The Folly Of Political Wings

[Elliot Kane]

The Folly Of Political 'Wings'

I have always said that neither the Left nor the Right holds all the answers when it comes to politics, but it has just occurred to me that I have never fully explained why this is so. Time to remedy the error. It'll help if you are familiar with the way I use the terms Order & Chaos, but all will be explained as I go thoough regardless, so it should not (I hope) be necessary to read other tracts in order to understand this one.

Nonetheless, you should be aware, as ever, that all my theories are tied together, and my analysis of 'Wing' politics is no exception.

Important terms

Order: is the force of stability. It values rigid structures and conformity combined with long term thinking. It wants everything to stay the same.

Chaos: is the force of change. It values a lack of structure with individuality and short term thinking. It wants everthing to constantly change.

Applied to politics, I'm sure you see the point already, but there's no harm in making the point completely:

The Political Right: see change as an enemy. They are concerned with ensuring there is a rigid and unchanging social structure, clamping down on social mobility and making sure that everything runs the same way as it did in Great-Grandad's time. The system is the main thing to the Right, and if individuals get crushed in the process, well, it's a small price to pay: the needs and welfare of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The Right looks to the long term future, and plans accordingly. They place responsibility above rights.

The Political Left: see any kind of structure as a bar to social mobility and a tool of opression. They want to change the world by demolishing the system to free the people from its yoke. They place individual freedom above any structure, and place the welfare of the individual above that of the system, which they see as outmoded and obsolete. The Left sees only the short term, and leaves planning to other people. They place rights above responsibility.

Embarassing, aren't they? Two wings of the same plane, trying to fly in opposite directions. Neither sees value in the tenets of the other, nor even understands them. Mostly they don't even understand what they themselves are doing, which is why they make such a mess of everything.

The Right ignores change even when it is badly needed. The Left cannot resist changing things, even when it is not needed. The Right understands the need for societies to have a structure, but not why the structure needs to be flexible. The Left see why flexibility is needed, but don't understand the harm they do by destroying the structure.

The Left destroy their people by wiping out the social structures that make them one people in the first place, then wonder why they don't have a functional society anymore. They impose the thought police as a short term fix then don't understand why it just creates more problems.

The Right destroy their people by locking them into a rigid structure that does not allow them to change and adapt with the rest of the world, so their society sinks into stagnation where all individual thought is banned if it crosses the lines of ancient taboos. They don't understand why what worked in Great-Grandad's day does not work now, so they do nothing to solve the problems that inevitably arise.

Both over-bureaucratise to a laughable extent.

And yet... If they could only learn to work together, they could create a flexible system that allows for individuals, permits change, yet also recognises that rights must run hand in hand with responsibilities. A necessary structure need not be an oppressive structure, and that change is inevitable and must be allowed for. Both the system and the people need care and attention, so that the best can be gotten out of both.

Freedom is good, but too much freedom kills.

Balance is everything.

[ss]

But....I thought that is why they have "Moderates"... ;D

[Elliot Kane]

Moderates are either Right wing with a vague impression that maybe they ought to care about people, or Left wingers who almost realise that they ought to watch the economy, at least, in case it takes people's living standards down the toilet when they systematically destroy it... ;D

Centrism is where it's at

[Ubereil]

That's one way to see it. But I think you're one-dimentional model isn't sufficient to describe the wing concept (or maybe the wing concept isn't sufficient to describe political views). Your model is too simple to describe all posibilities. For example:

In the USA they really value the individual over the many. Though they've done this for a long, long time, and they're not keen on changeing. As an example, public healthcare run by the goverment is seen as something that limits pepole's freedom. The few presidents who considered it had to leave it due to critisism that they were communists.

In other words, the USA are in one way left wing, and in another way right wing. Or, they're neither 100% left nor right. And they're not in the middle either, because they feel very strong about keeping this system that holds the individual higher than the system.

Early Soviet is an example of a country that changed fast into a "system over individual" way of things. They reformed their old society, but the didn't think much of individual freedom.

