Biden for PREZ?!?!?!

[Starlight]

The idea that authoritarianism is a right-wing thing is ridiculous.

Er, dude, it's almost the actual definition of right-wing.

[rogue06]

Er, dude, it's almost the actual definition of right-wing.

Only in the bizarre world where Joseph Stalin is a right-winger

[Yttrium]

Er, dude, it's almost the actual definition of right-wing.

Authoritarian? No, it's really not. You can have authoritarians of any stripe. They are people who want to impose their will on others. They may feel that their approach is for the best of the people, or they may simply want personal power.

There is a very popular conservative viewpoint in the US that the best government is one that is barely there. They want to cut back government as much as they can. Of course, there are conservatives who prefer a more authoritarian approach. Capitalism itself is pretty anti-authoritarian, allowing companies to do what they want. Liberals in the US can fight for more personal freedoms, but also reign in capitalism, reducing corporate freedoms to some extent. Liberal socialism can be taken to extremes by authoritarians, making businesses and properties completely controlled by the state.

Attaching authoritarianism to conservatism by definition is ridiculous.

[Starlight]

Your argument transparently boils down to "I don't like authoritarian rule, and I don't like the right wing, therefore authoritarians are right wing."

I understand "right-wing" to mean consolidation of power and authority (economic and social) in the hands of the few rather than the many, while I understand "left-wing" to mean a distribution of power and authority (economic and social) to the many.

That definition is well-within the traditional political science and historical views of left vs right. In ye olden days of France where the terms were invented, the powerful authorities in society who wanted to continue ruling over others (the aristocracy, wealthy elites, Church Bishops) sat on the right-hand side of the French parliament, while the representatives of the people in general sat on the left-hand side. The right continually pushed for the rule of the few over the many and for the various forms of government that would be favorable to them to do that (Monarchy, Republicanism etc) while the left continually pushed for more power being distributed to the people and for forms of government that would be favorable to that (democracy).

The right-wing maintained that hierarchies of power where some ruled over others were natural and God-ordained and superior. While the left-wing maintained that all humans were equal and that no person should rule over another.

Here are definitions wikipedia gives (and which heavily cite textbook definitions)...

Right-wing politics:
Right-wing politics hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be viewed as natural results of traditional social differences or the competition in market economies.

Left-wing politics:
Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. It typically involves a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others (prioritarianism) as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished (by advocating for social justice).

These hierarchies that the right-wing has liked or defended over the years have variously included slavery (men having direct authority over others), white superiority to blacks, male superiority to females (men as head of the household etc), the rich and wealthy as being superior to the poor, etc.

A simple way to depict hierarchies is a pyramidal diagram with arrows denoting power over others. So, for example, it is simple for the military to produce a diagram of the top ranked people having power over those below them, and them over those below them. Or, for a business to draw a pyramid with the board/CEO at the top, on down through the layers of management, to the staff at the bottom who have no power over anyone else. Or, for a household, where the man might have power over his wife(s) who in turn, along with him, have power over the children. Any of those are situations that have the kind of power-hierarchies that the right-wing tends to favor.

But if the power hierarchy drawing has loops in it, where the people at the bottom actually have power over the people at the top, then we are dealing with a non-hierarchical situation and are in the realm of left-wing politics. e.g. if in the business, the employees themselves are shareholders and can thus instruct the board what to do, we can draw an arrow from the very bottom to the very top, creating a loop. Or, if the employees form a union that then collectively bargains with the CEO, we can draw arrows from the employees to the union entity to the CEO thus creating a loop. Or, if the government has power over its citizens then we draw an arrow from the State to the People, but if it's a democracy we close the loop by drawing an arrow back from the People to the State.

We can thus represent a capitalist society by lots of little pyramids representing all the businesses, where power exists in the hands of the people at the top of the businesses who rule over those below them in hierarchical fashion. People who are left-wing don't much like the existence of all those hierarchical pyramids in their society and want to break the hierarchies or close the loops.

Communism was an attempt to take power out of the hands of all those people at the top of those pyramids by inserting arrows from the State to the top of those pyramids. A few moments reflection should tell us that, actually that in no way reduces the problem of power hierarchies - it doesn't insert any loops and it doesn't decrease the total amount of pyramidal structure. In fact it reduces the total amount of people who have power: Down from all the different business owners to whoever rules the government. In the special case where the government is a democracy there does become closed loops because the people now have power over the government who has power over the businesses, but that loop is so long and tenuous that it's effectiveness is questionable, and any given worker is hardly going to feel empowered in their own workplace just because theoretically their vote for government could eventually result in some change in their workplace.

