To the socialists of all parties
- F.A. Hayek’s Road To Serfdom dedication page

Over the weekend, The Daily Caller’s Jeff Poor reported on Bill Maher’s seemingly inscrutable opinion of Stalin as a “right winger.” Stalin was a communist, which is left wing, but his methods were so brutal and evil, Maher could only conclude Stalin was so far left, he was to the right. Poor’s article did not go into Maher’s tortured reasoning, which reveals a fundamental flaw in the collectivist dogma. Like many of his ilk, Maher views politics on a scale of interest and identity alignment – left vs. right, Dem vs. GOP. Since these are all measures of serving men rather than man, they sometimes do converge at their outer extremes. The better scale is individual vs. collectivist, which is how a libertarian measures politics. The libertarian scale does not circle back on itself, and it measures the service of freedom, not cronyism.

The idea that politics runs in a circle lies in the origin of the left vs. right label. During the French Revolution, revolutionaries sat to the left, while counterrevolutionaries and those opposed to radical change sat to the right. As the political center shifted (often through violence), a once left wing politician could eventually occupy the right wing. In a right vs. left framework, the extremes of each wing merged. This is possible because both left and right existed to serve the interests of men (e.g. royalists on the right and revolutionaries on the left). By contrast, the US Revolution and later the US Constitution existed to serve individual rights and the law (i.e. man). The view of politics existing to serve men is the mindset that allows Maher to think of Stalin as right winger.

On a scale of individualist vs. collectivist (or authoritarian), the right and left can sit side by side. Big government GOP politicians may serve different men than big government Dems, but they are all in the service of men instead of the law; they are all collectivists. The worst atrocities often follow GOP-Dem cooperation, because that is when the parties agree to serve the same men. This is also why individualists like Sen. Paul, Rep. Paul, and former NM Gov. Johnson are often at odds with their party.

The common view that politics exists to serve men, rather than man, is at the heart of the confusion of right and left. To better understand the political spectrum, Mr. Maher should look beyond left vs. right and consider individualist vs. collectivist. He will find that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Hussein, Mubarak, and a host of other evil men sit together on this scale, whether left or right.