A linear scale and even the 2d “compass” is only useful for the most basic introduction to political parties but sometimes ya gotta meet people where they are at 🤷♀️
You must log in or # to comment.
If it’s USAmerican or Western imperialist power context, then often the fishook theory seems more applicable:
God, I hate the political compas
It’s so lazy! I don’t have a better suggestion but the linear scale is effectively the compass with liberal in the centre, authoritarian on either end and lazy people decided that the more “left” or “right” you are the closer to authoritarian you are.
Idk if I’ve even seen anarchist on the scale but I’d like to see some justification for where it gets sat.
Lemmy libs: “Smells like TANKIE!!!”
Fun fact, if you meet someone who unironically uses the term “horseshoe theory”, it is morally incumbent on you to kick the shit out of them until they can literally see inside themselves. It is then, and only then, that you are to ask them: “are you capable of introspection now?”
The more centrist you are, the more correct you are. So if you aren’t centrist enough, you need to centre even harder until the fence spike is poking right up your arsehole. Then you can feel smug as you look down on all the “extremists” and give a wink to the Nazi.
If only the real world was a straight line, and there were nothing such as authoritarian coopting of collective efforts, resembling right wing fascist authoritarian, wearing the corpse of an attempted social movement.
Why animal farm exists
Why the ‘national socialists’ came for the communists and socialists first.
You’re representing a high dimensional ecosystem with oversimplified boundings being flattened into a linear scale, and the ‘horseshoe’ is moreso adapting the simple heuristic to better represent the more complicated reality.
Sometimes the meaning of words is opportunistically changed, or the people directing a group change, and we actually have to comprehend and adapt to that.
A better representation of the political system is like a body where a bunch of organs seem to think cancer might be the best shape to be. Cancer as in ‘defining wider boundings of surrounding systems as exploitable environment’ usually ignoring how the surrounding body is literally necessary for sustaining life for the cancer itself. This is also where we would talk about things like instrumental convergence in natural/human systems.
So the linear line doesn’t really explain the constant rugged individualism usurping spaces in our complex high dimensional social reality. Ergo horseshoe heuristic.
Why animal farm exists
Omfg if I hear these 2 books one more time being used instead of actual historical evidence
Read a fucking history book instead of pointing at literature and saying “see? this is why communism can never work, not even in a million years and we should all suffer under capitalism until no one is left”
Lmao right? A satire of a particular group of people that was considered kind of shallow even when it was first published, and was written by someone who really wanted (another) job with the government is hardly useful analysis.
didn’t say “this is why communism can never work” i was saying how collective efforts get coopted. the entire point of animal farm is that the pigs end up like the human ‘capitalists’ they were supposed to replace, by changing the rules and languages opportunistically, against the wishes or best interest of the people. this isn’t an argument against communism or collective efforts as a whole calm down.
Have you ever read a history book that wasn’t assigned to you by your government?
Why the ‘national socialists’ came for the communists and socialists first.
Do you actually think nazis were on the left? Because that’s what horseshoe theory you are defending is all about. The centrist social democrats are the ones that facilitated the nazis rise to power because they didn’t want to side with the communists and socialists.
The Nazis we’re economically left of the US in many ways, for what it’s worth.
What?
Nazis spent a lot of money on military because they wanted to do imperialism to grow their economy. They ran deficits to fund war industries (kind of like the US) and were betting on winning to pay them off (US oil wars?)
There was certainly centralized planning, but the US isn’t exactly a free market. The government subsidizes industries in the states too.
The Nazi government developed a partnership with leading German business interests, who supported the goals of the regime and its war effort in exchange for advantageous contracts, subsidies, and the suppression of the trade union movement. Cartels and monopolies were encouraged at the expense of small businesses, even though the Nazis had received considerable electoral support from small business owners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany
Sounds pretty familiar, and I haven’t even mentioned the use of prison labour.
The big public works projects were already planned by the time they took power and were beneficial for the war effort anyways. The states were embarking on similar projects at the time as well, so I wouldn’t say they were further left even if we do credit them with continuing.
Nazis banned trade unions. Nazi Germany sought to eliminate foreign completion. They supported privatization. Banks were privatized under them. Utilities, manufacturing, railways, public services etc all had at least some privatization.
Companies traded contributions for favor (sound familiar?)
What am I missing that makes them more economically left wing?
Hitler was inspired by the US mostly successful genocide of native peoples.
I don’t really get my politics from naming conventions or middle school books yall stay safe tho 😗✌️
Did you read the post text tho
