Protest-Warrior can't even name classical-liberal authors that influenced him

[IcarusAngel]

This fascist dipshit on Protest-Warrior claimed he was a classical liberal and a Libertarian. So, naturally, I asked him to NAME the classical-liberal authors he's read, with the intention on quzzing him on the authors' works (von Humboldt, Mill, TH Green, et al.)., and he couldn't even name the ones he's read, even though I asked him twice.



though i find these sorts of labels really dumb down debate and cloud political discussion with theoretical minutia- i suppose i would consider myself a classical liberal or libertarian.

You, a classical liberal. Funny, funny stuff.

And can you name but two classical liberals, respected classical liberals, who supported the same tyranny as you?

You are to classical-liberalism what B.W.Kashig is to social anthropology.

He just kept claiming I was a troll. He couldn't even name one that he's actually read. :laugh:
http://forum.protestwarrior.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6801&p=152315#p152315

He's probably searching for the authors now, but this is a good example of the intellectual depth of the Libertarians. He's the same wussy on Protest-Warrior who was defending the army - even though he's never served in the Canadian (where he's from) military himself.

This would be like if a Marxist had never even heard of Karl Marx.

[IcarusAngel]

This begs the question... Can our own conservatives/Libertarians (TomK, Pusher_Robot, etc.) name the classical liberals they claim to be influenced by?

[RHIZOMES]

I think pusher robot would be able to, but not TomK. May be wrong.

[IcarusAngel]

Libertarians are usually liars by nature. Even the term "Libertarian" is an anachronism - because the original libertarians were leftist and anti-capitalist.

More importantly, that troll was another one implying that the Libertarian Party and classical-liberalism are the same thing. But, how can he know that when he clearly can't even name the classical-liberals he's read? I'm sure he'll make up something by tomorrow, though.

There are actually differences between the traditional liberalism and Libertarianism, as you may know.

Adam Smith, for example, argued for markets only if they exist under a framework of rights and justice, to be provided by society. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), and the Lectures on Jurisprudence (LJ), he clearly argues that he is neither purely altruistic, nor is he pure selfish, and yet Libertarians claim people are naturally selfish. TMS and the Wealth of Nations also shows he was thinking in terms of small mom and pop stores, self-restraint (such as claiming markets will lead people to invest closer to home), and so on, and that he actually condemned the upper-class, the rich, and larger institutions known as "incorporations."

Even his belief in natural rights and liberty has to be understood as operation under the Theory of Rights elucidated in the LJ.

For instance, he condemned pure selfishness and self-interest as the "vile maxism of the masters of mankind" and noted that it is a recipe for tyranny. He wanted markets to lead to "perfect equality," not the mass consolidation of resources we see today. And he even called for all kinds of regulation of industries.

The other classical liberals were even more radical, arguing that what you create should be under your own control, rather than under the control of big business (something like what syndicalists support).

So, hopefully our own Libertarians (who also probably post at Protest-Warrior and anti-state) will grace us with their presence and explain how there is not a conflict.

[IcarusAngel]

I also caught one of them, who claims to be a pastor, lying about human history.

He said that the definition of marriage has been around hundreds of thousands (notice the plural) of years ago (it's generally agreed humans sprang up around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, and they had no "definition" of marriage).

http://forum.protestwarrior.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6790

It's funny to see him try and wiggle his way out of it, so he claimed that they actually had a definition of bonding.

I then asked him to show where cro-magnun man had a definition of marriage, or even where precivilization defined it. He barely became coherent at that point.

That forum is a forum of liars. I recently caught that pseudo-anarchist in another lie, and Megami claimed all philosophers were "anti-military" and that "The two constants in history are philosophers, etc. being narcissistic, and soldiers defending them anyway," while a society's decline is measured by their contempt for their own military. But nationalist societies have also declined, in fact, I can't think of a case in history to confirm what she's talked about.

I'm about through with owning them. It's more of a forum Freakazoid would enjoy.

[Lector Malibu]

Tom K was mass produced in a factory out of spare parts of Regan and Nixon..

