our current world. Need to take best parts of everything, but most importantly, make sure we don’t end up under totalitarian rule!
I said “professed” dislike. Yes, I know Reagan is responsible for one of the largest expansions of gun control ever seen in the US…
And yes, I know Marx himself was tremendously in favor of armed workers.
Doesn’t change political narrative being pushed by both major political parties in the US, where in the left supposedly wants guns banned, and the right wants everyone armed.
Yes, I know things aren’t that cut and dry, but the media narrative pushed by both parties definitely seems to say that it is.
Doesn’t change political narrative being pushed by both major political parties in the US, where in the left supposedly wants guns banned, and the right wants everyone armed.
I wasn’t being eurocentric. I was being Asia-Africa-Australia-South America-Europe-Canada-Mexico-Central America-Caribbea centric.
The only country where most of the right want to reduce gun safety is USA. We are talking in an international forum, so here international concepts count, not nation-specific. Typically in the world right-wingers are for safety and typically in the world the politics of the Democrat party count as right-wing.
When in a conversation not specific to USA it is not okay to speak as if everything was about USA. It is not okay to speak as if there was a left-wing party in US Congress or Senate and it is not okay to claim that the right wants more dangerous gun policies.
And here we’re talking about something that takes place most prominently in UK and secondly in a bunch of other countries, but absolutely not in USA. USA has nothing to do with this, so don’t be as insolent as you were.
(Also, for example Australia is not in Europe. Learn some geography.)
Despite what they think, we are human beings too over here. That’s my point.
I don’t care about the politics of nation vs nation.
I care about humanity’s liberty as a whole.
Nations are shit. Because the only ones in power are typically the ones who want to be. And there’s no one worse to hand power to, than one who craves it.
Despite what who think? I don’t think there are people who think people in USA are not human beings. (Or if they are, they are less than one percent of the world population… Of course within 8 billion people you will find a proponent for any opinion…)
But yeah, since you care about humanity’s liberty as a whole, you could maybe kindly stop undermining that goal by assuming that what is done by under 5% of the population on this planet is the standard that the remaining 95 % are following.
You’re right. I shouldn’t have responded in anger. My bad. I get frustrated when I feel like people are talking down to me simply because I’m a USian, and I let it get the better of me.
It’s just a logical extension of what happens when government becomes the arbitrator of all.
The biggest issue is that so many people see it just as you do, left vs right, instead of liberty vs authoritarianism.
For decades, the libertarian movement, as seen by the left, has been largely associated with the right, simply because of their professed support of the free market, and dislike of gun control
But that same movement has been seen by the right as largely associated with the left, because of their views on things like the drug war, enforced morality, and anti-corporatism.
Has there been a large shift of alt-right into the libertarian movement over the past few years? Yes. Absolutely. And I despise it with a passion.
But there are still quite a lot of us truly anti-authoritarian libertarians out there who despise both left, and right leaning authoritarianism.
But when I bring up issues of authoritarianism, I get “BoTh SiDeS?!” bullshit responses. Because YES, as we can see, BOTH SIDES do their own fair share of this authoritarian bullshit.
They differ in methods, yes. But the bottom line is an encroachment on personal privacy. Plus, property rights are just a logical extension of personal privacy rights.
For the most part the divide between “Left” and “Right” politically speaking IS the divide between Liberty and Authoritarianism. If you look up the History of the terms its easy to see this. Those terms originated during pre-revolutionary war France. The “Left” supported freedom from Tyranny. The “Right” supported the Monarchy. This has remained largely true ever since then.
Where the waters get muddy is so called ‘Authoritarian Communism’. When Communism was first being discussed it, along with Anarchism in general, were correctly labeled as ‘Leftist’ ideologies. Under both the ‘State’ is abolished completely. You can literally go no further left than voluntary association and abolishment of the state. As far back as Karl Marx, elements of ‘Authoritarianism’ began creeping into ‘Communist’ thought. While Marx was a relatively enlightened thinker- neither he nor Engels were the originators of Communism- despite having written “The Manifesto”. They were the originators of Marxism- an important distinction.
