Comment on Personalized Political Spectrum
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours agoThe global status quo is liberalism. Social democracy is to the left of liberalism.
And I never said that socialism was fascism, I said that the USSR gave way to fascism. Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation is fascist. The USSR collapsed, and fascism followed, much like the Weimar Republic collapsed and was replaced by the Nazis. That doesn’t mean that the liberals in the Weimar Republic were fascists.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 20 hours ago
Liberalism and social democracy in the imperial core are imperialist. This is to the right of liberalism and social democracy in the global south. Erasure of imperialism in the question of whether or not a society is progressive historically or reactionary is a mistake, as the imperialist countries are the ones holding back global progress right now. It’s kinda like saying landlords are progressive and tenants are reactionary.
As for the USSR bit, I misread you. Saying it descended into fascism I took to you meaning that it was progressive in the first few years or so but then turned fascist, not that the RF was that fascism. I disagree with the idea that the RF is fascist, it’s certainly run by nationalists and is an utter tragedy how far they’ve fallen from their soviet roots, but that’s a different discussion.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
India is well to the right of e.g. Norway. Brazil only recently moved to the relative left. Argentina is also very right-wing (and also a lot more settler-colonialist than most of the countries not allowed into the White Countries Club). Iran and Afghanistan are about as far-right as they come, despite being very much opposed to the global order as it stands today. I wasn’t discounting the so-called “Global South,” I just also don’t think that an imperialist past is the only factor in determining whether a country is right-wing.
In fact, I’d potentially go so far as to say that the majority of poorer countries are farther right than wealthier ones. The exceptions that come to mind are Cuba, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, and Mexico, but on the other side you have the ones I’ve already mentioned, plus Qatar, Lebanon, El Salvador, Pakistan, and more. Not doing imperialism is good, and refusing to do it is better (as opposed to simply being unable), but it doesn’t singlehandedly make an extremist theocracy leftist. If your country does not interact with others at all but is still an absolute monarchy with laws that explicitly discriminate against marginalized groups, it’s an isolationist right-wing state, not a leftist one.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
The question of being right or left is which role you play, a progressive role or a reactionary one. For all of the ways the nordics may be more progressive internally, it is of a Herrenvolk style, only for them and at the explicit expense of the global south. For all of the social faults of some countries in the global south, their rise is progressive against imperialism, and this rise facilitates social progress internally.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
There is no way to be a leftist or progressive dictatorship. There is no leftist or progressive way to have unequal laws for women, or to prevent gay people from marrying, or to deny people medical care. It’s a contradiction in terms. You may believe that Iran or India becoming more powerful is an overall good thing, but it is objectively and definitionally not progressive or leftist.