The primary thesis of your post is that the political left is the defender of liberty because there were a few brief moments when politicians opposed to the king sat on the Left side of the legislature.
Seating positions change.
The National Assembly collapsed.
BTW: The people who opposed the King during the French Revolution usually described themselves as "Republican." The platform of the French Republican Party was similar to that of Jefferson's Republican Party. The platform of Lincoln's Republican Party was also similar to that of the French Revolution.
The idea that the term "leftist" means a defender of liberty is as absurd as the idea that the term "republican' means defender of liberty.
The goal of my post was to point out that the core ideology of the modern left came from a philosophical tradition that was funded by the king with the goal of restoring the monarchy.
The modern left uses the term "state" instead of "king." The ideology leads to top down dictatorships.
When the left gains hegemony, the country almost always becomes a dictatorship as we have seen in Cuba, Somalia, Venezuela and countless other examples.
Getting back to class divisions.
The king (and other oligarchical societies) use conflict to solidify power.
Modern leftist ideologies use a format in which the intelligentsia creates conflict. The ruling class uses the conflict to consolidate power.
This is the core structure that one finds among Hegel and friends. This group of philosophers promoted the idea that society evolves through an predictable pattern of thesis/anti-thesis conflicts. The conflicts result in a catharsis that sets up the next conflict.
Progressives use the march of these conflicts to consolidate power.
The intelligentsia will study the economic and political landscape to find conflicts. They then use inflamed rhetoric to divide the people into classes. The ruling class uses the conflict to centralize power.
Modern left wing ideologies lead to consolidate power.
Politicians on the right generally play into the same game by arguing the anti-thesis of the current manufactured conflict with the hopes of consolidating power.
This left/right split was created by the ruling class for the purpose of consolidating power.
The Libertarian movement started outside of this split. The key component of the Libertarian movement was people who liked the ideals of the Republicans but who are livid with the fact that Conservatives are so bent on using conflict to consolidate power that they systematically fail to advance their stated cause of liberty.
Your post has the statement
"politics has always been defined by class struggle."
This statement is an absolute.
I find the statement absurd because "class" is an artificial construct. Political theories often divide people into classes. But, different theories divide people into different classes.
The intelligentsia will divide the people into classes for given thesis-antithesis conflict. They will then redivide the people into classes for the next conflict.
The class division is often a concept in the head of the intellectuals making the division.
I should also mention that the theory that it is all about class struggle does not explain why kings would go to war against other kings and why members of defined classes often end up fighting each other.
It is common to have power struggles as different groups seek to dominate different classes.
Regardless the game of dividing people into warring classes usually leads to conflict. The conflicts usually result in the centralization of power.
In most political structures, the people who oppose the structure are usually left hanging on the gallows. In modern politics independent thinkers are usually driven out of society.
The people who want to stand against centralization need to understand that the left/right split itself is corrupt and need to call out the left/right structure itself.
!WINE
RE: Centralization Inc.