Most people have confused politics. If you want to land somewhere you need to educate yourself and develop principles so that instead of not knowing where you’ll land, you’ll know exactly where you stand
Well they are slightly vague terms, so please don’t feel stupid. A shocking amount of people who think they know, don’t know.
Left wing politics are generally about a rejection of hierarchy of people. Consequently, they tend to be interested in an international community because we are all the same and deserve the same. As freedom is something that everyone wants for themselves, the left tend to be in favor of an equally free community, e.g. freedom to love.
Right wing politica are generally about hierarchy of people. But not because the hierarchy is necessarily the point, but it tend to be in favor of maintaining the current state, Which just happens to be hierarchical. And usually everything get viewed from a hierarchical pov. E.g. nationalism is a hierarchical view of country and people, your country and its people above other country and their people.
Obviously you could point at the historical stance of us republicans that they want a small government and argue that a small government creates less of 2 class citizens, the law markers and the citizens. But the left would point out that a small government just enables the powerful people to exploit the weak people and create more 2 class citizens.
On the left: The strong hierarchy in the previous attempts of “communism” is the reason why some people will say that true communism was never tried. Other will argue that you need a little bit of authority to run a communustic state.
So the whole thing is a little more complex than “freedom” and “restrictions” and who supports what “restrictions” when.
might need to back up a little. personal, private, and public ownership are different things in one of the areas i worked in. same distinction? personal property is still legal, just privately held businesses not so much. brain’s fuzzy, am i remembering right?
Firstly, this concept only applies to means of production, as in the stuff that is used to produce stuff which could be sold. So e. g. a sewing machine.
Without getting into the weeds:
a. Personal: You own and operate the sewing machine, you pay for the resources consumed and own the item produced. (Good)
b. Private: You own the sewing machine but someone else operates it. You pay the resources consumed, the laborer a previously agreed upon amount and own the item they produced. (bad)
c. Public: the public owns the sewing machine and pays for the resources consumed. The laborer is paid the value of their work. That is, the value of the item produced minus the value of the resources consumed. (Very good)
How “the public” and “the value” are determined is the source of leftist infighting (anarchists vs marxist-leninist). But since both agree that private ownership needs to be abolished the call is for leftist unity to stand together against the people that currently own the means of production privately (the bourgeoisie) and exploit those that have to sell their laborforce in order to survive (the proletariat).
thanks for the refresher! i have worked in too many similar fields with bullshit jargon where they have basically made homophones antonyms just to fuck with anyone who decides to get uppity and do anything cross-discipline so now my brain is:
it’s one of those “i know i learned this somewhere, and i’ll remember in 3 days i’m sure!” things so thanks for helping a fellow out.
I’m too uneducated on politics (read: stupid) to even know what left and right means. Where do I land
Most people have confused politics. If you want to land somewhere you need to educate yourself and develop principles so that instead of not knowing where you’ll land, you’ll know exactly where you stand
Well they are slightly vague terms, so please don’t feel stupid. A shocking amount of people who think they know, don’t know.
Left wing politics are generally about a rejection of hierarchy of people. Consequently, they tend to be interested in an international community because we are all the same and deserve the same. As freedom is something that everyone wants for themselves, the left tend to be in favor of an equally free community, e.g. freedom to love.
Right wing politica are generally about hierarchy of people. But not because the hierarchy is necessarily the point, but it tend to be in favor of maintaining the current state, Which just happens to be hierarchical. And usually everything get viewed from a hierarchical pov. E.g. nationalism is a hierarchical view of country and people, your country and its people above other country and their people.
Obviously you could point at the historical stance of us republicans that they want a small government and argue that a small government creates less of 2 class citizens, the law markers and the citizens. But the left would point out that a small government just enables the powerful people to exploit the weak people and create more 2 class citizens.
On the left: The strong hierarchy in the previous attempts of “communism” is the reason why some people will say that true communism was never tried. Other will argue that you need a little bit of authority to run a communustic state.
So the whole thing is a little more complex than “freedom” and “restrictions” and who supports what “restrictions” when.
Right: in favor of privately owned means of production.
Left: in favor of publicly owned means of production.
might need to back up a little. personal, private, and public ownership are different things in one of the areas i worked in. same distinction? personal property is still legal, just privately held businesses not so much. brain’s fuzzy, am i remembering right?
Firstly, this concept only applies to means of production, as in the stuff that is used to produce stuff which could be sold. So e. g. a sewing machine.
Without getting into the weeds:
a. Personal: You own and operate the sewing machine, you pay for the resources consumed and own the item produced. (Good)
b. Private: You own the sewing machine but someone else operates it. You pay the resources consumed, the laborer a previously agreed upon amount and own the item they produced. (bad)
c. Public: the public owns the sewing machine and pays for the resources consumed. The laborer is paid the value of their work. That is, the value of the item produced minus the value of the resources consumed. (Very good)
How “the public” and “the value” are determined is the source of leftist infighting (anarchists vs marxist-leninist). But since both agree that private ownership needs to be abolished the call is for leftist unity to stand together against the people that currently own the means of production privately (the bourgeoisie) and exploit those that have to sell their laborforce in order to survive (the proletariat).
thanks for the refresher! i have worked in too many similar fields with bullshit jargon where they have basically made homophones antonyms just to fuck with anyone who decides to get uppity and do anything cross-discipline so now my brain is:
it’s one of those “i know i learned this somewhere, and i’ll remember in 3 days i’m sure!” things so thanks for helping a fellow out.
No issue, here is a good intro to Marxism if you want it https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm