In
politics,
left-wing,
leftist and
the
Left generally imply support for social change with a
view towards creating a more
egalitarian society. The term
Left
was coined during the
French
Revolution, referring to the seating arrangement in parliament;
those who sat on the left generally supported the
radical changes of the revolution,
including the creation of a
republic and
secularization. The concept of a
political Left became more prominent after the
June Days Uprising of
1848.
The term was applied to a number of revolutionary movements in
Europe, especially
socialism,
anarchism and
communism.
The term is also used to describe
social democracy and
social liberalism. The
Left-libertarian Roderick Long summarises left-wing politics as
"concerns for worker empowerment, worry about plutocracy, concerns
about
feminism and various kinds of social
equality.
History of the term
In politics the term
left wing derives from the
French Revolution, as radical
Montagnard and
Jacobin deputies from the
Third Estate generally sat to the left of the
president's chair, a habit which began in the
Estates General of 1789. Throughout
the
19th century, the
main line dividing
Left and Right in
France was between supporters of the
Republic and those of the
Monarchy. The
June
Days Uprising during the
Second Republic was an attempt by the
left to assert itself after the
1848 Revolution, but few of the
(still predominantly rural) population supported them.
After
Napoleon III's
1851 coup and the subsequent
establishment of the
Second
Empire,
Marxism began to rival Radical
Republicanism and the "
Utopian
socialism" of
Auguste Comte and
Charles Fourier. Particularly
influential in this regard was the publication of the
Communist Manifesto by
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels in 1848, which asserted
that the history of all hitherto existing human society is the
history of class struggle. They predicted that a
proletarian revolution would eventually
overthrow
bourgeois society, and by
abolishing private property create a
classless,
stateless, and post-monetary
society.
In the mid 19th century, nationalism, socialism, agitation in
favour of greater democracy, and
anti-clericalism (opposition to the role of
the church in controlling French social and cultural life) all
became features of the French Left. In the United States many
leftists,
social liberals,
progressive and trade unionists were
influenced by the works of
Thomas
Paine, who introduced the concept of
Asset-based egalitarianism, which
theorises that
social equality is
possible by a redistribution of resources, usually in the form of a
capital grant provided at the
age of majority.
The International Workingmen's Association (1864-76), sometimes
called the
First International,
brought together delegates, from many different countries, with
many different views about how to reach a classless and stateless
society. Following a split with supporters of Marx and
Mikhail Bakunin at the
First International, the anarchists
formed the
International Workers
Association. The
Second
International (1888-1916) divided over the issue of the
First World War. Those who opposed
the war, such as
Vladimir Lenin and
Rosa Luxemburg, saw themselves as
further to the left (see
Zimmerwald
Left).
In the United States after
Reconstruction, the
phrase "the Left" was used to describe those who supported
labor unions, the
civil rights movements, and
anti-war demonstrations. In more recent times, in
the United States,
left-wing and
right-wing have
often been used as synonyms for
Democrat and
Republican, or as synonyms
for
liberalism and
conservatism.In
the 1960s with the political upheavals of the
Sino-Soviet split and
May 1968 in France, thinkers of the
'
New Left' viewed themselves as being more
critical of Marxist and
Marxist-Leninist discourse (labelled the
'
Old Left').
Varieties
The spectrum of left-wing politics ranges from
centre-left to
far left
(or
ultra-left). The term
centre
left describes a position close to the political mainstream.
The terms
far left and
ultra-left refer to
positions that are more
radical. The centre-left includes
social democrat,
progressive and also some
democratic socialist and
greens (in particular the
eco-socialist). Centre-left supporters accept
market allocation of resources in a
mixed
economy with a significant
public
sector and a thriving
private
sector. Centre-left policies tend to favour limited
state intervention in the
economy in matters pertaining to the
public interest. The centre-left also often
favours moderate
environmentalist
policies and generally, though not universally, supports individual
freedom on moral issues.
