Left-Right politics
Left-Right politics or the
Left-Right political spectrum is a common way of classifying political positions,
political ideologies, or
political parties along a one-dimensional
political spectrum.
Left
vs. Right is an imprecise, broad,
dialectical interpretation of a set of factors or determinants.
"The Left" and
"the Right" are usually understood to represent polar opposites for each determinant, though a particular individual or party may take a "left" stance on one matter and a "right" stance on another.
Despite the popularity of the terms, there is no fixed set of factors that can describe "the left" or "the right." The meanings of the terms are thus largely based on
consensus. There are also many opinions about what is actually being measured by the two terms:
*
Fair outcomes are left; fair processes are right. Classic
liberalism is process-based, an example being the
free market.
Robert Nozick is one of the 20th century theorists who emphasised this distinction between "historical" and "end-result" principles (
Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York, 1974, pp. 153-155). On the other hand, adherents of
modern liberalism such as
John Rawls (
A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, 1971) argue for classically leftist policies using process-based reasoning, while some
neoconservatives favour the use of military force to establish
democracy as an end result. Among the politicians who support this distinction is
Australian Labor Party ex-leader
Mark Latham.
*
Rejecting the inequality that results from the free market is left; accepting it is right. Generally, the political debate is about the extent to which the government should (
interventionism) or should not (
laissez-faire) intervene in the economy in order to benefit the poor. The
Nolan chart proposes this as one of its axes of distinction between left and right. However, state intervention does not necessarily imply
redistribution of wealth or
egalitarian policies: some types of intervention such as most government intervention on behalf of business interests are more opposed by the left than the right.
*
Preference for a "larger" government is left; preference for a "smaller" government is right. Large and small here refer to policies and attitudes, although the number of government employees is often used as an indicator. Some, noting the existence of such factions as the
authoritarian right,
libertarian socialists,
anarchists and the
old right, see this as an entirely separate political axis, perpendicular to the left-right one.
*
Equality is left; liberty is right. Two writers who characterise the distinction along these lines are
Norberto Bobbio and
Danielle Allen. In his book
Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction, Bobbio argues that the only valid difference between left and right is people's attitude to the ideal of equality, as only the left wants to protect or promote equalities and only the right wants to protect or promote inequalities. Left-wingers and right-wingers alike tend to speak in favour of both equality and liberty, but they have different interpretations of each of the two terms.
*
A secular government is left; a religious government is right. This distinction is highly relevant in the United States,
India, the Catholic countries in Europe, (where
anti-clericalism characterises the left), and to some extent in the
Middle East.
*
Collectivism is left; individualism is right. However, emphasis on personal freedom was one of the hallmarks of the 1960s
counterculture, which is typically classed as left, and in religious/secular conflicts, secularists usually promote individual liberty and
freedom of religion over collective, common religious values. However, both
old rightists and
fascists may hold to an "organic concept of the state" which has collectivist elements or sees the nation as a collective entity.
*
Innovation is left; conservatism is right. Although in some countries 'right' and 'conservative' are used loosely as
synonyms, this aspect gets little attention in discussion of the left-right axis. The American left writer
Eric Hoffer was one of those who emphasised it.
*
The idea that law dictates culture is left; the idea that culture dictates law is right. This formulation was put forward by US Senator
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, but is prefigured by
Edmund Burke.
*
Support for national independence, autonomy and sovereignty, especially for smaller groups is left; support only for established states and governments is right. Certain groups may be considered
terrorists by the right but
freedom fighters by the left. Movements of the right usually support the
sovereignty of their own state, and oppose its erosion. In Europe, support for the
European Union came traditionally from the left, and defence of national sovereignty from the right.
*
Internationalism and cosmopolitan attitudes are left; national interests are right. Economic nationalism or
protectionism is found on both the left and the right, with leftist protectionism aiming at the safety of domestic jobs, while rightist protectionism is aimed at the protection of business and economy.
*
Diplomacy is left; military force is right. This formulation was proposed by the political philosopher
Charles Blattberg. (Blattberg 2001, p.20
et.seq.)
*
The idea that human nature and society are malleable is left; the idea that they are fixed is right. This is an example of the "
nurture or nature" argument. It was proposed as a definition of the left-right dichotomy by
Thomas Sowell.
