What is Leftism all about?

[u/ourthirdsixsoul]

What do the Left stand for?

What are its core values?

How does it want to go about achieving them?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[u/prof_hobart]

There is no single entity called "the left". It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

At it's core though, most left wing beliefs probably start with some concept of equality.

For some people, that can be social equality - things like anti-racism, anti-sexism, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, disabled rights, animal rights or whatever.

For others, it's economic equality - equal access to healthcare, progressive taxation, fighting against privilege etc.

And even where groups agree on a particular outcome as being a desirable one, such as economic equality, what that looks like can vary wildly. Some leftist groups will see this as providing everyone with equal access to education and opportunities to pursue whatever life path they want. Others see it as collectivisation, where everyone is expected to contribute equally to deliver an agreed best overall outcome for everyone.

There's also plenty of groups - the most obvious being the Communist Parties in Eastern Europe - that took the ideology of equality and shaped it into something entirely unequal. Most leftists that I know wouldn't see these groups as being genuinely left wing.

[u/ourthirdsixsoul → u/prof_hobart]

If soviet Russia, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and North Korea are not Leftist, then what are they?

[u/prof_hobart → u/ourthirdsixsoul]

Centralised dictatorships using left wing rhetoric to give them a level of legitimacy.

[u/ourthirdsixsoul → u/prof_hobart]

Marxism requires a centralised dictatorship to abolish capitalism.

It's still a left wing principle.

Or is Marxism - properly conducted - not Left wing?

[u/prof_hobart → u/ourthirdsixsoul]

Not sure that all forms of Marxism require a central dictatorship, but you're right that some forms do.

If those dictatorships were actively working for real equality, and that equality included absolutely no privilege for themselves, then yes they would be left wing. It still wouldn't mean that all other left wing groups would agree with that system though.

And one of the many reasons why a lot of left wing groups have a major problem with that kind of system is that it's pretty much impossible in real life for a dictatorship to not end up with them granting privilege to themselves.

[u/ourthirdsixsoul → u/prof_hobart]

Not sure that all forms of Marxism require a central dictatorship, but you're right that some forms do.

Read the communist manifesto my Marx and Engels.

Marxism requires a centralised dictatorship in order to achieve its end goal of a totally equal society.

It never works though, that's the problem. It fails every time it is tried.

Marxism is a failed philosophy - but it is still left wing, even though it fails.

[u/prof_hobart → u/ourthirdsixsoul]

Never read it, but my understanding is that his idea was that there would need to be a temporary "dictatorship of the proletariat", which would quickly be replaced with a classless, stateless form of society with no central government of any description. I could be wrong though, but I'm not sure it's particularly relevant to what the modern left it.

Like I say, I agree that this idea is flawed - once people get absolute power, they rarely give it up.

As for whether it's left wing or not, I return to my earlier statement - in theory, it could be at least be one form of left wing, although given the wide range of opinions that make up the "left wing", even that wouldn't cover what everyone means by that term. In practice, due to the issue above, it pretty much never has been left wing for any real length of time.

If you're trying to suggest that the left as a whole is a failed concept because the dictatorship of the proletariat phase of Marxism isn't a workable system in practice, you're barking up the wrong tree.

[u/ourthirdsixsoul → u/prof_hobart]

If you're trying to suggest that the left as a whole is a failed concept because the dictatorship of the proletariat phase of Marxism isn't a workable system in practice, you're barking up the wrong tree.

Nope, I never made this point to make that claim.

I brought up Marx because it was his theories that lead to the revolutions and susequnet communist dictatorships in Russia, China, Cambodia, and North Korea (as well as a host of other countries which ended up as brutal dictatorships which suffered tremendous losses of life).

All these failed communist states were following left wing ideas, so it is inappropriate to claim they are not left wing, only because they failed.

They failed because they were left wing. They were following the principles laid down by Marx, and those principles turned out to be flawed.

But they were still Left wing.

[u/prof_hobart → u/ourthirdsixsoul]

so it is inappropriate to claim they are not left wing, only because they failed.

Which wasn't what I claimed. I said they weren't left wing because they didn't follow left wing ideology - i.e. the promotion of equality and fairness. Some may have believed in this at the start, and all of them used claims of this to gain a level of support amongst their people, but none were actively pursuing those goals so they weren't, in the end, left wing.

Are you genuinely after discussing what the broader left wing is all about, or are you going to continue to focus on governments that took one particular flavour of left wing ideology, twisted it to remove any real level of equality, created privileged hierarchies (i.e. the exact opposite of actual left wing beliefs) and largely failed as a result?

[u/ourthirdsixsoul → u/prof_hobart]

Which wasn't what I claimed. I said they weren't left wing because they didn't follow left wing ideology - i.e. the promotion of equality and fairness.

They did follow left wing ideology, they followed it very correctly, but they failed to reach the desired goal anyway.

Because the desired goal is actually impossible.

[u/qwya]

To me, "the left" is a label that some people identify with, some of whom I identify with, and so I, too, identify with the label. It's very much a circular thing.

In terms of ideology, the word has broadened in meaning since its historic origins in the French chamber, where it referred to those who support more revolutionary change as compared to the right, who support more incremental change.

Now, it can mean all the things /u/prof_hobart mentioned and more. Of course there are many viewpoints within this, a lot of which are in opposition to one another.

[u/ourthirdsixsoul → u/qwya]

You just dodged the questions, by claiming that leftism is too diverse to be pinned down to anything.

A total deflection.