To make this case let me define some terms.
On the political compass, the Left and Right are on an economic scale, largely delineating between the hierarchy and competition-oriented right, and the equality and sharing-oriented left.
The y-axis operates vertically, where up is authoritarian, meaning more government intervention, while down means libertarian, or less government intervention.
The nature of all life that has ever existed on planet earth trends towards competition and hierarchy, therefore so does human nature. Pesky evolution. Our favorite lobster-man talks about hierarchy extensively, and how it's built into our most primal brain functions. Our societies show this incredibly clearly. And you intuitively know this too, as you want to keep most of your own stuff, want to "get ahead", and outperform your peers, or at least, your past self. Even the past self idea is a conundrum, as being equal to everyone else, any sort of meaningful progress will be scarce, as such progress must be distributed equally. Such wide distribution will make any potential improvement nigh imperceptible and that's even presupposing progress is possible in an equalized society.
The left of the compass is diametrically opposed to these fundamentals of human nature best I can figure. This opposition is disastrous, but that's another topic, lib-left being incoherent as an ideology is an issue.
Being of the left definitionally means you are trying to change ancient human nature (for the reasons we've discussed,) but to be libertarian means you are not willing to use any type of top-down force to facilitate any actions.(Unless it's for purposes of protecting the freedoms and rights of others. I.e. slavery, child labor, etc.) To remain true to both of these values is obviously not possible. There is no way to achieve any sort of meaningful equality of opportunity or outcome in any state-sized population without the use of centralized force for non explicitly freedom protection purposes. And even doing so via use of force has consistently failed
I, therefore, move for lib-left to be pushed out of the compass altogether, and into the sea of political potential to be dissolved; or to be absorbed by lib-right via a natural and inevitable hostile takeover.
Join Me
-Δ
I Declare War On This Argument -
While it's true that competition and hierarchy are key components to evolution, they are not the only components. Symbiosis has also played a key role in evolution, for example, and no species has gained more from collective cooperation within a single species than homo sapiens.
The "Lobster-Man" is correct in his assessment of competition and hierarchy being hard-wired within our most primal brain functions. However, via evolution, the human brain has developed quite a bit past its most primal version. We are carrying around profoundly upgraded brains in our skulls these days. Are we to assume that our primal brain carries more wisdom than the more evolved human brain? That's the implication of Parker's argument.
Yes, it's true that we can't ignore the most fundamental aspects of human nature. We are still animals and we are not gods. We are simply afforded with well-developed brains that allow us to decide how to meet our most basic needs. It isn't an affront to "ancient human nature" to be reasonable or moral about it. In fact, I would argue that it's just the opposite.
According to the Political Compass test, I am a "lib-left". The right keeps fueling this rumor that there is this huge army of leftists that are demanding total economic equality. Do I think that the concentration of wealth and power has gone way too far? Absolutely. Do I think that means that we should all be paid the same wages? Absolutely not. Trying to reign in extreme inequality is not the same thing as demanding total equality. This appears to be a concept that is lost by way too many people on the right. It's a habitual talking point that bears no weight in actual reality.
As far as the "lib" side of the "lib-left" moniker goes... Parker conveniently leaves out the fact that we're dealing primarily with social issues on the y-axis. This means that as a lib-leftist, I believe in social freedom. This shouldn't be as confusing as it seems to be... but because of modern society's determination to place everyone in simplified boxes, many people are confused about this.
For example, I believe in a woman's freedom of choice regarding unwanted pregnancies... but, I also believe in the right to own a gun. I support gay rights... yet I'm also an avid supporter of freedom of speech. I'm not a "woke" liberal, in the current definition of the term. Political correctness has gotten completely out of hand... and those on the left that are a party to this frustrate leftists like me to no end. That doesn't mean that I don't also believe in equal rights (again, on a social level).
Parker even makes this point for me in his argument:
"...to be libertarian means you are not willing to use any type of top-down force to facilitate any actions.(Unless it's for purposes of protecting the freedoms and rights of others. I.e. slavery, child labor, etc.)"
