So this is gonna be one of those "react to reddit comments" moments, I got two of these planned for today.
Essentially, this is the original question:
What do you look for when determining whether someone on the left is actually far left?Is it their appearance, their voting record, their anger?
Edit: its not about the label, its about the definition. Since this term is used here regularly, it seems useful to know what people mean when they say it.
More often than not, far left (in this sub) seems to mean “someone on the left who is antagonistic to Democrats”.
To answer this vaguely, I'll say this.
On social issues: the social justice and woke stuff takes all precedence over everything else and is at the center of their worldview.
On economic issues: advocating for literal revolution and some sort of left wing economic system to replace capitalism.
On foreign policy issues: basically being "America bad" and making it your whole worldview.
And what really makes someone leftist and not liberal is if this mindset of obsession with conflict theory and its derivatives makes up one's entire worldview, rather than just a small part of it. I consider myself left, and I'm gonna be left of most people who answer here, but I don't consider myself "far left" because my ultimately metric is humanism, and i have a lot of functionalist and conservative impulses that moderate the leftist stuff.
That said, let's react to some answers.
They all exist on a spectrum, but having said that, there's a gut feeling when someone's philosophy air towards liberalism vs leftism. The first tends to lean into traditional enlightenment values, law and order in some sense, the sanctity of democracy, the voice of the individual and how each of us should be involved in civic duty. The latter is more abolitionist so to speak. They gleam some of their views through the nature of the inequality of hierarchies and power structures and will criticize or judge various policies base on that. Sometime to a ridiculous fault, in my personal opinion. Honestly, the importance some people give to the term Power is a good sign for me that someone is further left.
This is the top response, and it's dead on. And again, this is why i consider myself a liberal. Because I do recognize that things like enlightenment values, law and order, and democracy are overriding concerns, and that we shouldn't seek to overthrow the system because some aspects of it might be unfair or unjust. I'd rather reform things.
Leftists are obsessed with power dynamics and their desire to "abolish" the current institutions is generally greater than their desire to work within the system. It's an unhealthy and dangerous mindset, which is why I've backed away from these nuts.
I think we get way fucking too worked up about these bullshit labels and litmus tests lol.
I'm a shitty and moderate liberal (by somes standards) probably on some issues and I'm a radical liberal on other issues. Any label anyone comes up with for that is just a dismissive way to say "he's wrong" or "eh, he's alright, but just not as right as true liberals like me" and the whole thing is just damn tired.
Usually I start mentally categorizing a politician as "too" far left when they start pushing for some policy that I personally think is wrong-headed, or when they have a tendency to reflexively blame Democrats instead of Republicans for things that are clearly Republicans' fault.
First off, that's more how I recognize it, not define it. As in those are typical identifiable properties, not defining characteristics. Tulsi Gabbard had nutty leftwing views and criticized Democrats, but she was secretly conservative, not far left.
Second off, usually, as I said above. It wasn't meant as an exhaustive list.
Like Bernie Sanders first turned me off when I felt like he hyper-fixated on wealth disparity, an issue that I think is pretty meaningless. That was before the elevation of some truly awful surrogates and the online bullying campaigns.
Are you looking for like a list of issues that I would categorize as "far left", specifically? I could do that, if it might be edifying.
So, too far left in this sense is hyper fixated on the wealth issue. Which is nonsense, because even liberals are fixated on it and it is a valid issue. Also, online bullying campaigns? I admit the left is guilty of some toxicity, but so are the neolibs.
When asked about the wealth disparity, this was his response.
Because "wealth" isn't a fixed, finite resource. Jeff Bezos having a lot of money doesn't mean that the rest of us don't. Bezos' money only becomes a problem if he does something bad with that money, in which case that specific thing is the issue, not the fact that Bezos has more money than other people in the first place.
Getting upset over the fact that there's a wealth disparity just sounds like a translation of jealousy. It's like getting mad at someone for being handsome.
But, we structured our society in a specific way to force people to work. I went into the history of this, drawing from sources i covered on this blog like widerquist and his prehistory of private property type books, and elizabeth anderson and her work ethic book, and van parijs and his take on history of UBI and work ethic.
My solution to this is my iteration of human centered capitalism, which starts out with the premise that the economy exists for people and that people don't exist for the economy, and that GDP growth should be questioned as this end all be all of society.
Of course, neolibs hate UBI and policies like it, because their fixation is on this obsession with growth, work, and productivity. It's an ideology in and of itself that goes unquestioned in society.
So...yeah. Maybe that makes me a leftist to him, as my own analysis is roughly parallel to Marx's (although with a MUCH more liberal desired outcome), but yeah I just see this guy as a crappy centrist. Moving on.
In the context you're asking, I don't think it exists. Dems are left of the GOP. Anyone left of Dems is still going to vote Dem to prevent the country from moving further to the right.
