The political spectrum
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 ones, the old leftism - "classical liberalism" became conservative, while progressive, socialist, anarchist, and democratic movements became liberal.
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 conservative businessmen, 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.
Case in point: the "libertarian" party
The frighteningly right-wing "libertarian party" tries to make itself neither left nor right by making its own definition of left and right. According to "libertarians", right means "economic freedom" (In the "libertarian" sense: freedom to own slaves) while left means "personal freedom" (In the "libertarian" sense: freedom to molest kids). This absurdly simplistic drivel divides the entire human experience into two halves, with economics taking 50%! Maybe economics is 50% of life to the extremely rich...
What's the diff?
Where is the difference between left and right according to "libertarians"? What's the big difference between using crack and selling it, or soliciting a prostitute and being one? Are these really such opposing poles?
In the words of a CATO think-tanker, "you can have wealth controlled by those with money or those with guns". The idea of wealth controlled by the people (you know, those guys who vote!) isn't even considered - nor is the hypocracy. Those with money need guns to defend it, while those with guns tend to rapidly become those with money. In conclusion, there's no bleedin' difference.
So what's actually populist?
If we take the above assumptions, we get these definitions:
· Right: Authority by those with property (which is defended by violence)
· Left: Authority by those with violence (governments - though these usually make things their own property, like in communism)
· Moderate: Both property authority and government authority
· Center: Opposition to authority (Anarchism)
Left----------------Moderate--------------Right
(Anarchism is nowhere near this scale)
The right is hypocritical claim that it is against government, while authoritarian left is hypocritical in its claim that it is against property. The liberal "left" (centralists) are not hypocritical, just wrong.
Anarchism is moderate?
If we use all of the above assumptions, anarchism becomes moderate. But then, the key term is "if". See the world's shortest political quiz (Not to be confused with the world's second shortest political quiz)
The definition of Liberalism and conservatism
The advance of civilization
On the right there's the stages of economic and political development (Russet, Alker et alia pp 294-298) which divides countries into five stages, based on GNP per capita (on average, not how it's actually distributed), percentage of urban population, amount of radios, etc:
It is based on averages, and has no measure of the freedom, justice, or psychological soundness of the mass of each countries.
When one looks at the countries, it brings the assumption that eventually all can become high mass-consumption. However, that would be impossible in capitalism, like an army made entirely of generals, or a football team with only quarterbacks, or an orchestra of conductors. Capitalism often suffers from a merit glut - for example, students often graduate from university and find they can only get jobs flipping burgers. In a system of labour and capital, we can't all take the role of capital. No matter how much merit you have, you'll still end up scrubbing toilets if you're in second place.
The left, represented by the Marxist model, goes like this:
The difference
Notice that while the right looks at how much stuff people have, the left looks at politics. Nazi Germany, which the left would describe as feudal if not primitive, would still be considered at the top of civilization by the right. While not all countries can become administrative high mass consumption societies, all could become utopian - in fact, they would probably all *have* to for it to work.
Cooperation versus competition
On the left:
"Union gives strength."
-- Aesop, The Bundle of Sticks
"We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
-- Benjamin Franklin, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence
And on the right:
"There are only two forces that unite men -- fear and interest."
-- Napoleon, Maxims
"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
"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
Democracy versus constitutionalism
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.
Sharing the pie versus making the unfair pie bigger
"A Rising tide lifts all vessels" said John F. Kennedy, though he forgot to mention only those that are floating. A rising tide only makes sunken ships harder to salvage.
Consider the future, with the pie big enough for all - yet with Americans still consuming 20 times as much as the average Indian. (And still polluting 50 times as much [Dennis Gabor, _The Mature Society_ p25])
Imagine a world with two billion Chinese and Indians, and a billion and a half Africans and Latin Americans owning minivans and commuting two hours to work, vacationing in Yellowstone park and eating 50 or so pounds of sugar annually - and creating 50 times the pollution they currently make. That would stress the earth, but would probably be possible. Now imagine Americans owning the equivalent of 20 minivans, and somehow consuming 1000 pounds of sugar annually. Even if we could afford that without turning the earth into a poisoned desert, the billions of non-Americans would still be envious and unsatisfied. This is because there's two kinds of goods: material, and positional.
Material goods make all people happy - good food, a comfortable home, convienient transportation. Positional goods are status symbols: rare artworks, fashion clothes, high-tech novelties.
Positional goods are useless when all have them:
Overall:
I could go on, but the point's been made. If everybody was rich, nobody would *want* to be rich. (Even if it's possible: see my earlier point about an orcestra made entirely of conductors.)
Richard Easterlin:
"In all societies, more money for the individual typically means more individual happiness. However, raising the incomes of all does not increase the happiness of all. The happiness-income relation provides a classic example of the logical fallacy of composition - what is true for the individual is not true for society as a whole...Individuals assess their material well-being, not in terms of the absolute amount of goods they have, but relative to a social norm of what goods they ought to have" ["Does money buy happiness?" _The Public Interest_ Winter 1973 p4]
Thus, no matter how big you make the pie, it can't satisfy. The obvious solution is to make people equal in wealth, so we can begin the pursuit of happiness instead of the pursuit of status through heinously expensive conspicuous consumption.
