This is not to say that I think they are equally bad or that there should be a “united front” or some non-sense like that.
It just seems like the traditional left / right distinction, even when extended by the authoritarian / liberal axis doesn’t seem to reflect political opinions a very well anymore (and maybe never did).
As a shower-thought I recently considered “rooted” Vs. “mobile” as less ideologically loaded and more descriptive terms of the actually different mind-sets people seem to have. This seems to fit to many aspects of the ideological divide found in today’s world.
Any other suggestions?
P.S.: of course just inventing new terms & definitions doesn’t change anything (and NewSpeak is certainly a danger), but keep using outdated and overloaded terms is also not the solution.
Class distinctions are quite hard to do these days… either they are overly mechanistic and thus put people in the “working class” that are ideologically strongly opposed to measures meant to improve the conditions for “working class” people, or they end up subdividing classes to a point where they stop making much sense.
Ideology has nothing to do with class. Someone is ‘mechanistically’, materially, part of the working class if they are not owners of means of production, and thus their class interests are(, with a few exceptions like labour aristocracy,) those of the working class.
There is a difference between perceived interests and objective interests, of course, and that’s why ideology does not necessarily relate to class status.
That’s why I also said in which class interests they are acting. A proletarian can absolutely act in the interest of the bourgeoisie, for example, a fascist worker unknowingly fighting to cement private ownership of the means of production.
There are essentially two mechanics: your actual class, and the class your politics benefit. Of course there are reactionary workers and idealist capitalists who starry-eyedly seemingly support working class interests.
There are only four main classes: Lumpenproletariat, proletariat, petty bourgeoisie, and bourgeoisie. What individuals fall on on a political scale has more to do with their opinions.
That kind of thinking is exactly what I meant with “overly mechanistic”. Sure, you can write a nice book about that and feel smug that you really understood the hidden forces at play. But it doesn’t help with real-world coalition building and also negates human agency, similar to how the “Homo Economicus” simplification does.
What are “means of production” in 2021 exactly? It’s not 1740, it’s not about who owns the waterwheel driven textile looms.
It might be true that socialism/communism merely chose a poor phrase and that there’s a greater underlying truth to it that is poorly explained, or it might be true that instead the phrase is truly descriptive of circumstances that are no longer relevant to modern life. But if the latter is the case, then socialism itself is irrelevant today.
So it behooves you to either come up with a better phrase that is more descriptive or at least be willing to explain what you mean by it. Anyone with a digital device has “the means of production” to produce the sorts of things bought and sold today in the United States, and most of the rest of the developed and developing world.
You’re almost some sort of socialist romantic, pining for the days of when your labels actually held any descriptive or explanatory value whatsoever.
… Are you aware that in 2021 you still need… factories… and land… to produce things? You know,… the means to do that that only a select few can own?
How do you even come to the conclusion that the means of production of all things are no longer existant? Since when have we stopped relying on workshops, factories and agriculture?
Clinton switched us over to the “service economy” before you were born. You’re typing your reply on a machine in which you can learn to create ephemeral programming that even for the minimally competent would earn you $100,000/year, but in some rare cases could see you become a multimillionaire.
So no, I don’t think you need land. Or factories.
Or maybe you guys just have a fetish to be working in some machine shop stamping out sheet metal parts for your East German Trebants. I can’t tell. But it’s clear that you don’t live in the real world like everyone else.
Hell, if that’s your idea of “the means of production” then even Jeff Bezos is as poor as me. He certainly doesn’t own any of the factories in China, nor any of the land they’re buiit on.
My God you’re a loon.