Left-Right politics

Left-Right politics are traditional terms that represent broad competing political visions, whose meanings have evolved and can sometimes be contradictory, yet widespread acceptance has kept them in use.

Evolution of the terms

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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Nineteenth century - Michael Broers - Reaction - Kingdom of Sardinia - Conservatives - Spanish Constitution of 1812

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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.

Related Topics:
Socialism - Communism - Civilized - Property rights

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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.

Related Topics:
Socialists - European revolutions of that year - Girondist - Marxist - Communist - Russian Revolution - Laissez-faire - Monarchism - Theocracy

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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, though many leftist parties in Europe still will ally with Communist parties (see also eurocommunism) in order to oppose the Right.

Related Topics:
Bolshevik - Stalinist - Communism - Eurocommunism

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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.

Related Topics:
Adolf Hitler - Winston Churchill - Anti-communism

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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.

Related Topics:
Cold War - Social democratic - Liberalism in the United States - Classical liberalism - Social democracy - Anti-Communism - New Left

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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.

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The late 1970s and especially 1980s saw a dramatic fall in the support for Communism, not only in the developed capitalist countries, but also increasingly in less developed world and ultimately in what had been the Communist world. Today, and especially since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, in very few places does "left" connote support for the type of communist states that so dominate China, Laos, and North Korea. While it can still refer to any of a number of varieties of socialism, it often refers to advocacy of some form of participatory economics or even green politics rather than statist socialism.

Related Topics:
Collapse of the Soviet Union - China - Laos - North Korea - Participatory economics - Green politics - Statist socialism

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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 extremist nationalist or racist politics.

Related Topics:
Ancien Régime - 20th century - Revolution - Populist - Nationalist - Fascism - Racist

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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.

Related Topics:
Globalism - Neoconservatism - Paleoconservative - Old right - Localism - Isolationism - Classical liberalism

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