An exercise for the left-wing reader

[alice]

Or, "Untangling the Judaean People's Front in 21st century Great Britain".

Near the bottom of this page there's a list of over 30 current left-wing political parties in the UK. Your task is (1) to identify and explain the seemingly minor but in practice vitally important differences between them and (2) to estimate the number of members in each.

[Travis B.]

/me isn't even going to try.

[Travis B.]

(The idea of making lots of little parties (probably centered around tiny variations on Eurocommunism versus Trotskyism etc.) makes no sense whatsoever in a FPTP system, in which naturally the party to vote for would be the largest party left-of-center unless one wants the largest right-wing party to win.)

[Moose-tache]

The tribal enemy of the Right is the Left. The tribal enemy of the Left is the Left. We have the same thing in the US.

[Travis B.]

The tribal enemy of the Right is the Left. The tribal enemy of the Left is the Left. We have the same thing in the US.

One gets things like how the anarchists still haven't forgiven the Marxist-Leninists for the repression of the anarchists and other non-Bolshevik leftists during the Russian Civil War, or the Stalinists in particular for the repression of the anarchists and other non-Stalinist leftists during the Spanish Civil War, and they are certain that if they were given the chance, they would do it all over again.

[Raphael]

Stuff like this makes me glad that I'm only left-wing by the standards of people who are themselves pretty far to the right.

[zompist]

(The idea of making lots of little parties (probably centered around tiny variations on Eurocommunism versus Trotskyism etc.) makes no sense whatsoever in a FPTP system, in which naturally the party to vote for would be the largest party left-of-center unless one wants the largest right-wing party to win.)

It makes no sense as an electoral strategy. But it may not be an electoral strategy.

There's a lot to do in activism-land. I know a few people who are involved in it, enough to know that there's quite a bit of cooperation between what you might think of as antagonistic groups (e.g. democratic socialists, Stalinists, Maoists, anarchists, to say nothing of garden variety progressives). The disunity doesn't get in the way of doing things together, and maybe it even helps by keeping up energy. Your real Stalin-Mao-Trotsky war, after all, can be put off indefinitely.

There's a fear that splinter parties will be vote spoilers. In some very specific cases they have been; on the other hand, those cases were very educational, and I think US left-wingers in general are much better at holding their nose and voting for the non-fascist than they were 20 or 40 years ago.

[Travis B.]

There's a fear that splinter parties will be vote spoilers. In some very specific cases they have been; on the other hand, those cases were very educational, and I think US left-wingers in general are much better at holding their nose and voting for the non-fascist than they were 20 or 40 years ago.

Here in the US it seems to me that there is far less in the way of splinter parties than in some other countries, with US left-wingers, as you say, tending to emphasize voting for the non-fascist over everything else today. People seem to have learned from Bush v. Gore, which seemed to have taken much of the wind out of the sails of the Green Party, the only non-Democrat left-of-center party that seems to have ever gained any traction in the US in modern times (they still contest local elections where the Republicans are certain to not win, but that is about it). Yes, there are things like Trotskyist splinter parties, but no one, aside from possibly themselves, takes them seriously, if they ever did.

[Ares Land]

Or, "Untangling the Judaean People's Front in 21st century Great Britain".

Near the bottom of this page there's a list of over 30 current left-wing political parties in the UK. Your task is (1) to identify and explain the seemingly minor but in practice vitally important differences between them and (2) to estimate the number of members in each.

From experience (I have friends that belong to various obscure splinter parties) it seems to be a function of the following factors:

- how tolerant are you of capitalism: do you want to a) run everything according to Gosplan b) run everything according to local ad-hoc committees c) eat the rich d) just tax the rich?
- whether the European Union is a) an important project b) in severe need of reform c) ultimate capitalist evil?
- how do you feel about nuclear energy (a) the one and only option for producing energy, all else is obscurantism b) every reactor is a potential Hiroshima?
- are you comfortable with conspiracy theories? a) wake up sheeple! b) heck no.
- how do you feel about veganism? a) guilty b) meat is murder
- would you consider any kind of compromise on any of the issues above? a) absolutely not.

By combining the option above, we get a total of 96 left-wing political parties. It's clear that your list is far from complete!

I have an answer to your second question too, but it is, I'm afraid, far too cynical to contemplate.


(Oh, that's meant as satire! I'm as guilty of thinking my opinions are the only correct ones as anyone, if not more.)

[alice]

By combining the option above, we get a total of 96 left-wing political parties. It's clear that your list is far from complete!

It's not *my* list, just something amusing I found on a politics message-board which I read but don't contribute to. But I hadn't thought of your particular approach; the last question is probably the most important Further questions are needed, though, such as "Do you believe a working-class revolution is (1) inevitable, (2) unlikely, (3) impossible".

It might also be amusing to come up with something similar for the opposite wing, for example "Do you believe drug tests for employees (1) are an abuse of the employees' freedom (2) should be mandatory (3) should be up to the discretion of the employer (4) are unenforceable (5) will be settled by the free market". Although, as others have noted, there isn't so much of this on the right wing.

[Raphael]

Although, as others have noted, there isn't so much of this on the right wing.

Yeah, I think there were only three or four parties to the right of the Tories in that recent by-election that made such big waves.

[Ares Land]

The right has the same potential for divisiveness. A friend of mine is really into libertarianism, which isn't really a thing anymore, but back when it existed, the ideological divisions seemed as obscure as they were vicious.
They do seem to be more willing to settle down for a candidate they don't like that much. Maybe.

