[lbo-talk] Political Taxonomy (Islam and Muslims (was Doug and Islam))

Dmytri Kleiner dk at telekommunisten.net
Fri Mar 16 12:12:30 PDT 2007


Doug Henwood wrote:
> the political spectrum, but in any sensible political taxonomy,
> Marxism is a doctrine of the left. It's egalitarian and radically
> democratic; the right is anti-egalitarian and often authoritarian.

Although I also use this political taxonomy as well; Left:Egalitarian, Right:Hierarchical, I am starting to see it differently recently. Especially, since in terms of theory, as almost all currents present themselves as "egalitarian."

Although I doubt that many here will relate to this proposed emerging taxonomy, in any case, I will float it here, in the hopes that it is useful.

There is an egalitarian "right," i.e. anarcho-capitalism, and as well anti-egalitarian "left," i.e. the "vangardism" of Stalinism (so-called "marxism-leninism"), Trotskyism, Maoism, etc.

It seems to me that the taxonomy is better broken up by the relationship of economic power to political power.

The "right" believes that economic power is an extension of political power, the "left" believes that political power is an extension of economic power.

Viewed this way, the taxonomy is more coherent, as it places Stalin & Trotsky on the right of socialism, but Proudhon, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, etc, on the left.

-- Dmytri Kleiner, robotnik Telekommunisten, Berlin.

dk at telekommunisten.net http://www.telekommunisten.net freenode/#telnik



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list