The political spectrum
The political spectrum is confusing, and overall quite irrelevant - but here we are...
In 18th century France revolutionaries sat on the left side of the room, and monarchist sat on the right. Thus the abstract terms. (Remember that in the middle ages people who were left-handed were suspected of witchcraft. Superstitious brutalitarians can't stand the left.) After the revolutions, when people realized that they had merely replaced monarchist elites with capitalist elites, the old leftism - "classical liberalism" became conservative, attempts to create a fairer world because "liberal" - also because economic leftists have always been the ones for obvious liberalism such as voting rights for women, rights for blacks etc.
The spectrum of intent
Basically, the left heads to a utopian future, while the right leads you right back to dark ages. Notice that the positions are relative: yesterdays liberal is today's conservative.
Politicians always claim to be more leftist than they actually are. They are conservative because they need the money of wealthy elites, yet they advertise themselves as liberals, to get the votes of average people, who aren't wealthy or cruel enough to be right-wing. Authoritarians call themselves conservative. Conservatives try to portray themselves as "moderate" "centralist" "populist""middle of the road" or "dead ahead" - the most successful at this claim is the mainstream media.. Moderates form "Liberal" and "labor" parties. Actual leftists, of course, can't get the funds for electioneering.
So, the problem with defining the left versus the right is that all politicians have a double standard - one set of rules to get the votes, and another for the wealthy, who fund them.
For a case in point look at the media's spectrum.
Society versus "Mr. Individual", co-operation versus competition:
On the left:
"We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
-- Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence
"Union gives strength."
-- Aesop, The Bundle of Sticks
And on the right:
"Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 289
"There are only two forces that unite men -- fear and interest."
-- Napoleon, Maxims
"It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single
victor. Coalition successes bear by the very nature of their origin the germ of future crumbling, in fact of the loss of what has already been achieved. Great,
truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations, never as
enterprises of coalitions."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 516-17
No spectrum on the international scale: just pure Machievelli
Imperialism, capitalism and "communism" are identical on the international scale. Brazil made coffee, Cuba made the sugar to sweeten it, both were sent to Spain via the empire. A war or two later and the coffee and sugar went to America. A revolution in Cuba and the sugar went to the USSR. Africa provided provided the rich nations with the "human resource" of slaves, today cheap labour is based in Asia, especially China, with the work shipped to them from corporate administration in the USA (though the corporations are officially based in tax haven nations). In all cases of colonies or "developing nations", the wealth coming back from the post-imperialist rich nation goes only to the poor nation's elites. Because those elites are becoming less white, capitalists pat their backs over money's blindness. They're happy to know that not only white people are capable of exploitation.
I heard that Hilter was a "collectivist" or "leftist" - is this true?
See my page on fascism