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What Is The Difference Between Left and RIght
international |
worker & community struggles and protests |
opinion/analysis
Monday July 19, 2010 15:55 by Paddy Hackett - Not a member of any political organisation. maxanger at hotmail dot com
The left and the right are the same. They merely perform different political and ideological functions.
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Jump To Comment: 1"The radical left call for more and more state spending as the means towards the solution of the problems of the working class. In other words it calls
for the growing expansion of the capitalist state as the solution to social problems. In other words the radical left wants a stronger more all-embracing capitalist state. "
UH -- first of all, you need to be more specific about what part of the "radical left" you are talking about. But more important, those elements of the left that are "gradualist" are NOT necessarily any less radical than yourself with regard to the end goals. Your dispute with them isn't about where we want to go but how best to get there. This is NOT saying that you are wrong and they right about "best methods".
"This is precisely the corporatism that European fascism sought and largely achieved."
Fascism is on the authoritarian vs libertarian spectrum, not necessarily affiliated left or right on the economic spectrum. Pointing at specific historical examples of fascism does NOT define fascism (does not delineate its potential).
"Its references to a non-capitalist society that they more than times than not call socialism. They dont like to use the term communism, too strong."
There's no hard and fast distinction used consistently with these terms and terms mean whatever people use them to mean. ESPECIALLY when you go on to associate "communism" with no state!
"It also views socialism as more a more ambiguous term that implies for them some form of nanny state. But you cannot have a post-capitalist society that implies a political state."
No? Then how did we have political states BEFORE capitalism? (we can document "states" about 4000 years ago). The state isn't a creature of capitalism so it is far from obvious that socialist or communist soceties wouldn't have one. Yes of course, they wouldn't have a state for the same reasons/functions that a capitalist society does. But I can't rule out our descendents won't think up socialist/communist reasons to have a state. We can't say wth any certainty:
1) That a post capitalist society would have no state (however much some of us want no state)
2) That a communist society couldn't be "capitalist". Not NECESSARILY so. If you think that a contradiction, what would you call a society in which everybody lived in one commune or another, these communes INTERNALLY functioning as pure communism, but the relationship BETWEEN communes was on a "market" basis (except perhaps neighbring communes might also act "neighborly"). In other words, what OTHER attributes are you associating with "communism" besides the basic/obvious ones (and why do you expect us all to be in agreement about these other attributes).