Defining right and left wing

[madd0ct0r]

I'm searching for axioms, not just a description of a bunch of independent interests.

This is following on from another thread where I learnt my preffered rule is less commonly accepted than I thought. For the record it is:
"right wing politics is that which follows from the assumption that people will behave as badly as they can get away with. Left wing politics assumes that people can all receive a net benefit if they cooperate.

Obviously the two are not mutually exclusive and there's a certain amount of spectrum blurriness there

[Prometheus Unbound]

You can't. There is no axiom which covers all right or all left wing politics, from the centre to communism or fascism on either side.

[Purple]

"Left" and "right" them self are misnomers really. As categories they are not only far too broad but also not strictly disjunctive. This is especially true now a days as the term "left" has expanded to include stuff such as classical liberalism and even neo-liberalism (SJW's), the later of which is much closer to what would traditionally be considered a right wing ideology. Really the smartest thing you can do is not to try and find a definition but to abandon both terms completely.

[jwl]

Right wing=more market forces, left wing=more government spending. Just stick with those definitions, anything else is too complicated to be useful.

[trekky0623]

There are so many factors as to what is left- and right-wing as to be completely useless as actual descriptors for all of political thought. It is mainly used to show two ideas as diametrically opposed, and this could refer to economics (state-controlled or free market?), the government's role (authoritarian or libertarian?), or policies on social issues, which change every year, but mainly seems to be consistent in that right = conservative, reactionary, and left = progressive, liberal. The left is the party of movement, the right is the party of resistance. Of these, I generally prefer to use left and right as descriptors for economics.

Rather than a line, why not think on a 2-D plane, like Political Compass does? The x-axis describes left and right politics solely as an economic measure, while the y-axis measures opinions on government control, from completely libertarian to completely authoritarian. You literally have 100% more descriptive power than before.

[Elheru Aran]

Personally I consider it somewhat of a strange U-shape rather than a line. Extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing are pretty similar. Ultra-libertarian and ultra-anarchist are largely interchangeable.

To put it vaguely: Left wing tends to believe the government should help its citizens through social welfare and increased infrastructure. Right wing tends to believe that the citizenry should help itself for the most part and the government primarily exists to protect and administer the country as a whole. There can be a lot of blah-blah in there about private business, capitalism, etcetera. In general (but not always!), the left will be more socially progressive and liberal, while the right wing will be socially static at best, regressive otherwise, and conservative (to varying degrees).

[madd0ct0r]

this is all very good and descriptive, but there must be assumptions underpinning these schools of thought.

[K. A. Pital]

I find the attempts to do away with the "left and right" division a tactical ploy by the oligarchy to make people apolitical, not interested in finding out the details of what political movements actually mean.

That said, even one axis (without any "planes") with the following points: left anarchy / communism > social democracy > centrism > neoliberalism / right-wing authoritarianism > fascism is quite potent and can describe a lot. Right-wing anarchism - that should have logically followed the end point of this scale - is a non-entity (usually because you can't be holier than the Pope - corporations don't hate government to the point of willing to dismantle it entirely; they usually want to coopt it - minarchism and fascism are not "mutuallye exclusive", Pinochet be my witness. Therefore the right-wing anarchists are just self-motivated lunatics without any real political influence).

[jwl]

Personally I consider it somewhat of a strange U-shape rather than a line. Extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing are pretty similar. Ultra-libertarian and ultra-anarchist are largely interchangeable.

To put it vaguely: Left wing tends to believe the government should help its citizens through social welfare and increased infrastructure. Right wing tends to believe that the citizenry should help itself for the most part and the government primarily exists to protect and administer the country as a whole. There can be a lot of blah-blah in there about private business, capitalism, etcetera. In general (but not always!), the left will be more socially progressive and liberal, while the right wing will be socially static at best, regressive otherwise, and conservative (to varying degrees).

I've always thought of anarchism as hard right-wing. I don't really see how it can be defined as left-wing in any way, it's the same position with different reasons behind it. In fact it seems the most right-wing position possible. Even people who self-identify as libertarian agree on funding for police and a defensive military, anarchists want to cut even that.

[trekky0623]

I've always thought of anarchism as hard right-wing. I don't really see how it can be defined as left-wing in any way, it's the same position with different reasons behind it. In fact it seems the most right-wing position possible. Even people who self-identify as libertarian agree on funding for police and a defensive military, anarchists want to cut even that.

I think anarchism is put on the left side because it is so far from the status quo, and the left side is usually reserved for progressive, movement politics versus reactionary, stationary politics on the right. Think French revolution type of leftism. Plus, most serious anarchism is focused on doing away with individual property and ownership in favor of community resources, in contrast with anarcho-capitalism.

[Purple]

Rather than a line, why not think on a 2-D plane, like Political Compass does? The x-axis describes left and right politics solely as an economic measure, while the y-axis measures opinions on government control, from completely libertarian to completely authoritarian. You literally have 100% more descriptive power than before.