Politics is a complicated matter, in more than one aspect (there's the practical part where you have to make a society work and thrive, but we're not talking about that ). Socialism, liberalism and conservatism is too simple to describe it. Very few pepole is just a socialist, a liberalist or a conservatist. But your view ignores way too many views, it seems to contain only (pretty classical) conservatism and liberalism a la French revolution. I don't think many pepole wants to change just for the fun of it, they want to change because they believe their way makes it better. When the communists took over Russia, they changed in the beginning and then stopped, because they believed Russia had changed to what they wanted it to be. If I were to take over Sweden, I wouldn't change much because Sweden is run more or less the way I want it to, but if I were to take over the USA I would change a lot. Public healthcare being the first . (Allthough I do believe conservatives are afraid of change, so they'd change things slower than non-conservatives, due to the nature of conservatives .)

All in all, I do believe your concept needs more dimentions. Freedom vs safety (the less freedom, the less freedom to exploit, so you'd be safer) would be one, changeing vs not changeing another, short vs longterm yet another.

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

It's not a model to describe systems or parties, Ube. Those I've already dealt with elsewhere. It's a brief look at the underlying philosophy behind Left & Right, and why neither on its own is very workable.

If you take any political party, anywhere in the world, you will find individuals with a wide range of differing opinions on many subjects. Being as people ARE individuals, I would go so far as to say it would be extraordinarily rare to find two people with absolutely identical ideas and feelings on the entire range of political issues.

My concept already HAS a great number of other dimensions. What I have clearly failed to do is make this piece sufficiently independent from the rest of my theories that it can stand alone.

Don't forget that political parties are subject to both the business cycle AND to the Cycle Of Civilisations, with each stage informing the views of both individual and party. Covering all of that again, however, would have been redundant.

[ss]

Ube, I hate to disagree with you on the issue, but even though the health care in the US is a mess, Public Health is not the answer...

You can not IMO make it work in the US...maybe if the government is not in charge, but when it is.....well....

and you got greedy people....same as communism or socialism...say it any way you like, but someone ALWAYS ends up in charge of you and makes you do it there way....

[Ubereil]

Right. But I was allways taught that the most extreme left was communism. And you're left wing isn't very close to communism . And the main concept of communism isn't contained in your right either... Oh well, maybe you explain that in your other articles. Wherever they are *nudge nudge* .

And SS, what's wrong with public healthcare? The ritch pepole gets aid too slow (ie as slow as everyone else)? IMO it's a question of justice: you shouldn't be punnished for lack of talent (which is usually why you have a low paying job. No matter how hard you work, you HAVE to work smart to get somewhere, and some pepole can't do that) with bad healthcare.

Not that Sweden's healthcaresystem works very well, but that's because it's not efficient enought (there's some pepole who think privaticeing it might help. It might work, but they have to stay free, that's the whole idea behind the Swedish model. The state is there to take care of the citizen)...

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

There's a big index right at the top of the humanology forum, ube... ;D

As for Communisn: there's a vast gulf between the theory and the practise... I'm not sure the two aren't actually at opposite extremes.

Communism on paper is very much a left wing doctrine. but is Stalinism true Communism? not really at all...

Then again, certified lunatics are a bit hard to classify.

[Dark Phoenix Rising]

The idea behind a national health care system is that everyone will need it at some point so it makes more sense for everyone to contribute towards it so that when they need it and they can't afford it, it is there for them. In practice it's pretty much the same as everyone having private health cover, and for some things works out cheaper because the health service as a whole can puchase things not a group of individuals that can be played off against each other. And (in the UK) as the National insurance contributions are "capped" those that have more money can still jump to the head of the queue (go private) if they want to.

