It’s funny that anarchists & communists used the term libertarian for almost two centuries, only for reactionary political capitalists to appropriate the term entirely successfully , snd then the same exact shit happened with the label ‘post left’

I mean the anarchist use of post left was only around for 30 years before being appropriated vs. the 120 it took for libertarian* but still it’s annoying as fuck

My new piece ‘Of Linguistic Barricades & Ungovernable Intellectual Territory: the Insurrectionary Communist Case for Copyright Protection ‘ comes out next month in Commune Mag

My critique of the ‘left’ is that:
1. Its internal diversity & vast range across history make its use as a descriptive term close to lacking content entirely
2. As a normative term, this depends on to which sect one belongs & is a futile sentimental prescriptive endeavor

3. As a genealogical & ecumenical term it denotes something specific with many branches that is only sometimes one subset of the above 2 & sometimes doesn’t overlap with them at all

4. As a rallying cry, or signal, or means of recruitment, it is internally too diluted to work well, while externally it is too polluted and maligned to be immediately helpful CCD

5. Related to all of the above are critiques of the left for being Eurocentric or parochial or gendered or imperial or colonial or statist etc. these are important critiques but they don’t concern the left’s essence as such, only various forms of leftism

While some of my phrasing suggests my concern is with the term, this is only part of the case, they also concern the actually existing left in the past & present as defined by a mix of self definition, family resemblance, genealogy & others labeling

This means conceiving of the left as a fuzzy set concept diffuse through history and culture, that has a distinct origin, but draws on & resembles things before it, and things contemporary to it, by different labels.

It allows genealogy, relation, resemblance, self ID & other ID to be different overlapping, contextualized meanings of the term, snd it’s actual historical referent—as such ‘the left’ becomes the reflexive process of negotiating the above & their tensions

Conceived this way, it resolves the problems raised by 1 & 3 (descriptive & genealogical), and it enables the resolution of the problems raised by 2 & 4 (use as signal, critiques of various leftisms as parochial etc).

The bad news comes for (2), as this conception makes normative & idealist definitions of the left without ground to justify themselves. But, at the same time, it allows us to distill something like an ‘essence’ from the history of the left—so what’s the catch ?

The essence—and thus the prescriptive idea—that emerges from the interaction of the above is that ‘the left’ is the historical project whereby the systems in which we live attempt to resolve their immanent & conjunctural contradictions through mass mobilization of people & crisis

Note. i am not making a claim about bad faith, intent, malice, conspiracy, capture, opportunism, adventurism, dilettantism, interest, or manipulation—though those no doubt exist , nor am i maligning actually existing gains or the sacrifices made to achieve them

Instead, i am saying that when you look at the origins, the means, the composition, the contexts, the causes, the effects, the structures, the functions, the relations & the self descriptions of the left as such, this is the picture that emerges.

The left has a definite origin: late 18th century Europe, specifically revolutionary France, where it was named for the assembly. This doesn’t discount the role of the periphery, the way the left has travelled, nor does it deny a history before it.

We can talk about the prehistory to the left (ideas and movements which resemble it in the past and or are claimed by it). And we can talk about its predecessors & antecedents (things arising with capitalism & the state but before the left was understood as such ).

Which is to say, more important than the French location is instead the relationship to *class* or *political economy*, *radicalism*, *social movements*, modernity and the state.

We might be tempted to say it refers to progressive movements within or against capitalism but some leftisms are not progressivists & some leftisms fought systems other than capitalism.

We might locate it in a specific class but this doesn’t really work either. There have been labor class anti capitalist but still right wing movements & the left was first identified with the bourgeois (& still is in many national structures) or with the peasantry

We might say it is revolutionary but we know that isn’t always true, and we might say it is socialist but this isn’t always true, snd we might say it’s mass movement based, which is very often, perhaps the majority, but still not always true.

This is why I leave the signifiers more general. The left requires the emergence of what is sometimes called civil society, it requires mobilization or targeted collective action, it conjoins or denies the separation of politics & economy,

it is concerned with ‘root’ causes & transformation, it emerged in the period of modernity, spread with it, often makes spreading it its aim, relies on its technological basis, and utilizes its social metrical order (even if in postmodern form for ex)

it relates to the state, bc it has always emerged in the context where states exist or are coming into existence,& it is usually tied to overthrowing, capturing, creating, controlling the state, sometimes to abolishing it, & frequently in ambivalent cooperation & conflict with it

—A side tangent on anarchism & the left that i hope will be illustrative—

There is an argument made, in three different forms
1. Hobbes/Schmitt/Strauss,
2. Rousseau, and
3. Peter Steinberger
that statehood is merely the concept of politics as such, which a settled society with a public is enabled by an implied sovereign

This argument argues the state is omnicopresent—where does this leave anarchism? In one of three places:
1. Anarchism is anti politics (H/S/S)
2. Anarchism is anti civ (JJR)
3. Anarchism wants a state but a totally different kind that we’ve never seen before (PS)

If we define leftism as always relating to the state then in this model anarchism is excluded from the left in al but the third formulation. But if we allow the relation to the state to be desire for its abolition, then the left includes contradictory elements.

