My point is that leftism is considerably older than Marxism, which is one of its branches, though dominant.
For example, many conservatives claim fascism and Nazism are socialist and leftist. I don’t entirely agree, as I think they’re a weird mixture of leftism and (European variety) blood and soil right-wingery.
But you can’t have a theory where all leftism is Marxism and at the same time claim that fascism is also leftism, since fascism is inherently opposed to Marxism.
Here’s decent article about the many variants.
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_socialism.html#Types
Are you making the point that because you disagree about the roots of the modern Left that the rest of my observations/analysis are invalid?
It is true, Marx did not invent the Left, but he was the most influential in consolidating the previous thought into an integrated system, which carried forward from there to the present. There are few Leftists who bypassed Marx from the earlier roots.
There are some aspects of Modern Leftism that are even rooted in Calvinism — particularly the elitist aspects.
An over-simplification, perhaps, of Calvinism is that one is born Saved or damned. Aristocrats-by-birth in agrarian medievalist Europe justified their relative wealth in those terms. So those who are rich are so because they have been Chosen while the rest are rehearsing their fates in eternal damnation in their earthly poverty.
Calvinists saw the Enlightenment and the subsequent limited representative governments and the consequent Industrial Revolution as bordering on heretical; people who otherwise would be poor would be able to rise up through their own effort and ingenuity. In their eyes, this was thwarting Divine Will.
This developed in the Leftist elites in secularized form by continuing this distrust of ordinary people rising from poverty by hard work and invention. To a modern Leftist, anyone can invent something, it takes special talent to cultivate connections. And of course, anyone born into a prominent Leftist family is the equivalent of royalty [e.g. the Kennedys].
Those who attain economic success, w/o being vetted by the existing ruling class are derisively referred to as Noveau Riche. This is particularly so if the person created a business, invented something or otherwise bypassed the accepted means of rising up through the ranks. The process had to have been dishonest or criminal in some way in their eyes. Their means of success often entails climbing over bodies in political blood-sport, so an industrialist obviously climbed over the bodies of his workers.
The elites within the Left believe that the only legitimate means of attaining economic success is via the media, politics [and law] or the entertainment industry. In all of those cases, people are vetted by the creme of the elite. Being accepted only coincidentally is the result of hard work. What is more important is that they LIKE you.
The epitome of this are the various talent shows and reality programs wherein Our Betters are empaneled to judge if an aspiring member is good enough to be one of them — using entirely subjective and fleeting standards.
Somebody who builds a factory makes them uncomfortable. That is why they admire the celebrity tooling around in her pink Bentley, but begrudge the corporate CEO his Mercedes.
To make a point by making a point I will make a point: There is a difference between Classical Liberalism and American Liberalism. I would suggest that American Exceptionalism which is founded upon God-given Unalienable Individual Rights necessarily requires one to adopt an American frame of reference for the Political Spectrum. The European Political Spectrum in my opinion is flawed in that it makes distinctions without difference when one considers the American experiment. The Left use this confusion to lie about what the American Right is about by using terms like Fascist to describe Conservatives when it is the Left that are more like Fascists.
Here are some references to what I feebly attempted to express:
Today’s Political Spectrum VS The Founders’ Political Spectrum
-excerpt
Today’s political philosophy writers have taken it upon themselves to create this “spectrum” that encompasses all the parties within the United States. No one is left out, and everyone has a particular place among the spectrum that they fall. If asked where you fall, could you say without hesitation?
I know for a fact, I would be completely hesitant to say I fall here or I fall there. The reason being is because today’s political spectrum relies too much on the “party” and not enough on the “power” which government is given.
The founders political spectrum
-excerpt
The Founders’ Political Spectrum was neither left nor right. There was no Communism on one side and no Fascism on the other; there were neither Democrats nor Republicans. The Founders thought in terms of the words, Tyranny and Anarchy. On the far left was tyrannical rule by a monarch or dictator, while on the right was ‘no rule’ and ‘no law’ or total anarchy. The Colonies had been to the far left under the British Crown. The Articles of Confederation were sitting just inside the right border, to the left of anarchy. The Articles required agreement of nine states before federal action could take place so that Federal actions were generally minimal and agreement very time consuming.
For example, many conservatives claim fascism and Nazism are socialist and leftist. I don’t entirely agree, as I think they’re a weird mixture of leftism and (European variety) blood and soil right-wingery. But you can’t have a theory where all leftism is Marxism and at the same time claim that fascism is also leftism, since fascism is inherently opposed to Marxism.
Fascism and Nazism grew out of reactionary Romanticism, which looked back to Medieval and ancient tribal societies, with their strict inherited "natural" hierarchies and order (as opposed to modern hierarchies based on wealth) as models. All of this had to be updated to work in a modern industrial nation-state, but it still could hardly be further from classical Marxist ideology. To say that Fascism is Marxist because neither have free markets or balance of power in a republican government is falling into the trap of saying "if you're not X, all ways of being not X are the same."