We might recall Jean Kirkpatrick’s distinction between “benign” authoritarian right-wing governments that supposedly are not all that brutal and allow gradual change, and horrid totalitarian left-wing ones that suppress everyone. The real distinction is that the right-wing government maintains the existing privileged order of the free market, keeping the world safe for the empowered hierarchies and wealthy classes of the world. In contrast, the left-wing “totalitarians” want to abolish exploitative property relations and create a more egalitarian economic system. Their favoring the have-nots
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