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The Far Left Philosophy is NOT Communism or Marxism

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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 02:57 PM
Original message
The Far Left Philosophy is NOT Communism or Marxism
Taking leftism to an extreme does not lead to Communism or Marxism. Marxist-Leninism, as we have seen through history, is a totalitarian regime, in which individual will is replaced with collective will. This is actually the end result of extreme Rightism, or Fascism.

A look at any Marxist-Leninst regime shows a system much closer to the National Socialists (NAZI's) in Germany, or Fascism under Moussolini. Business and Government become one, and whether its government controlling business or business controlling government the end result is the same.

Taking leftism to its extreme actually leads to a relatively unheard of system, founded by GK Chesterton called Distributism. The aim of this philosophy, found on www.distributism.com, is "...the economic state where the possession of land and capital, instead of being concentrated in the hands of a few, are maximally distributed among all men throughout society. "

Nowhere is the idea of a centrral authority , or collective will - but the idea that individual will is superior (a true liberal concept) but also the idea that inequality must be addressed (also a liberal concept.)
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 02:58 PM
Response to Original message
1. That's the trouble with the right-left spectrum and why
I love grids like the one at political compass.

http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/libvsconserv.htm
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durutti Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:07 PM
Response to Original message
2. Marxism-Leninism is *a* Left philosophy.
It isn't the only one, but it is one.

Distributism certainly isn't Left. It is "liberal" in the classical sense.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:47 PM
Response to Reply #2
9. Not sure about that
Fascism is defined as the merger or corporations and the state (said Moussoulini) By that definition, Nazism, and Marxist Communism are all Fascist philosophies, lumping them on the right.
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BillZBubb Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:09 PM
Response to Original message
3. I think Marxism is indeed leftist.
Fascism and Nazism, along with capitalism, rightist.

You are correct that there has been no truly leftist Communist state. But none of them were really Marxist either. As you say, they all devolve into elitist totalitarianism. That goes to prove the unworkability of the Marxist philosophy in the real world.

For Marx, communism could not really occur until AFTER the capitalist/industrial state dominated and failed. Only then could the state wither away.

No communist country ever had a successful, dominant capitalist/industrial system. They all were either mostly agrarian, or tyrannies in their own right before the communists took power. So, your comments about Marxism are not correct, but everything else is fine.


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tom_paine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:11 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. I agree. marxism is Leftist. Semantics here only.
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leftyandproud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:11 PM
Response to Original message
4. The scale goes from..
less government (libertarian) to more government (totalitarian).
It really should be that simple.

Unfortunately, "distributionism" as you call it will require a massive government power to confiscate private wealth...and by preventing private ownership of the "means of production", you necessarily deprive people of their right to earn, keep, and dispose of their labor as they see fit.

Government control and government ownership of industry are basically the same thing...If you control something absolutely, it doesn't matter whether or not you have a deed that says you legally 'own' it. Ownership without control is an oxymoron. Governments that own or control everything are authoritarian and oppressive...period.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. I wasn't advocating Distributism
Personally I'm into social democracies...but I'm just arguing that Communism is more of a totalitarian thing.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:26 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. A Libertarian DUer?
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Tierra_y_Libertad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:41 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. Libertarian has been given a bad name by rightists.
Mostly in the U.S. Libertarian Anarchism as advocated by Europeans, has a lot more to do with Kropotkin, Proudhon, and syndicalism who advocated a sort of communitarian ideal. A sort of sped up communism.

American "libertarianism" is essentially some sort of hash of Ayn Rand's Objectivism and laissez-faire capitalism with drugs, sex, and rock & roll thrown in to make it fun for rich yuppies.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:48 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. For the sake of semantics
Libertarianism is defined as as Classical Liberalism, for whatever that is worth.

On a side note, I work with a lot of Libertarians in the tech industry, and many of them are classical libertarians. One thing in common, they will all be voting Kerry this election.
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Tierra_y_Libertad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 04:23 PM
Response to Reply #10
14. Defined by who?
I can't see any parallels between classic liberalism and what's called libertarianism in this country.
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Taverner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 05:07 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. According to...
"The Rise, Decline, and Reemergence of Classical Liberalism" by Amy Sturgis (http://www.belmont.edu/lockesmith/essay.html)

Classical Liberalism is:

- an ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society,
- the support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system,
- the desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals' rights from others and from its own expansion, and
- the universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions.

Sounds like, at least, the bare bones definition of Libertarianism. Now the Libertarian Party has come a long way since, and with Objectivism emerging as an extremist Social Darwinist Libertarianism - it has since lost connection with this original philosophy.
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GreenPartyVoter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #8
13. I have trouble with de-regulating everything, hence one main reason
why I could not have been a Geo-Lib.
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Still_Loves_John Donating Member (688 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:55 PM
Response to Original message
11. I always saw liberal and leftist as two different things
"Leftist" seems more militant, like communism or something, whereas "liberal" is more of an intellectual, human rights philosophy.
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Those nasty "leftists" and "suspected leftists" and "union members"
have been slaughtered all over Latin American for decades. They must have been truly scary people, before dying in the hundreds of thousands.

How DARE they not be fervent supporters of the 1 or 2% which has owned ALL the real estate.
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Sirveri Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 05:19 PM
Response to Original message
16. It's a lopsided Bell curve.
At the far right is fundy fascism. go a step to the left and you get corporate fascism, go a step past that and you get the idiotic free market cures everything lesser government morons(Rayguns GOP was a tad to the right of this). Go a step past that and you get, regulation can be good I guess and we'll try moratoriums and stuff(Dregulation). Go a bit more left and you get regulation because you know that the corporate interests will screw over the populace. Go a step to the left of that and you get to FDR'ism. Which I think is what all DU'ers would love to see. The government actively taking a role to correct the inaddequancies of the capitalist system and correcting the excesses before society tears itself apart. Go to the left of that and you start to believe that the state can do nowrong and you begin to nationalise industries(Socialism). To the left of that would be marxism/communism. Where the government begins o outright abuse its power and completly nationalises and begins to take the rights of the populace away.
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Cleita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jun-26-04 05:23 PM
Response to Original message
17. That's what I always point out when someone calls me a
communist. I point out that communism is totalitarian and undemocratic, so therefore a liberal could not be a Communist, but a conservative is half way there already. Usually, it shuts them up after pointing out a few examples.
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