this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2025
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I mean, its not really a purity test. It's just kind of definitions. The political terms "right" and "left" have meant the same thing since the French Revolution. Democrats are not left wing. We can have a whole bunch of ancillary discussions about whether that means people should or shouldn't vote for them, which I'm not interested in having, but i struggle to see how one could argue in good faith that the Democrats are left wing. Its really not even clear that Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders are "left wing" since neither seems to oppose private property rights, nor do they advocate for the weakening or abolishment of capitalism - the traditional dividing line of left and right.
Wasn't the French revolution just abolishing feudalism and the monarchy?
I'm being less than 100% precise here. The line I'm drawing is that abolition of private property rights is co-terminus with abolition of capitalism.
"Ask them 'what's more important, human rights or property rights'. If they reply 'property rights are human rights, they're on the right".
e: I'm just going to add explicitly, since there's clearly some confusion looking at the other sister comments. It's not about monarchism or any of that. Its two things: Property rights and social hierarchies. If you want em gone, you're on the left. from that perspective you need not change the definition of left and right in 1799 and 1848, and all the same from Maréchal to Mélenchon.
Ok, this is making things more clear, although I get the impression I'd have to know way more about the Fr. Revolution, and maybe the following period in France to actually understand it. Was it really politically commonplace already in early 19th c. to demand abolishment of property?
Who's Maréchal?
Highly recommend the Revolutions podcast on this subject.
Under feudalism: Left is about abolishing feudalism and the monarchy. Right is about preserving them.
Under capitalism: Left is about abolishing capitalism and the bourgeoisie. Right is about preserving them.
leftism is defined by opposition to the status quo. the french monarchy was capitalist as well as the status quo at the time; we still have monarchies and capitalism is unquestionably the status quo.
no, it's not. That would make fascism left wing, it is not.
fascism is right wing and a big part of late stage capitalism.
You've just introduced a whole other definition of leftism. Also it seems to mean that no leftist society could exist in practice.
From what I can figure out, it was still in principle feudal but moving towards capitalism due to the growth of the bourgeois class. Is that correct?
opposition to the status quo is the definition of leftism, but anyone can be forgiven for not understanding this since westerners define it in the same terms as classical liberalism due to monarchies still (barely) being the status quo back then (and still existing to this day); back then, liberalism was "left" of that.
now-a-days neo-liberalism is the dominant hegemony and it's pro-capitalist; anything to the left of that is modern day leftism.
Yes, the current relations to capitalism actually were fixed in 1848, not 1789.
The split between the bourgeoise and the proletarian is exactly what happened in 1848 - they were united in the French Revolution, then as the bourg took power, they made sure to stop the revolutions.