Far-left definitely isn’t that - “we’re gonna make sure everyone’s needs are met” is literally a general leftist thing. Assuming you’re trying to portray tankies and fascists, a more accurate depiction would be “we’re gonna make sure working class needs are met with an iron fist and extermination of anyone potentially rebellious”.
That being said, holy shit there are so many bad takes in this thread
Respectfully, I don’t think tankies are the farthest left, or even left at all. They seem far too concerned with statism and too unconcerned with uplifting the worker.
I also think that there is space for more than one type of far left.
EDIT: Witness below: a lengthy conversation about states, colonialism, whose team is worse, and other masturbatory topics. What average worker is going to engage with this ideology? Dorks.
I also think that there is space for more than one type of far left.
Yeah I did want to originally include this in my original comment - there’s ideologies like Anarchism that is also far-left, and same can be applied to the right, with their ancaps and libertarians though both of those are rarely ever referred to as far-right (wonder why’s that).
Not just tankies but ml. We should all be working towards communism generally. No question. And ML governments have helped industrialize their regions as capitalism did. Again no question. But in that process the ML governments have been oppressive and violent as most capitalist. Combined with the fairytale of the administrative state magically withering on it’s own. It’s safe to say that the vanguard of Marxist Leninism the Soviet Union splintered and fell to fascism of the administrative state. With China repeating their mistakes. Making they’re already unaccountable administrative State even more unaccountable. Appointing their president for life even as he moves into the Forbidden City and The Emperor’s Palace. Now largely emperor in all but name.
Honestly I think the reason they get shown so much is because there’s not a lot of other clear iconography relating to the left. There’s the upgrades fist. But it has been adopted for a number of other groups and movements. Outside of that most of the truly recognizable ones were adopted by the leninists.
i think whats missing from most anti-ml takes here is colonialism and the overbearing influence of the west everywhere else.
china wouldnt be able to break away from the washington consensus like it does if they didnt have enough force to show and use whenever necessary to keep it at bay.
likewise with pretty much every long lasting, large scale socialist experiment so far. people forget what happens to the likes of allende when they try funny business and can’t back it up with actual force.
i also have a problem with using ‘tankie’ for serious discussion because its a meaningless word at this point.
But in that process the ML governments have been oppressive and violent as most capitalist
Please explain me how Marxist-Leninist governments have partaken in unequal exchange, colonialism, or how there was surplus extracted from workers.
Combined with the fairytale of the administrative state magically withering on it’s own
Isn’t that quite literally what happened in the USSR in 1991? A unilateral dissolution of the government and its institutions from the top-down.
Either way, you’re showing that you actually haven’t studied the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism literally defines the state as oppressive in nature, it’s kinda the core point of Lenin’s “State and Revolution”. Marxist-Leninists defend a democratic form of government in which worker-councils elect representatives who enact Marxist policy in the most democratic fashion possible, and a constant back-and-forth dialogue between the communist intellectual vanguard and the people in which the needs of the people are translated to Marxist language and policy and enacted. Marxism-Leninism isn’t “when Stalin based”, that’s, well, Stalinism.
I understand your definitions, but I I think many Americans don’t use the same definitions. OP is pointing this out.
If we look at specific issues it’s easy to see. If I say that we should have universal health care, or UBI, many people would say that I’m way far out on the left. What if I said that we shouldn’t allow people to be multimillionaires? Would that make me way far out on the left? Again, to a lot of people yes.
So your definitions might be reasonable, but they aren’t universal, and I think if you keep that in mind you can appreciate OP more.
I think the issue is not so much definitions, but who actually has a voice. Currently in US politics the far left does not wield any influence, but the far right does hold some sway over the Republican party.
I suppose some on the right toss out accusations of being far left, but that’s just empty rhetoric.
If I say that we should have universal health care, or UBI, many people would say that I’m way far out on the left.
Just to support your point (and for the benefit of others not from the US), even people who are sympathetic to your views will often use the adjective “radical” when describing them if you espouse such beliefs. Everyone who votes R will cal you a radical and a high percentage of democrats will too.
And that’s before you even get to the stuff about overt wealth redistribution.
Bernie Sanders is the radical left to a great many in the US. (personally I consider him just the right amount of left 😁 )
I just catalogue tankies as another flavor of right-wing. Any kind of authoritarianism is far-right as far as I’m concerned, whether it’s supposedly in service of communism or anything else.