In several countries, the terms
far left and
radical
left have been associated with
communism,
Maoism,
Autonomism and
Collectivist anarchism. They have
been used to describe groups that advocate
anti-capitalist,
identity politics or
eco-terrorism.
In France, a distinction is made between
the left (Socialist Party
and Communist
Party) and the far left (Trotskyists, Maoists and
Anarchists). The US Department of
Homeland Security
defines left-wing extremism as groups who want "to
bring about change through violent revolution rather than through
established political processes."
In China, the term
Chinese New
Left denotes those who oppose the current
economic
reforms and favour the restoration of more socialist policies.
In the
Western world, the term
New Left refers to
cultural politics.
In the United Kingdom
in the 1980s, the term hard left was applied to supporters of
Tony Benn, such as the Campaign Group and Labour Briefing, as well as Trotskyist
groups such as the Militant
Tendency and Socialist
Organiser. In the same period, the term
soft left was applied to supporters of the
British Labour Party who were
perceived to be more moderate. The present day
British Labour Party (also known as
'New Labour') is generally considered to be less left-wing than it
has been in the past. Politicalcompass.org places them to the right
of centre, although more left-wing than the
Conservative Party.
Positions
Economics
Most leftists favor some form of government intervention in the
economy. Leftist economic beliefs range from
Keynesian economics and the
welfare state through
industrial democracy and the
social market to
nationalization of the economy and
central planning. During the
industrial revolution, left-wingers
supported
trade unions. In the early
twentieth century, the Left were associated with policies
advocating extensive government intervention in the economy.
Leftists continue to criticize what they perceive as the
exploitative nature of
globalization,
such as
sweatshops, the
race to the bottom and unjust
lay-offs. In the last quarter of the Twentieth Century the belief
that government (ruling in accordance with the interests of the
people) ought to directly involve itself in the day to day workings
of an economy declined in popularity amongst leftists.
Some leftists however continue to believe in
Marxian economics, which are based on the
economic theories of
Karl Marx. Some
distinguish Marx's economic theories from his political philosophy,
arguing that Marx's approach to understanding the economy is
independent of his advocacy of revolutionary
socialism or his belief in the inevitability of
proletarian revolution. Marxian
economics does not exclusively rely upon Marx, it draws from a
range of Marxist and non-Marxist sources. The
dictatorship of the
proletariat or
workers' state are
terms used by Marxists to describe what they see as a temporary
state between the
capitalist and
communist society. Marx defined the proletariat as
salaried workers, in contrast to the
lumpen proletariat, who he defined as
outcasts of society, such as beggars, tricksters, entertainers,
buskers, criminals and prostitutes. The political relevance of
farmers has divided the left. In
Das
Kapital, Marx scarcely mentioned the subject.
Mao Zedong believed that it would be rural
peasants not urban workers who would bring about proletariat
revolution.
Left-libertarians,
Libertarian socialists and left-wing
anarchists believe in a decentralized economy run by
trade unions,
workers' councils,
cooperatives,
municipalities and
communes, and oppose both government and
private control of the
economy.
Nationalism
The question of
nationality and
nationalism has been a central feature of
political debates on the Left. During the French Revolution,
nationalism was a policy of the Republican Left. The Republican
Left advocated
civic nationalism,
and argued that the nation is a "daily plebiscite" formed by the
subjective "will to live together."
Related to "revanchism", the belligerent
will to take revenge against Germany and retake control of Alsace-Lorraine
, nationalism was sometimes opposed to imperialism. In the 1880s, there
was a debate between those, such as Georges Clemenceau (Radical), Jean Jaurès (Socialist) and Maurice Barrès (nationalist), who argued
that colonialism diverted France from the "blue line of the
Vosges
" (referring
to Alsace-Lorraine), and the "colonial lobby", such as Jules Ferry
(moderate republican), Léon Gambetta (republican) and Eugène Etienne, the president of the
parliamentary colonial group. After the
Dreyfus Affair however nationalism became
increasingly associated with the far right.
