Question - Left and right ?

daveg

Can anyone explain in layman terms what far right and far left mean when referenced to a politician ?

Hobart

IMO Far left would take a more Socialist point of view and Far right, depending on the country, would or could take the views of the Nazi party.

examples of far left would be Tony Benn in the UK
examples of far right would be Ludy Thatcher or Norman Tebbit.

dahamsta

The Political Compass might interest people reading this thread.

adam

DadaKopf

Traditionally, left has referred to more socialist political standpoints, right to more conservative/libertarian standpoints. Things aren't really that simple, especially nowadays when we see traditionally conservative parties exhibit 'leftist' policies.

The left/right divide really centres around the differeing opinions on the concept of freedom, the right of the state to interfere in an individual's affairs. Leftist people place more emphasis on society (i.e. we're collectively responsible to take charge of our own affairs) so therefore there's a confluence of the public and the private. Rightist people emphasise the individual, rather than the collective (don't assume I mean this in a communist sense) so that the private lives of people are to be defended at all costs, even against the state. Basically, the typically leftist view says that 'freedom' comes through cooperation with other people as part of a society, rightist views say that freedom is only possible through the absence of interferene from other people but that those rights are transferred to the state, not the collective.

Both standpoints have problems. When states become too involved in people's private lives, it tends towards one kind of authoritarianism from the state. When states become too uninvolved, people are free to accumulate wealth with little regard for other people so people become dominated by individuals. In both senses, we can get tyranny.

The most important element of a government is where they lie on the authoritatian-libertarian axis. Fascists were extreme right-wing authoritarians. The British Labour Party is centre-left authoritatian. The Republican Party in the US is generally regarded as moderate to strongly right-wing libertarian (though that's debatable.

Um, maybe that'll help.

Sparks

There is a more interesting question. The left/right divide dates back to the seating position of politicians in government. Why is it still being used in an era that has seen several new developments that fundamentally affect basic politics? (By which I mean the widespread availability of education, easy communications, access to information regarding political matters, and so forth).

Éomer of Rohan

I wasn't quite sure how to interpret this question so I interpreted it both ways that I thought appropriate.

1) Simple ease of interpretation.

2) Because the problems discussed across the left-right divide still exist; capitalists still exploit the workers, state withdrawal from funding of services has returned Britain almost to the pre-1946 state of wealth being the defining feature of life as manifested in living standard, private education, private health services, private transport and so on, which because of the cut backs in the welfare state is leading to a two tier society rather than the classic Marxist five tier (Upper Class, Beourgois, Petit - Bourgeois (including the 'intelligentsia'), Proletarian and Reactionary Proletarian) - that being those who can afford all things private and those who can't, with those who can't sinking further into poverty as things like English government-run schools decline in efficiency. Thus the divisions of left wing and right wing are becoming clear - the Labour party shifts to the right because the most affluent and intelligent (ie have gone through the best education money can buy) people have centre/right wing, middle class ideas and the traditional groups of labour supporters are not turning out to vote because they are not interested in politics or feel disenfranchised a lot of which is due to a declining financial situation as a result of 'free marketeering' which is of course the root destroyer of the buffer between what people like Aneurin Bevan envisioned and a government of the 'elite' - which itself is still a democracy but simply because the working class have not turned out to vote (Mind you, even Hitler had that problem which was why Nazi policies changed to further encompass Jew-bashing and such middle class ideas.

bonkey

I think it is worth noting that the question - deliberately or not - asked about far left and right.

Yes, to understand these, we need to understand left from right, but dont forget the question which was asked.

jc

Éomer of Rohan

In that case:

Far Left; In most people's view this is Communism at the extreme end and in most cases Stalinism (though personally I view that as Far Right). The collective, as someone said, bears responsibility for it's people and all people. In a Stalinist state, the idea is that that collective is embodied by the government - in Russia this was the Supreme Council of the Soviets of the USSR. Marxist theory which is the ultimate in care of all people is based on the idea "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" on a very basic level (the more intricate levels deal with what happens if there is surplus LOL). Joe Higgins isn't really far left, more democratic socialist which is in the middle.

