[iDC] What is Left? / What Does a Distributed Politics Look Like?

[saul ostrow]

On Sep 21, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Dmytri Kleiner wrote:
Assuming the position of a classic Marxist - I will try to sort  
through  Dmytri's relativism

> I don't start with the assumption that any movement or individual that
> self-identifies as left is in fact so.
That's good - because left is not a position but an ideology that  
views property relations (as engender by the system of production) as  
central to any understanding of any social issue that arise out of  
the political sphere ( the general economy of social power/capital)

>
> When I'm thinking about this issue, I find it useful to understand  
> left
> as the the belief in the extension of economic power to political  
> power

This is a definition of Fascism -- the left is traditionally that  
party which seeks political power so as to be able to  regulate  and  
ultimately  order the economic in accord with social needs

> Therefore the left wing of any tendency is the one that emphasizes
> bottom-up or community-based practices.

This is how the National socialist came to be organized - block by  
block - community organization by community organization , factory  
cell by factory cell in the name of bring order
>
> Right is the belief in the extension of political power to economic
> power, therefore the right of any tendency wants to enforce it's  
> agenda
> from the top down and emphasizes authoritarian practices.

This statement can be held to be true in regard to any tendency  -  
consequently the charge that the Soviet union represented a form of  
state capitalism rather than socialism - inversely, American capital  
tends to implement its policies from below -
>
> Socialism and Capitalism are not themselves either left or right,  
> rather
> each has a left and right wing.
True and not true - Capital never has a left wing it has a liberal  
wing in that Capital is never interested in transforming society  
which would include the system by which social, political and  
economic wealth is distributed - Socialism's right wing are capital's  
reformers - their Left wing are the ideologues who have no knowledge  
of social conditions and would wish revolution and social transformation

>
> Socialists believe that extraction if surplus value by  
> appropriating the
> scarcity value of land and capital from the product of labour is  
> theft,
> Capitalist believe it is a natural extension of their right to
> self-ownership, and a feature of voluntary exchange.

The difference actually  between social wealth and individual -  
socialist especially in that period identified as that of socialist  
construction appropriates value from land and industial capital as  
produced by labour in capitalist society the well being of the  
individual takes precedence over that of the community  - self- 
improvement over social improvement
>
> In my opinion, neither belief is itself right or left, it is the
> proposals on how to bring about and maintain these property relations
> that can be either right or left.
as pointed out this is a relativist stance - Bush would probably  
believe that the left wing of the Republican party must be held in check

>
> In many ways I feel more affinity with the left of Capitalism than the
> right of Socialism, however both left-wing Capitalists and right-wing
> Socialists are either gravely misguided or sinisterly disingenuous  
> in my
> opinion, but that is another topic.
>
That's because the are one in the same - and their self intrest lies  
in the status quo

saul ostrow
Chair, Environmental Chairs Council
Chair, Visual Arts and Technologies
Head, Sculpture

sostrow at gate.cia.edu

EXPECT EVERYTHING / FEAR NOTHING