Leftism Is Stupid and Needs to Die

Why It's Time to Declare Yourself an Anticapitalist

Binary left-right political taxonomy has its origins in the French Revolution, which occurred at the end of the 18th fucking century. It is now gotdam 2022—yet people still identify themselves as “leftist.”

This is almost unfathomably stupid. The “Left” of the 1790’s was opposed to monarchy. Is this issue still on the table? Are today’s fascists really analogous to French royalists???

C’mon. We can do better than that. And we have to.

How the Left Lost its Meaning

Semantic constructions linger long after their original meanings become obsolete. We still say that we “dial” a number even though most of us haven’t used a dial phone in our entire lives. We still use horsepower as a metric even though few of us have any idea how much work a horse can actually do.

The same principle holds true for the term “leftist.” The left-right dichotomy retained some utility in the decades following the French Revolution, because few European nations had yet become republics. At the beginning of this century, however, few monarchies remained—and those are hardly monarchies at all.

Does this mean there is no longer a political spectrum with authoritarianism at one end and personal liberty at the other? Well, yeah, that’s one axis of our n-dimensional political space. But, no, the left-right continuum is horribly inadequate for identifying ourselves.

Libertarians, for example, can advocate fiercely for personal liberty (with a distinctly antimonarchical tone)—just like a “leftist.” Yet, at the same time, they can be ghoulishly “right wing” on issues such as race and income inequity.

A Marxist-Leninist, on the other hand, can take strong “left” positions on a host of issues—yet nonetheless argue that heavily authoritarian measures are necessary for the revolutionary transfer of production from the ruling class to the proletariat.

Also, because the left-right continuum has countless gradations, it has become useless to those of us truly seeking an end to the nightmare that is capitalism.

Just how “left” are you, anyway? Center-left like the Squad? “Left” like a social democrat who wants to retain some elements of capitalism while tempering its most egregious harms by voting for nice people? Or are you so radically “left” that you are ready to put your life on the line for a revolution that will smash capitalism once and for all?

Are you “left” like the grifter-of-the-week on NPR’s Left, Right, and Center? Or are you left like gotdam motherfuckin Mao?

I mean if both the DNC and CPUSA can be said to be “on the left,” does the word have any useful meaning at all?

Worse yet, the term “leftist” can be appropriated and gatekept at any time by anybody for any issue. Are you in favor of saving the planet? Redistribution of wealth? Universal healthcare? An end to the carceral state? Racial justice? Anticolonialism? LGBTQ+ affirmation? A woman’s right to choose? Good. You’ve probably passed Twitter’s “leftist” litmus test.

But what if US fascists fund a protest against vaccine mandates by petit bourgeois truckers in Canada? For or against? What about the New Atheists who rant about how religion is the root of all evil? You cheering them on because they seems so leftistically edgy? Or is such rhetoric irrelevant to the “leftist” cause?

And can leftists disagree about reparations? Land back? Electoralism? Are these issues legitimate disagreements within a coherent movement we can refer to as “leftist?” Or are some positions “really left” while others are not?

These are questions that nobody can answer—because nobody really knows what a leftist is. No one. Not you. Not me. Nobody.

It’s kinda like calling yourself a “Christian” or a “good person” or an “activist.” No one really knows what those words mean either. And if you do try to fumble your way through a definition, it will probably be reverse-engineered to include those who you personally want to include and exclude those who you personally want to exclude.

That’s not much of a definition at all.

Plus there’s something terribly ironic about “leftists” who complain about the Amerikan binary political system—and then identify themselves according to a binary political taxonomy.

Anticapitalist: Definitive, Simple, and Appropriately Inclusive

How much better would it be if people defined themselves as “anticapitalists”—rather than “leftists?”

In my insufficiently humble opinion, it would be a lot better. Here’s why:

“Anticapitalist” is definitive. If you say you’re an anticapitalist, you’re making your position clear on the single most important sociopolitical issue of our century. Period.

Capitalism, after all, is at the root of all of our worst ills. We can’t fight the climate crisis under capitalism. We can’t get universal healthcare under capitalism. And we can’t keep cops from murdering Black folk under capitalism. They are all symptoms of capital power.

So when you say you’re an “anticapitalist,” you leave no doubt about where you stand. You want to smash the power that a few capital aggregators (looking at you BlackRock and State Street) have over all our lives. You want to eliminate landlords. You want to end the cancer of personal debt. You’re actually, fundamentally, and without reservation against capitalism. And that’s a good thing.

“Anticapitalist” is simple. No one has to understand the difference between social democracy and democratic socialism to understand what “anticapitalism” means. They don’t have to learn all about Marxist orthodoxy. They don’t even have to be able to articulate anything about the world to come. They only have to be right about one this: capitalism is bad—and we must leave it behind.

Anticapitalism also divides friend from foe rather neatly. You don’t have to figure out exactly where someone is on some continuum from “kinda anticapitalist” to “really super-duper anticapitalist.” You either is or you is not. Forget about how maybe capitalism could be OK if only XYZ. Forget about the benefits capitalism may have provided certain people at certain times. The question is simply whether or not you think anyone should be able to buy anyone else’s labor. And, yes, it’s basically that simple—and definitive.

“Anticapitalist” is appropriately inclusive. A lot of people make noise about “uniting the left” or “uniting the working class.” These are bad ideas. If you define a movement by its ideological diversity, you don’t have a movement—you have social media interest group. And revolutions aren’t about building consensus at scale. They’re about dedication to a common cause.

You can, however, build a movement with people who disagree about a whole bunch of stuff—but viscerally agree about a single, clearly articulated value.

Anyone who has played sports, been in a band, or fought in war can attest to this. Opinions may vary. Personalities may clash. But if you share a common desire in your hearts, you will stick together.

The cause of anticapitalism can thus unite (at least temporarily and expediently) the communist, the communitarian, the anarcho-syndicalist, and the I-don’t-know-exactly-what-I-am-yet. It both excludes and includes much more effectively than the amorphous nothing-word “leftism.”

The Most Important Blog Evar

Now, some of you will dismiss these rantings because they’re just about a couple of words: “leftism” and “anticapitalist.” Please don’t do that. Words are powerful. We should never minimize their impact or utility.

There’s a reason we say “sushi” instead of “raw fish.” There’s a reason we say “undocumented” instead of “illegal.” There’s a reason words like “freedom,” “justice,” and “comrade” trigger us in their own special ways. And, if you will excuse me credentializing myself for a moment, there’s a reason a word I once coined in a blog now has its own entry in Wikipedia.

We are engaged in a life-and-death struggle against capitalist power. If we want to be victorious in that struggle, perhaps we should identify our cause clearly and without obfuscation. And perhaps a mere word will help us considerably in that regard.

We are not “leftists.” “Leftists” argue about secondary issues and litmus-test newcomers and virtue-signal to each other until all they’ve done is certify their “leftism.”

We are anticapitalists. We mean to eliminate capitalism—utterly and for all time—by whatever means are necessary, to rescue our people and our planet from the scourge of greed that cannot stop itself from destroying everything in the path of its insatiable, unthinking, and amoral appetites. Let’s call ourselves what we are. And let’s make sure that what we are is something that’s really worth being.

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