Right wing revision of the political spectrum

[Counterculturalist]

I'm sure most of you have had to deal with the misconception that the political spectrum goes from "totalitarianism" on the left to "anarchism" on the right, or any of the innumerable variations on this idea, many of which lead to the assertion that Hitler was a leftist.

In a way, it's a brilliant (though brazenly dishonest) rhetorical maneuver: take everything that the right is justifiably hated for, and associate it with the left. It also seems to be gaining currency with the general public.

How do people here counter this when it comes up in debates? And how could we do this on a bigger scale?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Well, if you want a quick way to shut this notion down, just mention that the terms come from the French Revolution where the supporters of the monarchy sat on the right and the more radical revolutionaries on the left. That would pretty much destroy the absurd idea that right wing is anarchist...

Of course 19th and 20th century developments complicated the left right paradigm significantly, but nonetheless the authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy simply never existed

[ckaihatsu]

Also not a fan of any arbitrary 2-axis 'spectrum', where something like 'authoritarian - libertarian' is just *grafted* onto the conventional (and valid) left-right spectrum.

I did one back in '09 that gives more 'body' to the thin skeletal framework, with left-right 'ideologies' supporting a span of 'principles' that, in turn, hold up general 'platforms' over linear positions-in-common:


[3] Ideologies & Operations -- Fundamentals




What *I* find to be a 2nd-dimension, if anything, would be the matter of *scale*, which can be seen illustrated here:


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision




So, "combining" and boiling-down the two frameworks above yields this one:


Political Spectrum, Simplified

[Baseball]

Well, if you want a quick way to shut this notion down, just mention that the terms come from the French Revolution where the supporters of the monarchy sat on the right and the more radical revolutionaries on the left. That would pretty much destroy the absurd idea that right wing is anarchist...

That would be a curious argument- for example, Hitler and the National Socialists were quite anti-monarchial..

[Counterculturalist]

That would be a curious argument- for example, Hitler and the National Socialists were quite anti-monarchial..

And there's the revisionism I was talking about. The historical origin of the political spectrum positions the left as anti-monarchy. How can that be a "curious argument?" And obviously Hitler was against monarchy because it rivaled his own power and not out of any philosophical opposition to arbitrary authority and hierarchy. For Christ's sake.

[Jimmie Higgins]

That would be a curious argument- for example, Hitler and the National Socialists were quite anti-monarchial..

because germany never had "a king" really so you couldn't unite a national myth around a grouping of regions. So they based their national myth around "blood" and a myth of a people that pre-dated the various feudal states in that region. Italy used roman imagery because they could transcend the regional identification with an older myth of national unity.

But cerical-fascism and monarchist-fascism were both strong varieties of fascism in other countries and saw themselves aligned with Italy and Germany. Fascism is a reaction to "modernism" in the sense of lack of control over the social changes drivin by industrial capitalism and independent movements of workers and the oppressed. How this looks tends to be different in aesthetics and symbolism from country to country but they all are movements to restore a sense of "proper order". In the u.s. It would tend to mean maintaining white Protestant supremacy but would obviously have no monarchical mass following because there's not much of a traddition there. In the USSR fascism looks like Stalinist cosply, in Italy and Greece it uses classical imagery, in Germany the nazis used a mishmash of folklore and pre-Christian imagery, in Spain it was the military and the Catholic Church, etc.

The unifying thread is not the various symbolism, particular policies, etc as the common libertarian revisionism in the u.s. Tends to claim, but that these movements were a reaction to both the middle classes being squeezed from above by the disruptions of rapid industrialization (basically just the disruptive nature of capitalism generally... Which is what pre-fascist reactionaries also claimed, like slave-owners claiming that slaves were more well treated than northern workers in the u.s.) on the one hand and movements of the masses and workers from below.

[Baseball]

And there's the revisionism I was talking about. The historical origin of the political spectrum positions the left as anti-monarchy. How can that be a "curious argument?"

In light of the argument of placing the anti-monarchial National Socialists alongside monarchists.

A

nd obviously Hitler was against monarchy because it rivaled his own power and not out of any philosophical opposition to arbitrary authority and hierarchy.