Because a 2D plane is woefully inadequate. You basically need an N dimensional graph with something like at least a dozen dimensions.
Just off the top of my hat we have:

• Social issues and welfare
• Civil rights and freedoms
• Economic rights and freedoms
• Political rights and freedoms
• How big the state should be (anarchism vs statism)
• Who the enemy is (other nation, race, class etc.)
• etc. etc. etc.

And you'll find that all left and right wing movements pick and chose sides in this category. Quite often sides you would not expect them to hold. And quite often these are held by both sides. In fact, what constitutes "left" and "right" in a particular context often boils down to two very similar groups with mostly overlapping but in some areas radically opposed views. Hitler vs Stalin being a classic example of this. That's why I genuinely do agree with K.A. on this.

---

As for the rest I have two things to say:
1. He who thinks that right wing is about the state not investing money to help people should look at the public works done by the Nazis and other right wing regimes.

2. He who thinks anarchism is either left or right wing is wrong on both counts. Anarchism is an ideology independent of sides and accepted by a number of people from each. You can just as easily have anarcho-capitalists as you can anarchy-communists. History is full of both.

[Elheru Aran]

As far as the Nazi public works go, that's in a country with a tradition of socialist government programs (Prussia/Germany). Public works aren't uncommon in dictatorial regimes-- they help the population feel that the government is helping "progress", giving people something to do, and making their country look good. Having a government tightly under control also helps, as there's less dissent to ramming the funding for these works through...

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

You have to disambiguate social and fiscal politics.

Social liberals believe that society needs to change, and the sooner the better. Social conservatives believe that change should be slower and more measured, and we shouldn't abandoned traditions that have stood the test of time.

Fiscal liberals believe that societies need lots of infrastructure, support, and social services, even if it means high taxes. Fiscal conservatives believe that the free market does a much better job of achieving outcomes than the government and therefore the government should be allocated as little income and capital as possible to provide basic services.

Fiscally, both sides seem to have been replaced with magical thinking in the US. People want all the perks of big government along with a Brobdingnagian military but want to pay for it with record low taxes. "Liberals" are willing to raise taxes a small amount, but only on the ultra-wealthy (whose individual wealth is vast but whose numbers are too small to make a big impact on the overall govt budget). "Conservatives" think there are trillions of dollars of undefined waste and millions of people living lavish lifestyles on the dole, and so you can hack away at services and it will only affect undeserving leeches. No one worries much about the deficit unless it's being used as an excuse to kick poor people in the teeth, usually with an infinitesimal or even negative effect on net revenue.

[Elheru Aran]

Context is also important in shaping perception of what constitutes 'right' and 'left'. Northern and Western Europe, for example, are notoriously more left (generally) than the States, to the point where a 'centrist' position in those parts of Europe would be considered 'liberal' in the States. History is important as well-- due to a longer tradition of Socialist parties in Europe, it's a more acceptable political position to hold there than in the US, where Socialism was demonized by painting it with the same brush as the Communists. You can see this in light of the difficulty Bernie Sanders has had in being accepted as a legitimate Presidential candidate.

[Borgholio]

Socialism was demonized by painting it with the same brush as the Communists.

That is the biggest pet peeve I have when discussing social services with people. First I have to break them of the idea that Socialism = Communism, then I have to point out that the US has had Socialist policies since 1935 in the form of Social Security, Welfare, Public Education, ect...and everybody was fine with them until healthcare for some reason made people go berserk.

[Elheru Aran]

Socialism was demonized by painting it with the same brush as the Communists.

That is the biggest pet peeve I have when discussing social services with people. First I have to break them of the idea that Socialism = Communism, then I have to point out that the US has had Socialist policies since 1935 in the form of Social Security, Welfare, Public Education, ect...and everybody was fine with them until healthcare for some reason made people go berserk.

Hell, we even had socialized health care (albeit only for elderly and disabled) across the country, and some states had it for everybody, and things didn't go to shit. It's just really stupid and how much the specific term was demonized when the actual political concept, or elements of it at least, have been working just fine in various countries.

Part of it though was that there was a rather dramatic terrorist turn that some Socialists took in the latter part of the 19th century, though those trains of political thought shared a lot with Anarchism IIRC. That made it difficult for a lot of people to tell the two apart, and when Leon Czolgosz killed William McKinley, that turned most Americans against the movement in general. It did get a bit of a boost in the early 20th, and Roosevelt's establishment of various policies helped, but that whole "Socialist=bad" meme was still there. The Red Scare smacked it down pretty thoroughly after that.

[Borgholio]

The Red Scare smacked it down pretty thoroughly after that.

I'm convinced that the fact they named themselves the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics was pretty much the nail in the coffin.

[K. A. Pital]

There is some confusion between social-democratic and socialist policies (due to the fact they do often overlap and that the came out of the same broad movement that underwent many splits in the early XX century).

[madd0ct0r]

Rather than a line, why not think on a 2-D plane, like Political Compass does? The x-axis describes left and right politics solely as an economic measure, while the y-axis measures opinions on government control, from completely libertarian to completely authoritarian. You literally have 100% more descriptive power than before.

