And the vast majority in the middle?
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Exactly, a rather too UK centric view IMO.
Precisely - thatâs why the original meaning of âleftâ and ârightâ is a touchstone: itâs not about ideas, or labels, but realities.
But privilege is not just wealth - though these days thatâs probably the most important aspect.
It might be about legal rights, or political representation - womenâs right to own property, for example, or the right of homosexual people to marry. As I mentioned, emphasis changes in different places and times - but the underlying conflict of values between right/privileged/status-quo and left/oppressed-/social-progress remains relatively stable.
Two further aspects I find interesting are:
- that the left generally loses (elections, campaigns, etc) - of course it does - it is by definition the weaker side - we on the left have chosen the weaker side! - but in the long run it generally wins: the cause of social justice, greater equality, human rights - social progress in general - gets reversed at times, in places, but overall, over centuries, it advances; and
- the left is rational - it is based fundamentally on the idea that human reason can shape a better world - it is analytic and evidence-based - âscientificâ, if you like - whereas the right is intrinsically irrational, relying inevitably on âauthorityâ (of rank or might), on superstition/religion, on curtailing free thought and experiment.
If that is correct Geof then the governing party in the Peopleâs Republic of China is surely right wing?
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Iâm a Leftie as left handed but never voted Labour
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Canât quite see your logic there Tim. All societies are complicated mixtures. I donât know any âcapitalistâ economy that comes anywhere near the theorisation of either Adam Smith or Friedrich Hayek - indeed all the actual evidence seems to be that capitalism is unworkable except, temporarily, within a strongly socialist framework (as in the Bretton Woods period in the western developed world). But even then, it depended on ruthless exploitation of other parts of the world, and of course the natural environment.
The current Chinese mixture is absolutely fascinating, in that it out-performs previously dominant rightist economic blueprints in their own terms, and obviously includes rightist threads in terms of social control, etc (preservation of privilege/status-quo). But it might turn out to be more sustainable - who knows?
The important thing to a real understanding of the difference between right and left is not to get stuck in an outdated âcold-warâ conception. Those debates around market v. planned economy, the ownership and control of industry, etc, are precisely the kind of contingent focuses of the underlying right/left division that seem important in particular places and times, but soon change - thinking on the left mostly moved on from that in the 1960s, when both western capitalism and soviet communism came to be seen as equally dependent on the oppression and exploitation of internal or external colonies - and even those perspectives have since obviously been entirely overshadowed by climate/ecological breakdown.
I donât think youâll understand where either the current right or the current left are coming from without grasping this fact: that both embrace different ideas and priorities and policies in different times/places, but which ideas etc they focus on reflect underlying right versus left approaches to life that are relatively stable.
The right now is in the process of abandoning neo-liberalism - this is what Johnson and Trump are all about - largely in response to the leftâs current focus on climate/ecological breakdown.
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Itâs very simple Geof, China is once again one of the most âoppressiveâ countries in the world using âauthorityâ to rule which is apparently a right wing trait.
Why I hate labels so much is they create instant division and dislike. Many have labelled the current Tory government as right wing and racist yet surely that means that everyone who voted for them in the last election should be labelled similarly? How bonkers is that though when many former Labour voters enabled the Tories to obtain such a large majority, are we really saying that these voters went from being socialist to right wing racists overnight?
Well - the subject of the thread seemed to me to be asking what the terms ârightâ and âleftâ really mean - I was just attempting to shed some light on their origin and history, and particularly the fact that there does seem to be an underlying consistency in the way they have been used, but not necessarily at the level of party policy, or as a way of describing whole societies (which are always a messy mixture).
But if you donât like these terms, the answer seems simple to me: donât use them!
But that wonât of course stop other people doing so - nor, perhaps, obviate the need to sometimes understand what they mean.
I certainly do think the UK Tory party is on the extreme right - I think they would prefer climate/ecological breakdown to end civilisation as we know it rather than surrender the privilege they have in the status quo - but I donât think most of their voters believe this - or have even thought about it at all - whether they were formerly Labour or not.
All the evidence is that the vast majority of people in the UK support broadly socialist interventions (like free state healthcare, free state education, a social safety net or welfare state, state ownership of basic infrastructure, taxing wealth, etc, etc). Only about 25% of the electorate actually voted Tory in the last UK election anyway - and half of those, when asked about individual policies without a party âlabelâ, actually preferred Labourâs!
By the way - if you think the idea that climate/ecological breakdown might âend civilisation as we know itâ is extreme, I noticed this article today on testing the predictions of the 1970s book The Limits to Growth - a landmark study that shaped the environmental movement, and, in many ways, my life.
Turns out we are still dead on course to end it allâŚ
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Not surprised.
There is no âexactlyâ Right or Left in politics. It is a broad band of political-thought or preference that goes from the Far Right to the Far Left with many stops in between.
Somewhere in the middle there is a spot for those who think neither Left nor Right but âpersonalityâ - meaning they can take a liking to a political-personality without any concern for their stated party âŚ
And there was me thinking Al Gore invented climate change.