[bcbm]

Libertarians are usually liars by nature. Even the term "Libertarian" is an anachronism - because the original libertarians were leftist and anti-capitalist.

Actually, if I remember correctly, both usages of the term arose around the same time.

[Zurdito]

to be honest, you could find a lot of far leftists who have never read marx. I wouldn't personally hold it against them, not everyone has the chance to be well-read. part ofour problem as a movement in the west at least is that so often we are practically confined to those who are unviersity educated, etc.

[IcarusAngel]

Actually, if I remember correctly, both usages of the term arose around the same time.

This is incorrect. The left-wing libertarians were people like Goldman, Proudhen, etc. etc. They were anti-capitalist. The right-wing version of the term doesn't begin until the twentieth century.

"The first person to describe himself as a libertarian was Joseph Déjacque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_D%C3%A9jacque),[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism#cite_note-dejacque-10) an early French anarchist communist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_communism). The word stems from the French (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language) word libertaire, and was used in order to evade the French ban on anarchist publications.[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism#cite_note-11) In the context of the European socialist movement, libertarian has conventionally been used to describe those who opposed state socialism, such as Mikhail Bakunin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin). "


"Proudhon called himself a socialist, but he opposed state ownership of capital goods in favour of ownership by workers themselves in associations. This makes him one of the first theorists of libertarian socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism). Proudhon was one of the main influence for the theorization, at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, of workers' self-management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management) (autogestion)."

[IcarusAngel]

to be honest, you could find a lot of far leftists who have never read marx. I wouldn't personally hold it against them, not everyone has the chance to be well-read. part ofour problem as a movement in the west at least is that so often we are practically confined to those who are unviersity educated, etc.

This is not surprising as not all Leftists are marxists. In fact, most are not Marxists at all.

However, that is different from claiming to be influenced by a certain sector of people, and having never read them in the first place. Or, claiming that the definition of marriage existed before modern humans even existed.

[IcarusAngel]

Tom K was mass produced in a factory out of spare parts of Regan and Nixon..

Interestingly, Reagan also wrote somewhere that he was an "original liberal."

The point is not that Libertarians are liars, or that I exposed someone. That's a given.

The point is that many on the right want to make language meaningless. So liberal = conservative, socialist = capitalism.

If you saw that video I linked to earlier, anarcho-capitalists claim that socialism and capitalism are the same thing, and that socialist anti-capitalism is actually pro free-market.

What they sneak in at the end of the sales pitch is that "free-market" means right-wing Libertarianism, so you've basically been taken around a circle.

This is what Orwell (who himself despised Hayek's society) called "doublespeak," and why I like to use 1984 when talking about the Libertarian party. Like "the party" portrayed in1984, they also want one party rule and revisionist history to dominate the today.

That is why the Libertarian institutes release edited versions of Smith's work, with all the good stuff cut out of it.

That is also why there are so few Libertarians in academia because what they do constitutes fraud.

For some good resources see Adam Smith's lost legacy blog, some of Chomsky's claims and writings on smith (like here (http://www.adamsmithslostlegacy.com/2008/01/chomsky-fuming-about-distortions-of.html)), and the book "Adam Smith and his Legacy for Modern Capitalism," if you can find it.

[Zurdito]

This is not surprising as not all Leftists are marxists. In fact, most are not Marxists at all.

However, that is different from claiming to be influenced by a certain sector of people, and having never read them in the first place. Or, claiming that the definition of marriage existed before modern humans even existed.


I said far leftists, i.e., those in the marxist movement.

[Bud Struggle]

I think pusher robot would be able to, but not TomK. May be wrong.


Tom K was mass produced in a factory out of spare parts of Regan and Nixon..

Well thanks gentlemen--aren't you sweetest. :)

Seriously, as far as economics goes--I'm not an expert, and never claimed to be one. I took one course in college and that was a looooong time ago. BUT, unlike almost everyone here I have actually USED the system that is in place today to its fullest advantage. I have actually done things, not just talked about them.

