Wednesday 12 December 2012

Authoritarianism is not left-wing (it is right-wing)

A big part of the problem with modern politics in fptp countries is not that people necessarily hold false beliefs but that our shared picture of the world is wrong. We use concepts such as 'left' and 'right' which are (at best) loosely-defined and fail to accurately describe reality. Since the right are opposed to a proportional voting system we can say that they are economically authoritarian just like communists. But if the right are communists this means that the left-right dichotomy fails to be accurately descriptive because (now) both parties share economic authoritarianism. Rather than to shift these fptp-rightists to the left it is better to shift them to the right because the voting system is now the defining characteristic politically. So we can now say that any economic authoritarian is of the right which means the left must split between economic authoritarians (who now move over to the right) and economic liberals. This means that communism and socialism ceases to be considered a left-wing ideology instead it becomes a facet of the right. To be communist is right-wing. Socialism is not a left-wing ideology. Communism and socialism (since they are both authoritarian ideologies) are right-wing. People on the left are liberals and reject authoritarianism and first pas the post.

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