The
Marxist social
class theory of
proletarian internationalism
asserts that members of the
working
class should act in solidarity with working people in other
countries in pursuit of a common
class
interest, rather than focusing on their own countries.
Proletarian internationalism is summed up in the slogan, "
Workers of all countries,
unite!", the last line of
The Communist Manifesto. Union
members had learned that more members meant more bargaining power.
Taken to an international level, leftists argued that workers ought
to act in solidarity to further increase the power of the working
class.
Proletarian internationalism saw itself as a deterrent against war,
because people with a common interest are less likely to take up
arms against one another, instead focusing on fighting the
ruling class. According to Marxist theory, the
antonym of proletarian internationalism is
bourgeois nationalism.
Marxists and others on the left see
nationalism,
racism
(including
anti-Semitism) and
religion as
divide and
conquer strategies used by the ruling classes to prevent the
working class from uniting against
them. Left-wing movements therefore have often taken up
anti-imperialist positions.
The failure of coups in
Germany
and
Hungary ended
Bolshevik hopes for an imminent
world revolution and led to promotion of
"
Socialism in One Country"
by
Joseph Stalin. In the first edition
of the book
Osnovy Leninizma (
Foundations of
Leninism, 1924), Stalin argued that revolution in one country
is insufficient. But by the end of that year, in the second edition
of the book, he argued that the "
proletariat can and must build the socialist
society in one country". In April 1925
Nikolai Bukharin elaborated the issue in
his brochure
Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the
Absence of the Victory of the West-European Proletariat? The
position was adopted as State policy after Stalin's January 1926
article
On the Issues of Leninism (К вопросам ленинизма).
This idea was opposed by
Leon Trotsky
and his followers who declared the need for an international
"
permanent revolution". Various
Fourth Internationalist groups around the world who describe
themselves as Trotskyist see themselves as standing in this
tradition, while
Maoist China supported
Socialism in One Country.
Some link
left-wing
nationalism to the pressure generated by economic integration
with other countries encouraged by
free-trade agreements. This view is sometimes
used to justify hostility towards
supranational organizations such as the
European Union. Left-wing nationalism
can also refer to any nationalism which emphasises a working-class
populist agenda which seeks to overcome perceived exploitation or
oppression by other nations. Many
Third
World anti-colonial movements adopted left-wing and socialist
ideas.
Social progressivism and counterculture
Social progressivism is another
common feature of the modern Left, particularly in the United
States, where social progressives played an important role in the
abolition of slavery,
women's suffrage,
civil rights, and
multiculturalism. Progressives have both
advocated
prohibition legislation and
worked towards its repeal. Current positions associated with social
progressivism in
the West include
opposition to the death penalty, and support for legal recognition
of
same-sex marriage, distribution
of
contraceptives, public funding of
embryonic
stem-cell research, and
the right of women to choose
abortion.
Public education is a subject of great interest to social
progressives, who support comprehensive
sex education, and making condoms available to
high school students.
Various
counterculture movements in
the 1960s and 1970s were associated with the "
New Left". Unlike the earlier leftist focus on
union activism, the "New Left"
instead adopted a broader definition of political activism commonly
called
social activism. U.S. "New
Left" is associated with the
Hippie movement,
college campus mass protest movements and a broadening of focus
from protesting
class-based oppression
to include issues such as
gender,
race, and
sexual orientation. The British "New
Left" was an intellectually driven movement which attempted to
correct the perceived errors of "
Old
Left".
The New Left opposed prevailing authority structures in society,
which it termed "The Establishment", and became known as
"anti-Establishment." The New Left did not seek to recruit
industrial workers, but rather concentrated on a
social activist approach to organization,
convinced that they could be the source for a better kind of
social revolution. This view has
been criticised by some
Marxists
(especially
Trotskyites) who
characterized this approach as 'substitutionism'- or what they saw
as the misguided and apparently non-Marxist belief that other
groups in society could 'substitute' for the revolutionary agency
of the working class.