And the objection of the Communists and other socialists to monarchies has/had nothing to do with power rivalries? Please.

When the King of Italy removed Mussolini (arbitrarily, btw) the National Socialists were outraged, saying that such a thing could never never happen in Germany, given that Germany was a republic and kings exist only in fairy tales for Germans.

[Rudolf]

Meanwhile Franco reintroduced the monarchy yet had a strained relationship with the heir and so left the throne vacant and instead set up his succession.

[Baseball]

because germany never had "a king" really so you couldn't unite a national myth around a grouping of regions.

The idea of uniting all Germans of Europe in a single state obviously didn't begin in 1919. This effort of the nazis in the 20th century was a continuation of what had gone on in central Europe the 19th.
It was also an effort that was "republican" in nature (Marx was a strong supporter). Bismark was despised by his fellow junkers and King William was indifferent toward it (until he got it into his head he would not simply be King of Prussia, but also Emperor of Germany).

The unifying thread is not the various symbolism, particular policies, etc as the common libertarian revisionism in the u.s. Tends to claim, but that these movements were a reaction to both the middle classes being squeezed from above by the disruptions of rapid industrialization (basically just the disruptive nature of capitalism generally... Which is what pre-fascist reactionaries also claimed, like slave-owners claiming that slaves were more well treated than northern workers in the u.s.) on the one hand and movements of the masses and workers from below.

The objection here is that ANY opposition to a "socialist" movement can be written off as fascism. And yet a person like Mussolini was able to quickly gain support in the early 20s because he siphoned away the backers of the communists and other socialists. Did those voters suddenly become reactionaries in general, or were they reacting against the specific failures of previous socialist type governments, and were looking for a different way of achieving the same objective?

[NGNM85]

The only people who claim Anarchism, or, in this case 'Anarchism', is a right-wing ideology are Objectivist dickheads. No serious academic would make this claim.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Right has been the party of the bourgeoisie since at least time times of the Party of Order in France.

The idea of uniting all Germans of Europe in a single state obviously didn't begin in 1919. This effort of the nazis in the 20th century was a continuation of what had gone on in central Europe the 19th.

Which is pretty irrelevant. The Nazi government also built roads and produced cheap cars. There is nothing objectionable about German-populated regions being part of the same state - which was in fact a popular demand after the dissolution of the Hapsburg monarchy.

It was also an effort that was "republican" in nature (Marx was a strong supporter). Bismark was despised by his fellow junkers and King William was indifferent toward it (until he got it into his head he would not simply be King of Prussia, but also Emperor of Germany).

Bismarck was merely an influential politician in Prussia; if the Junkertum and the Northern bourgeoisie hadn't been won over to the cause of unification as a "lesser Germany", under Wilhelm, Bismarck could do fuck all (as he could when he lost the confidence of the emperor).

The objection here is that ANY opposition to a "socialist" movement can be written off as fascism.

Well, no. Fascism is a particular sort of opposition to socialism and the workers, a mass, terrorist movement of the petite bourgeoisie.

And yet a person like Mussolini was able to quickly gain support in the early 20s because he siphoned away the backers of the communists and other socialists. Did those voters suddenly become reactionaries in general, or were they reacting against the specific failures of previous socialist type governments, and were looking for a different way of achieving the same objective?

Again, no matter how many times you repeat this, it won't be true. There were no "previous socialist type governments" in Italy, and most of the PNF voters were former Liberals.

But keep living in your little bubble I guess.

[Rafiq]

And the objection of the Communists and other socialists to monarchies has/had nothing to do with power rivalries? Please.

First and foremost, the 'technical' dichotomy between "Left and Right" had its origins between monarchists and bourgeois republicanists, but that in no way means the dichotomy between Left and Right is grounded in support or opposition to monarchies. Such a ridiculous line of thought would designate the American Republican party as left wing, for example. The fact of the matter is that if American conservatives were present during the French revolution, touting the same drivel that they do today, they would be designated as radicals. Left-wing, or right-wing politics might have their origins in the French revolution, but as a being perpetually definitive of politics they are not remnants or leftovers from the French revolution.