On the other hand, my philosophic influences have been many: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas (especially), Pascal, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Gilson, Brownson, Lonergan, Edith Stein, John Courtney Murry, Adler and Weigel. And more if you want...it's just that most of these guys don't come into discussion in a Communist forum.

[Killfacer]

i'm going to come clean, i aint heard of many of those people you just mentioned TomK but i have heard of Edith Stein. She was that nun woman who was sainted wasnt she? Doesnt sound like the best philisophic influence ever. I may be wrong but wasnt her academic life cut short by her being a jewish catholic convert? (she was a jew but became a catholic) Plus anyone whos famous for peforming a miracle looses a fair bit of credence in my book.

[Bud Struggle]

i'm going to come clean, i aint heard of many of those people you just mentioned TomK but i have heard of Edith Stein. She was that nun woman who was sainted wasnt she? Doesnt sound like the best philisophic influence ever. I may be wrong but wasnt her academic life cut short by her being a jewish catholic convert? (she was a jew but became a catholic) Plus anyone whos famous for peforming a miracle looses a fair bit of credence in my book.

Good start. A couple of things--she was a Jew who became a Catholic convert and a nun. She was killed by the Nazis in 1942 in Auschwiz. She was a phenomenologist--had a Ph.D in philosophy, that really did a brilliant blending of Phenonemology and scholasticism in her book Finite and Eternal Being. I was something of a Heideggerian in my youth and St. Teresa (her nun name) kind of cleared my head of such foolishness. (How's THAT for a miracle--she changed my mind on something! :lol:)

As for doing miracles--she did them AFTER she died, not while she was living, so you shouldn't blame her for claiming that ability.

I still can't start a thread--can you?

[EscapeFromSF]

Libertarians are usually liars by nature. Even the term "Libertarian" is an anachronism - because the original libertarians were leftist and anti-capitalist.

:snicker: Unfortunately, this is--as I understand it--the way it is in Great Britain and the United States.


Adam Smith, for example, argued for markets only if they exist under a framework of rights and justice, to be provided by society. In the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), and the Lectures on Jurisprudence (LJ), he clearly argues that he is neither purely altruistic, nor is he pure selfish, and yet Libertarians claim people are naturally selfish. TMS and the Wealth of Nations also shows he was thinking in terms of small mom and pop stores, self-restraint (such as claiming markets will lead people to invest closer to home), and so on, and that he actually condemned the upper-class, the rich, and larger institutions known as "incorporations."

What I find interesting about this is the capitalist Libertarian faith in markets to achieve the goals under--and I have yet to actually read Adam Smith, so I'm relying on your veracity and the veracity of others here--Smith's moralistic framework. Over and over again, I hear about how consumers have a choice about where they shop and they can choose to shop with more ethical players.

And of course pointing to anti-competitive operations like Wal-Mart doesn't work, because they argue that these are artificial--a "true market," whatever the hell that is, could never support such behavior. They are so convinced of this that even pointing to the Industrial Revolution, and those abuses such as Upton Sinclair described, yields the same response.


Even his belief in natural rights and liberty has to be understood as operation under the Theory of Rights elucidated in the LJ.

For instance, he condemned pure selfishness and self-interest as the "vile maxism of the masters of mankind" and noted that it is a recipe for tyranny. He wanted markets to lead to "perfect equality," not the mass consolidation of resources we see today. And he even called for all kinds of regulation of industries.

I did a double take when I first read this. I read "maxism" as Marxism. Given the timelines, you can imagine what I was about to type.


The other classical liberals were even more radical, arguing that what you create should be under your own control, rather than under the control of big business (something like what syndicalists support).

So, hopefully our own Libertarians (who also probably post at Protest-Warrior and anti-state) will grace us with their presence and explain how there is not a conflict.

Don't expect me to hang around for this. I despise Libertarians and simply don't have time to rebut their claims.

I'll give you a hint, though you probably don't need it: From what I can see, they mostly get their information via the Cato Institute, a refuge for so-called academics who don't want to submit their ideas for peer review in the normal channels.