Many early
feminists and advocates of
women's rights were considered
left-wing by their contemporaries. Feminist pioneer
Mary Wollstonecraft was influenced by
the radical thinker
Thomas Paine. Many
notable leftists have been feminists, such as: the Marxists
Clara Zetkin and
Alexandra Kollontai,
Helen Keller, anarchist
Emma Goldman, and
Annie
Besant, who was involved in various socialist groups. Marxists
such as Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai however, though
supporters of radical social equality for women, opposed feminism
on the grounds that it was a bourgeois ideology.
In more recent times the
women's liberation movement is
closely connected to the New Left and other
new social movements that challenged
the orthodoxies of the Old Left.
Socialist feminism (e.g.
Freedom Socialist Party,
Radical Women) and
Marxist feminism (e.g.
Selma James) saw themselves as a part of the
left that challenged what they perceive to be male-dominated and
sexist structures within the left.
Liberal feminism is closely connected with
left-liberalism, and the left-wing
of mainstream American politics. (e.g. the
National Organization for
Women).
Radical feminism (e.g.
Mary Daly) is harder to place on a
left-right spectrum; it has more in common with
deep ecology.
Religion
The original French left-wing was
anti-clerical and opposed the influence of the
Roman Catholic Church while
supporting
separation of
church and state.
Karl Marx was
critical of institutionalized religion, saying "Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the
opium of the people." In Soviet Russia
the
Bolsheviks originally embraced "an
ideological creed which professed that all religion would atrophy"
and "resolved to eradicate
Christianity
as such." In 1918 "ten
Orthodox
hierarchs were summarily shot" and "children were deprived of any
religious education outside the home."
Later communist
governments, such as the People's Republic of China
, have also been hostile to religion and have
promoted atheism.
However, religious beliefs have been associated with some left-wing
movements, such as the American
abolitionist movement and the anti-
capital punishment movement.
Liberation theology is a mixing of
left-wing politics and
Christian
theology and has Marxist origins. The terms
religious socialism and
religious communism refer to a number of
egalitarian and
utopian religious societies
practising the voluntary dissolution of private property, so that
society's benefits are distributed according to a person's needs,
and every person performs labor according to their abilities.
Although many on the Left support the
Palestinian liberation movement, some
liberal hawks, including
Christopher Hitchens, see Islam as
reactionary, especially in its treatment
of women. There have been alliances between the Left and anti-war
Muslims, such as in
Respect – The Unity
Coalition and the
Stop the
War Coalition in Britain. In France, the Left has been divided
over moves to ban the
hijab from schools, with
some supporting a ban based on separation of church and state, and
others opposing the ban based on personal freedom. This subject was
the source of some debate within the
Revolutionary Communist
League. There are left-wing Islamic movements such as
Islamic socialism.
The environment
Environmental degradation can be seen as a class or equity issue,
as environmental destruction disproportionately affects poorer
communities and countries.
The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China however have caused significant environmental degradation;
examples include the Chernobyl disaster
, and the drying of the Aral Sea
and Lop Nor
.
There have been alliances between left-wing trade unions and
environmentalists over development issues, such as the
Green Bans movement during the 1970s in
Australia.
In Europe, some 'Green-Left' political parties combine traditional
social-democratic values such as greater economic equality with
demands for environmental protection, such as the
Nordic Green Left. In the 21st Century,
questions about the environment have become increasingly
politicized, with the Left generally accepting the findings of
environmental scientists about
global
warming, and many on the Right disputing those findings.
Anti-globalization and Third-worldism
The
Global Justice Movement,
also known as the
anti-globalisation or
alter-globalization movement, protests
against global trade agreements and the negative consequences they
perceive them to have for the poor and the environment. This
movement is generally characterised as left-wing, although some on
the right,
Pat Buchanan for example,
oppose globalization on nationalistic grounds. The Global Justice
Movement does not oppose globalisation per se, on the contrary, it
supports some forms of
internationalism.
