There were legitimately socialist/anarchist/egalitarian sentiments in Europe at the time, but certainly calling the capitalists right wing at the tome of the Boston Tea Party is a bit nonsensical.
There was Thomas Paine. I wouldn't call him a socialist, anarchist or even a leveler, but based on his writings it's clear the revolution didn't go as far as he had hoped. It's funny, his pamphlet, Common Sense, served as the call to arms for the revolution. It was one of the most mass-produced documents in the colonies, but after all was said and done he was never included in the pantheon of "Founding Fathers."
I mean, I get the dialectical struggle of the working and ruling classes being a constant throughout history was a central point of Marx's works, but I don't think that political the political ideologies of the day can be completely accurately described as left v right wing
There were legitimately socialist/anarchist/egalitarian sentiments in Europe at the time, but certainly calling the capitalists right wing at the tome of the Boston Tea Party is a bit nonsensical.
There was Thomas Paine. I wouldn't call him a socialist, anarchist or even a leveler, but based on his writings it's clear the revolution didn't go as far as he had hoped. It's funny, his pamphlet, Common Sense, served as the call to arms for the revolution. It was one of the most mass-produced documents in the colonies, but after all was said and done he was never included in the pantheon of "Founding Fathers."
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Personally I think that the left v right wing paradigm shouldn't be used at all on discussing any politics before ~1800 because it just doesn't work
Whigs and Tories?
Since the early days of civilization there has always been a polarized political tension between the most powerful and the less powerful.
I mean, I get the dialectical struggle of the working and ruling classes being a constant throughout history was a central point of Marx's works, but I don't think that political the political ideologies of the day can be completely accurately described as left v right wing
That's a better way to put it.
Then again, actually descriptive terms are way better than "left" and "right" anyway.