Because a 2D plane is woefully inadequate. You basically need an N dimensional graph with something like at least a dozen dimensions.
Just off the top of my hat we have:

• Social issues and welfare
• Civil rights and freedoms
• Economic rights and freedoms
• Political rights and freedoms
• How big the state should be (anarchism vs statism)
• Who the enemy is (other nation, race, class etc.)
• etc. etc. etc.

And you'll find that all left and right wing movements pick and chose sides in this category. Quite often sides you would not expect them to hold. And quite often these are held by both sides. In fact, what constitutes "left" and "right" in a particular context often boils down to two very similar groups with mostly overlapping but in some areas radically opposed views. Hitler vs Stalin being a classic example of this. That's why I genuinely do agree with K.A. on this.

---

As for the rest I have two things to say:
1. He who thinks that right wing is about the state not investing money to help people should look at the public works done by the Nazis and other right wing regimes.

2. He who thinks anarchism is either left or right wing is wrong on both counts. Anarchism is an ideology independent of sides and accepted by a number of people from each. You can just as easily have anarcho-capitalists as you can anarchy-communists. History is full of both.

Sorry purple, I'm just using your post as it most clearly explains my argument.

What I'm arguing is that, yes, you can arrange political movements on a spectrum or a 2d cube or an n dimensional matrix. BUT those dimensions are not necessarily independent. all of the dimensions concern human socueties and your model of how humans work will underpin mych of that. where a movement falls on a large number of them may be derived from a few assumptions about human nature, and its those axioms I'm hunting.
why? Partly for fun, partly to keep my beliefs cogent but also to see which groups are compatible in their base assumptions.

[Purple]

Sorry purple, I'm just using your post as it most clearly explains my argument.

What I'm arguing is that, yes, you can arrange political movements on a spectrum or a 2d cube or an n dimensional matrix. BUT those dimensions are not necessarily independent. all of the dimensions concern human socueties and your model of how humans work will underpin mych of that. where a movement falls on a large number of them may be derived from a few assumptions about human nature, and its those axioms I'm hunting.
why? Partly for fun, partly to keep my beliefs cogent but also to see which groups are compatible in their base assumptions.

That's the problem. If you distill the "left" and "right" down to their base axioms you really will find that there are none. Instead you'll find a bunch of movements that can only be represented the way I described that have over time taken up or been labeled as one of the two often irregardless of their actual positions. That's why you'll find that anarcho-capitalists have more in common with anarchy-communists than with say Hitler and why Stalinists have more in common with him than with say North European Socialists. Etc. Etc.

This is further complicated by the fact that many groups, especially those that get into positions of power and authority will often have beliefs and behaviors divergent from the dogma they are preaching. So which do you believe and classify them by? What they are doing or what they are saying their intentions with those acts are?

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Red Scare smacked it down pretty thoroughly after that.

I'm convinced that the fact they named themselves the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics was pretty much the nail in the coffin.

Purely in terms of names, I doubt fighting WW2 against the National Socialists helped much either. Yes, I know that the Nazis were about as far from socialism as you can get, but the name is enough to deter people.

[salm]

There is some confusion between social-democratic and socialist policies (due to the fact they do often overlap and that the came out of the same broad movement that underwent many splits in the early XX century).

I think this confusion goes so far that the word "socialism" has a completely different meaning in the US than here.
When people in the US hear the word socialism they think about social welfare and nationalised healthcare.
Here people think about former East Germany or the USSR whereas healthcare is seen as bog standard social democracy. The connection between healthcare and socialism doesn´t exist.

[Borgholio]

Purely in terms of names, I doubt fighting WW2 against the National Socialists helped much either. Yes, I know that the Nazis were about as far from socialism as you can get, but the name is enough to deter people.

That's pretty much what I say when people ask, "Well why do you support Socialism when the USSR was evil?". I reply, "Well, why do you support Democracy when the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea is evil?"

That pretty much breaks their brain.

[Kingmaker]

Bizarre as it may be, I find myself agreeing with Purple's general premise. I don't think there's some underlying political axioms that define left vs right (other than pro and anti status quo, but that doesn't say anything about the content, and even that has some notable issues). Political positions are relative to their context. In the state of nature, Hobbes is a leftist. In a liberal democracy, he's a hardcore reactionary. An ardent communist in the USA today is a radical leftist; in the Soviet Union they're mainstream and a bit conservative.

At least in the US, "left" and "right" are both amalgams of factions with widely disparate motives and interests. A Silicon Valley libertarian, an SJM progressive, and a working-class union member have basically nothing in common (and would probably all hate each other), but they are all on the American left.

Psychology probably offers a better explanation than political/ideological axioms.

That's pretty much what I say when people ask, "Well why do you support Socialism when the USSR was evil?". I reply, "Well, why do you support Democracy when the People's Democratic Republic of North Korea is evil?"

That pretty much breaks their brain.

[Borgholio]

Eh?