All this is also, incidentally, why a lot of right-wing posters in this forum love to emphasize that the US is a Republic rather than strict Democracy, and why the right-wing Republican party tends to be more shady than the Democratic party in terms of doing dodgy things to affect the electoral process (voter roll purging, gerrymandering, etc), because democracy itself is inherently a left-wing thing.

And from that explanation it should be crystal clear why a dictatorship, where one person has power over everyone and everything, in a single pyramid of hierarchy, is the ultimate right-wing system.

[lilpixieofterror]

And folks there we have it. In starlight-land Stalin was a right-winger.

[RumTumTugger]

Er, dude, it's almost the actual definition of right-wing.

Starlight your problem is you won't accept the FACT that there are those on the LEFT who are authoritarian just as there are those on the Right only someone who is a bigoted closeminded ANti intellectual would continue ignoring that fact sorry Facts don't care about your feelings both sides have their bad people Stalin is on the left side of that graph no matter how much you dislike it.

[rogue06]

Starlight your problem is you won't accept the FACT that there are those on the LEFT who are authoritarian just as there are those on the Right only someone who is a bigoted closeminded ANti intellectual would continue ignoring that fact sorry Facts don't care about your feelings both sides have their bad people Stalin is on the left side of that graph no matter how much you dislike it.

Exactly. You'll find folks with a strong authoritarian mindset aplenty in both the left and right. To pretend otherwise is pure unadulterated ignorance.

[Starlight]

Starlight your problem is you won't accept the FACT that there are those on the LEFT who are authoritarian just as there are those on the Right

Of course there are people who view themselves as leftists or who vote for left-wing parties who themselves are quite authoritarian or who support some authoritarian policies. Nobody in the world is 100% perfectly logically consistent in their entire worldview and everything they do and believe.

[Starlight]

Exactly. You'll find folks with a strong authoritarian mindset aplenty in both the left and right. To pretend otherwise is pure unadulterated ignorance.

But for you to pretend that the vast majority of them aren't on the right-wing, and that the left-wing is even remotely comparable in authoritarianism, is just blithering idiocy on your part.

Here's a good political science discussion of authoritarianism in America, and how having authoritarian tendencies is the number one biggest predictor of whether someone voted for Trump.

[rogue06]

[*With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy*]


If your knee-jerk response to a problem is to demand that government should force people to do what you want ... you might be an authoritarian.

[rogue06]

But for you to pretend that the vast majority of them aren't on the right-wing, and that the left-wing is even remotely comparable in authoritarianism, is just blithering idiocy on your part.

Coming from the guy who proclaimed that Stalin is a right-winger.

[Yttrium]

Coming from the guy who proclaimed that Stalin is a right-winger.

I suppose it's best to remember that Starlight considers the vast majority to be conservative...

[Starlight]

I suppose it's best to remember that Starlight considers the vast majority to be conservative...

Eh? I think the US populace on average skews slightly progressive, and would say they are slightly left of center.

US politicians and media on the other hand tend to be owned by and in the pocket of big money interests and skew way to the right of center.


P.S. Oh, right, you mean I consider the vast majority of authoritarians to be conservative. Yes. It's kind of by definition a conservative/right-wing trait. Also, by empirical study it can be demonstrated to correlate with the right, e.g. see this really good article I linked to before that discusses recent empirical political science data on authoritarianism in America, among Trump supporters, and within the GOP.

[lilpixieofterror]

Eh? I think the US populace on average skews slightly progressive, and would say they are slightly left of center.

US politicians and media on the other hand tend to be owned by and in the pocket of big money interests and skew way to the right of center.


P.S. Oh, right, you mean I consider the vast majority of authoritarians to be conservative. Yes. It's kind of by definition a conservative/right-wing trait. Also, by empirical study it can be demonstrated to correlate with the right, e.g. see this really good article I linked to before that discusses recent empirical political science data on authoritarianism in America, among Trump supporters, and within the GOP.

[rogue06]

Eh? I think the US populace on average skews slightly progressive, and would say they are slightly left of center.

So in your world the majority of Americans are further to the left than Stalin was. smiley stoned.gif