Its main themes are
the reforms (or abolition) of international institutions such as
the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund
, and the creation of an international social and
environmental justice movement. It rejects the leadership of
any
political party, defining itself
as a "movement of movements."
Third-worldism regards the inequality
between developed, or
First World
countries, and the developing, or
Third
World countries as of key political importance. It supports
national liberation
movements against what it takes to be
imperialism by capitalist nations. Key figures
associated with Third-worldism include
Frantz Fanon,
Ahmed
Ben Bella,
Andre Gunder
Frank,
Samir Amin and
Simon Malley. Among the
New
Left groups associated with Third Worldism were
Monthly Review and the
New Communist Movement.
Third worldism is closely connected with
Pan-Africanism,
Pan-Arabism,
Maoism,
African socialism and
Latin American socialist trends. The
Palestine Liberation
Organization and the
Sandinistas are
or have been particular
causes célèbres. Some left-wing
groups in the developing world, such as the
Zapatista Army of National
Liberation in Mexico, the
Abahlali baseMjondolo in
South Africa, and the
Naxalites in India, argue that the First-World
left takes a racist and paternalistic attitude towards liberation
movements in the Third-World. There is particular criticism of the
role played by
NGOs and the assumption by the
Western Anti-globalization movement that they should seek to
influence the politics of the Third World.
Post-modernism
Left-wing
post-modernism opposes
attempts to supply universal explanatory theories, including
Marxism, deriding them as
grand
narratives. It views culture as a battleground, and via
deconstruction seeks to undermine all
pretensions to knowledge. Left-wing critics of post-modernism
assert that
cultural studies
inflates the importance of culture by denying the existence of an
independent reality.
In 1996,
physicist Alan Sokal wrote
a
nonsensical article entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries:
Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". The
journal
Social Text published the paper in its
Spring/Summer 1996 issue, whereupon Sokal publicly revealed his
hoax. While this action was interpreted as an attack upon leftism,
Sokal intended it as a critique from within the left. He said he
was concerned about what he saw as the increasing prevalence on the
left of "a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking... that
denies the existence of objective realities". Gary Jason, a
philosophy professor, claims that "the failure of socialism, both
empirically and theoretically...brought about a crisis of faith
among socialists, and Post-modernism is their response."
See also
External links
Notes
- Brooks, Frank H. (1994). The Individualist Anarchists: An
Anthology of Liberty (1881–1908). Transaction Publishers. p. xi.
"Usually considered to be an extreme left-wing ideology, anarchism
has always included a significant strain of radical
individualism...
- Van Gosse, The Movements of the New Left, 1950 - 1975: A
Brief History with Documents, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, ISBN
9781403968043
- Long, Roderick. T. "An Interview With Roderick Long"
- Marshall, Peter. "Demanding the Impossible — A History of
Anarchism" p. 9. Fontana Press, London, 1993 ISBN
978-0-00-686245-1
- JoAnne C. Reuss, American Folk Music and Left-Wing
Politics, The Scarecrow Press, 2000, ISBN 9780810836846
-
http://thepage.time.com/2009/03/03/steele-to-gop-fight-for-coleman/?xid=rss-page
- ABC news, reported in The Week, May 15, 2009, page
13
- reported in Mother Jones, April 29, 2009
-
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,5982337.story
- Cosseron, Serge (ed.). Le dictionnaire de l'extrême
gauche. Paris: Larousse, 2007. p. 20
- Left-wing extremists likely to increase use of
cyber attacks over the next coming decade
- [1]
- Andrew Glyn, Social Democracy in Neoliberal Times: The Left
and Economic Policy since 1980, Oxford University Press, 2001,
ISBN 978-0199241385.