Being left is about finding actual working solutions that help people and make society more free, just and safe for everyone and it’s about being willing to abandon solutions that have been tried and don’t work towards that goal (or require massive amounts of blood to achieve).
A tankie insisting that you need to just purge the political undesirables to make a utopia is just as irrational and right-wing as MAGA chud thinking theocracy or an ethnostate will work.
“Centrists” in the US think you’re meant to cut the difference between those two, which is why they end up conservative themselves. They’re stuck in a conception of the political landscape that limits them to thinking of things as a spectrum of extremes, rather than a binary between stuff that works to produce material good and stuff that doesnt.
To everyone upvoting this: you’re agreeing with the take of a guy saying “fascism can be both described as left and right wing and it wants to ensure the needs of the working people”
Edit: confused the above commenter with another user. Ignore this comment.
No? I’m referring to the meme up above where the sides being portrayed are far-left and far-right, and I’m inferring the ideologies they represent based on the appearance and the text of the characters within the meme (with far-left being tankies and far-right being fascists).
By definition, fascism is always far-right.
That’s not to say there aren’t dictators within the left wing though. It’s more of a common treat in Latin America and Asia.
“we’re gonna make sure everyone’s needs are met” is literally a general leftist thing
Pretty sure most people who consider themselves leftists in western countries don’t agree with the implications of this. Guaranteeing housing for everyone implies hard policy against landlords (including expropriation), construction of dense public housing… Guaranteeing equal rights in education means eliminating private education, and the same can be applied to medicine.
As for the human rights of people outside the western world, ensuring their human rights would imply stopping the abusive trade relations that they’re forced into partaking. No more unequal exchange, so now chocolate is 5-10€ a piece. We also can’t export our trash anymore to poorer countries. Good-bye to 3000€/month salaries in so-called “high added value” sectors of the economy when you submit to the reality that a western worker’s hour shouldn’t be paid at 5-times the rate of a non-western worker.
We need to degrow economically in order to preserve the climate, so the purchase power of people must be reduced when it comes to many consumer products which aren’t basics. No more luxury vehicles (possibly restrictions on purchase of cars), no more buying clothes twice a month, and compulsory reduction of meat consumption.
Now, try to do all of those things within the logic of capitalism. Most self-described leftists don’t see the logical and historical impossibilities of guaranteeing the needs of everyone within a capitalist system. So yeah, virtue-signalling and good intentions are good, but more than that is needed to actually achieve the goals in mind. The far-left is just aware of this.
Assuming you’re trying to portray tankies and fascists
Wait. Fascists are left-wing now? Fascists want to “ensure working class needs”???
If you go far enough on the left sector then yes, they may say they want to “ensure the working class needs” but are so full of shit that they strike down anything that differs slightly from their views. We need part of a personal incentive and an individual focused economy to actually meet the needs of the people. Communism might just ensure the bare minimum. Degrowth might be what would be good for our planet but in no world do I see the majority of people willing to give up part of their purchasing power so its easier to push for a more green economy without degrowth.
Degrowth might be what would be good for our planet but in no world do I see the majority of people willing to give up part of their purchasing power so its easier to push for a more green economy without degrowth.
Thank you for agreeing with my point that self-described leftists don’t want to experience the consequences of ensuring everyone’s needs are met.
We need part of a personal incentive
Communism isn’t against that. The USSR workers had salaries tied to their productivity more often than in the west, I literally don’t know any worker in my capitalist country whose salary is increased if they increase their productivity. If by “incentive” you mean “the looming threat of unemployment and homelessness”, then speak openly. How funny that people aren’t willing to give up purchase power according to you, but the threat of unemployment is an adequate incentive.
and an individual focused economy to actually meet the needs of the people.
The needs of the people in developed capitalist societies are best met in socialized services such as public education, public healthcare, and public pensions. Typically, it’s individual-based (i.e. private) sectors of the economy like housing (or healthcare and education in the US) that give the worst crises and stress to people, and the ones that ensure highest inequality between rich and poor.
Fascists want to ensure working class needs for the right working class people. Fascism is difficult to define, you can argue for it being either a left wing or a right wing ideology depending on the perspective of analysis.
God you’re a fucking clown. Please tell me which fascist regime supports universal, free education for all children, universal social healthcare, or guaranteed housing. And tell me which fascist regime wants to ensure these rights for subsectors or the working class like racialized minorities or different ethnicities. Or women. Or queer people. “Fascism can be both described as left or right wing”. Infuriatingly stupid take.
