I was recently cited as claiming that the Alliance of the Libertarian Left is a "centrist" organization. This can be portrayed as either a good or bad thing depending on the context. I don't recall any particular writing in which I explicitly said this, but I have made statements to this effect before. Well, I stand by such a statement and would like to explain what I mean by it. This requires me to unpack what the term "centrist" brings to mind for me.
The term "centrist" has the following possible connotations for me:
1. Fusionism. By fusionism I refer to eclectic philosophies that engage in a synthesis of a variety of elements, some of which may be commonly thought of as being in opposition to each other. Fusionism is ideological integration. Various people within the Alliance of the Libertarian Left definitely have certain fusionist tendencies, which involves attempts at reconciling advocacy for free markets with the concerns often associated with social anarchism. In short, the fusionism within the Alliance of the Libertarian Left is a matter of reconciliation between the ideas of "market anarchism" and "libertarian socialism". Relative to hardcore adherants of either side of that divide, such reconciliation is "somewhere in between".
2. Pluralism. By pluralism I refer to a certain sense of tolerance or inclusiveness towards a wide scope of different flavors and models. While fusionism is a deliberate mixing of different elements into one thing, pluralism is simply an open attitude towards the co-existence of different elements. Pluralism may be thought of as anti-monistic, I.E. opposed to the idea of a singular system. Certain people within the Alliance of the Libertarian Left seem to have pluralist tendencies. This may involve envisioning different libertarian ideologies on a spectrum of preferences that are all capable of co-existing in a broad framework of freedom.
3. Opportunism. Centrism also can have certain associations with opportunism. In the cliche context of electoral politics, this may be manifested as politicians who "blow in the wind" with no real consistency, changing positions whenever it benefits them the most or happens to be what is popular at the moment. It can also take the form of the exploitation of semantic ambiguity for the purpose of selling certain ideas in a more favorable way to people. While I definitely would not attack the Alliance of the Libertarian Left as being dishonest, there are certain people or at least some things that certain people have written that come off as oppurtunistic to me. This may involve trying to sell anarcho-capitalism with leftist rhetoric.
When the matter is put in these terms, I definitely think that the Alliance of the Libertarian Left tends to be "centrist", although this means that it is diverse precisely because of the more pluralist and fusionist tendencies. It cannot be pinned down to any particular libertarian or anarchist philosophy. It contains people who have positions that could be considered ambiguous or eclectic relative to the "partisan" options usually presented and people who are open to a fairly wide variety of views. Other than a website with a statement that lists off a variety of sub-categories and amounts to the advocacy of opposition to cultural authoritarianism, it really has no official platform.
Relative to the standards of your typical social anarchist, especially anarcho-communists, many of the people in the Alliance of the Libertarian Left are not likely to be viewed as "hard left", and this is probably because of its overlap with free market libertarian philosophy. And when it comes to contentions over things like property, it seems to be split or at least have a multitude of positions on the matter. There are some people in the Alliance of the Libertarian Left who, in my view, are largely still clinging to the ideas of the libertarian right or at least are still in what could be considered a transitory stage in which they are exploring the anarchist left. Hence, by certain standards, at least certain elements within the ALLiance could be considered kind of "soft" or lacking much leftist substance.
On the other hand, it could be said that many of the members of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left are heretics from the anarcho-capitalist movement, ex-anarcho-capitalists or post-anarcho-capitalists who have moved "leftward" in some way. Also, the emphasis on "thick libertarianism" with a left-wing flavor, particularly as introduced by Charles Johnson, definitely strengthens its leftist credentials. The Alliance of the Libertarian Left is not only reconciliationist in character, but also deviationist. Many of its members are deviants from standard American libertarianism, some of whom have substantive objections to anarcho-capitalism.
I hope that this justifies my claim that the Alliance of the Libertarian Left is "centrist", both in positive and negative terms. I think that synthesis views can be a good thing and consider myself to have one, and pluralism is something that I think is a good thing when in its proper context. At the same time, I reject the attempt to obfuscate fundamental irreconcilable differences through the use of rhetoric and I have some trouble with ideilogies that may be too eclectic in some ways. In either case, this is my honest accessment of the group as one who considers myself to be a member of it. Posted by Brainpolice at 11:17 PM
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