[Ubereil]

As I said, communism is the EXTREME left. There are less extreme variations of it, like socialism, which is basiclly communism minus revolution. Another better example is the social democracy practised in Sweden. It focuses on high taxes to finance public free school, public healthcare, high workerprotection. In other words, it focuses on what's good for the greater part of the population (the "poor"), and by doing that it limits personal freedom. This is socialism, and it's considered to be left wing politics (more extreme vatiants of it can be found in Soviet Union and Russia), but yet it reminds you more of your right wing politics than your left wing politics. (As a matter of fact, they reminds me a lot of your right, but that's because the social democrats aren't really looking over the parts where the system doesn't really work that well (which is what they should be doing now, since I don't want the non-socialists in charge. They're gonna go conservative bastard on our asses any minute...). It's still considered left though, because of their high concern with the good of the pepole.)

To the right is the non-socialists (called the borghers), who wants to lower the taxes and reduse the workerrights. They're currentlly in charge, and they've done things like raiste the monthly memberfee for the union, remove the fortune taxes... and probablly some more things that I don't know about because I don't follow the day to day debate that closelly . I think they lowered the taxes for the day to day man, which they didn't notice because they had to pay more to be in the union anyway (but if they chose NOt to be in the union they'd get more money! And leaveing the union is REALLY smart considering that we're short on jobs for the moment!). These reminds me more of your political left than your right, even though they're not really into "changeing the world by demolishing the system to free the people from its yoke" (god that sounds anarch...).

In my book the left wing looks to the publics best by raising the taxes in order to give everyone a solid base to stand on (yeah, I'm left wing ). Everyone should have healthcare, protection in case they lose their job etc. Right wing looks more to individual freedom. You should be able to make your own fortune (literally. One major argument of the Swedish right wing is that it's do difficult to get ritch in Sweden), and you should be able to make your own decisions. Competition is there to increase the quality for you. In general left wing wants to give pepole safety and right wing wants to give pepole freedom.

To the right of these are a party called the Swedendemocrats. They're pretty much racists in discuise (they claim the big problems in Sweden to day are caused by immigrants, and that immigration should therefore be stopped) and it's sad that pepole vote for them (they're not that many, but there ARE pepole who vote for them). These are YOUR right wing, pepole who wants to hold on to old "decent" values no matter what. They're afraid of change, because they don't know if it will be better or worse. And I don't think they really care for other pepole...

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

Right wing is more self-reliance than freedom. Left wing is 'The Nanny State'. Neither wants you to be free from its own pet prejudices. Both tend to go too far.

Right wing practises minimal taxation because it's good for the economy; Left prefers more taxation because it's needed for all the social programs.

The problem is that the Right often neglects to help people who need it, while the Left neglects the economy.

Both are thus right - and wrong. They are both trying to focus on important things, but neglecting other things which are just as important in their own way.

What you describe above, Ube, is not the Right demolishing 'the system' but demolishing the Left wing burden placed upon the economy. There IS a difference

[Ubereil]

They're demolishing the Left wing burden placed upon the economy yes. But they're doing it by demolishing the system...

If the right wing can make our economy more efficient, then I'm happy, because it DOES seems like it's needed. But makeing the economy more efficient is one thing, reduceing social "rights" is another. There's nothing wrong with our social rights, we like them and we've allways liked them so don't touch THEM.

Though the main reason the rightys got elected in the first place is because they weren't as gung ho right as they use to be. They weren't talking about reduceing workers rights and stuff like that, and their goals seemed pretty "left", to be honest. That and the fact that they seemed to have a plan to make Sweden better. The left wing's best argument was "but we don't HAVE to change anything, we're doing fine now!" (another example that YOUR left-right chart isn't right, Elliot ). Well, they'll fix that until the next election, I hope...

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

I refer you once more to The Cycle Of Business, Ube, wherein that point is addressed

[Ubereil]

It's (hopefully) now a new talented Social Democrat will step forward... (Because unlike in buissness the more talented pepole doesn't form their own parties .)

Übereil

[Glance A'Lot]

;D in the mood to split some hairs...

ss ...though the health care in the US is a mess, Public Health is not the answer... - a nice Freudian error, because public health indeed would be

@ communism - differentiate, Communism as a social theory is very 'left', however as a governing party it is as conservative as you can find (conserving its power)
Remember the big difference between capitalism and socialism:

Capitalism makes social mistakes, ...