This is pathetic, since normal academia already offers plenty of niches, and plenty of opportunity to create one's own niches to take on a veneer of peer review. (I'm discovering this--very much to my horror--at the graduate level in my own studies.) So for capitalist Libertarians to use institutions like the Cato Institute to protect themselves illustrates a true fear of critical examination.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

You're Socialist at Protest-Warrior? Hats off to you. I couldn't stomach the nonsensical partisan crap they spew. I don't think many right-libertarians realize that classical liberals held some very centralist (if not Leftist) ideas. Marx cites Adam Smith as one of his biggest influences; Rothbard attacks Smith as being too compromising. :D

[Bud Struggle]

You're Socialist at Protest-Warrior? Hats off to you. I couldn't stomach the nonsensical partisan crap they spew. I don't think many right-libertarians realize that classical liberals held some very centralist (if not Leftist) ideas. Marx cites Adam Smith as one of his biggest influences; Rothbard attacks Smith as being too compromising. :D

Gene, you're a Commie Cluber!

Congratulations! :)

BTW: Protest-Warrior is an interesting site I just stopped by and gave it a view.. I could see it might not be to everyone here's liking, but it doesn't hurt for everyone to have a place to air their opinion. Personally, I like revLeft best. :)

[Plagueround]

BUT, unlike almost everyone here I have actually USED the system that is in place today to its fullest advantage. I have actually done things, not just talked about them.


You're probably being somewhat facetious, but I think it's a bit unfair to assume that the people here are not doing anything with our lives. Just because the system needs to be changed doesn't mean we aren't doing anything you would deem as productive.

Now if you'll excuse me it's 11 a.m. and I haven't showered yet.


P.S. Next time you read these forums (or anything else on the internet for that matter), take a moment to thank those of us who spend our days moving, cabling, programming, and maintaining 2,000+ pound cabinets full of the servers that run all this stuff. Not doing anything my ass. :lol:

[Bud Struggle]

You're probably being somewhat facetious, but I think it's a bit unfair to assume that the people here are not doing anything with our lives. Just because the system needs to be changed doesn't mean we aren't doing anything you would deem as productive.


Granted. I just meant to say that I actually "am" a Capitalist doing Capitalist things. I didn't mean to imply that people don't work hard doing what they do.

My apologies.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Gene, you're a Commie Cluber!

Congratulations! :)

BTW: Protest-Warrior is an interesting site I just stopped by and gave it a view.. I could see it might not be to everyone here's liking, but it doesn't hurt for everyone to have a place to air their opinion. Personally, I like revLeft best. :)

Thanks. :)

I once frequented an enjoyable conservative-oriented forum, but I can't recall the name, let alone the URL. Places like Democraticunderground and FreeRepublic drive me up the wall.

By the way, Tom, if you want to see something amusing, I recommend: theologyonline.com

[Bud Struggle]

By the way, Tom, if you want to see something amusing, I recommend: theologyonline.com


Thankyou--Nice stuff. Topics like: "Why doesn't God heal amputees?" and "Should adulterers be stoned?" :laugh:

And from further looking over Protest-Warrior--it's WAY to American. Nothing wrong with America, but there is an insulation from the world that one gets from living here that makes you think that there is nothing out there in the rest of the world. Anerica is all about America.

One of the REALLY nice thing about RevLeft is that it's international in scope--it's interesting to see how the the things that Americans take for granted as being one way--really are seen in a completely different light by people from other places.

Wonderful perspectives here on RevLeft. Wonderful site.

[Robert]

Now if you'll excuse me it's 11 a.m. and I haven't showered yet.

This candid admission from comrade Plaqueround brings to mind one of my own early influences: John Ray, whose A collection of English proverbs 1670, 1678 includes:

"The early bird catcheth the worm."

[Baconator]

Can anyone show the legitimacy of the 'Left/Right' paradigm as concerns politics? People like to use it here so they must believe it as a legitimate and valid description of political views so I'd like to know why. :)

[Baconator]

Take for example supporters of the free market. In English speaking countries free market advocates would be considered on the Right and part of conservatism.