That's right. However, it appears that Parker assumes that when he places caveats on liberty, he's still a Libertarian. When I place the same caveats, I'm contradicting myself? I have to assume that this is because he isn't separating economic from social issues on the y-axis. But if it makes him feel any better... if we were to suddenly fall into a society where capitalism was eradicated and taken over by pure socialism... the Overton window would shift and I'd suddenly find myself in the "lib-right" window alongside him. No "hostile takeover" necessary.
I hope you saw my response inside the read more replies
Before I say anything, really appreciate the quality of discourse . Its hard to find a someone online, who respects the conversation more than their ideological conviction . So thank you!. And to box myself into labels I would say, I am a libertarian for sure, but not sure weather a leftist or right one. But with confrontation like this I hope to bring clarity to my views. I am going to steel-man Marxism so buckle-up!
1. Ok sure, I should have done that in the first response. I will highlight that below. 2.Thank you, we'll work on that
3. This is where the strawman part comes. I am not saying you were deliberately straw-manning leftist ideas but the picture you present is one that is a strawman which was heavily propagandized. Lemme explain:
You make here and in the intro ("Left and Right are on an economic scale, largely delineating between the hierarchy and competition-oriented right, and the equality and sharing oriented left."), an implicit assertion, i.e. all leftist are equality driven or mainly focused on equality. That just simply isn't the case. Lets take Marx, listening to the lobster-man long-enough would make anyone(including me) believe that Marx's "utopia" consists of people with equality of outcome. I agree with JBP on many issues but that right there can only be said by a person who has only read Communist-Manifesto and think he understands Marx. For a real analysis on the relation of Marx and equality:
Then what was Marxism??.. I really can't explain fully in this response you would have to read all of his work. But what was his underlying ideology. For a start I would say workers control over production. Now its totally normal to ask 'haa... controlling production, that sure cant be done without authoritative force ended in gulags'. Both true and false. True in the sense that USSR and other 20th century Marxists led to gulags(If you read Marx its clear as day that he would have been the first revolutionary against USSR, anyway...), False in the sense that, that is just one way of turning control of production over to workers. What is a libertarian way of giving control of production to workers without state tyranny?? One easy answer would be worker co-op's, and for this too we have historical and still functioning precedent, like the Mondragon co-op of Basque, Spain.
Marx/Marxism was no utopian egalitarianism and was inherently libertarian.
Yes there are million interpretations of Marx's work. And Marxism-Leninism(the ideology that powered Stalin's USSR) is one of them. But that doesn't mean there cant be a libertarian side of Marx. If anyone wants to make that assertion, then that would be like saying Christians-libertarian is an oxymoron because of the Spanish inquisition or classical liberalism leads to genocide because of how native Americans were treated.
I hope the world learns from its past and move forward with productive dialogue.
"There is no way to achieve any sort of meaningful equality of opportunity or outcome in any state-sized population without the use of force." So what does that mean?? I can say :There is no way to achieve any state without the use of force, I could go on and on. So does that mean everything that has been created with the use of force cannot exist?? My friend I would like to live in that world but that is just an utopia, less achievable than any what Marx ever wrote about.
Ok I agree with you on the fact that social interactions of human and other animals have hierarchies. But, even if these things are natural, taking out some of these natural aspects wont end in the collapse of civilization. For an example, it's perfectly natural and recorded fact that rape is part of our evolutionary history and was expected behaviour, and taking out that particular characteristic from out human mainstream interaction did actually improve our living standards. I can go on and on, for this point. And also they are not talking about abolishing every hierarchies only a fraction of hierarchies that they deem not worthy of existence, for this also we have a history of abolishing hierarchies that we don't deem worthy like, slavery...
And I am not goin to touch on some how left-libertarian being an oxy-moronic or incoherent, because the image of socialism or left-wing politics that you have is a heavily propagandize strawman position. I know this did not come under the title of change my name.. but if you wanna know more about libertarian-socialism check out Noam Chomsky.
PES spectrum chart:
You will need to come up with a label that they can stomach... It's all about that...
I liked this post
Interesting, I guess it all depends on the map you use.
BTW, in the 2-dimensional coordinates, libertarian ison top, and authoritarian is at the bottom.
Yes, left-libertarian is an oxymoron, and I have said that for years. But the few socialists remaining who still agree to liberalism are self-congratulating themselves with this contradictory title - in the most futile manner. They are being used by leftists who have no pretensions to liberalism, to drive a wedge among freedom loving people.