The problem with spectrums like this is that they are inherently idealistic as they try to reduce to an abstract number something that cannot be quantified.
If you want to describe the political groups in a synthetic way firstly you need to select geographical and historical era (might be as big as the entire world and history if you feel crazy, or as small as Lithuania since the 90’s if you feel nerdy). Then you need to pick up a méthodology, like choosing to describe how people explicitly identify politically, or what their true group is according to core beliefs, or how they perceive the whole political picture if you ask them.
For example if I choose to study the core beliefs of westerners in the last 10 years I’d draw multiple bubbles that cross each other with labels like pro or anti capitalism, electoral politics or revolutionary politics, idealistic or materialistic, and chauvinist or inclusive, pro or anti industrial society.
I agree, but this is just my view of rule-of-thumb on what it means to be “left” in the current age.
Far left should be me specifically and far right should just be everybody else because I am the biggest most left person /s
I am sorry, comrade, you are left of the whole spectrum, this picture only shows the spectrum. I did not want to infringe on your privacy by showing you in the picture.
Ugh, I really wish I’d saved that essay, but the point I’ve seen before is this:
Communism (as a revolutionary ideology) is oppositional to liberalism. Placing it on the same scale/compass as liberal ideologies appears to equate it to an outgrowth of liberalism, which it is not. Marx and Engels’ work on dialectical materialism is oppossed to liberalism, and historic communist revolutions opposed liberalism with the aim of its destruction.
Historically “the left” referred to French Republicans but eventually came to mean Socdems as they tended to sit on the left side of European parliaments. This is a very different ideology that exists on the liberalism scale as a method of working within. Wheras the likes of Mao/Lenin blow up the scale with a bomb and build a new one out of Marxist tendencies that don’t intend to hold liberal values.
This differs from fascism in which the corporate state is a direct outgrowth of liberalism that exemplifies the most extreme form of capital decay and the deification of private property over human lives.
Edit: including anarchism, the split in the two movements and the completely different theoretical bases means that while they share lineage through the First International, they’re more like distant branches of the same tree rather than neighbors on a spectrum. Anarchist thought has a totally different focus on structures of power.
I absolutely agree with you. However, political spectrum as a concept, as you answered, does not really make sense and even if you made one that did it would be overly complicated. The way I created it is something akin of a progressive-regressive line, with more progressive ideologies being left, and more regressive being on the right. I think that is a suitable definition of left-right divide if there even is one. You have to satisfy yourself with one form of representation and with its pros and cons.
Anarchism further to the left than Communism? Weird stuff.
Yeah, because AnComs want the end stage of communism right now.
We all do. We just aren’t idealist about it.
Does that make them more leftist though? (whatever that means) imo it just means they’re utopian
You have liberals twice, once as the Far Left.
I agree that average anarchist is on the right, but AnComs just want the end stage of communism right now, foregoing all reality.
except it’s actual horseshoe theory where anarchists are closer to the right than the left
That is why I added communist anarchists, whose definition is wanting the end goal of communism right now. I agree that your average anarchist belongs to the right, or even far-right.
What’s the diff between social democrats and democratic socialists
Democratic Socialists want electoral democracy to remain, but economic system to be socialism, with workers owning factories and so on.
Social Democrats want the current electoral capitalism, just with affordable health care, housing, safety nets for poverty and health issues. They cum every time Scandinavia is mentioned.