Or maybe it's a question of viewpoint. My right-wing friends, in spite of all evidence, see the Left as some huge, threatening, monolithic bloc. Maybe I'm similarly blind to what goes on on the right.

I remember left wing parties being a lot less divisive ten or fifteen years ago. (In France, I mean. I can't speak for Britain). What was the left has moved right-of-center, which left a huge vacuum and a lot of the drama is really frantic scrambling for a share of the now-empty political space.

[Raphael]

I think bradrn pointed out a while ago that people tend to be lumpers with their opponents and splitters with their own side.

[Moose-tache]

The disunity doesn't get in the way of doing things together, and maybe it even helps by keeping up energy.

Very good points made, but not this one. The inability for center-left and far-left Democrats to agree on a candidate is almost certainly what flipped Michigan and Wisconsin to the Republicans in 2016 (and may have had an impact in Pennsylvania as well, although the numbers there are a little different), causing Trump to win the election. There is a pretty good chance that liberal in-fighting prevented a Democrat from winning in that election. I'm not saying that's 100% for sure what happened, but it's likely. You're right that often the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea can work together, and even when they feud publically, it can be more performative than antagonistic (i.e. some BLM supporters will rip Biden to shreds but still vote for him), but sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Meanwhile, on the right, these kinds of schisms happen less often. The last time a split within the Republican party caused them to lose an election they might have won was probably 1964. Actually I'm sceptical of that one, since Goldwater was up against an incumbent anyway, and the last example before that was the election of 1912, long before the Republican party became the "conservative" party. We could use the example of Dixiecrats as an example of conservatives splitting from their party leadership, but since they left a liberalizing party and joined the Republicans a few years later, if anything this is an example of disperate conservatives coming together.

I get that we're trying to avoid vilifying the Left, and blaming all our problems on the hard-working activists who are making the world a better place. And I certainly don't want the Left to become a hive mind where no one can rock the boat. But there's no point pretending the Left doesn't have a problem with splitting. It makes sense. The status quo is a much easier guiding principle to agree on than radical change, so we're always going to have more work to do in order to find a vision we can all agree on.

[bradrn]

Thankfully, in Australia it works the other way round: the tribal enemy of the Left is the Right, while the tribal enemy of the Right is also the Right. Or maybe that’s just because the Right’s in power right now. Either way, there sure do seem to be a lot of right-wing parties here.

I think bradrn pointed out a while ago that people tend to be lumpers with their opponents and splitters with their own side.

Yes:

• Almost everyone thinks they understand the other side. Almost no-one actually understands the other side.
• Corollary: people tend to act as lumpers with the other side, and splitters with their own side.

[Travis B.]

Fundamentally the issue here can be summed up as perfect is the enemy of good - those who seek to push their own purist values will in the end only end up hurting positions that they would likely sympathize with were they not so purist. In the end, this is the problem I have with a lot of far-left people is that their far-left purism will inevitably hurt left-wing goals that would otherwise be more practically achievable.

[zompist]

The disunity doesn't get in the way of doing things together, and maybe it even helps by keeping up energy.

Very good points made, but not this one. The inability for center-left and far-left Democrats to agree on a candidate is almost certainly what flipped Michigan and Wisconsin to the Republicans in 2016 (and may have had an impact in Pennsylvania as well, although the numbers there are a little different), causing Trump to win the election. There is a pretty good chance that liberal in-fighting prevented a Democrat from winning in that election.

Things move fast these days, Moose. Relitigating the 2016 primaries was admittedly the chief hobby for everyone left of center for four years, but we had another election in 2020. It pretty much went as you'd want or expect if everyone was focused on beating Trump. (Maybe not so well if what you wanted was a chance to support your favorite candidate.) And the three states you mentioned all went Democratic, without us even having to wag a finger at third parties.

The last time a split within the Republican party caused them to lose an election they might have won was probably 1964

.

Or 2020. In Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, if Trump had got the Libertarian votes, he'd have won-- and won re-election.

(If anyone's keeping notes, that's the nicest thing I've ever said about Libertarians.)

But there's no point pretending the Left doesn't have a problem with splitting.

If our problem is that we have to get all the Communist factions in line, we're in for a long wait.

Aren't you British? The UK has kind of notoriously kept a three- or four-party system going for a century while using FPTP voting. And the Labour party seems completely unable to function at all these days.

[Travis B.]

At the end of the day, I don't think anyone here in the US cares about the Communist splitters than the Communist splitters themselves, who are few and far between. They make the Libertarians look like a party with real political clout in comparison, and they are too few in number to actually throw an election to the Republicans. A far more significant throw-the-election threat historically was the Green Party, as mentioned, but they have had their day and no one in their right mind will vote for them again aside from in municipal elections.

[zompist]

A far more significant throw-the-election threat historically was the Green Party, as mentioned, but they have had their day and no one in their right mind will vote for them again aside from in municipal elections.

Well, more or less: their 2016 vote total was 1.46 million; their 2020 total was 0.4 million.

But those numbers are dwarfed by the increase in turnout: 81 million votes for Biden, vs. 66 million votes for Clinton. Turnout went from 55.7% to 66.2%.

[Raphael]

Aren't you British?

What, Moose is British? Are you sure? I never had that impression.