The goal- indeed one of the very definitions of ‘Communism’, even under Marxism is “a classless, stateless, society.” As such Communism is a form of Anarchism. Anarchy technically only requires the abolishment state, but the vast majority of Anarchists also believe in “Mutual Aid”, and ‘private property’ is a nonsense concept in the absence of a state- which is why so many Anarchists identify as ‘Anarcho-Communists’.
Now clearly (in my mind at least), removing one of the fundamental ideas of communism- which is that ‘The State’ (and especially a ‘strong/authoritarian’ state) inherently upholds and enforces the class system in society and is a bad thing which needs to be abolished and you replace that with it’s complete opposite- a ‘Strong’ State upholds and enforces ‘classlessness’ in society and is a good thing which should be supported, moves that type of “Communism/Socialism” from being a leftist ideology all the way over to being a far right ideology, as per the original and most commonly used metrics for determining if a position is “Left” or “Right”.
The problem with ‘reclassifying’ ‘Authoritarian Communism’ to it’s correct spot is that A) the ruling class (Capitalists) who are firmly right-wing do not want to be associated with it as it removes power from them and places it solely in the hands of the state. Likewise ‘Authoritarian Communists’ do not want to be associated with Capitalists either for similar reasons. Leaving the only people who care about the correct placement of these ideologies as the actual Anarchists and Communists- which are considered ‘fringe’, ‘extremist’, and ‘radicals’ by society as a whole and no one really cares about our opinions.
A ‘True/Accurate’ Left Right Spectrum would look something like…
Anarchism> Communism> Democracy> Social Democracy> Neoliberalism/ “Libertarianism(U.S. definition)” > Conservatism> ‘Far Right’> “Authoritarian Socialism”> Fascism
Putting them in that order reflects the ‘Liberty-Authoritarian’ spectrum that is the “Left-Right” spectrum. You could of course argue placement and some of them could be rearranged depending on circumstances. For example I put ‘Social Democracy’ as further right than Democracy because ‘Social Democracy’ is still by and large a Capitalist system, yet if the majority of people in a Democracy were right wingers- then the order would flip, however this is largely right imho.
You are confusing ‘The Left’ with “Liberals”. This is an extremely common and understandable mistake to make in the U.S. as there is a lot of intentional confusion. The ‘Democratic Party’, in particular since the ‘Regan Era’ is largely comprised of Neoliberals- a capitalist ideology. Capitalism relies on, and cannot exist without the exploitation of workers. As such you simply CANNOT separate ‘Social’ policies and ‘economic’ policies. Exploitation of workers IS a social issue- one of the most important ones- so if you support ‘Capitalism’ you are ‘right wing’ socially, even if you hold relatively enlightened positions in other areas.
Also “Gun Control” isn’t a clear ‘left/right’ divide either. Many leftists share the view of some right wingers that having access to firearms is an important strategy to resist tyranny. If anything access to guns is a Left wing position that was adopted by some on the right, as crazy as that may sound to modern American ears.
“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”
― Karl Marx
One of the key ways that “Libertarians” try to muddy the waters of what is a considered Leftwing or Rightwing stance is the mantra of ‘Free Markets’. But what is really meant is ‘Unrestricted Capitalism’. If there was ever a “Libertarian” who believed in “Free Markets” in the absence of ‘The State’ and ‘Private Property’- well they would likely correctly categorize themselves as a Leftist and not “Libertarian” (Please note the distinction between Private Property and Personal Property, and in particular how it relates to the ownership of the means of production.) Also to note: That definition of “Personal Property” is written from the POV of people born, raised, and indoctrinated by a Capitalist system and is not exactly how leftists would define it. “Personal Property” doesn’t have to be ‘movable’ per se- ones residence or even a village collectively could be considered ‘Personal Property’ by Leftists. What really matters is that it’s property that you can personally make use of. If you build yourself a small house for you and your family- that is personal property. If you lay claim to vast amounts of land that you couldn’t possibly work by yourself- that would be “Private Property” - which would require some form of ‘State’ to enforce.