The terms left and right are mere words used to describe real political currents. They are of little consequence - the history of 20th century politics was not defined by people trying to conform to the qualifications of either of these vague terms. They designate a general tendency, or character of identifiable currents - they are not technical qualifications with which can be met. For example, claiming that Fascists were left-wing would be a secondary imposition, a response to the already prevailing notion that Fascists were right wing. This re-evaluation would have to provide an adequate explanation as to why Fascists were associated with the "far-right" in the first place. Was it a conspiracy mobilized in order to discredit the "real" right wing? In the world political context during the 1930's, absolutely no one designated Fascists, or identified them as "leftists". As such every fucking moron with a semblance of a brain can come to the conclusion that what distinguishes Left and Right has its basis in real class struggles, not mere ideas. This is why parties that identify both as "socially" and "economically" liberal in Europe are right wing in the same way Front National (which is neither socially or economically liberal) is. What distinguishes them is that they are rabid reactionaries and whichever way they want to identify is only secondary to their real place within a real existing dichotomy of struggle.

The fact of the matter is that Fascists were distinguishable from traditional conservatives. Fascism was not a logical extension of German or Italian conservatism in the same way that ISIS are not the logical extension of traditional Muslim conservatism. Instead Fascism was a mutant hyper-substantiation of 'traditional conservatism' in being first and foremost a reactionary claimant to state-ideological legitimacy where bourgeois-liberalism failed. This is why while there could be "power rivalries" between Fascists and monarchists, their cooperation or association was not contradictory. Fascists opposed monarchies and other such forms of backwardness when it suited them - but that does not mean it would always suit them. You would agree with the statement: Fascists endorse or oppose monarchies based on whether it suits them. No? Well Communists under no possible circumstances would ever identify, tolerate or support any native monarchy. Had Communists risen in Italy, Victor Emmanuel the third would have been immediately deposed with symbolic significance. Such symbolic necessity didn't exist for Fascists.

Fascism was certainly not just more of the same old conservatism. It had to displace the coordinates of class struggle and establish the facade or spectacle of revolution in order to precisely hinder and avoid a real social upheaval. Fascists were the embodiment of the unity of the urban and rural petite-bourgeois classes with the industrial capitalists against the backdrop of a dissatisfied proletariat. Think, baseball: what exactly did Fascism change? What is something even close to a semblance of being a social change, or even a modest change in relations of power that happened during the rule of the German or Italian Fascists? Absolutely nothing: What we are left with is a hollow and empty spectacle guising the intensity of the prerogative of the propertied to save their own ass. Liberalism proved incapable of addressing the sublime power of Communism - a new monster was thus born that tried to mimic the mass ecstasy of the worker's movement purely through an empty spectacle which in itself meant nothing new.

We have the same situation in the near east. After the collapse of the international Left the carcass of mass mobilized movements remained in the near east unsatisfied and unaddressed by globalized liberalism. Islamists were able to gain popularity for precisely this reason - Islamic fundamentalism a la ISIS or Al-Qaeda, as a matter of fact, represents nothing but the dissatisfaction with the hypocrisy of gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia, whose royal families worship the gods of western hedonism - the same people who spread such filth and ignorance in the first place. Instead of recognizing that Islam was a sham all along, it was turned on the backward monarchies themselves.

So Fascists might talk of opposing monarchy, but this doesn't qualify them as "leftists". From what point of reference do they oppose monarchies? That's the point. American militias in the South too oppose the state as it exists - that doesn't mean they can be associated with the Left.

The idea of uniting all Germans of Europe in a single state obviously didn't begin in 1919. This effort of the nazis in the 20th century was a continuation of what had gone on in central Europe the 19th.
It was also an effort that was "republican" in nature (Marx was a strong supporter). Bismark was despised by his fellow junkers and King William was indifferent toward it (until he got it into his head he would not simply be King of Prussia, but also Emperor of Germany).