Far Right; linked to extreme nationalism and xenophobia, militarism, extreme forms of capitalism, survival of the fittest and in it's most extreme form, the idea that one race is SO much better than all the others that they should hold the entire world in subjection - often some form of religious ideology is employed here. Nick Gryffin is a an extreme right winger if you wish for a modern reference.

DadaKopf

Right, to simplify (taking the info from www.politicalcompass.org), the left-right divide essentially describes an economic scale. The far left, would then be a completely controlled economy. The far right scale would be a completely uncontrolled economy.

Viewing socialism versus libertarianism on this scale, left wing economies are characterised by high levels of state ownership of essential services and wealth redistribution. Neo-Liberalism, conversely, is characterised by low/no levels of state ownership of anything and virtually no redistrubution of wealth. The extreme left and far right would refer to the extreme points of the left-right axis.

Equally important is the Authoritarian-Libertarian axis, which illustrates the socio-political dimension. An authoritarian would place the importance of the state above the importance of the individual whereas the libertarian would reverse that. In a sense, this dimension adds the 'flavour' of particular kinds of left-wing and right-wing economics.



Stalin, for example, was an extreme left-wing authoritarian. Jorg Haider, rather than being extreme right-wing, is actually centre-right authoritarian, and Hitler was much more authoritarian than he was right-wing.

This graph makes it very useful in measuring each respective political philosophy's attitude to freedom. People like Margret Thatcher equated freedom to a nearly unbridled market but like her mate Pinochet, was extremely authoritarian - here we see a free market coupled with an unfree society.

Éomer of Rohan

I got a communist libertarian on the political compass - 8.94 to the left and 9.36 to the south was the last score I got I think. It has been ages.

Éomer of Rohan

Libertarianism, conversely, is characterised by low/no levels of state ownership of anything and virtually no redistrubution of wealth.

He means Neo-Liberalism in place of Libertarianism methinks, since libertarianism is to do with personal freedoms etc as opposed to Laissez Faire marketeering which is liberalism

BattleBoar

Very interesting quiz. I got 5.0 to neo-liberal side and -3.23 to the libertarian side. I would be closest to Milton Freidman from the looks of it, although I am more libertarian and less neo-liberal.

Strangely enough, there are no UK politicians in my area...a typical thing unfortunately. :rolleyes:

Incidently, I've always taken issue with the notion of far left and far right as a spectrum of positions that can represent one's political beliefs. The compass seems a much better model.

This two sided spectrum approach is one reason why I so dislike both republicans and democrats in the US. I prefer the traditionally smaller government with fewer social programs that the republican party claims it wants (in reality, the difference is practically non-existant), yet I also greatly prefer the individual liberties aspoused by the democrats (again sadly, there is very little difference).

It seems that the party platforms generally fall into either quadrant 1 or 3, which are both preferable to quadrant 2, but also very much less preferable to me than quadrant 4.

Perhaps this is why I've never voted for either (I vote libertarian), and dissatisfaction with the current 2-party dominated system could very well be a cause of overall voter apathy in the US.

daveg

Thanks for the info guys. I (think) I have a better understanding now. The map helped !!

Moriarty

Just did the test, came out with Economic Left/Right: -4.88, Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.85. So im a moderate liberal leftie. Who would have thought it

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Sparks

Holy crap! I actually came out more liberal left than Ghandi!
Pity it's a lot easier to answer a web-based questionaire than to live it in real life

DadaKopf

Economic Left/Right: -5.75
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.92

Amnesiac_ie

Amnesiac_ie

Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -8.05

shotamoose

Economic Left/Right: -6.00
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.26

Puts me right beside Ken Livingstone, apparently

The Corinthian

This has come up before, so...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=623162#post623162