Book Recommendations on Extreme/Ultra Liberalism

Going to extremes by Cass Sunstein.

In the US, and in many other places, the political left consists of a diverse coalition of different groups, which may make it hard to find what you’re looking for. Some of those groups(this is particularly common with minority and immigrant communities) can even be quite ideologically conservative – but are unlikely to belong to the mainstream political right wing because of the ways that the right identifies, and organizes, around racism and xenophobia.

I think part of why you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for is because there isn’t really an equivalent on the left. There are people who are off their rocker, yes; and there are people who are so far left that they’re right (“the horseshoe theory”), and there are people who would be right wingers if the right wingers didn’t want to kill them…. But there simply isn’t a unified “extreme left” that is equivalent to the current “extreme right” like what you’re describing.

Also, the language is tricky with any political identity term like liberal, conservative, etc.

“Liberal” means at least four distinctly different things, which is also going to make your search much harder, at least as long as you’re labeling what you’re seeking “extreme liberalism”

1) One of the older definitions is, essentially, “dignity” thinking (in contrast to “honor” thinking), or “guilt culture” (in contrast to “shame culture”). Ie “a liberal arts education”; “liberal mental frames”; “liberated”.

2) A synonym for “unrestrained”, often in the context of capitalism. “IMF and World Bank policies promote liberal free trade.” “neo-liberal”

3) A term used by the political right to label anyone further to the political left then the speaker as being an extremist on the far left.

4) A term used by substantial segments of the political left to label people or institutions as being too far to the right, “centrist”, or mainstream in a way that is seen as self interested, naive, and/or out of touch.

….

Because of these multiple meanings, my default assumption of what the definition of “extreme liberalism” would be, assuming I was rejecting the so vague and bizarre as to be meaningless definition used by large chunks of the current political right, is as a synonym for libertarianism, according to the second definition above. That, however, describes a political movement that aligns itself with the right wing much more than it does with the left.

……..

Before seeking info on the trailing edges of the political left I’d strongly recommend seeking info on the political left itself, as the absence of that knowledge will make it hard to even ask the question you’re asking and get answers that are not solely coming from the extreme political right. To do that, you’d need to read about class history, unions, etc.; race, gender, etc.; biological and natural resource sciences, etc. I’d also recommend reading about political theory and “mental frames”. I can make those recommendations in all of the above, if you’d like.

If you’re looking for “extreme liberalism” however, I’d have to point you toward the decidedly right-wing Ayn Rand, et al.

**TLDR: the words you’re using mean such different things in different contexts that the words themselves will determine the answers you get.**

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Footnote: the same issue is present with the word “conservative”. That word can invoke the extreme right wing, be a synonym for Luddite; imply that someone is stuck in their ways; mean that someone belongs to an “honor” culture or uses honor/shame based mental frames; or be used to mean something like “conservation biology”.

Comment edited.

I guess extreme liberalism would be anarchy so perhaps this highly controversial book called Anarchist Cookbook will do