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It seems to me that academics who study horseshoe theory routinely miss the point. For example, the Wikipedia article on this topic uses this to try to refute the theory:
Simon Choat, a senior lecturer in political theory at Kingston University, has criticized the horseshoe theory. In a 2017 article for The Conversation, “‘Horseshoe theory’ is nonsense – the far right and far left have little in common”, he argues that far-left and far-right ideologies only share similarities in the vaguest sense, in that they both oppose the liberal democratic status quo, but that the two sides have very different reasons and very different aims for doing so.[29] Choat uses the issue of globalization as an example;[30] both the far-left and the far-right attack neoliberal globalization and its “elites”, but identify different elites and have conflicting reasons for attacking them.[31]
But it’s a total strawman. Nobody is arguing that tankies oppose or support the same things as Nazis, or that they share the same goals. What they have in common is an embrace of authoritarianism. Of course the tankies like different authoritarians, like Maduro or Putin instead of Hitler or Mussolini. But the love, or at least tolerance, for authoritarianism is the one thing they have in common - that the ends justify the means.
But not all of the far left is authoritarian. That’s where horseshoe theory fails. The fact that tankies and fascists share some common traits isn’t enough to save it.
Also, while tankies grew out of the left in some sense, it’s pretty debatable whether it’s still a left movement at this point. The philosophical differences with the rest of the left are enormous.
Not all of the far right is authoritarian either. And those non-authoritarian sects support basically the same kind of means for decentralizing power.
Some means that actually centralize power every time somebody tries… But yeah, honesty is not a common trait on either extreme.
Not all of the far right is authoritarian either.
I struggle to think of any far-right ideology, theoretical or practical, that isn’t enamored with hierarchy.
The right is less authoritarian regarding business and environmental regulations than the left, as one example.
Businesses are just a different kind of hierarchy than government.
The point is the right doesn’t want the government regulating businesses, whereas the left does. Therefore the left is more authoritarian regarding regulation of business, just as the right is more authoritarian in regulating personal rights.
I don’t really find that a meaningful distinction in the context of discussing whether far-right ideologies are capable of being anti-hierarchy.
Preferring one authority over another isn’t the same as being anti-authoritarian. People who want complete capitalist dominance over society are not that different from people who want complete state control over society. Different organizational and legal structure, but same type of backwards moral reasoning.
A lot of right wing militias are anti-government, radical individualist, bordering on anarchist. They care about hierarchy, but mostly in-group. I wouldn’t call them authoritarian.
The need for either total autonomy from - or total control of - the evil mainstream society is an example of the theory, not an exception.
Anarchist ideology is not a monopoly of the left.
Ancaps believe in hierarchy, just not government hierarchy. Though the distinction is dubious.
Markets are not hierarchies.
Though, yeah, the distinction between market oppression, government oppression, organizational oppression, racial-minority oppression, and cultural oppression is clear, but they are all oppression.
Markets aren’t hierarchies. Private property, on the other hand, does impose a hierarchy; and markets without regulation inevitably are destroyed by capture by powerful firms.
Political Compass Memes is the most accurate model humanity has ever invented to effectively categorize politics.
The Political Compass, also known as the Nolan Chart, is used in political science to map political ideologies on a left/right and authoritarian/libertarian grid. The memes are just using that template.
How would socialism organize and maintain order among millions of people without authority?
How would socialism organize and maintain order among millions of people without authority?
Average tankie fellow-traveler pretending to not know what authoritarianism means.
That doesn’t answer my question. I know what authoritarianism is. How would a socialist society maintain order without authority? And how do you prevent that maintenance from becoming authoritarian?
That doesn’t answer my question.
Your question was “How would a socialist society operate without authority???” in response to a comment about authoritarianism being bad.
Do you really think you’re fooling anyone with this disingenuous bullshit? I suppose you must think so, to continue trying it.
It’s a genuine question that informs my opinion on this topic.
Authority != Authoritarianism. The fact that you’re purposefully conflating the two. Doesn’t say anything good about you.
Sorry. Didn’t communicate effectively. I understand the difference. I just don’t see how societies can be organized without a form of authority. And if authority exists, at what point does it become authoritarianism, especially in larger communities and regions.
Again a non genuine response. Being anti-authoritarian does not mean rejecting authority completely.
Anarchists still recognize and vest authority in people. But their structures are very flat localized, and based in consent. Leninists and fascists concentrate authority and power in singular leaders and parties at a state level, who rule by fiat without consent.
It’s difficult to contemplate the valid points you raised after condemning my response as non genuine. I am not opposed to anarchism, in fact ( although I could be mistaken), I imagine communism is anarchism realized. It’s the transition from capitalism to socialism that derails this vision. How do we get there from here. We can’t just abolish the money, classes and hierarchies without chaos and suffering. There will have to be an authority during this transition. This authority will be considered authoritarian to the many millions of people it organizes. If you have a framework for how anarchism can maintain order and organize millions of people I’d like to read and understand it.
Non genuine was simply the kindest most nice way I had to put it. Whether I’m wrong or right in my perception of you as being someone more intelligent than the arguments you’re making. The fact is you are equating two different things. Authoritarianism has a relation to Authority absolutely. However you can have authority without authoritarianism. But not the other way around.
Communism absolutely would be and realization of some of anarchism’s ideals. But what does that have to do with portraying Authority and authoritarianism as being the same? And does it need to be pointed out that Marcus leninists are not communists. And never have been.