We could then say that anarchism is its own thing entirely, but that it overlaps—perhaps a majority of the time—with the left. This allows us to keep a non contradictory definition of the left as above, even in light of this other theory of the state.

Now, having said that, I think this is a good idea even if we reject any or all of those 3 alternative conceptions of the state. The point is that this more flexible understanding of leftism & anarchism accommodates more variety without losing tractability.

It allows us to acknowledge the clear predominance & association of the left snd the state in history, without excluding or diminishing the anarchists who identify as and/or are part of the left.

—End Tangent—

—a second tangent on anarchism, i promise these actually contribute to the main argument—

We anarchists tend to be sensitive about a certain line of critique because MLs & others weaponize it in bad faith—the argument that historically the ‘most successful’ anarchist projects ended up merely creating a state or are proposing to do so by the back door.

(Side note: If we adopt any of the three alternative conceptions of the state i mentioned, this totally empties the above critique that of any bite whatsoever )

But let’s be clear—we could stipulate that claim as fact and still be anarchists. Indeed, one could argue one needs to create a state to overthrow the first one but in such a way that the clash destroys both.

This is no more incoherent than saying the state withers away in class struggle. It’s not a common argument—indeed, as far as i know the closest that comes to it are the advocates of the war machine (Clastres or deleuze), autonomists, and democratic confederalists

I personally do not believe that argument but my point is that it is consistent & coherent, and therefore makes the critique of anarchism less pressing.

Similarly anarchists can argue for a kind of pragmatism & material realism coupled with anti moralism & lifeboat ethics (Spain for ex). This is the idea that anarchism is not a prescriptive ethics of non cooperation or participation in the state.

Or anarchists could adopt a pessimistic mode & say of course a state emerged, that’s inevitable in a state system, but we will overthrow that one later and eventually we’ll have overthrown them all.

Or anarchists could adopt a living anarchy pessimistic viewpoint—the state will never be abolished, but its abolition is the constitutive limiting horizon, our perpetual end goal.

All 3 of these are coherent and have their merits. My own approach is similar but distinct—anarchism is about continually failing *better*, and while we can concretely abolish the state, new forms of oppression will arise we will need to fight.

The point is that the line of critique from ‘On Authority’ or against anarcho statism is basically moribund. It requires assuming what anarchism means, defining it as false, snd then saying ‘aha! See it’s false’

—end second tangent—

So to recap:
1. There are five main problems with the definition of leftism as word & referent
2. An alternate concept emerges that resolves 4 of them, and allows for an immanent resolution to the 5th

3. This definition focuses on genealogy, relation, self ID, other ID & resemblance and the active history & present of their resolution
4. From this an essence can be distilled post hoc, or rather, attributed coherently in a manner that both explains & grounds

5. This essence depends on the concrete origin in the late 1700s, its diffusion through history, and the relationship to several key features:
A. Class & political economy
B. Modernity
C. Civil society
D. Social movements
E. The state

6. (E) makes it difficult to include anarchism, so i present 3 alternative theories of the state & show how we can render these consistent with anarchism & the left if we assume anarchism is a separate overlapping tradition

7. This allows anarchism to be situated in relation to the left but maintain its coherence whether or not any , all or none of those alternate state theories are true
8. We can also now see why the anarcho-statism critique is toothless in this formulation

9. We can see that the relationship of leftism to the state doesn’t trouble the definition or anarchisms overlap with the left, nor does this overlap necessarily threaten anarchism

Let’s also stipulate that
10. The same holds, in pari passu, for the inverse situation—reformism or reaction.

What I mean is that the overlap of liberalism, or progressivism or reformism or reaction w segments of the left at times, no longer threatens the definitions of either

This isn’t a normative claim. What I mean is that in this more flexible conception, the fact that, at times, reactionary elements have overlapped with the left doesn’t mar other leftists by association.

I said stipulate because to do the whole argument for each of these would make this thread 10x longer than it already is. I can do it if you ask but anyway

Recognizing, then, that ‘the left’ is the historical process by which social movements in civil society are mobilized through modernist means to adjudicate the contradictions produced by class, political economy, in relation to existing states or state formation that seeks

To cause or preserve or manage social transformation, in relation to the ‘roots’ —radicals—of the society.

This has several overlapping modalities:
1. Struggle against or relief of exploitation, alienation, domination & poverty
2. Creation or preservation of ‘progress’ & ‘development’
3. Advancement of Class struggle or its containment through inclusion & redistribution

4. Mobilization of non elites or the creation of representation and f the formerly non represented

Or in the simplest terms—liberte, egalite, fraternite