*
The idea that human beings are naturally good is left; the idea that they are naturally evil is right. Here the left holds that
evil and suffering are the products of an unfair society which should be fixed, while the right holds that they are inescapable elements of the
human condition.
Writers have also been known to use the term more loosely and perhaps anachronistically, as did H. G. Wells when, writing of the
Jews of the Roman Empire, he refers to the
Pharisees as "on the right" and Hellenised Jews such as the
Sadducees as "of the left." (
The Outline of History, New York, Garden City Publishing Company, 1931, p.527.)
Historical origin of the terms
The terms
Left and
Right have been used to refer to political affiliation since the early part of the
French Revolutionary era. They originally referred to the seating arrangements in the
various legislative bodies of
France, specifically in the French
Legislative Assembly of
1791, when the moderate royalist
Feuillants sat on the right side of the chamber, while the radical
Montagnards sat on the left.
Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum was attitudes towards the
ancien régime ("old order"). "The Right" thus implied support for aristocratic, royal, or clerical interests, while "The Left" implied opposition to the same. At that time, support for
laissez-faire capitalism and
free markets were regarded as being on the left whereas today in most Western countries these views would be characterized as being on the Right. But even during the French Revolution an extreme left wing called for government intervention in the economy on behalf of the poor.
In
Great Britain at that time,
Edmund Burke (now generally described as a conservative) held similar economic views to this first French Left. Nonetheless, he strongly criticized their
anti-clericalism and their willingness to turn to mob violence for support and to overturn institutions of long standing. Burke's
Reflections on the Revolution in France criticized the Left as excessively rationalistic and disrespecting of the wisdom of tradition.
During the French Revolution, the definition of who was on the left and who on the right shifted greatly within only a few years. Initially, leaders of the Constituent Assembly like
Antoine Barnave and
Alexandre de Lameth, who supported a very limited monarchy and a unicameral legislature, were seen as being on the left, in opposition to more conservative leaders who hoped for a more British-style constitutional monarchy, and to those who opposed the revolution outright. By the time of the convening of the
Legislative Assembly in
1791, their party, now called the
Feuillants, had come to be seen as on the right due to its support for any form of monarchy, and for the limited franchise of the 1791 Constitution. By the time of the
National Convention only a year later, the
Girondins, who had been on the left in the Legislative Assembly due to their support for external war to spread the revolution, and strong dislike for the king, had themselves come to be seen as being on the right due to their ambivalence about the overthrow of the monarchy, their opposition to Louis's execution, and their dislike for the city of Paris, which had come to see itself as the heart of the Revolution.
It should be emphasized that in these years there was little in their views of economic policy to distinguish the various factions of the French Revolution from one another. Both
Montagnards on the (1792-1793) left and
Monarchiens on the (1789) right were essentially
orthodox liberals on economic matters, although the Montagnards proved more willing than other groups to court popular favor in Paris by agreeing to (temporary) economic controls in 1793, and there were indeed economic radicals to the left of the Montagnards who insisted on genuine economic redistribution to achieve the
Egalité promised by the revolutionary slogan.
Instead, the focus of ideological differences during the revolution had much more to do with attitudes towards the Revolution itself - whether it was a horror against God and Nature to be turned back and destroyed, a necessary rupture with the past that must (at some point) be brought to a close so order and good government could be restored, or a necessary and permanent feature of French political life. For the most part, nearly all of the political figures of the Revolution itself held the middle position, and disagreed largely on at what point it was time to call the Revolution fulfilled.
After the revolution settled down in
1794 following the fall of
Robespierre on
9 Thermidor, a more clear-cut political spectrum began to emerge - on the left were Jacobins, former supporters of Robespierre and the Terror, who longed to see the restoration of the democratic
Constitution of 1793; on the right were the monarchists, who hoped to restore a monarchy, whether constitutional or absolute; and in the center were the Thermidorians, who wrote the
Constitution of 1795 and hoped that the limited republic of the
Directory would stand in the middle position between these two extremes. The failure of the Directory did little to change these basic political alignments - Jacobins and Monarchists remained, and most of those who had initially supported the Directory came to support the dictatorship, and eventually the rule as emperor, of
Napoleon Bonaparte.