Now some so-called “Libertarians” will try to argue for something called ‘Anarcho-Capitalism’. This is a mythical state of existence where there is no State, yet the people respect ‘Private Property’ rights. Ask most ‘Anarcho-Capitalists’ how they would propose to enforce private property in the absence of a state and they will tell you that they would hire Mercenaries/ “Private Police”/ a Small “private army”- Well at that point you are a Warlord. Which is the precursor to and one step removed from Feudalism. In other words by becoming a Warlord you have recreated ‘The State’, which is incompatible with Anarchism.
It’s unironically great that you support those things- but even ‘anti-corporate’ Capitalists are still capitalists- and still right wing- despite being more enlightened in other areas. You are basically no different than a neolib, but with worse takes on the economy. Neolibs are right wingers themselves. We basically don’t have a “Left” in the U.S. The DNC is only “Left” of the GOP by relative positioning. The actual Left is growing day by day- thanks in part to the fascist takeover of the U.S., but we are still the minority for now.
To reiterate my point, authoritarians can only ever be ‘Left Wing’ in name only. Calling it any other way makes no sense. It’s like saying a poor wealthy person or a sick healthy person- the two concepts are complete incompatible with each other.
PERSONAL property, not PRIVATE property.
Now I haven’t even gone into why the ‘authoritarian’ shift in “Communist” thought happened- and that is a whole other discussion. This rant was largely semantic but I feel it’s important to make the distinction.
Well to be fair the left in the usa does have another reason to see the libertarian party as just another right wing party. They vote republican when it comes down to D vs R
I’ve never voted for a Republican OR Democrat that I didn’t know personally in my entire life. Why do I add that qualifier? Because I did know some older small town politicians, in both US parties, back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when my grandfather was still alive, and they were his friends.
The right is typically for gun control. Only one country comes to my mind where they aren’t. Which one were you thinking about? Or is it more common than I thought?
(Or did you just happen to forget that 95 % of Earth’s population exists?)
EDIT: Oh, and also: It is important to keep in mind that it’s the same within the left. There are also left-wingers who prefer authoritarianism and ones who despise it. I do agree with your sentiment: The left-right division does not work very well in our current world. Need to take best parts of everything, but most importantly, make sure we don’t end up under totalitarian rule!
I said “professed” dislike. Yes, I know Reagan is responsible for one of the largest expansions of gun control ever seen in the US…
And yes, I know Marx himself was tremendously in favor of armed workers.
Doesn’t change political narrative being pushed by both major political parties in the US, where in the left supposedly wants guns banned, and the right wants everyone armed.
Yes, I know things aren’t that cut and dry, but the media narrative pushed by both parties definitely seems to say that it is.
How is US relevant in this discussion?
Because the US has humans inside it, despite what all the Eurocentric trash think.I let my anger control me, shouldn’t have said this.
I wasn’t being eurocentric. I was being Asia-Africa-Australia-South America-Europe-Canada-Mexico-Central America-Caribbea centric. The only country where most of the right want to reduce gun safety is USA. We are talking in an international forum, so here international concepts count, not nation-specific. Typically in the world right-wingers are for safety and typically in the world the politics of the Democrat party count as right-wing.
When in a conversation not specific to USA it is not okay to speak as if everything was about USA. It is not okay to speak as if there was a left-wing party in US Congress or Senate and it is not okay to claim that the right wants more dangerous gun policies.
And here we’re talking about something that takes place most prominently in UK and secondly in a bunch of other countries, but absolutely not in USA. USA has nothing to do with this, so don’t be as insolent as you were.
(Also, for example Australia is not in Europe. Learn some geography.)
Despite what they think, we are human beings too over here. That’s my point.
I don’t care about the politics of nation vs nation.
I care about humanity’s liberty as a whole.
Nations are shit. Because the only ones in power are typically the ones who want to be. And there’s no one worse to hand power to, than one who craves it.
Despite what who think? I don’t think there are people who think people in USA are not human beings. (Or if they are, they are less than one percent of the world population… Of course within 8 billion people you will find a proponent for any opinion…)
But yeah, since you care about humanity’s liberty as a whole, you could maybe kindly stop undermining that goal by assuming that what is done by under 5% of the population on this planet is the standard that the remaining 95 % are following.
You’re right. I shouldn’t have responded in anger. My bad. I get frustrated when I feel like people are talking down to me simply because I’m a USian, and I let it get the better of me.