this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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It seems to me that academics who study horseshoe theory routinely miss the point. For example, the Wikipedia article on this topic uses this to try to refute the theory:
But it's a total strawman. Nobody is arguing that tankies oppose or support the same things as Nazis, or that they share the same goals. What they have in common is an embrace of authoritarianism. Of course the tankies like different authoritarians, like Maduro or Putin instead of Hitler or Mussolini. But the love, or at least tolerance, for authoritarianism is the one thing they have in common - that the ends justify the means.
But not all of the far left is authoritarian. That’s where horseshoe theory fails. The fact that tankies and fascists share some common traits isn’t enough to save it.
Also, while tankies grew out of the left in some sense, it’s pretty debatable whether it’s still a left movement at this point. The philosophical differences with the rest of the left are enormous.
Not all of the far right is authoritarian either. And those non-authoritarian sects support basically the same kind of means for decentralizing power.
Some means that actually centralize power every time somebody tries... But yeah, honesty is not a common trait on either extreme.
I struggle to think of any far-right ideology, theoretical or practical, that isn't enamored with hierarchy.
The right is less authoritarian regarding business and environmental regulations than the left, as one example.
Businesses are just a different kind of hierarchy than government.
The point is the right doesn’t want the government regulating businesses, whereas the left does. Therefore the left is more authoritarian regarding regulation of business, just as the right is more authoritarian in regulating personal rights.
I don't really find that a meaningful distinction in the context of discussing whether far-right ideologies are capable of being anti-hierarchy.
Governmental hierarchy vs private sector hierarchy is the distinction. The existence of hierarchy does not define authoritarianism in government. Do you consider a head of the household an authoritarian government?
I would consider traditional patriarchal ideas of the head of a household as hierarchical, and that there's a significant body of work in anthropology that directly relates the outgrowth of complex and hierarchical societies from such family arrangements. So, in the broadest sense, yes. In the narrower sense of a competing polity with a monopoly on force compared to extant states, no, but that's only relevant insofar as those states continue to exist.
Preferring one authority over another isn’t the same as being anti-authoritarian. People who want complete capitalist dominance over society are not that different from people who want complete state control over society. Different organizational and legal structure, but same type of backwards moral reasoning.
A lot of right wing militias are anti-government, radical individualist, bordering on anarchist. They care about hierarchy, but mostly in-group. I wouldn't call them authoritarian.
The need for either total autonomy from - or total control of - the evil mainstream society is an example of the theory, not an exception.
Anarchist ideology is not a monopoly of the left.
Ancaps believe in hierarchy, just not government hierarchy. Though the distinction is dubious.
Markets are not hierarchies.
Though, yeah, the distinction between market oppression, government oppression, organizational oppression, racial-minority oppression, and cultural oppression is clear, but they are all oppression.
Markets aren't hierarchies. Private property, on the other hand, does impose a hierarchy; and markets without regulation inevitably are destroyed by capture by powerful firms.
And privately owned firms are extremely hierarchical.
Political Compass Memes is the most accurate model humanity has ever invented to effectively categorize politics.
The Political Compass, also known as the Nolan Chart, is used in political science to map political ideologies on a left/right and authoritarian/libertarian grid. The memes are just using that template.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Political_Compass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
How would socialism organize and maintain order among millions of people without authority?
Average tankie fellow-traveler pretending to not know what authoritarianism means.
That doesn’t answer my question. I know what authoritarianism is. How would a socialist society maintain order without authority? And how do you prevent that maintenance from becoming authoritarian?
Your question was "How would a socialist society operate without authority???" in response to a comment about authoritarianism being bad.
Do you really think you're fooling anyone with this disingenuous bullshit? I suppose you must think so, to continue trying it.
It’s a genuine question that informs my opinion on this topic.
Authority != Authoritarianism. The fact that you're purposefully conflating the two. Doesn't say anything good about you.
Sorry. Didn’t communicate effectively. I understand the difference. I just don’t see how societies can be organized without a form of authority. And if authority exists, at what point does it become authoritarianism, especially in larger communities and regions.
Again a non genuine response. Being anti-authoritarian does not mean rejecting authority completely.
Anarchists still recognize and vest authority in people. But their structures are very flat localized, and based in consent. Leninists and fascists concentrate authority and power in singular leaders and parties at a state level, who rule by fiat without consent.
It’s difficult to contemplate the valid points you raised after condemning my response as non genuine. I am not opposed to anarchism, in fact ( although I could be mistaken), I imagine communism is anarchism realized. It’s the transition from capitalism to socialism that derails this vision. How do we get there from here. We can’t just abolish the money, classes and hierarchies without chaos and suffering. There will have to be an authority during this transition. This authority will be considered authoritarian to the many millions of people it organizes. If you have a framework for how anarchism can maintain order and organize millions of people I’d like to read and understand it.
Non genuine was simply the kindest most nice way I had to put it. Whether I'm wrong or right in my perception of you as being someone more intelligent than the arguments you're making. The fact is you are equating two different things. Authoritarianism has a relation to Authority absolutely. However you can have authority without authoritarianism. But not the other way around.
Communism absolutely would be and realization of some of anarchism's ideals. But what does that have to do with portraying Authority and authoritarianism as being the same? And does it need to be pointed out that Marcus leninists are not communists. And never have been.
Maybe I’m not more intelligent than the arguments I’m making, but that shouldn’t invalidate my query. I was trying to elucidate how investment in authority could be perceived as authoritarian. Anarchism is a viable ideology and should not be dismissed. It is effective with groups and regions. But can it maintain and organize a society of millions in a country? That remains to be seen. There is a reason burgeoning socialist societies gravitate to Marxist-Leninist-Maoism. Because it has been done. There is a framework. Anarchism needs to show that it can organize a country to offer an alternative. I suspect, maybe capriciously, that if Anarchism was to govern a nation that it might defer to authoritarianism to maintain efficiency. I would like to find out.
trotsky had some ideas about that. and because of those ideas, he had to be killed.