It was during this period of retrenchment in France itself that the idea of the left-right political spectrum began to be exported to the rest of Europe. As the French conquered and annexed lands beyond the French border, it was again the issue of attitudes towards the French Revolution, which largely determined political alignment. With the rise of Napoleon, though, matters became more complicated, as those outside France who had supported the Revolution were forced to decide whether this also meant supporting Napoleon's dictatorship. At the same time, the traditional rulers of the other states of Europe - whether Napoleon's enemies in
Austria and
Prussia, or dependent rulers in German states like
Bavaria, often came to a nuanced position on Napoleon and the Revolution's legacy, hoping to import many of the centralizing reforms which had brought the old regime to an end and allowed, it seemed, Napoleon's great victories, without opening the way for the chaos and violence of the Terror.
It was in this spirit that the statesmen of Europe came together after Napoleon's defeat in
1814 to reconstitute Europe at the
Congress of Vienna. Rather than restoring the old regime wholesale, the conservative statesmen at Vienna (men like
Prince Metternich and
Lord Castlereagh) hoped to arrive at the best system to maintain order, if necessary through judicious use of the reforms of the French Revolution. In France itself a similar spirit prevailed in the person of the restored Bourbon
Louis XVIII, who realized that a full restoration of the Old Regime was impossible.
The meaning of the terms Left and Right has evolved over time; it has also spread from a specifically French context to a European (or at least continental) context to a worldwide context.
Europe in the early
nineteenth century found itself with a variety of political outlooks that were easily fit into a left-right model of a political spectrum. As described by historians like
Michael Broers, we see on the far right the forces of
Reaction, who hoped for a wholesale restoration of the
ancien régime, including traditional privileges and limits on central authority. Although governments to retain support frequently used these elements, in only a few cases (most notably the
Kingdom of Sardinia) were reactionary policies actually put into effect. To the left of the reactionaries came more moderate
conservatives who were willing to accept some of the outcomes of the French Revolution, in particular those elements which led to greater state power, and favored autocratic central control - whether at the expense of traditional estates or liberal parliaments. To their left appear the liberals, who hoped for representative governments and respect for civil liberties. In practice, though, the distinction between liberals and conservatives could be vague - notably, in states with parliaments, conservatives were willing to work with representative government when necessary. To the left of the liberals came various stripes of radicals and republicans, who favored the overthrow of monarchies and the establishment of universal suffrage either on the model of the
Spanish Constitution of 1812 or the French one of 1793.
Over time it became clear that there was something to the left of that "left": the precursors of
socialism and
communism. The original left, and their radical or republican descendants, had stood for a certain abstract equality of rights, but this emerging
socialist left stood for a more radical notion of equality: in its more extreme forms, for an absolute leveling of wealth and a willingness to use the power of the state to achieve that postulated "equality". The traditional right views
civilized society as existing primarily to defend
property rights.
As late as 1848, even with the participation of
socialists in the
European revolutions of that year, many liberals, with essentially the same politics as the
Girondists of 1791, and certainly the radicals and republicans, remained considered unequivocally part of the Left. However, the increasing importance of socialist, anarchist, and especially
Marxist Communist politics over the next century would steadily move the scale farther to the left, so that by the time of the
Russian Revolution, many would confine the use of the term
Left to Communists, or at least socialists. Increasingly, and especially in economics, the
laissez-faire views that once defined the Left came to be characterized as a rightist position. The right wing of absolutist
monarchism or
theocracy became increasingly rare, and is practically non-existent in the west today.
The
Bolsheviks were certainly "of the left", and the advocates of
Stalinist, Soviet-style
communism considered themselves to be "leftist". Most Western leftists would now dispute at least the Stalinist claim to Leftism, due to the general suspension of even non-economic liberties and the gross inequities created by Stalinists and Maoists in practice.
In different countries at different times,
Left and
Right have been differently understood, and the farther one gets in time and space from late 19th-century Europe, the less likely there is to be clear consensus on the use or even the applicability of the terms. For example, in speaking of 1930s Europe, there is little consensus on what is meant by
Right beyond an opposition to Bolshevism. Although
Adolf Hitler in Germany and
Winston Churchill in the United Kingdom were both characterized in their own countries as right-wing, there was obviously a tremendous difference between the two leaders' policies, and even their
anti-communism was expressed in radically different ways.
