On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:43 PM, David B. Shemano <[email protected]> wrote: > Ok. The defining line between left and right is xenophobia/racism, > internationalism/nationalism. So then, the AFL was a right-wing organization > late into the 20th Century > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policies_of_American_labor_unions)? > And the Libertarian Party, which favors unrestricted immigration, is > left-wing > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_immigration)? And > does that mean that a Marxist would have more ideological affinity with the > Libertarian Party than the AFL? >
I'd adopt an intrumentalist approach to this: the left-right classification, useful as it is for many other groups, is not that useful for libertarians. I guess that'd explain why you, as a libertarian, do not like to use this left-right classification. That's fair enough. As for the AFL, it has a complicated, murky history. I believe it was openly anti-communist in the 50s, so in a sense it is true that it was far to the right of the extreme left. Real-world institutions have a way of compromising their ideologies. And it shouldn't surprise you that on certain matters, a Marxist would have more ideological affinity to a libertarian than institutions like the AFL or the Democratic Party etc. -raghu. -- "As a matter of fact, no, I don't have a life." _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
