Left and Right: A Coherent Definition of Terms
In political discourse in America, there is a sharp disconnect between the Right and Left that makes communication between the two virtually impossible. They are quite literally speaking two different languages. They use the same words, but those words have different meanings, leading to confusion on both sides. This language divide exists very prominently in political discourse in general, but especially among Left and Right libertarians.
The language divide between the Left and Right libertarians is probably more pronounced than in statist circles because both claim to be “for liberty” and accuse the other of being against liberty. For example, many right wing libertarians will say things like “Libertarian Socialism? Isn’t that an oxymoron?” because they believe socialism requires a government, and left wing libertarians will say the same for Anarcho-Capitalists, citing virtually the same argument: that Capitalism requires a state.
As I’ve said, this language divide makes coherent communication between the two wings virtually impossible. For the statists, I say let them confuse themselves with their incoherent understanding of philosophy. I find it amusing. For libertarians, I find it troubling, as we both essentially want the same thing: freedom, but we spend too much time arguing over stupid economic differences than fighting our enemies.
This article will serve as my attempt to clear the air about this divide, and attempt to give these terms fresh definitions that each of us can agree on. In defining these terms, I will attempt to take into account the historical usage of these terms, how they’ve evolved over time, and try to keep in mind what the members of these ideologies actually believe. I’m sure whether you’re a leftist or a rightist, you will agree with my definitions.
Whether your goal is to come to some sort of mutual understanding with the other side and work with them against our mutual enemies, or you still want to fight the other side and “destroy them” it will be beneficial to at least have a good understanding of what these words actually mean, and what the other side actually believes.
To properly define Left and Right, it is helpful to construct a political spectrum that has more than one dimension. A single line does nothing to separate the multiple complex political philosophies of the Right and Left that often conflict with each other. Ideally, you’d have a multidimensional spectrum, but that’s hard to visualize, and is unnecessary for our purposes here. The Political Compass model, a two dimensional political spectrum, like the one popular online, will work fine, but keep in mind that while two dimensions are better than one, political ideologies are still more complex than what we’ll see on the chart.
For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, the Political Compass is set up like a Cartesian graph. The Y axis is the authority axis, and represents the amount of government you want. The X axis is the economic axis, and represents your economic beliefs. This gives us four quadrants, the top left, or Authoritarian Left, the top right, or Authoritarian Right, the bottom left, or Libertarian Left, and the bottom right, or Libertarian Right. This model shows us that holding specific economic views does not necessarily show that you agree with everyone else who holds these views because they could differ from you on the authority axis.
If I could change anything about the Political Compass, I would change the X axis from economic beliefs to beliefs about hierarchies in general. This goes further than economics, and demonstrates the true difference between the Left and Right for both authoritarians and libertarians.
The Left is broadly skeptical of hierarchies. The farther left you go, the more critical of hierarchies you are. These could be racial hierarchies, gender hierarchies, economic hierarchies, or any number of other hierarchies. I could go on forever about the various causes different leftist groups believe in, but let’s not get off into the weeds. The Left, in general, has one main tenant: Egalitarianism. Egalitarianism is the belief that everyone should be equal.
The Right, like the left, is very broad and consitutes many different ideas. The Right is actually harder to define than the Left. This is difficult for me, even as a right winger. One thing that holds true for all those on the Right in general, is that we really don’t care about hierarchies and usually don’t oppose them on principle. The Right isn’t concerned about equality as an end goal. Much of the Right opposes the idea of egalitarianism altogether, whether consciously or not. This can manifest itself as authoritarian regimes enforcing hierarchies, or it could manifest as a libertarian, laissez-faire society where people are more concerned about their own personal freedom than they are about making sure everyone is exactly the same. The point of the X axis is to show what people’s opinions on hierarchy are. The point of the Y axis is to show whether you’re willing to enforce those opinions with the State’s gun. So, while the libertarian Right and Left disagree on hierarchy, they do agree that their preferred system should not be forced on others. This is why I believe it is possible for the libertarians of the Right and Left to work together. They can always form separate communities in accordance with their personal preferences once the State that forces them to live under one or the other is gone.
Now that we have our general understanding of what the “Right” is and what the “Left” is, let us get more specific about the words these groups use to define their ideas. Economic debates between Right and Left libertarians are a prime example of the language divide, where both sides are using completely different definitions of the same words.
