I believe the term "left," or anyway "left wing" comes from the fact that from the Speaker's point of view the republican Third Estate delegates to the pre-French Revolutionary Estates General of 1789 (now the the Assemblée Nationale) sat on the left side of the House while the Noble reactionary Second Estate sat on the Speaker's right. The Third Estate was not, of course, socialist.
And much of what calls itself the left today in the world is not socialist either, in, for example, even regarding the end of capitalism as a good thing to be aimed at, as opposed to universal social welfare provisions and greater equality. Moreover, a lot of people who do call themselves socialists disagree about what that mean and who qualifies. For many on the so called far left I would not because I a constitutional liberal democrat and a supporter of market economics, though not of private property or wage labor. Others regard the historical and remaining Stalinists as statist authoritarians and no sort of socialist. I am no stickler for terminology and will let the them as wants to be call themselves socialists, just asking that people clarify what they advocate.
--- Charles Peterson <charlesppeterson at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Carrol Cox declared:
> > "Left" = "Socialism"
>
> Doesn't the term go way back? You had the
> anti-monarchists of the French Revolution. I heard
> somewhere it actually went way back BCE.
>
> Wikipedia gives very expansive definitions:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_left
>
> I'd say it includes liberals, progressive populists,
> socialists, anarchists, and others. Nowadays lots
> of
> people fear the words socialist, communist, etc.
> Likewise some here the word liberal, for similar
> reasons: association with some people who did bad
> things. Though Chomsky often seems to direct most
> of
> his wrath at "liberals" like lock-em-up Woodrow
> Wilson, he wrote great essay in 1970 declaring that
> his "libertarian socialism" (aka
> anarcho-syndicalism)
> was the true successor to the classical liberalism
> of
> Bentham and JS Mill.
>
> It comes down to what you think is more important.
> Equality and collective rights or pre-existing power
> and that traditions that serve it.
>
> Sure, that's a rather expansive definition. Or did
> you want it just to include a couple of guys in some
> coffee shop.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
>
>
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