[Elliot Kane]

Ube - I believe I addressed that point, too ;D

Glance - and Socialism makes capital mistakes, yes

[Ubereil]

I read this thread again and something struck me: Your left and right seems to be based on 19:th century Whigs vs Tories. IE it's classical liberals (today we'd say libertarians) vs conservatives. Which isn't what the political landscape of today looks like anywhere. You'd might be able to say that's what it looks like socially (acually, if that's the only thing we'd talk about your model seem quite good), but that's only half of what politics deal with.

Economically though, your model simply doesn't fit the data. Because, economically, we have the Nanny State at the far left and the Laissez-faire in the other.

In other words, the left wants high taxes and a big public sector with free schools, free health care, a strong social security net, strong workers rights etc.

The right just wants to leave pepole alone to live their own lives, so low taxes and a small public sector (so schools and health care is privatised, social security is low and so are workers rights).

Considering this it makes no sence that the lefts wants to "change the world by demolishing the system to free the pepole". They want to demolish the system by adding a system that protects pepole? That's absurd. That rights wants to ensure there's a rigid and unchanging social structure (...look, you even say social structure!) by having as small a public sector as they possibly can isn't quite as absurd, since this structure does indeed keep things like they've always have been with clear social classes and little social mobility (left? Me? ;D), but it's still something of a stretch.

Socially it's sort of the other way around. Lefts just wants pepole to decide for themselves, so they favor the breaking down of social structures, legalisation of gay marriage, drugs, polygamy, prostitution etc. Rights, on the other hand, feels the state needs to put some structure to things and if things change too fast society goes down the drain. Which sort of fits your left-right spectrum.

This does, indeed, leave us with two scales. Economically and socially left gives us modern liberals, economically right and socially left gives us classical liberals (AKA libertarians), economically right and socially right gives us conservatives, and economically left and socially right gives us... Faschists/Communists? I don't know of any mainstream ideology that works on that set.

Anyway, most countrie's left-right antagonism tends to deal purely the economical spectrum while staying quite central on the social. This is because the social spectrum tends to be a more controversial spectrum to deal with, so most politicians tends to not make any commitments either way. Lefts tends to be slightly more to the left though, but not by much.

(Oh, and I don't see how you came to the conclusion that both your right and your left over-bureaucratise. Your right I can see but your left seems an awful lot like libertarians whose goverment form is pretty much "police and courtsystem and nothing else", so there is all but no bureaucracy.)

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

In Britain, it's the Left who are the control freaks right now and the Right who want greater personal freedom. The concepts of freedom and control seem inherent to neither.

I DO agree that my original article here over-simplifies politics, though. I no longer believe it's possible to locate anyone on a binary axis, nor any political movement, either.

There are several major cycles that move within political systems. The Cycle Of Civilisations, of course, which tends to affect breadth of worldview (More outward in the rise; more inward in the decline). The Cycle Of Business, that affects all political parties, because they ARE after all businesses, of a sort, whose product is government. And something I have just decided to call The Cycle Of Government, where a lean and hungry Opposition gains power, then becomes complacent and corrupt over time until the next Opposition is prepared to finally sweep them away. Really rather complex, as human systems go.

Without adding the control/freedom dynamic to the Left/Right axis, though, the axis itself is worthless. I am inclined to pinch the labels from the Political Compass: Authoritarian/Libertarian.

[Ubereil]

Mar 30, 2010 19:40:35 GMT Elliot Kane said:

The Cycle Of Business, that affects all political parties, because they ARE after all businesses, of a sort, whose product is government.

That's another simplification that ignores the fact that parties don't make money. They don't get into power to become ritch, they get into power for other reasons (...to become powerful, or to make life better for pepole, or a mix of those two). If pepole want to make money they'll get a business career, they don't join politics (even if politicians earn quite hefty sums they don't earn enough for it to be cost effective compared to other businesses).

Your Cycle of Goverment seems more fitting.

Übereil

[Elliot Kane]

If you read my article on the Cycle Of Business, Ube, you may understand what I mean better.