Do they prefer working within the system, or do they prefer a revolutionary approach looking to discard the system and start anew?
Do they support the abolishment of capitalism in favor of a collectivist economic system?
Are the so far to the Left that they see Liberals and Conservatives as functionally the same?
Do they label themselves as such?
If the answer to any of those is "Yes", then I would consider them Far Left.
Probably when someone starts using phrases like ACAB or from the river to the sea. Economics wise I would say once you start drifting into the profit is theft/ all inflation is caused by corporate greed type of economics.
While I get the labor theory of value, I just offered an explanation for how our system coerces us to work for infinite growth while we don't necessarily benefit from said growth, I guess that is kinda parallel. A leftist would want us to all work under a socialist system of some kind while I'm fine with giving people a UBI and maintaining capitalism. Ultimately that makes me a lib. But you can see why I kinda end up being that weird line sitter here.
If they are anti capitalism or not. That the defining line for where the left starts.
Far left is if they support democracy or not. Don't support democracy, then far left. Support democracy left.
Everything else falls from those trees.
I dont even like to use the "anti capitalism" or not thing. I mean how do my views even fit in there? Im just as critical of capitalism at its core as a marxist while offering relatively "lib" solutions. I also dont like just saying you need to be a full on anti capitalist to be "left". It kinda excludes most libs, ya know? As far as democracy, yeah thats a solid indicator you're dealing with an extremist ideologue.
Anyway this guy did get grilled and asked for clarification, so to post that:
Left is defined by being anti capitalist. Period. If you aren't anticapitalism you aren't on the left at all. People who want to regulate Capitalism into working for everyone are not leftist. They are liberals.
Far left is defined by upending society to align with their beleifs on how society should be structured. They don't believe democracy is a workable institution. They are often vanguardists (ie want a revolution lead by a vanguard party aka Marxist Leninists), anarchists (dismantling all the systems and focusing on community level development only and possibly volunteerism), or Popular Liberation movements (Maoists, and some types of Marxists).
If you support democracy it means you support compromise, long term stability, and the will of the people. The adjective far in political parties is primarily based on their unreasonableness in democratic politics for various different reasons. So the leftists who won't support democratic institution as they currently exist are far left even if they run in electoral politics. Like the far right runs in electoral politics with the ultimate goal of dismantling the democratic system enough to maintain power even in a minority position.
I think this weird gatekeeping antagonism by "leftists" is obnoxious and if you do this, that's a sign to ME you're FAR LEFT.
Because in the US, the left includes liberals. Sorry, not sorry. I know a lot of them arent really left at all even by my standards (see the neolib I ripped earlier), but then you got these whackos on the other end who would say I'M not on the left simply because im not in their stupid little anti capitalism circlejerk club. You can be on the left and still be a liberal, sorry, no sorry.
But yeah they're right in that many of the far left types do trend into literal revolution and anti institutionalism.
It's all a matter of perspective. What's "far left" to some is "centrist to others" etc.
We're clearly seeing that. Also, as evidence by my weird views, there isnt really a hard dividing line, although I would put the dividing line for the far left is the explicit illiberal crap.
Mostly just what someone calls themself. I often find myself further left than many self described "far left" people, but I don't want to be associated with people online who tend to self describe that way, so I just call myself a liberal. I think there are a ton of people in a similar boat, where our political leanings aren't why we call ourselves one thing or the other, but instead who we want to be associated with.
Yeah it's a mixed bag.
If we want a more detailed metric, I would say this.
Remember my 7 point likert scale. 6-7 are hard right with the 7 being extremist illiberal right. 5 is center right, 4 is center, which is where I'd say, in America, "the left" actually starts. 3 are socdems and are typically the furthest left you really get in our system. 1-2 is far left, with 2 being at least somewhat compatible with our institutions (maybe anti capitalist but not anti democracy), and 1 is the tankie crazies.
If you're a 2, ask yourself this. Are you closer to a 3 (a socdem or someone like me), or are you closer to a 1. If you're closer to a 3, you're left, if you're closer to a 1, you're far left.
I find self described "leftists" go either way. Many 2s arent really just 2s, they're actually 1.5s or 2.5s. They will either, when pushed on the democracy and institutions question, either concede the issue and work within our institutions pushing for most of the same policies as 3s, or they'll devolve into 1s and their tankie bullcrap.
This isn't exactly the same thing, but I consider someone to not be a malevolent person based on two attributes:
- Are they suspicious of authority?
- Do they realize that the cultural practices they are used to are arbitrary?
If they don't answer both of those in the affirmative, I consider them to be malevolent. That happens to align generally with being on the left, though more the left flank of each party rather than being in the left party.
They're too fast and loose when it comes to advocating for illiberal shit. Being anti-capitalist far and away the most common indicator. I don't assume things about people's political stances based on how they dress.
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