- Eric D. Beinhocker. The origin of wealth. Harvard
Business Press. 2006. ISBN 9781578517770 p. 416[2]
- Lumpen proletariat -- Britannica Online
Encyclopedia
- Marxism Fails on the Farm
- William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French
Revolution, Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 9780199252985,
"An exuberant, uncompromising nationalism lay behind France's
revolutionary expansion in the 1790s...", "The message of the
French Revolution was that the people are sovereign; and in the two
centuries since it was first proclaimed it has conquered the
world."
- Winock,
Michel (dir.), Histoire de l'extrême droite en France
(1993)
- Szporluk, Roman. Communism and Nationalism. 2nd. Oxford
University Press, 1991.
- Marxism, Racism, and Ethnicity SOLOMOS and BACK American
Behavioral Scientist.1995; 38: 407-420
- James Brewer Stewrt, Abolitionist Politics and the Coming
of the Civil War, University of Massachusetts Press, 2008,
ISBN 9781558496354. "...the progressive assumptions of 'uplift'."
(page 40)
-
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/progress/suffrage/suffrage.html
-
http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1960/xx/trotsub.htm
- http://www.scribd.com/doc/4662049/Against-Substitutionism
-
http://www.gla.ac.uk/centres/tltphistory/training/advanced/custom/coredocs/coredoc2.htm
-
groups.http://www.feministsforlife.org/history/foremoth.htm
- http://www.thomaspaine.org/Archives/occ.html
- Zetkin, Clara On a Bourgeois Feminist Petition 1895
- Zetkin, Clara Lenin on the Women’s Question
- Kollontai, Alexandra The Social Basis of the Woman Question
1909
- Kollontai, Alexandra Women Workers Struggle For Their Rights
1919
- Marx, K. 1976. Introduction to A Contribution to the
Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Collected Works, v.
3. New York.
- Michael Burleigh Sacred Causes
HarperCollins (2006) p41-43
-
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/09/08/political-islam-clerical-fascism
- http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=45
-
http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/articles/file/The+Argentimes.pdf
-
http://www.hc.ceu.hu/envsci/aleg/research/EnvDegradationEastEurope090903.pdf
- Meredith Burgman, Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism
and the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation (UNSW Press,
Sydney,1998)
- http://www.nordic-green-left-alliance.org/
-
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2009/03/16/the-left-pushes-secular-religions-global-warming-embryonic-stem-cell-research.html
- http://dieoff.org/page8.htm
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/science/earth/13book.html,
"Challenges to both Left and Right on Global Warming", by Andrew C.
Revkin, Nov. 13, 2007, "The right says global warming is somewhere
between a hoax and a minor irritant, and argues that liberals’
thirst for top-down regulations will drive American wealth to
developing countries and turn off the fossil-fuelled engine
powering the economy."
-
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/29/weather-channel-founder-blasts-gore-global-warming-campaign/
- Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science, "the
modern Right has adopted a style of politics that puts its
adherents in increasingly stark conflict with both scientific
information and dispassionate, expert analysis in general.", p.
4-5, "...the Right's selective attack on Mann's work ultimately
presents a huge diversion for policymakers trying to decide what to
do about global warming." p. 89, Basic Books, 2006, ISBN
9780465046768
- Post-modernism, commodity fetishism and
hegemony, Néstor Kohan, International Socialism,
Issue 105.
- Chomsky on Postmodernism, Noam Chomsky, Z-Magazine's Left
On-Line Bulletin Board.
- Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a
Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, Alan Sokal, first published in;
Social Text,
issue 46/47, 1996
- A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies,
Alan Sokal
- Socialism's Last Bastion, Gary Jason, Liberty
Bibliography
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Buhle, Paul Buhle, Dan Georgakas, Second Edition, Oxford University
Press 1998, ISBN 0-19-512088-4
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Univ. Press, 1993
- Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in
Europe, 1850-2000, Oxford University Press 2002, ISBN
0-19-504479-7
- "Leftism in India, 1917-1947", Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Palgrave
Macmillan, UK, 2007, ISBN 9780230517165