# On the political spectrum, what good things do you feel the far left accompish **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 22, 2025, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679 "2025-02-22T22:10:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/101 "2025-03-19T01:13:24Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > One thing the “far left”–difficult to define, as this thread shows–does is offer a radical criticism of capitalism and the state. It’s the difference between saying “my boss is a jerk” and “capitalists fire people, lower wages, move production off-shore, enshittify their products, buy politicians and thus exert considerable control over the state, and generally act they way they do because the logic of the system compels them to, not because they’re jerks.” That is useful when you ask, as Muley does in The Grapes of Wrath, “Then who DO we shoot?” [https://youtu.be/7JEYHczRar8?si=RsL37cCxNOT9ruhE](https://youtu.be/7JEYHczRar8?si=RsL37cCxNOT9ruhE) > Or more realistically, figure out which side of the fence you’re on and who’s there with you and what to do. The problem with the latter position is that it has an obvious flaw. If capitalism is so inherently bad, how did we manage to make the progress we made, from the enlightenment up though 2015 or so? That was a solid run of several hundred years. A center leftist can point to people like Trump and Musk and, IMHO successfully, make the argument that “capitalism is bad because my boss is a jerk”. To argue the latter seems to imply that we would be just as well off, or maybe even better off, with some other system. As the thread title says, where is the example we can point to of a successful alternative? The best we can point to, as far as I can tell, is capitalism with a benevolent boss. Even if the boss is only benevolent because someone like Franklin Roosevelt, LBJ, or even the much maligned Richard Nixon is forcing them to be benevolent, that’s still better than any other system we’ve have so far. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/102 "2025-03-19T01:26:40Z")
The question is irrelevant. Even Marx insisted capitalism “has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades…during its rule of scarce one hundred years, it has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?” The question Marx and radicals ask is, “how do we understand and deal with the economic and political issues we face today? How do we create a free society in which we all may realize our full potential?” Capitalism may have been necessary, though this is debated; how do we go beyond it remains the issue. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/103 "2025-03-19T01:37:48Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > Capitalism may have been necessary, though this is debated; how do we go beyond it remains the issue. That’s one of those easier said than done questions. IMHO we are likely past the point that anything can be done. It would take a very lucky break that I don’t see as being in the cards. What I believe it comes down to is having a well educated population. The right wing in the developed world is actively trying to destroy the educational opportunities of the poor and working class and replace a real education with indoctrination. Had we worked harder at preventing that back in the 50 or so years leading up to 2015, we might have prevented the current outcome. Unfortunately we had a few bad breaks along the way, and now here we are. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/104 "2025-03-19T03:04:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > Its not just that they support left wing authoritarianism like China or Venezuela, they support right wing fascism too. > > > > Sitting out the 2024 election and/or voting 3rd party helped the fascist Trump get elected. > > > > Islamist movements like Hamas are right wing fascist movements and the far left are supportive of far right wing Islamic extremists. > > Also known as the [Red-Green-Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red%E2%80%93green%E2%80%93brown_alliance) alliance. > > > The term “ **red–green–brown alliance** ”, originating in France in the 2000s, refers to the alliance of [leftists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leftists) (_[red](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_(politics))_), [Islamists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamists) (_[green](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_in_politics)_), and the [far right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_right) (_[brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_(politics))_).[[1]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red%E2%80%93green%E2%80%93brown_alliance#cite_note-1)[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red%E2%80%93green%E2%80%93brown_alliance#cite_note-2)[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red%E2%80%93green%E2%80%93brown_alliance#cite_note-3) The term has also been used to describe alleged alliances of [industrial union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_union)-focused leftists (_red_), [ecologically](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecologically)-minded [agrarians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarians) (_green_), and the far right (_brown_). I don’t know if thats a red-brown-green alliance. It seems like the browns are on the side of Israel since the browns hate Islam. The browns hate Jews too, just less than they hate muslims (enemy of my enemy is my friend). This article covers a lot of red-green alliances in modern times. [https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/emerging-red-green-alliance-where-political-islam-meets-radical-left](https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/emerging-red-green-alliance-where-political-islam-meets-radical-left) > No matter how unlikely it may seem, radical Leftists and Islamists have come closer in recent years. Drawing on substantial ideological interchange, and operating at both state and non-state levels, the two movements are building a Common Front against the United States and its allies. In this article, we use framing theory to examine the contemporary convergence of political Islam and the radical Left. Both radical Leftists and Islamists have utilized the master frame of anti-globalization/anti-capitalism and the master frame of anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism to elicit support from the widest possible range of people. The emerging Red-Green alliance presents a complex challenge that will require careful attention from U.S. and European policymakers . ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/105 "2025-03-19T14:12:16Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > That’s one of those easier said than done questions. Agreed! It may be the best we can hope for is something like the slow decline and end of the western Roman Empire and its replacement by smaller, localized political groupings. Something will come from the mess we’ve made, though likely not from our direct, conscious intervention and direction. What that will look like may be informed by utopian ideas, and thus the utility of a far left that dares to dream of a democratic society, with democracy extended into how we organize work and installed at the local level. