There seems to be some debate about whether the left has “sold out” under Obama, or whether leftists have remained principled and critical in light of the president’s continuation of his predecessor’s policies. To explain it the way I see it, I’d like first to outline my views of leftist taxonomy.

What passes for the American left today is a wide spectrum. It reaches from principled radicals to those barely on the left side of the fascist establishment center. I see at least several categories, each of which has a diverse membership but sharp distinctions from other groups, and they all respond to partisan concerns differently. Some individuals and organizations have a foot in more than one camp. Nevertheless, here is my simplified sketch of the breakdown of modern leftism.

Communists and Pinkos: This is a rather diverse but small bunch. For better or worse, they are principled in their opposition to American capitalism as they define it. They are usually reliable on questions of U.S. empire, but not always so, and even though they will never have power in this country, it is probably good that they won’t. Their critiques of American power, corporatism, the war machine, and the prison-industrial complex are sometimes invaluable, but as we know, state socialists are horrible in power, not infrequently the worst. Their isolation from the U.S. power elite is a saving grace, and the Marxist intellectuals among them write good history. Because they follow the money and see politics as a class struggle, much of what people in this group say is more on target than anything heard among the moderates.

Anti-Authoritarian Radicals: I’m thinking of folks like those at Counterpunch. These AAR have an anarchist streak and are more numerous (and in ways more reliable) than the smaller clique of self-proclaimed “anarchists” we typically see on the left. These are some of my favorite leftists. They are very reliable on war if not perfect pacifists. They are great on police state issues and corporatism and recognize that the regulatory state is not our best friend. They have a soft spot for some welfare programs. They are often lefty culture warriors but are much more nuanced than those fellow leftists to their right, knowing cultural bias against cultural rightists can be a weapon of state power. I’m thinking of Alex Cockburn’s excellent take on the Waco massacre. These people are not perfect, but I will take them over 99% of conservatives and probably a third of libertarians.

Civil Libertarian Liberals: Glenn Greenwald is the paradigm case, although he is unusually magnificent. These folks consider themselves liberals on the left, although their radical allies would never use the word “liberal” for themselves. The CLL are principled on civil liberties and often on many questions of foreign policy, transparency, and fairness. They are rarely partisan and have decent priorities. For better or worse, they are less anti-capitalist than the AAR and certainly less so than the pinkos. They are therefore less enraged about questions like intellectual property and less inclined to see public schools as a product of mercantilism—which is bad—but they are more likely to see the modern market, however skewed, as not an enemy in and of itself. Unlike some to their left, they understand you cannot abolish money or private property and expect to feed the population. None of them suffer the illusion that the USSR was preferable to America or that Mao’s Workers’ State was anything short of a totalitarian hellhole. Whereas the commies and even some of the AAR sometimes have a soft spot for foreign regimes but are reliably critical of the US, the CCL are sometimes too tame on the US but are more grounded on the problems of “far-left” statism.

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