Fun Apple fact: There was a meeting room on the original Apple Campus in Cupertino named after his book, but then there were a bunch with Star Trek references and the meeting rooms in their U.K. office near LHR were named after rock bands.
Thatâs a very problematic perspective Tony.
People that see their politics as âin the middleâ often think of right and left as âideologicalâ but themselves as âpracticalâ (or similar self-descriptions like âa-politicalâ âbalancedâ âpragmaticâ âcommon senseâ etc). But when you look at history (evidence of how people thought, not just events, etc) you find that this âcentreâ is just as shifting ground as left and right. It is indeed in some ways even more dangerous ground, because it doesnât see itself as just another ideological perspective.
This is the key to understanding the problem with the BBC version of âbalanceâ - it sees two sides to a question and assumes the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But as the old saying goes: if a decent journalist wants to know whether itâs raining, they donât ask for a range of opinions, they go outside and see if they get wet.
In most theories of ideology, in fact, the âcentre-groundâ is seen as the most ideological, because it accepts, is locked inside current norms of thought and behaviour, what passes for current âcommon senseâ. When slavery was the norm, centrists believed in a more humane version of slavery; when women had no votes, centrists believed in universal male suffrage; before gay liberation, they thought homosexuality was âqueerâ - etc, etc. Only now, with their 20-20 hindsight, can centrists see that in fact the left-activists of past times were perfectly correct (but, mysteriously, they still see todayâs left as wrong!)
It is in our own time a particularly dangerous ideology, because itâs basic proposition (ie. things are not too bad, thereâs not really any alternative to capitalism, it would be nice to make life more comfortable for everyone but thereâs not much we can do) is not adequate to the scale of the climate/ecological crisis we are facing. This is where, now, the âbalancedâ view hits the rock of the truth - which (unfortunately for centrists) doesnât lie anywhere near the middle-ground.
The political formation in âthe westâ today is pretty much this: almost every expert that actually understands what is happening to the planet, and people on the left, versus a centre that doesnât deny the science but doesnât think anything much can be done, or canât be bothered, and a right that (as always) denies the science, or doesnât care.
I read this article with despair. How bloody stupid are we 
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Right now, today, the problem in America is the shifting of upper-income taxation that has come about in the past 30 years starting with, of all presidents, Jack Kennedy. Who lowered upper-income taxation to please his father (because he had help finance his election).
The Republican Party continued with the effort and it has ended up (after half a century) at around 40%, down from 90% as shown on the graphic. (See here if interested.) Americans seem complacent about the notion that upper-income should have a maximum. So, it will go on-and-on-and on.
Ad nauseam ⌠- it should be put back at 90% for all income above a megabuck âŚ
Yes - and itâs not just America: there is a very clear correlation in recent economic history between high tax rates and general prosperity. As I commented in another thread:
Only really in the âBretton Woodsâ period - approximately the 30 years 1945-75 - was capitalism made to work reasonably for some of the world - basically by constraining it within a socialist framework (the welfare state, etc), strict regulation of monopolies, currencies, etc, and very high redistributive taxation (90% marginal rates).
Added to this, of course. it emerged that the âLaffer curveâ - the supposed inverse relationship between high marginal tax rates and the sums actually collected - was never based either on any coherent theory or real evidence - it was in fact just invented! In a bar! It goes alongside Sir Cyril Burtâs original justification for the 11-plus and grammar school system (for which he simply invented research findings) as a âfactoidâ (an accepted truth we really know to be false) that has shaped right-wing policy for years and is still frequently repeated even though everybody now knows its a lie!
However, in the other thread I go on to warnâŚ
But even then, this [the short period of relative stability and âsuccessâ of capitalism] was only for part of the world, was dependent on exploitation of much of the rest - and moreover on the historic wealth retained in the developed world from the previous period of slavery and colonialism - and, I suspect, was only possible in the immediate shadow of the terrible shock of the second world war and holocaust, and the perceived threat of communism.
It may well be that when future historians look back across the whole history of capitalism from the end of the medieval period to global climate/ecological breakdown, their judgement will be that it always led to unacceptable exploitation, slavery, colonialism, depression, war - and more loss of life than any other social system in history - except for one very brief and very exceptional period after 1945.
â except for the periods when some form of socialism was doing the same thing.
It is clear that polarisation between different political factions is a huge impediment to actually resolving the mess we are in.
It also seems to be the case that throughout time any political movement on any spectrum can effectively warp into a dark and dismal display of human cruelty.
And yet changes and solutions are also possible even if these will inevitably be hijacked again by more malevolent forces at some point - human nature doesnât change.
Opening lines of communication between communities/factions may not be easy but it has to happen if we are not all going to stand around arguing as the world burns.
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Exactly. Itâs in the interests of the extremists - which includes people on the Left and Right - to demonise their opponents, to shut down discussion, to no-platform anyone with unacceptable views.
What I find really depressing is that many younger people have a bloc of ideas which they have swallowed whole as the current orthodoxy, without ever having been exposed to a different view and without ever needing to defend their views (and certainly without ever having tried to find out why those whose views differ came to that conclusion).
The result, of course, is that the only thing they are capable of doing is to repeat slogans and no-platform their opponents.
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