The law of diminishing returns
Something to think about: "If Americans were asked whether they would agree to reduce their energy consumption by one half, many would probably recoil in apprehension and reject the idea. Yet energy consumption in 1960 was about half what it is now [~1980] Most of us remember 1960. Surely we had a civilized country then...Yet we were consuming only half the energy we are using now. Have we, by doubling our energy consumption, double our happiness?" (Kimon Valaskakis, P. Sindell, J G Smith, and Martin I Fitzpatrick, _The Conserver Society_ p 181)
To the starving, a few dollars a day means life. To a billionaire, a few dollars doesn't make that kind of difference. "Once some minimal income is attained, the amount of money you have matters little in terms of bringing happiness. Above the poverty level, the relationship between income and happiness is remarkably small." (Jonathan Freedman, _Happy People_ p 140) In short, no matter how efficient production of wealth is, the use of wealth to produce happiness is inefficient. The only way to make wealth more efficient in creating happiness is to spread it around.
"If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people--I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do--let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work." -Rush Limbaugh (Radio show quoted in FRQ Fall/93)
Suffragettes were overwhelmingly socialist. It was the defenders of property rights that defended slavery. Civil rights was fought for by socialists like Martin Luther King, and was assisted by big government spenders like Eisenhower. Those who hated the federal government (Pro-"states-rights") were opposed. Conservatives still consider women "special" (ie unequal). What they think of gays is obvious. And the poor.
Not to say that they aren't indecisive. Now they tell us that "it's gone too far" - the idea being that they're now against inequality because it's no longer to their advantage. They're suddenly pro-equality when it comes to fighting affirmative action. That doesn't change that they're still trying to restrict the achievement of women and minorities - and that they're in favor of affirmative action for heterosexuals - by kicking out the competition."It's gone too far" is the slogan of every angry white male. "Politically incorrect" is their proud rank. Since when where angry white males of the side of feminism, black power, or not standing and staring at somebody in a wheelchair? Do they really think it's all reversed, that for the next 200 years all presidents and CEOs will be black women in wheelchairs? That we're not only going to give back the American continent to the natives, but give them the old world as well? Technically, that would not be "going too far" - as long as you don't believe in eye-for an eye, which so many angry white males do...In which case, it would only be going too far if we gave the natives antarctica too. Of course, progressives don't want this level of equality...Perhaps we should...But we don't.
A conservative could deny the above - but the main inequality of the right is in economics. They go on about meritocracy, while protecting inheritence. Conservatives like to claim that at least they treat all people the same. Did I mention that it's conservatives who don't want to spend money on wheelchair ramps? Like I said, they like to treat people the same. Pollution treats all people the same - it's not the polluters fault that the poor can't afford gas masks. (Okay, that's enough - stay in the mind set of a conservative too long and you'll never leave.)
Not to say that this covers subjects like corporate welfare, allowing the rich massive influence in politics, etc. etc.
In the earlier part of the century, when Klan membership was often almost a prerequisite for conservatives to get elected, socialists were pushing for the right for women to vote. Do conservatives have a history like this?
Equality is important. We are not only all created equal, we are created to remain as equals. If Americans were meant to consume 20 times as much as Indians, we'd have 40 arms and giant stomachs.
Submission of the individual
(Of course, altruism is better than individualism - but that's not my point right now.)
Some people might say that conservatives waxing on the "rugged individual" makes this charge untrue, but I see it the opposite way. Conservatives constantly use rhetoric to cover what they actually mean - the "love of Jesus" while hunting down anyone they happen to disapprove of, "law and order" when defending their guns, "rights" when defending slavery, "equality" when opposing affirmative action's attempts to create that equality. They name nuclear bombers "peacemakers", and talk about the horror of taking human life as they send killers to be executed.
The army is a blunt example of conservatism's hatred of the individual. They'll celebrate an individual when they individual lies down on a grenade to save his comrades, but that's about all.
Business considers that "no man is above the corporation". While the USSR named innovative miners "heros of the Soviet Union", in America or Nazi Germany their boss would get a promotion. Conservatives were always the first to look down at nonconformists like "beatniks", "hippies", and "Punks". Those conservatives that didn't hate them still wouldn't hire them.
Of course, conservatives are not against *all* individuality just the individuality of those that aren't rich and/or powerful.
Separation of church & state, and religion & science
The first is obvious. Republicans, despite having no knowledge of what the bible's about, still want to create a theocracy. The second is betrayed by their constant attempts to mix science and religion with "creation science" - which manages to be simultaneously un-Christian and un-scientific. The bible actually says repeatedly: do not put God to the test. It seems more scientists are aware of this than conservatives.
However, many people, liberals especially, tend to go to extremes on the separation of church and state, expecting religion to be apolitical - as if people can just turn of their politics at their baptism! "In our age there is not such a thing as keeping out of politics. All issues are political issues." - George Orwell. Remember, if we want government of the people without intermixing of religion and government, we'd need to all be atheists. There's a compromise between atheism and theocracy.
Anti-truth, pro-truth
"...agenda-oriented scientific community..." - The latest smear-term from the Rush Limbaugh labs
There's two reason the right and left disagree. The first is values- conservatives value their money more than ethics and compassion. The second one is truth.
Academia and science is overwhelmingly liberal. Partly this is because intelligent people tend to be more ethical. Mainly it's because, quite bluntly, we're correct. Conservatives are wrong that's why the only evidence they can cough up comes from pseudo-science think tanks they've hired.
Jack Rite speculates: " IQ has been shown to be genetically linked to many things. Might there be a reason for people with a lower IQ to embrace conservative ideals? Why certainly - a simple mind would only be able to grasp the problem as it relates to them, and not as it relates to their society or their world. A simple mind would only be able to perceive a short term result, and not the more important long-term result. Conservatives typically take the side of an issue which represents the short-term solution which has a minimum amount of personal discomfort."
"They're happy! Listen, they're singing!" -Anonymous slaveowner
Not everyone agrees
TV media has a different spectrum.
I heard that Hilter was a "collectivist" or "leftist" - is this true?
See my page on fascism