English Left/Right

<---socialists----------------------moderates----free market------fascists-->


In France free market advocates are actually considered far Left and ultraliberals
French Left/Right
<---ultraliberal/free market-----------socialists --------conserv-->

The 19th century model for most of the world placed Left and Right much like the French do today.

In today's English model we technically get Mother Theresa by Joseph Stalin and Ron Paul further Right than Bush and closer to Adolph Hitler. Interestingly Stalin and Hitler would be on opposite ends.:confused:

<-Stalin----Mother Theresa-----Clinton------Bush------Ron Paul----Hitler--->

I don't think soothing Left/Right descriptions of ourselves are very valid. Anyone disagree?

[Bud Struggle]

Take for example supporters of the free market. In English speaking countries free market advocates would be considered on the Right and part of conservatism.

English Left/Right



In today's English model we technically get Mother Theresa by Joseph Stalin and Ron Paul further Right than Bush and closer to Adolph Hitler. Interestingly Stalin and Hitler would be on opposite ends.:confused:

<-Stalin----Mother Theresa-----Clinton------Bush------Ron Paul----Hitler--->

I don't think soothing Left/Right descriptions of ourselves are very valid. Anyone disagree?

I disagree a bit. I see it more as a circle with Hitler and Stalin comming together. I don't see their totalitarian policies as being much different from one another.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I prefer the four quadrants model.

http://augustson2008.us/images/PoliticalCompassChart.png

Note: this particular graph does not reflect my positions. I'm flatly on the bottom left.

[Bud Struggle]

You're not the "Me"?

Good graph.

Though I disagree that Bush is right wing--the biggest problem that Conservatives have with him is that he too much a tax and spend Liberal. I see myself as being at the bottom, too but maybe more in the middle of the right bottom quadrant.

[TheDevil'sApprentice]

Can anyone show the legitimacy of the 'Left/Right' paradigm as concerns politics? People like to use it here so they must believe it as a legitimate and valid description of political views so I'd like to know why. :)Its all about class interest. The left-right paradigm comes from pre-revolutionary france - parties were seated according to the extent to which they represented the interests of different classes. Aristocracy on the right, bourgeois on the left. With the french revolution, the abolition of the aristocracy and the elevation of the bourgeois to rulling class, it was changed to bourgeois on the right and working class on the left.

No scale is going to perfectly express political differences - but whos interests the positions represent is IMO probably the best way to do it. I don't believe you about free-market being to the left of socialism in france. Liberal=/=Left.

[IcarusAngel]

This thread has certainly diverged in many diverged in many different directions. It went from being about why you should know what you're talking about when making a comparision to Political Science 101. I welcome the discussion.



Even the term "Libertarian" is an anachronism - because the original libertarians were leftist and anti-capitalist.
snicker: Unfortunately, this is--as I understand it--the way it is in Great Britain and the United States.

Yes. But there are probably as many if not more libertarian-socialists and anarchists in the US as there are right-wing "Libertarians." Especially in academia there is a larger presence, outside of economics of course.


What I find interesting about this is the capitalist Libertarian faith in markets to achieve the goals under--and I have yet to actually read Adam Smith, so I'm relying on your veracity and the veracity of others here--Smith's moralistic framework. Over and over again, I hear about how consumers have a choice about where they shop and they can choose to shop with more ethical players.

Yes. But there is nothing in Smith's writing that would indicate he believed in letting manufacturers and merchants do what they wanted. This led to the deplorable practices of the East India Company, a chartered, private monopoly. The fact is that Smith himself was, as Chomsky likes to point out, a pre-capitalist. The word "capitalism" didn't even exist until the mid 1800s, and the word laissez-faire doesn't even appear in the Wealth of Nations. The "invisible hand" comment appears one more time than that, that is, it appears a total of one time, but he's using it to refer to the tendency of manufacturers to have a preference for home trade rather than foreign investment, which wasn't necessarily a part of their private intentions.

What they do is they splice up Smith's work to show that he would have supported a division of labor, an "invisible hand" the guide the market, or even that the created capitalism.

