Oh dear.
Well, I do need to use a few long words here.
Let’s start with left and right:
There are two opposing ways to organize the stuff we have in the world (the food, the money, the means of production, everything):
– Capitalism believes that free competition with as little state intervention should result in everyone getting what they worked for. People who are starving just aren’t working hard enough to be competitive.
– Socialism, Communism and Anarchism all believe that every person should have enough to live comfortably and that those who can work should do so out of their desire to help the community, not out of the threat of starvation.
The right wing – left wing opposition is an opposition between Capitalism and Socialism. Those who believe in Capitalism are right-wing, those who believe in Socialism, Communism or Anarchism are left-wing.
With me so far?
Okay, let’s add another spectrum: Libertarian vs. Authoritarian:
– Authoritarians believe that the state should be a moral guide to people. The state should set rules about morals, like who can get married and who can get an abortion and people should follow those. Authoritarians are often called conservatives.
– Libertarians believe that individuals should make their own moral judgements. Abortion, marriage, euthanasia, group sex, teenage sex. Libertarians believe the state should set as few rules as possible about morals. Libertarians are often called progressives.
Ok, so now we’ve got two opposites.
You can be right-wing and authoritarian, right wing and libertarian, left-wing and authoritarian and left-wing and libertarian. And anywhere in the middle. This is often visualized as a grid:
Some examples on this spectrum:
– The US Republican party is right-wing and authoritarian. They believe in capitalism and in moral rules set by the state.
The US Democratic party believes in capitalism (with a few social safety nets but only for the super poor) and in setting very few moral rules by the state. They are right-wing (but less than the republicans) and libertarian.
The United States does not have a political party that opposes capitalism, therefor the United States does not have any left-wing parties.
But as you can see, Republicans are more to the right than Democrats (because Republicans do not believe in any safety nets for the poot) and for that reason US Democrats are often called ‘left-wing’ in relation to the US Republicans even though both are pro-capitalism. Basically, if you keep shfting to the right further and further, everything starts to look like it’s left-wing.
So what’s a liberal?
Well, that’s where it gets tricky. The word liberal gets thrown around so much it can be hard to tell. The most common definition is this:
A liberal believes in capitalism and libertarianism. Or ‘the free market AND personal freedom’. A liberal believes that free competition with as little state intervention should result in everyone getting what they worked for and
individuals should make their own moral judgements without the state.
So:
So are Liberals left wing? the answer is NO.
But since there in no real left-wing in US politics, people like the US Democrats, who should really be understood as capitalist and liberatian are often called left-wing. So, to the republicans, US Democrats are ‘Leftists’ (to the left of their own far-right position’ and ‘Liberals’.
To anyone on the actual left of the political spectrum, US Democrats are right-wing and libertarians, which is the same as being liberals.
So basically, all this confusion is caused by:
- The fact that the entire US political spectrum consists of right wing and far-right-wing parties
- The fact that the US Republicans feel the need to conceptualize all their political enemies as one huge group that they call left wing liberals.
Basically the Republican world view is this:
So yeah, blame the US political system for this confusing shit.
QueerAnarchism 