On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:43, David B. Shemano <[email protected]> wrote: > Sean Andrews writes: > >>> I'm with Louis and Raghu that the prototypical right wing position is >>> one of xenophobia and racism. It is the ultimate position of socially >>> conservative politics: we must preserve the national culture against >>> the teeming Other. > > 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)?
Actually, I'd say they were xenophobic AND right wing for most of the twentieth century, but the second half was definitely the high point. I also didn't say it was the "defining line" in both directions: one can be for open immigration and still be right wing in terms of fiscal policy > And the Libertarian Party, which favors unrestricted immigration, is > left-wing > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_immigration)? Likewise the libertarian position you describe, which is paired with a thoroughly reactionary set of understandings related to private property, i.e. we should have open immigration but if someone comes on my land I should be allowed to shoot them myself: I'd also point out that even the link you pass on shows there is a deep controversy within that movement, likely because libertarians and conservatives are so close to the same side of the political spectrum in the US at this point). As I said in the earlier post, that combination (or the obverse, such as the AFL's) actually make more sense in a world where both social and economic policy is still most often legislated along national lines (even if it is shaped in an international scene). I actually said, many posts ago, that the real defining line was on the stated policy in relation to private property and redistribution. But I'll be the first to admit that there are plenty of examples of people who were radicals in terms of fiscal policies but reactionary in terms of social policy. I also think it is complicated by the fact that government support for monopoly industry makes this more complex. A left tendency would be more in favor of direct nationalization (because the security of private property is not an issue) whereas a right tendency would be to support the private ownership of industrial conglomerates--even to the point of monopoly control) under the aegis of them serving the security of the nation. Here I'd say libertarians or anarchists cut between these two--and can tend to be leaning more in one or another direction because there would be a third index around the use of state power to achieve whatever ideological goal--though, of course, even the most stalwart Libertarians must either stop the clock of history (or, as I mentioned, presume some natural law) in order to make this a coherent argument. I think this is getting us back to Jim's earlier diagram which I wish you'd revisit since I can't quite fathom your insistence that there must be only two sides of a single index in order to categorize every possible political ideology. On the other hand, I appreciate your calling us all into check: I'll certainly be more careful of how I categorize these things (it is worth noting here that there is also an animated discussion going on over at Doug Henwood's list about the centrality or not of race to leftist struggles, i.e. if the left is supposed to be mostly concerned with redistributive questions or if issues like race and gender are also on the agenda. The consensus seems to be that there must be attention to all of the above for a truly democratic society, there must be attention to all of the above, but that, maybe, the Left lost its bearings in thinking too much about race. Etc. > And does that mean that a Marxist would have more ideological affinity with > the Libertarian Party than the AFL? This isn't a hypothetical question. In other words, there is an answer which is Marxists are usually opposed to both, though for different reasons. The AFL's racist work was not just in the service of their own agenda, but was often also supported by the US state department in quelching indigenous leftist movements around the world. In other words, they were working directly in support of the US empire. In general, these are the kinds of things that Marxists have opposed--just as they would oppose the Democratic party apparatus for its equal support of these things. This is also compounded by the fact that, whatever power the AFL gave to workers, by about this time it was failing to do a whole lot for any of them. In this, as in just about every case, the ideological stalwarts would likely oppose some of the real institutions and parties that would most closely resemble (or, as in the case of the AFL DID somewhat resemble) their ideological affinity. This is true whether the institution is something formal and internationally recognized like a state, or simply an effective social institution like a union. In some ways, to paraphrase Adorno, the only way to be effective in a wider society is to crush the dissent within your own unit, in effect undermining its very reason for being. s _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
