Friday, December 19, 2008

What Counts As "Left-wing"?

On another blog, I commented on what I consider as being "left-wing." I wanted to re-post it here:

There are two kinds of self-identified left-libertarians: those who support economic (not political) capitalism, and those who oppose it...IMO, if someone is not opposed to economic capitalism, that person is not a left-winger. At least not in my book. That doesn't mean they can't consider themselves left-wingers, or identify with the left, just that I don't really see someone as 'left-wing' unless they oppose economic capitalism. It's just a matter of basic political accuracy. I don't know of a single well-known left-winger who had no problem with capitalist structures.

When asked to define "economic capitalism," I responded:

Economic capitalism = making a profit off of other people's labor via ownership of capital.

This is an issue I've discussed before (see here for a perhaps overly harsh early post on this blog), and my opinion hasn't changed much.

2 comments:

Ben Arzate said...

I consider myself a left-libertarian, but I don't really support or oppose "economic capitalism" as you define here. My views on it would best be described as ambivalence.

Cork said...

I hear ya. My own take is that every type of firm has both costs and benefits.

And while I've tried to move in a bit of a more 'leftward' direction by reconciling parts of Tucker/Spooner anarchism with anarcho-capitalism, I've never opposed capitalist structues per se.