What is Right and Left (politics for numpty's)

What is meant by ” the right”, “the left” and “the centre” when referring to politics?

right tory
centre libs
left labour

Far right BNP
less far right UKIP
Far left Socialist Worker party
less far left Dont think we have one
Policies
Right wing – individual freedom , small state, big business/enterprise/free trade, helping yourself, lower taxes – selfish/ help yourself
Centre mix of the two
Left wing – larger states, nationalisation, help from birth to grave, higher taxes state intervention in the market- help everyone/the community

this is very simplified

It refers to the old tradition of tories sitting on the right of the house and whigs on the left, I think.

Right wing = small government, lots of individual enterprise, flexibility, encouranging small businesses, low tax, low govt spending, more private insurance/eductation and so on.

Left wing = big givernment, big nationalised industries, higher tax, higher spending, favouring state schools, state health, protecting the rights of the workers etc.

That’s leaving judgement out of it. Each approach seems to encourage certain personal traits in the population….

Right – care about themselves and others like them. Traditional weaknesses include lack of empathy for the less priviledged and institutional racism.
Centre – care about themselves and most others but not all. Generally perceived as a bit wishy washy
Left – care about everybody everywhere. Feared by everyone with money.

The tax ones are spin rather than the reality The tax burden has increased for about a century iirc under every govt left or right. All the tories do is switch the burden from the rich to the poor they dont actually reduce the take as a % of GDP – this will start a graph wars

The tax burden has increased for about a century iirc

Well the whole country has moved to the left in the last century. The principle of right wing govt is low tax. Whether or not the UK Tory party actually does that is another issue.

Traditional weakness of the right is making it the individual’s responsibility. So if you fail, it’s your own problem and you deal with the consequences. This is a self centred attitude really. People on the right tend to think that the poor or people in trouble are struggling through their own fault so they deserve what they get.

Traditional weakness of the left is a sense of entitlement. People think the government owes them a living, which results in people not working all that hard and going on strike any time an employer (particularly the government in state run businesses) wants to make changes they don’t like ie efficiency gains.

That’s rather crude of course, but it’s been seen in history in the UK I think and around the world today.

They are not about low tax they are about the rich paying low tax and that is not the same thing

We moved to the left then back to the right unless you want to argue thatcher was left wing,that should really help someone confused understand this

They are not about low tax they are about the rich paying low tax and that is not the same thing

You’re getting into contemporary politics now, I think.

Right wing in general (ie aroung the world) is about low tax. The recent UK tory party has realised that it can get big businesses and important people onside by slashing headline tax rates but they still need to balance the books (because we still have state schools, NHS etc) so they can raise taxes on the poor. Those people will never vote for them anyway so it’s not lost votes.

The reason I say the country has moved to the left is that we now have state school to 16, universities, the NHS, social security and so on which we didn’t have in Victorian times.

Well the whole country has moved to the left in the last century

As more of the population was allowed to vote, not surprising they moved to the left, although it was really after ww2 that there was a real swing to the left as everyone experienced something in which they really were “all in it together”.
Unfortunately since the 80’s when a large proportion of the voters no longer had direct experiences of that shared hardship, it has very much swung to the right.

Molgrips description is largely financial, there is also a social and political aspect.

right wing – individual responsibility.
left wing – shared responsibility.

That’s a good summary MSP.

i might be wrong here but i thought the difference between right and left wing centres on who owns the means of production

In the UK, the right is the right and the left is a group of rich right wingers with politics slightly to the right of the right.

on a scale from left to right:

Labour – Conservatives – Democrats – Republicans

The far left elite would have all their citizens working in the salt mines so they can buy luxury goods produced under sweatshop conditions by the citizens ruled by the far right elite.

The key political takeaway is ‘never trust a communist’.

never trust a communist

The free market, with politics pandering to the rich financiers is every bit as corrupt as anything seen under communism.

The key political takeaway is ‘never trust a communist’.this poster is really right wing

FTFY

😆

Labour – Conservatives – Democrats – Republicans

Labour/Conservatives ————– Democrats – Republicans

The Americans think we’re a bunch of pinko socialists. Which we are compared to them.

Can’t remember the person quoted, but someone once said that anyone wanting to be a politician should be barred from being one.

A different tack. The right viewed from the left. Selfish, greedy, elitist. Promoting greater disparity in wealth, staid.

The left viewed from the right. Profligate, disincentivising hard work, promoting mediocrity by supporting the feckless.

The reality is that the British mainstream left and right are very similar as they have to operate within reasonable norms, otherwise they wouldn’t get elected because, get this, the British public are not as stupid (on the whole) as the politicians would like to believe.

They will happily have the press troll on their behalf, though, getting supposedly respectable columnists to push their agenda. When you look at it like this, the rantings of Peter Hitchens and ravings of George Monbiot are painfully transparent.

