What Is "The Left"

"The Left." We hear it constantly from conservative pundits and editorialists, most often trying to get rise from the democratic party. I find that nobody on the right actually knows that that means. To those who believe they know what it means on the right, you probably have little conception of what socialism actually is, much less the broad term "the left." While the Democratic Party is the most leftist major party in the United States, it is not by any means a portion of "the left," although some moderate leftists are in the party. The broad definition of "the left" as perpetuated by conservatives is an authoritarian system and the soviet-form socialism that resulted in another imperialist state. While people think that socialism is inherently authoritarian, it is not. Socialism, as a principle merely refers to the absence of private property (i.e. property used by an employer's employee for use for the purpose of profit). It states that the employment of such a system will result in mass unemployment, mass poverty, hunger, mass homelessness, and overproduction.

Socialism is the absence of private property, the holding of collective property, rather than private property by those who use it for the good of society, as such, the Soviet Union is not socialist. And if you believe you understand socialist theory better than an actual socialist and proclaim that the USSR was in fact socialist, then you should read socialist literature, most of which (outside of Stalin) denies authoritarianism. Meanwhile the protection of private property is inherently violent. In order to use the law one must be willing to kill for it. Otherwise the law has no authority. The only thing enforcing the law is the threat of injury or death. As such, the only thing enforcing private property is the state's threat of violence against those who would seize it. The state in this way suits the interest of the bourgeoisie. The Democratic Party relies upon the law and private property, and as such cannot be legitimately called a socialist party nor leftist at all. It is grounded in the same belief in the law and private property that the Republican Party possesses, as anything else would result in the immediate loss of funding for the party. If the Democratic Party were truly socialist or leftist, it would have zero funding aside from the people. Since they have corporate donors, we can assume that this is not the case.

If you want to criticize the Democratic Party, you are actually criticizing centrism, not leftism. And that means, using horseshoe theory, that you are a fascist, and therefore a socialist. Because fascism and socialism are the same in name, they must be the same in belief. The fascist state is more associated with the Republican Party of today than it was with any socialist state, (hence the formation of ANTIFA by the Communist Party of Germany and their SPD compatriots). Those who believe they are centrist and yet criticize the Democratic Party's leftist agenda are actually right-wing, often times neo-conservatives or neo-reactionaries. Perhaps they are only deluded. Regardless, if conservatives want to throw around the term "the left," perhaps they should learn what it actually means and what they believe, rather than using their limited understanding and anti-communist fear mongering to attack the Democrats.

We must note that when conservatives say "socialists" they really mean "anyone who disagrees with us." It is an attack upon credibility that hearkens back to the Red Scare, and they don't seem to realize the irony of their words.