horse - 12 March 2007 11:33 PM
FYI, there is nothing “right wing” about oligarchies or a corporatist model, they just substitute the controlling and regulatory elements as similar socialist models of an authoritarian nature. It’s all about who has the power to disproportionately impose their will.
Depends on how you define right wing..., which has been something of a subtopic on this thread. Some people were talking about Europe and what is right wing there. This kind of oligarchic capitalism probably fits right in with the old Euro right (which, in its struggle against liberalism, was trying to formulate alterative economic and political systems)… whereas, IMO, as you just talked about economic liberalism, many people here would be liberals there [Europe] (being as they generally support free market economics / liberal economics)… The crux’s seems to be that many people here are not familiar with what right wing means in Europe… and it would seem, even that it existed as a separate movement in Euro politics than the left… I am somewhat sympathetic though. I do think the modern new left has adopted many right wing themes (anti globalism, organics, talk about ‘culture’, support for anti liberal / anti western* groups other than the ‘working class’, et cetera et cetera) which would make understanding the right as a separate entity difficult for anyone born after 1970… Basically the left has absorbed every critique and alienated discontented group in relation to liberalism… including the old right… As they were born after the left adopted so many right wing themes, it is hard to see that the right once existed as a separate entity..
That and that they were always called right-wingers by leftists and so it was destigmatized and / or assumed to be something good…
The error goes both ways. I have a few leftist friends and they often associate movies and books that would once have been considered right wing as left… Had a communist acquaintance tell me Lord of the Rings was left wing because of its anti capitalist themes. After a couple minutes of laughing I had to go down the list of other ‘left wing’ themes in it. Pro monarchy, pro spiritualism (heck, pro magic), pro honor culture, et cetera (the list kept going, I was on a roll).. Anyway, it was telling that a professed communist couldn’t notice something so ‘old Euro right’ as such.. rather, that he felt it was in his ideological camp (apologies to Tolkin fans.. anyway, a good sign of a non extremist is to be able to enjoy things for reasons others than their political leanings… such as, ‘just because you do’)…
* I believe Hayek wrote that Hitler began the practice of associating liberalism with ‘the west’ and as a result also created the notion of Eastern Europe (which many people thought was done by the USSR). He created the division and placed his anti-liberal Germany in ‘the East’…