For instance, these are the same people who use Smith to justify their position against raising the minimum wage, or even calling for the abolition of it. And yet there is nothing in Smith's work he would have opposed raising the wages of laborers. If anything, he was sympathetic to workers who were subjected to laws that prevented them from combing (striking), while employers were subjected to no such laws that prevented them from combing (locking out workers to raise wages, which they often did). Smith even noted that when two people of the same industry meet together, it usually ends up in some contrivance to screw the public (WN).

You don't have to take my word for it. It's easy enough to do research on his work. Even the reviewers on Amazon.com have noted these tendencies.


I did a double take when I first read this. I read "maxism" as Marxism. Given the timelines, you can imagine what I was about to type.

Yes, sorry about that. My last couple of entries on revleft have been about as grammatically correct as Dejavu's.

He referred to selfish tendencies as the vile maxim of mankind.


I'll give you a hint, though you probably don't need it: From what I can see, they mostly get their information via the Cato Institute, a refuge for so-called academics who don't want to submit their ideas for peer review in the normal channels.

This is pathetic, since normal academia already offers plenty of niches, and plenty of opportunity to create one's own niches to take on a veneer of peer review. (I'm discovering this--very much to my horror--at the graduate level in my own studies.) So for capitalist Libertarians to use institutions like the Cato Institute to protect themselves illustrates a true fear of critical examination.

Yes. Another one is the von Mises institute.

Most of them (like the CATO institute, the Heritage foundation, and so on) came into existence to combat the progressive assault against corporations in the 60s and 70s. They need to outmatch and out lobby the citizens' groups that came into existence.

Corporations once again realized how necessary it was to control the "great beast," i.e., the public mind, and beat back efforts to bring corporations under democratic governance.

And you're right, they escape peer-review. Half of their nonsense isn't even written by people with Ph.Ds or even people who know what they're talking about, especially at the Mises institute, where Dejavu likely sharpens his mind everyday.

For the record I'm not even really pro-Smith. In a way, though, the Wealth of Nations can be seen as an attack on mercantilism and industry, which is why I would encourage leftists to read it.

I'm of the opinion though that there are a lot of ways to run an economy, and what Smith had in mind probably wasn't the freest possible way to do it.

[IcarusAngel]

You're Socialist at Protest-Warrior? Hats off to you. I couldn't stomach the nonsensical partisan crap they spew. I don't think many right-libertarians realize that classical liberals held some very centralist (if not Leftist) ideas. Marx cites Adam Smith as one of his biggest influences; Rothbard attacks Smith as being too compromising. :D

Proudhon also said he was highly influenced by Smith.


i'm going to come clean, i aint heard of many of those people you just mentioned TomK but i have heard of Edith Stein. She was that nun woman who was sainted wasnt she? Doesnt sound like the best philisophic influence ever. I may be wrong but wasnt her academic life cut short by her being a jewish catholic convert? (she was a jew but became a catholic) Plus anyone whos famous for peforming a miracle looses a fair bit of credence in my book.

Most of the philosophers he named were moralistic/ethical philosophers; a great many of them Christian philosophers.

It's important to note that Adam Smith was not just the founder of economics (as he is often credited), he was also a moral philosophers, a social philosopher.

Not all classical-liberals were economists. Some were economists and/or philosophers. Smith was an economist I guess. Mill was, and he showed there was no "right way" to distribute income, despite what capitalists may believe.

But Rousseau wasn't. von Humoldt minded economics but he wasn't necessarily an economist either, more of a philosopher/linguist.

And, ironically, Smith himself really wasn't a "classical economist." That was a term invented by Marx. Smith had many disagreements with what both Marxists, and right-wing Libertarians, attribute to these supposed "classical economists."

[IcarusAngel]

Take for example supporters of the free market. In English speaking countries free market advocates would be considered on the Right and part of conservatism.

English Left/Right

<---socialists----------------------moderates----free market------fascists-->


In France free market advocates are actually considered far Left and ultraliberals
French Left/Right
<---ultraliberal/free market-----------socialists --------conserv-->

The 19th century model for most of the world placed Left and Right much like the French do today.