It seems to me that both sides are broadly indifferent to, or unaware of, the other side’s definition. When a leftist says to a rightist that he opposes capitalism, both of them have completely different interpretations of what that sentence even means, and what capitalism actually is. It’s time for both sides to come to some sort of agreement regarding these terms. How do you ever hope to reach common ground with someone if you don’t even understand what they actually believe? If you don’t care about reaching common ground, fair enough, but if you don’t care, why are you even arguing in the first place? Your time could be better spent doing literally anything else. For those who want to understand the other side, this is for you.
The terms “Capitalism” and “Socialism” are old, and perhaps outdated. The definitions of both have shifted much from the original meanings, but people still cling onto these terms so it’s useful to redefine them in ways that acknowledge the past definitions while staying true to what the proponents of these systems actually believe.
Something ancaps often do that I believe is counterproductive is lump the use of force into these definitions. This is why they believe socialism is impossible without a State. This is something many on the right do in general, and is not only a problem with ancaps. To these people, socialism is when the government does stuff. This is idiotic, and shows what a limited knowledge of socialist theory the people who say this actually have. It’s also hilarious when it comes from people who support police, military and other government programs. Many ancaps bring this general statist right-winger talking point with them after they abandon statism and take the “socialism is when the government does stuff” thing to its logical conclusion: that having any government at all is socialism.
Coming to this conclusion, they will then triumphantly declare that libertarian socialism cannot exist. The problem, of course, is that that’s not what socialism means at all. As I’ve established earlier, not all Leftists even want a state to exist. Libertarian socialism is a thing. It does exist. Your definition of socialism is wrong. If we want to have any kind of understanding of the other side we need to correctly define our terms, and that is what I will attempt to do here.
For the purposes of these definitions, in order to remove any confusion, I have removed the use of force from the equation completely. The use of force has nothing to do with the function of either Capitalism or Socialism as systems in and of themselves. The use of force has to do with government. It has to do with the up/down authority axis on our Political Compass model. What we’re talking about is simply the organization of an economy. This organization can either be done in statist ways, or in anarchist ways.
According to my definitions, both of these systems could exist in either a statist, or an anarchist society. The distinction between Capitalism and Socialism has to do with organization, not use of force. With all this in mind, let’s define our terms.
Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production, (the buildings, the equipment, the materials used, etc.) are owned privately by one person, or a small group of people, usually a board of directors. The owner, or owners, hire workers to operate the business, paying them a salary or wage. Any profit earned by the firm goes to the owner, or owners, not the workers. The workers only get their wage or salary. In addition to this, any business expenses are paid by the owner or owners, not the workers. So, in this system, the owner takes on all the risk associated with the business and as a result, reaps any and all rewards from it. The workers do not reap the rewards, but do not have to concern themselves with the financial risks of operating a business. There are trade-offs to being both an owner and a worker. This is Capitalism.
Socialism is an economic system where the means of production are owned collectively by the workers. The workers self organize into a union, or some other collective agreement and democratically decide how the business should run, whether they decide everything by vote, or decide to elect some leader to make those decisions for them. Any profit generated by a firm organized in this way is distributed to the workers in whatever manner they decide, whether it be equally distributed to everyone in the firm regardless of job, distributed such that those who worked harder get more of a share, or distributed so that bigger shares of the profit are given to those who need it more. There are many different ways that this can manifest, but the thing that holds true for each of them is that it is decided democratically. This is Socialism.
You may have your opinions about which of these sounds better to you, or you may want to do things in a completely different way than either of these (like I said, they’re old and outdated concepts). The point is, if you’re a libertarian, you believe people should be free to pursue whichever of these options they want without being coerced by a government. This is why neither Libertarian Socialism nor Anarcho-Capitalism are oxymorons. Both ideas are compatible with libertarianism provided they are voluntary arrangements.
Many leftists will try to claim that capitalism is not compatible with anarchism because it’s a hierarchy. They say this because they believe anarchism is against all hierarchy. It isn’t. Anarchism is against RULERS. It’s against those who would try to force others to live how they wanted. The struggle against hierarchy in general is what constitutes leftism, not anarchism. Anarchy means “without rulers” not “without hierarchy.”
There’s my contribution to the discourse. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of the same old economic arguments in libertarian circles. Hopefully we can finally move past them and finally move on to other, more important topics. I’m not holding my breath, but one can hope.