Kryton57 – Member

What is meant by ” the right”, “the left” and “the centre” when referring to politics?

A simple definition is ‘maggots’. All of them.

They are all hungry for power in their twisted minds. They are all dishonest.

But Supreme Dear Leader is honest where power is absolute. No arguing or debate, where everyone is treated as maggot and everyone must bow to thank the Supreme Dear Leader for stepping on them.

🙄

Information is Beautiful Left-Right Infographic.[/url]

The right (capitalism) is unfair because people are inherently selfish and too few of the wealthy care for the poor. The left (socialism) is unfair because people are inherently selfish and will abuse any system that tries to distribute wealth and power equally. And as already mentioned, anyone that wants to be a politician shouldn’t be allowed to be a politician.

Personally think the two axis model is more useful: right vs left economics, and authoritarian vs liberal.

The reality is that the British mainstream left and right are very similar as they have to operate within reasonable norms, otherwise they wouldn’t get elected because, get this, the British public are not as stupid (on the whole) as the politicians would like to believe.

Have to agree with this – the differences between Labour and the Conservatives is pretty slim these days.

FTFY

Going Edinburgh, I missed my smiley – although I grew up in the States under Reagan and that was certainly the prevailing view. That said, in STW terms I’m certainly on the right. Without giving it too much thought, if New Labour had been had been more honest and less authoritarian and less war-mongery I think I’d be there.

Labour/Conservatives ————– Democrats – Republicans

Is there mainstream Western party to balance the Republicans on the left and leave Labour and the Conservatives in the middle? The Socialists in France or Greece?

people are inherently selfish

In my experience most people are not, unfortunately it tends to be the selfish, greedy immoral **** who rise to the top under all political systems.

Is there mainstream Western party to balance the Republicans on the left and leave Labour and the Conservatives in the middle? The Socialists in France or Greece?

The Communists still win a fair few seats in Spain, although they’re never going to get into government. The Spanish Socialist party ended up doing all sorts of right wing things when the current recession started, slashing public spending and the like…

The Communists still win a fair few seats in Spain, although they’re never going to get into government.

because the last time they did, the army wouldn’t let them

Right – blue ties
Left – Red ties

As ever its never as simple as right vs left. The link I post every time this discussion come up.

Don’t pay too much attention to the survey its more the concept that right and left is overly simple.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Labour/Conservatives ————– Democrats – Republicans————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————tea party

Far left Socialist Worker party

Totally subjective of course, but I consider the SWP, along with most other Trots, Maoists, etc, to be ultra-leftists. Far-left better describes those who are prepared to work within a capitalist system to achieve immediate gains, as oppose to those who maintain that revolution should be the only goal.

I particularly dislike the meaningless terms centre-right and centre-left. Have confidence in your convictions FFS.

BTW, I don’t believe that the OP didn’t know What is meant by ” the right”, “the left” and “the centre” when referring to politics. I’ve seen enough posts by Kryton57 to know he isn’t that clueless.

——tea party—anarchist.

favourite graph

We are right to be suspicious of all extremists, but while the Nazis on the extreme right represents an obvious recent political evil, Stalin’s communist vision could make the Nazis look like pussycats.

Anyway, it’s probably time we hauled this one out again, seeing as it’s directly relevant to this discussion:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

The test is well worth doing, and sheds a lot of light on the more complex nature of right and left politics.

EDIT: See graph above, then go to the site to see where you fit in, and where all the other parties sit. You’ll be surprised.

Damn. Missed the edit cut-off.

And see now that TheBrick posted the link long before I did. Anyways, here is me:

Someone up there ^said that mainstream British politics are within reasonable normes. Viewed from the inside maybe, from the outside, not at all. What’s with £9000+ university fees and a royal as head of state?

Can’t remember the person quoted, but someone once said that anyone wanting to be a politician should be barred from being one.

I think that’s a corruption of a Douglas Adams quote (referring to president of the galaxy).

Eat Drink the rich

Edukator – Member
Someone up there ^said that mainstream British politics are within reasonable normes. Viewed from the inside maybe, from the outside, not at all. What’s with £9000+ university fees and a royal as head of state?

Having a royal as head of state is not remotely bizarre. Most member states of the Commonwealth maintain a Crown, as do some very well-functioning, liberal, states in Europe. Meanwhile, there are some very smart political philosophers who would argue in favour of constitutional monarchy on sound, reasonable, and liberal social grounds.

It’s how a country legislates that matters.

The law lords!

Most member states of the Commonwealth maintain a Crown

Well that is conclusive then- not exactly pre selecting the sample then is it …face palms

As for constitutional monarchy no one would actually create that notion form scratch as clearly having a monarch is an archaic system – you may as well argue for chieftains and/or clans