Similarly, during the
Cold War in the United States, there was no significant socialist presence in electoral politics, and very little overt
social democratic presence. Instead
liberalism in the United States, blending elements of
classical liberalism with elements of
social democracy, came to constitute the electoral left. The
Right, in its original European sense, was associated with the defense of a traditional political order that had never existed in the United States. Virtually every elected official during this period in the United States took a stance of
anti-Communism; it was not until the mid-1960s that the
New Left arose and, in some cases, proclaimed its "anti-anti-Communism", without, for the most part, actively embracing Communism.
Meanwhile, in Western Europe, social democratic parties often participated in, or even led, governments; in several Western European countries, Communist parties remained an important part of the political landscape, to the point where what constituted the "left" of U.S. electoral politics would be considered "
centrist" in Europe.
As with
Left, the meaning of
Right changed over time. By the late 19th century, virtually no one in Western Europe advocated a return to the societal organization of the
Ancien Régime; instead,
Right generally came to refer to those who wished to uphold any form of monarchy or aristocracy, those who held conservative religious views, or those who merely wished to defend the now-entrenched interests of that same bourgeoisie that had been coming into its own in 1789. The first half of the
20th century saw the rise of
revolutionary right-wing
populist and
nationalist currents, notably
fascism, that were distinct from the older right-wing political currents that continued to exist alongside them.
Right is still used by some to refer to radical nationalist or
racist politics.
In recent years, with the rise of
globalism and
neoconservatism on the right, the term
paleoconservative (the "
old right") has emerged to describe the
localism,
isolationism and
classical liberalism of the right wing of years recently passed.
These terms are widely used in the modern United States, but as on the global level, there is no firm consensus about their meaning. The only aspect which is generally agreed upon is that they are the defining opposites of the United States
political spectrum. "Left" and "right" in the U.S. are associated with "liberal" and "conservative," respectively, although the meanings of the two sets of terms do not entirely coincide. Depending on the political affiliation of the individual using them, these terms can be spoken with varying implications.
The contemporary
left in the United States is usually defined as a category including social democrats, socialists, communists, and some anarchists. Liberals are also commonly seen as being on the left (see
Liberalism in the United States for more on this issue).Due to the extensive pejorative use of the term
liberal, some parts of the American left decided in the 1980s to begin using the term "progressive" instead.
In general,
left implies a commitment to
egalitarianism, support for a 'liberal' social policy and
multiculturalism. In contrast to the original meaning of "left", the contemporary left is usually characterized as promoting government regulation of business, commerce, and industry, and government intervention on behalf of the poor, and the racial, ethnic, and sexual
minorities.
The contemporary
right in the United States is usually defined as a category including
Republicans,
classical liberals,
Christian democrats, and some
libertarians. It is [variously] defined by its upholding of constitutional law, protection of fundamental rights, opposition to governmental regulation and income redistribution, immigration control, and opposition to
reverse discrimination. These stances are motivated by traditional values (
conservatism), protection of freedom and the rights of private individuals (
libertarianism), or doubts about the benefits or efficacy of governmental regulation.
See main article political spectrum.Some contemporary political positions, such as the position known in the US as "
libertarianism", are very hard to characterize in left-right terms. These libertarians are socially liberal, but reject the leftist advocacy of government regulation of business, or the protectionism of the right. Arguably, their politics are the most similar to those of the
classical liberalism of the old left of
1789.
Many modern thinkers question whether the left-right distinction is even relevant in the 21st century. After all, in most countries left-right appears more a matter of historical contingency and local politics than any coherent statement of principle. After
World War II, in order to remain politically relevant, the Western European right embraced most "leftist" aspects of government intervention in society. Similarly, many on the left went along with
privatization and
anti-communism of the
Reagan-
Thatcher era.
*
Political compass*
Political spectrum*
Nolan Chart*
World's Smallest Political Quiz*
Sinistrisme* Charles Blattberg
Political Philosophies and Political Ideologies (
PDF); online, previous version published in
Public Affairs Quarterly 15, No. 3 (July 2001) 193–217.
*
V. I. Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder (1920) V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, English edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 2.
*
The Political Compass - an innovative view of the political spectrum and left/right differences
*
The World's Smallest Political Quiz
