(It's strange to me how fuzzy the concept "ruling class" is on a left-wing mail list!)
Miles
^^^^ CB: Yes, we might want to have some agreement on that so that we can be effective activists, though Left-wing can mean a lot of things :>)
Left-wing politics
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In politics, left-wing, the political left or simply The Left are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism or social democracy/Social liberalism, and defined in contradistinction to its polar opposite, the right-wing.
The term originates from the French Revolution, when liberal deputies from the Third Estate generally sat to the left of the president's chair, a habit which began in the Estates General of 1789. The nobility, members of the Second Estate, generally sat to the right. It is still the tradition in the French Assemblée Nationale for the representatives to be sat left-to-right (relative to the Assemblée president) according to their political alignment.
As this original reference became obsolete, the meaning of the term has changed, and is now used to denote a broad variety of political philosophies and principles. In contemporary Western political discourse, the term is most often used to describe forms of socialism, social democracy, or, in the sense in which the term is understood in the United States, liberalism.
The left-wing attribution is very broadly employed as a political descriptor, and a single definition is elusive. The use of the phrase in the democratic West is quite distinct from the usage in most Communist states - where the term has connotations associated with Bukharin and the democratization of all human activities (see also deviationism).
Communism, as well as the Marxist philosophy that many base it on, and most currents of traditional anarchism are often considered to be radical forms of left-wing politics. Many left-wingers reject any association with communism or anarchism. Others say that those who don't follow strict socialist or communist philosophies can't possibly be leftists.
The left is often seen to include secularism (that is, separation between state and religion), as in the United States, India, the Middle East, and in many Catholic countries, although religion and left-wing politics have at times been allied historically, such as in the U.S. civil rights movement, or in the cases of liberation theology and Christian socialism.
Peter Singer (Princeton University, Professor of Philosophy) defines "the left" as being those who place minimizing suffering above other moral imperatives, such as tradition or rights.
See political spectrum and left-right politics for further discussion of this kind of classification.
Contents [hide] 1 History of the term 2 Left-wing issues 3 Communism and left-wing politics 3.1 The Soviet Union 3.2 China 4 The left and postmodernism 4.1 Critiques from within the left 4.1.1 The Sokal affair 4.2 Critiques from the Right 5 The Left and Darwinism 6 The Left and War 6.1 First and Second World Wars 6.2 Spanish Civil War 6.3 Vietnam and the Post-September 11 Anti-war Movements 7 The Left and Anti-Globalisation 8 Political parties on the Left 9 Notes 10 See also 10.1 Left-wing Ideologies 10.2 Left-wing issues 10.3 Related political topics 11 External links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
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