Maybe I’m not more intelligent than the arguments I’m making, but that shouldn’t invalidate my query. I was trying to elucidate how investment in authority could be perceived as authoritarian. Anarchism is a viable ideology and should not be dismissed. It is effective with groups and regions. But can it maintain and organize a society of millions in a country? That remains to be seen. There is a reason burgeoning socialist societies gravitate to Marxist-Leninist-Maoism. Because it has been done. There is a framework. Anarchism needs to show that it can organize a country to offer an alternative. I suspect, maybe capriciously, that if Anarchism was to govern a nation that it might defer to authoritarianism to maintain efficiency. I would like to find out.
trotsky had some ideas about that. and because of those ideas, he had to be killed.
Me, being called a liberal:
Lolno I just don’t think their red authoritarianism and denial of reality looks much different than conservative fascism and denial of reality.
Anything left of the far right, is a liberal idea to someone who lives their life on the far right.
Which just goes to show that they misunderstand who their supporters and opponents are.
I often wonder when it was that tankies inherited the far gone misanthropic crazy of the Chans. Both enjoy hate-posting in each others’ communities, so cultural overlaps were bound to occur, but when did the scales tip and aggressive antisocial behavior become pervasive?
Might just be that the “Everyone is against us and we are special” mentality of tankies and 4chan (see: hate for ‘normies’) attract the same kind of personality.
… I’ll ask. Does it matter if they’re one or the other? Will you somehow like them more if they’re a specific one of the two?
If push comes to shove, I would still prefers tankies, who are only opportunistically genocidal, to Nazis, who hold genocide as their highest goal. But neither are acceptable, and both are absolutely atrocious. Insofar as one can eschew both of them, one should.
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So, horseshoe theory?
Stethoscope theory
LOL I love this
Debunked. Lefties are further than tankies anyway
Tankies, red fascism, stalinists, totalitarian, authoritarian, oligarch & reactionary tendencies have more in common with just regular mask off fascism than with leftism, communism, Marxism…
Poignantly perceptive
I love it when people respond to criticism of their ideas by saying ‘How perceptive!’ instead of providing an actual counterargument. Makes it so much easier to identify and block trolls.
Why is everyone so antagonistic? Are anarcho-communists or ultra leftists not further left than Marxist-Leninist? At least that’s my understanding. And if they’re further left, doesn’t that complicate the horse shoe theory?
This hate among leftists for each other is disturbing. The defense of Marxist-Leninism and Anarchism isn’t productive and only serves those in power. There’s a great possibility that socialism in America and the west will not look anything like socialism of the past or present. I encourage everyone to think of themselves as post- capitalist.
We don’t have a socialist movement in the West, we have an anti-capitalist movement. We need to show that socialism will work without examples from the past, or comparisons to China. We need to give people a framework for the future, not a dogmatic defense of the past.
The meme said nothing about anarchism. ML and anarchism aren’t even remotely the same. And are highly incompatible. Thus no need to defend anarchism.
I agree that socialism in the west will likely look different. Which is all the more reason to not repeat the mistakes of leninism. Capitalism and Leninism both are well disproven outdated ideologies.
Anarchism and ML are both anti-capitalist. That was my concern. Climate change requires a post-capitalist future. Capitalism will not operate under a degrowth or sustainable economy. The debate about centralized versus decentralized states or autonomous regions will never happen without cooperation to dismantle capitalism.
Anarchism is more than anti-capitalist. That’s an awful narrow and telling reduction of it. If you want to be extremely reductive in your characterization but still accurate. It would be better to say that anarchists are anti-central Authority and large governing structures. Including Marxist leninism and capitalism.
Nearly 100 years ago it may have been possible for naive anarchists to perceive marxist leninism as possible allies. But now nearly 100 years later. Looking back with the wisdom of history and hindsight. When your best outcome with regards to the sensibilities of anarchist is an asterisk in Cuba. And every other single Marxist leninist experiment being as bad or worse in many respects than the Imperial capitalists. How are Marxist Leninist allies of anarchists?
It would be better to say that anarchists are anti-central Authority and large governing structures.
Which is the crux of my question? If an ideological group is opposed to central authority, and large governments, how can it hope to maintain organization in a large country?
I see Marxist-Leninists and Anarchists as allies in the struggle against capitalist accumulation that has fostered the crisis of climate change. Petty disagreements aside, should this not be the overarching goal?
People in the West don’t dislike the tenets of socialism, per se. They dislike the autocratic implementation obsessively favored by MLs, which unfortunately represent most historical examples. This is what the tankies refuse to admit, because they are more obsessed with relitigating the cold war than realistic politics.
The sad thing is that there’s like 100 years of revisionist theory which gets past a lot of this baggage, but again - the tankies despise it because it isn’t their historical home team.
Then use reason and compassion to make them see the error of their ways. Insults and degradation will only make them defensive and dismiss any arguments, however sound.
You can’t reason and compassion someone out of a position they didn’t reason and compassion themselves into.
Insults > theory?
Letting fascism know it’s not welcome in polite company goes a long way towards reducing transmission.
Tankies aren’t leftists. MLs are all tankies.
What is a leftist?
Everyone I agree with, and no one I disagree with.
The word “leftist” doesn’t really mean anything, and it never did. However, tankies have this stupid idea that they keep pushing called “Left Unity” that they use to infiltrate progressive, anarchist, and socialist spaces. So, I commonly say tankies aren’t leftists because it destroys this narrative and pisses them off.
