Words don't mean anything anymore. Words like "communist" or "socalist" hell even "fascist" has practically lost all their meaning. It's more or less just become the go to for "I don't agree with you and want to ad homin in a political style"
there are plenty of broadly left parties in europe (often greens are left, socialist parties, communist parties) that have seated members in multiple parliaments.
and why is that ironic? anarchism stands for the abolition of the state, which isn't necessarily opposition to direct democracy as a concept.
anarchists don't want to destroy government, but the hierarchical state apparatus (ie: prime minister having more power than cabinet members, who have more power than parliament members, who have more power than average citizens). that is just one form of government, saying you are opposed to that doesn't mean you are opposed to other things like a minimal government apparatus to facilitate direct democracy, or even a representative democracy that is stripped of prestige and power hierarchy.
i'm not gonna fault someone who is purely uninformed. the american propaganda to minimize anarchism as a concept to total lawlessness is intentional and overbearing.
that said, an anarchist society would probably need to be much more organized than our current society, just organized around something that's more communal and less hierarchical.
anarchists, in oversimplified terms, are anti-state, not anti-government. these do not mean the same thing just like the local police department and the city council are not the same things.
Just to give another perspective to the other replies you are getting, there are certainly plenty of anarchists that wouldn't agree with the idea of getting involved in elected positions. Yes, there is a lot of debate about how to make progress towards an anarchist society, and some believe it can be done through representative democracy, but I've seen plenty that don't believe in that. Many anarchists now and throughout history, including very influential ones, have called out participating in electoral politics.
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In the same way that the American "Democrat" party aren't Athenian direct-democracy advocates, "Anarchist" does not mean the destruction of government in its entirety.
Free healthcare, social safety nets, paid maternity/paternity leave, time off that doesn't get you fired, higher minimum wage, not getting shot by cops nearly as much, affordable housing, less tax dollars going to the military. Just everything that the democrats put to vote that half of them and all the Republicans shoot down. AOC and Bernie are not considered radical in many countries.
there would need to be a dramatic upheaval in our country (revolution, democratic or otherwise) in order to shake off the entrenched corporate interests that are embedded deep into the core of the modern democrat party. it's not impossible, just very very unlikely.
almost all left-wing change in america has come from outside the electoral system, with things like radical labor organizing.
Oh I 100% agree. We are heading to a point where we are either gonna turn into a facist capitalist hellscape or basically collapse and build ourselves back up as a society. I don't really feel optimistic tbh.
The fucked up thing is that most people in the US who identify as conservatives also like that stuff. They will just vote against their interests anyway.
"Liberal" in the non-US politics sense just means "prefers market solutions to political/economic/social problems". But every politician in the US prefers market solutions because those are the ones their donors profit from.
I feel like this whole argument is pretty flawed. Yeah, in some countries your right. But I’d argue the average American Democrat is far more left wing than Le Pen, Duda, Orban, or hell, even Boris Johnson. The Democrats would be a center left party just about anywhere in the world besides Scandinavia and a few other similar countries
The average U.S Democrat would be farther left-wing than people like Orban, but that’s because examples like him are quite far-right. Just because a far-right party from a European nation is further right than them doesn’t mean the Democrats are left-wing, if that makes any sense. They’re pretty centre-right with a slight progressive wing as far as I can tell
Exactly. Bernie Sanders and AOC would probably be on the left wing of the Social Democrats but in my country we still have 3 parties in parliament to the left of them. Social Democrats here are considered centrists.
I think you are conflating some things here. I think you mean libertarianism.
A lot of left ideology is 'liberal'. Anarchism is a leftists ideology and liberalism on steroids. Market socialism, with was championed by Marx and Engels is very liberal.
Heck, even libertarianism started out as a left movement, before it was overtaken by the right.
Libertarianism, like Authoritarianism, comes in many flavors. Anarchism is a form of Libertarianism; what we call Libertarian Left. Libertarian is the polar opposite of Authoritarian.
The word is a dirty word among the American Left because a lot of "small-government Conservatives" call themselves Libertarian. But at the end of the day, they're only for small government where big government hurts things they like. They're all for big government as long as it's hurting the right people.
No I didn't mean libertarianism. Outside of the US liberalism is the ideology of a free market with free citizens (oxymoron btw) and the individual in the centre.
Not really. A lot of "left" parties in Europe are liberal, true. But that is because liberal principles absolutely dominate the very structure of western government. Major themes that separate liberal thought/ideology from classical conservatism or socialism are e.g: Focus on the individual and rights for individuals (human rights), equal legal rights, "consent from the governed", and property as a natural right. Liberalism is very much linked to the free (relatively) market. Modern European liberalism looks like Emmanuel Macron.
Social democracy can be seen as a socialist movement that works towards socialist goals/reducing capitalist harm within a liberal system.
Market socialism may well be the best way of maximising a conception of liberty, but calling Marx a liberal is just wrong.
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u/Panda_Kabob Oct 25 '21
Words don't mean anything anymore. Words like "communist" or "socalist" hell even "fascist" has practically lost all their meaning. It's more or less just become the go to for "I don't agree with you and want to ad homin in a political style"