The left historically centered emancipation, not statism

Evidence

Between them, he and my feminist mother bequeathed me a perspective diagonally opposed to what has become, sadly, conventional fallacy: that capitalism is about freedom, efficiency and democracy, while socialism turns on justice, equality and statism. In fact, from the very start, the left was all about emancipation. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 96

Categorization

• XREF: This ‘left as emancipation’ framing underlies the whole argument that reclaiming freedom from platform control is the progressive project. — connects to: The left lost by framing freedom and fairness as a forced choice — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 104; New Labour conceded the impossibility of leftist hegemony rather than attempting it — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1485; The left’s defining value is equality, not liberty, contra totalitarian misuse — Chantal Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox, 539
• DEEPTHINKING: Tersely collapses the usual right-left axis, arguing the left’s original core was freedom/emancipation, prefiguring the book’s claim that today’s platform feudalism betrays both capitalism’s efficiency and any genuine freedom.

Broader Connections

• The left lost by framing freedom and fairness as a forced choice #expands (0.80) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 104