Being a 'continuation' in entirely new circumstances does not leave room for the retention of form. The conclusion we might draw from this is an argument which attempts to equate Bismark with Hitler which is beyond stupid. Bismark did not represent the same appearance or possess the same relationship to the world totality of his day that Hitler did to his. Bismark destroyed the vestiges of religion in the state and represented the legitimization of Republicanism in Germany. By Hitler's time, this had already been done. But if I may: Are you suggesting that Hitler rose to power as some kind of force of bourgeois modernization fighting the vestiges of backwardness? The fact of the matter is that the political coordinates had been completely shaken up by the end of the first world war. The dichotomy was not between the old aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie but between the Communists and their enemies.

This is taken from an interview with Marx himself regarding his thoughts on Bismark:

He replied that “Napoleon was considered a genius until he fell; then he was called a fool. Bismarck will follow in his wake. He began by building up a despotism under the plea of unification. his course has been plain to all. The last move is but an attempted imitation of a coup d’etat; but it will fail. The socialists of Germany, as of France, protested against the war of 1870 as merely dynastic. They issued manifestoes foretelling the German people, if they allowed the pretended war of defense to be turned into a war of conquest, they would be punished by the establishment of military despotism and the ruthless oppression of the productive masses. The Social-Democratic party in Germany, thereupon holding meetings and publishing manifestoes for an honorable peace with France, were at once prosecuted by the Prussian Government, and many of the leaders imprisoned. Still their deputies alone dared to protest, and very vigorously too, in the German Reichstag, against the forcible annexation of French provinces. However, Bismarck carried his policy by force, and people spoke of the genius of a Bismarck. The war was fought, and when he could make no conquests, he was called upon for original ideas, and he has signally failed. The people began to lose faith in him. His popularity was on the wane. He needs money, and the state needs it. Under a sham constitution he has taxed the people for his military and unification plans until he can tax them no longer, and now he seeks to do it with no constitution at all. For the purpose of levying as he chooses, he has raised the ghost of socialism,[32] and has done everything in his power To Create an Emeute

https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...x/79_01_05.htm

Clearly Marx, an alleged "strong supporter" of Bismark, had only ever supported Bismark strategically.

And yet a person like Mussolini was able to quickly gain support in the early 20s because he siphoned away the backers of the communists and other socialists. Did those voters suddenly become reactionaries in general, or were they reacting against the specific failures of previous socialist type governments, and were looking for a different way of achieving the same objective?

Precisely both, Baseball. They were certainly acting in response to the specific failures, and weaknesses of the socialist movement. As to what you mean by "previous socialist type governments", we can never know. This is precisely why they had become reactionaries. If we interpret this "same objective" as being the fulfillment of their interests as people, the retention of the vitality of the (displaced) class struggle, of course this was the same objective. The point is that in being deceived into thinking they are acting upon their interests, as a national identity, they were subordinating them. This is not some cheap platitude: Unless we want to pretend that the intelligentsia was power hungry, there was no hidden interest behind Communism, no one benefited from Communism except that which they claimed to benefit. Fascism, meanwhile, meant the sustenance of capital's hegemony. This is why Communism either has to be some kind of grand religious delusion or a Jewish conspiracy - no one directly had shit to gain from it beyond the qualifications of its self-identification (the working people). Tell me what you're getting at, Baseball: every Communist movement's failure necessarily meant the "siphoning" away of backers and their mass subordination. Did former Communists suddenly become Liberals after the 1990's, did Trotskyists suddenly become neo-conservatives en masse, or were they Liberals and neo-conservatives all along? Fascism was uniquely able to displace and hijack the class struggle. This is why when people, yourself included, will talk about the parallels of Stalinism and Fascism, you are your own downfall: Of course anti-semitism was a displaced form of class struggle, but the point is that every idiot can see class struggle had historically apocalyptic significance while anti-semitism was a sham. Fascism was a designed to mimic the sublimity of our cause, and Communism's sublimity was a consequence of its foundations, almost organically.

[keine_zukunft]

The only people who claim Anarchism, or, in this case 'Anarchism', is a right-wing ideology are Objectivist dickheads. No serious academic would make this claim.

not really true national anarchists claim it and very much share a similar utopian organizational ideal of mutual aid etc. Infact they are fans of Bakunin and kropotkin but they mix their theory with esoteric fascist thought like evola and rev-con thought of junger who used the term 'anarch' which i think is the real root of right wing anarchism or racial anarchist thought.