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/106 "2025-03-19T20:32:24Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > > [@Kropotkin](#): > > > > Capitalism may have been necessary, though this is debated; how do we go beyond it remains the issue. > > That’s one of those easier said than done questions. IMHO we are likely past the point that anything can be done. It would take a very lucky break that I don’t see as being in the cards. What I believe it comes down to is having a well educated population. The right wing in the developed world is actively trying to destroy the educational opportunities of the poor and working class and replace a real education with indoctrination. Had we worked harder at preventing that back in the 50 or so years leading up to 2015, we might have prevented the current outcome. Unfortunately we had a few bad breaks along the way, and now here we are. IMHO we are likely past the point that anything can be done about an educated population. And the reasons why? Our capitalist system combined with modern technologies, ease of global economic reach and the power/wealth discrepancies that follow. How do you get a “well educated population” when we are assaulted 24/7 with media and advertisements targeted to each of us individually in order to extract maximum wealth from the system- either by influencing our purchasing, or by influencing our politics? ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/107 "2025-03-19T21:12:14Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > How do you get a “well educated population” when we are assaulted 24/7 with media and advertisements targeted to each of us individually in order to extract maximum wealth from the system- either by influencing our purchasing, or by influencing our politics? And insisting this is the best of all possible worlds. Yet I keep repeating Eduardo Galeano’s plea, that we save our pessimism for better times. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/108 "2025-03-19T22:04:54Z")
Leftist extremist brought you the 40 hour work week and women’s right to vote. State provided healthcare. Social Security, concepts like Health and safety in the workplace. Unions. All workers’ rights, hell, human rights are left wing ideas. The right is about bigotry, identity shit and gaslighting people to let them forget about the clas war they are losing. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/109 "2025-03-19T22:12:35Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Leftist extremist brought you the 40 hour work week and women’s right to vote. State provided healthcare. > Social Security, concepts like Health and safety in the workplace. Unions. > > All workers’ rights, hell, human rights are left wing ideas. But are they left wing _extremist_ ideas? When I hear “left wing extremist” I think of the people who want to kill everyone who disagrees with them, not people who promote unions. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/110 "2025-03-19T22:34:23Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Leftist extremist brought you the 40 hour work week Henry Ford was a leftist? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/111 "2025-03-19T22:35:02Z")
Left wing extremism’s original slogan is “ Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. All right-wing or conservative politics descents from anti (French) revolutionary movements. The rights’ only ideology is that those in power should stay in power (originally Louis XVI) the thing they are conserving is the status quo, preferably the status before the French Revolution. When leftist actually were accomplishing stuff they were pretty extreme. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/112 "2025-03-19T22:41:31Z")
No, but he didn’t exactly come up with a 40 hour working week so that is ok. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/113 "2025-03-19T22:42:38Z")
That’s an interesting, and totally incomplete, history of the 40 hour work week in the US. > **[Eight-hour day movement | North America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day_movement#North_America)** > > The labour movement in Canada tracked progress in the US and UK. In 1890, the Federation of Labour took up this issue, hoping to organise participation in May Day. > In the 1960s, Canada adopted the 40-hour work week. > The Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920 produced the Constitution of 1917, which contained Article 123 that gave workers the right to organise labour unions and to strike. It also provided protection for women and children, the eight-hour day, and a living wage. See Mexican labor law. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2025, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/114 "2025-03-19T22:43:44Z")
The “extremist” part gets tacked on by the people who should fear the guillotine. We haven’t lobbed any heads of since forever. Weirdly, ending the death penalty was also a leftist idea. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/115 "2025-03-20T12:28:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But are they left wing _extremist_ ideas? When I hear “left wing extremist” I think of the people who want to kill everyone who disagrees with them, not people who promote unions. If we define “extremists” by their propensity to extra-legal violence, then we find them across the political spectrum. That tells us nothing about the content of their views, only their choice of tactics. And it fogs the discussion of what “far left” ideas might be such as abolishing capitalism and the state by peaceful means. Noam Chomsky and Ursula Le Guin hold “extreme” left views, judging by the content and the vision they hold. But their means are not violent. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/116 "2025-03-20T13:56:38Z")
> [@Kropotkin](#): > > Yet I keep repeating Eduardo Galeano’s plea, that we save our pessimism for better times. Totally. And I try to stay disengaged from discussions where all I can muster is a “we’re fucked”. However, I do think it’s important to acknowledge that these systems are all tied to each other. Addressing the problem of an “uneducated” population is impossible without addressing the state of capitalism’s vice grip on our culture and communication pathways. And convincing ourselves that addressing “education” can be done without addressing those other issues is one of the reasons we are where we are. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/117 "2025-03-20T14:12:39Z")
Agreed. “Education” itself has never been neutral; it has always served the interests of those in charge of the economy and the political apparatus. It doesn’t only serve those interests, and many educators push back, but at the end of the day, education is more or less in line with those in charge, not just in what is taught but how it is taught. Lining up in rows and moving when the bell tells you to shapes people as much as rote learning and reciting the pledge of allegiance does. Some resist, some escape, many do not have those opportunities, and some are happy to go along because they are keen to become authoritarians and tell people what to do in business, politics, and the education system. Part of the problem is the stifling of movements and institutions that used to provide alternate education, from “free schools” to unions to grassroots organizations. They have been gutted and where they do exist, are drowned out, as you note. All of this is some of the value provided by the “far left,” which has also provided the pioneers of things such as the 8-hour day, led by labour radicals and anarchists, some of whom were executed, jailed, or deported for their efforts. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/118 "2025-03-20T20:24:20Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#): > > Weirdly, ending the death penalty was also a leftist idea. It was? I’d think a state imposed death penalty dates back to kings and nobles. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Librarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_librarian/32/402_2.png) [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2025, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/119 "2025-03-21T06:56:22Z")
“Ending” ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2025, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679/120 "2025-03-21T10:25:54Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Totally. And I try to stay disengaged from discussions where all I can muster is a “we’re fucked”. I appreciate this and wish more people followed your example. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-political-spectrum-what-good-things-do-you-feel-the-far-left-accompish/1014679.md?page=5)