In today's English model we technically get Mother Theresa by Joseph Stalin and Ron Paul further Right than Bush and closer to Adolph Hitler. Interestingly Stalin and Hitler would be on opposite ends.:confused:

<-Stalin----Mother Theresa-----Clinton------Bush------Ron Paul----Hitler--->

I don't think soothing Left/Right descriptions of ourselves are very valid. Anyone disagree?


Haven't you been corrected on this before? There are left-wing socialists in France.

Furthermore, the original, supposed "French free-marketeers" you talk about advocated as much government intervention into the economy as Smith did, if not more.

What matters is the framework they operated under. And what matters to the political left-right line is not just whether someone supports the free-market (what does this mean?) or not, it's what the overall structure will be like.

Political Scientists often use as a standard whether resources are put in private or public hands. Another one is the distribution of power, and in a capitalist society, like a fascist one, the people themselves have very little power or political power. The capitalists control the economy, and they dominate politics by lobbying techniques. Our elections are subjected more and more to "free-market" principles, leading to, of course, a monopoly on them, as well as fraud and election rigging, liking voting machines programming by private tyrannies with connections to the Republican Party.

But there are many other assets to the left-right line. It developed at around the time of the enlightenment, so anti-theism and dogma has generally been seen as part of the left. Anti-war, another important principles, is also generally seen as leftist.

In the case of Stalin and Hitler they had different societies. Power in Stalinism was not delegated to completely to private hands, and under the broad classification of "are resources placed in private or public hands?" Stalinism would generally be more leftist than Nazism.

Although, ultimately, Stalin himself was the monarch, meaning he had complete authority, and under the even broader framework of "who holds power?" we could say that Stalin was a rightist.

Even Karl Hess, one of the founders of the American right-wing Libertarian Party, said this:

"My own notion of politics is that it follows a straight line rather than a circle. The straight line stretches from the far right where (historically) we find monarchy, absolute dictatorships, and other forms of absolutely authoritarian rule. On the far right, law and order means the law of the ruler and the order that serves the interest of that ruler, usually the orderliness of drone workers, submissive students, elders either totally cowed into loyalty or totally indoctrinated and trained into that loyalty. Both Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler operated right-wing regimes, politically, despite the trappings of socialism with which both adorned their regimes. Huey Long, when governor-boss of Louisiana, was moving toward a truly right-wing regime, also adorned with many trappings of socialism (particularly public works and welfare) but held together not by social benefits but by a strong police force and a steady flow of money to subsidize and befriend businessmen."

So apparently Hess was judging the political line based on who holds power, and he (correctly in my opinion) placed Stalinism and Nazism on the right (where I would place capitalism as well, since capitalism is esentially an oligopoly.

And it's actually one of the more exciting areas of political science.

A lot of political science is stuff like "Why did the CATO institute come into existence," what are the power of lobbies, or maybe international relations and how states behave.

Since the left-right line is tied to ideology, it is generally more interesting to study, as ideology is always fun.

[Baconator]

Yeah I don't see how the Left/Right paradigm isn't subjective. Heh, whats liberal today can be conservative tomorrow, and so forth.

I tend to stay away from the Left/Right descriptions since I think they are highly inaccurate of a lot of positions. I merely examine the ideologies people hold and work from there.

[TheDevil'sApprentice]

Yeah I don't see how the Left/Right paradigm isn't subjective. Heh, whats liberal today can be conservative tomorrow, and so forth.What do you mean when you say it is 'subjective'?

The scale measures a political movements position in the class struggle. As the class struggle changes across time and place, so does the left-right position of a given ideology. Conservatives in third world countries undergoing neoliberal reforms would be slightly leftwing - as they are resisting changes in the favour of the rulling class. Meanwhile, conservatives in europe after the second world war undergoing social-democratic reforms would be rightwing as they were resisting changes in the favour of the working class. I don't see whats wrong with this.

The scale is important, because it determines the impact of a movement on the real world. This is what matters in the final anlaysis.