Traditional notions of "right" and "left"

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Parvini
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Traditional notions of "right" and "left"

Post by Parvini »

Politics here in the UK has traditionally been divided down the dichotomy of "left-wing" and "right-wing" politics... originally it was the liberal, radical Whiggs versus the right-wing, reactionary Tories. With the event of industrialisations and the growth of Labour unions there emerged a thrid party - the broadly socialist Labour party who overlook the Whiggs (now called "The Liberal Democrats") as the Tory party's (now "The Conservatives") natural opposition.

For many years this remained the case - The Conservatives were broadly just that conservative, standing for a small state, low taxes and the well-being of the upper and middle classes at the expense of the working classes- they stood for privatization and old school family values - thier Prime Ministers most aptly characterised by Margarat Thatcher or Winston Churchill stood as the epitome of these values. Generally old Etonions, Oxbridge educated and tremendously well-spoken. This was the old "right-wing".

Labour on the other hand came from a very different tradition of politics: trade unions, regional accents, red brick universities etc. They stood for socialism, the redistribution of wealth, high taxes and big state politcs. This was the old "left-wing".

Now when Tony Blair came to power all that changed... here was a man who seemingly followed now politcially ideology, he took a pragmatic line... on some issues he was left, on some he was right - depending on what situation was popular or suited him. This has broadly been described as the birth of centre politics in Britain. For a long while Blair occupied the centre but the Tories remained pretty right wing... under William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard they stubbornly ploughed on with an old school "rightwing" agenda - they were anti-immigration and anti-Europe. After "New Labour" trounced them for 3 successive elections they decided to bring in their own Tony Blair in the form of David Cameron, a bike-riding, helmet wearing public-school educated man with a soft voice and even softer features. Like Blair he is neither "left" nor "right", like Blair he adopts whatever policy suits him on the day.

This is the current politcal situation in Britain, two men who stand for no particular ideology competing for the same centre ground - what these men think is no longer important, it is how they look, how they dress, how they speak - their STYLE.

My issue is therefore this:

1. Is the politcal climate the same as this in your country?

2. Do you think the tradional politcal spectrum, the labels of "left" and right" are still relevent? And if so why? And if not why not?
"The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n" - John Milton (Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 254-55)
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Prideth
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Post by Prideth »

I think Labor here are still leaning towards the left. Especially with the current attack on workers and their rights that the Howard conservative government has just pushed onto us. They are nowhere near as far left as they used to be though, and I think the current world climate is partly to blame for that. Howard and co are still firmly to the right.

In the past 20 years or so, it seems capitalism is running wild world wide, and a growing number of Australians, especially younger Australians, have embraced it with open arms. They are mostly anti union, anti workers rights, anti welfare, and pro corporation, pro economy, pro work until you drop. An attitude that I think has been imported into this country from the US. Australia is moving away from its old motto of "help the battlers" to "look after yourself and bugger everyone else".

The labor party has had to change and move more to the center to combat this and try to attract some support from this growing group. In our country the left and right do still exist and mean something, though nowdays it is the Greens party that are the real leftists, while the Labor party have become more centre left.
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Post by KDream »

From what I know, in the beginning, left and right derived from the the position of king's antourage - at his right, the nobles, the kings protegees, the upper classes and at his left - citizens that had position in court, but represented the lower classes. So, if my memory serves me well, at that time the liberals - representing independent "free" workers, small merchants, workshop owners were "left-side", opposed by nobles holding large land - masses exploited in feudal style as the "right".
In time, the small merchants and workshop owners developed, grew larger and achieved greater economical and thus, political power. Moreover, because of the industrial revolution, they began controlling the bulk of a country economic result, and they transformed into, let's say, "capitalists" - right side. The new working class - poorly paid and with low standars of living - needed representation, so a new "left" emerged. This new "left" took on the peasants as well and was the premise for communism.
Now, in my country - Eastern Europe region - there are liberals - right - that promote capitalism, free market, lower taxes, and socialist - left - that promote better social protection, higher taxes and centralization. At the most recent election neither of them succeeded in obtaining electoral majority to form a government. From what I' ve seen, this phenomenon happened in several other countries - Germany, Italy, U.S. and U.K., as Parvini says.
I believe the main reason for this is because the free-market, capitalist system that has been promoted for the several past decades is beginning to fail - mainly by impact of lower natality, longer life-spans and weak social motivation in traditional industrial countries. I think that the "classic" capitalism was based on an abundant human resource system - there was a large market to sell the manufactured products and a large number of potential employees. At the present the markets are saturated and employees are scarce, thus expensive. The problem has been alienated by developing new markets, Eastern Europe and China being the obvious examples, but it was just a delay, not a solution. And being a compromise, it had some side-effects, some of them not easily overpassed, such as the social tensions caused by immigration of foreign workforce - remember clashes in Paris.
The current ambiguity of "left" and "right" doctrines resides, at the end of the day, in the fact that, at the moment, neither of them is able to provide a viable solution for what the majority of people need - wealth, security, freedom. And the non-decisive results at elections, in different countries, prove this.
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Post by mistergreen77 »

Democracy and capitalism have replaced the aristocracy of blood with an aristocracy of money. I think our democracy is an illusion - both our major parties are have the same agendas, the difference is the conservatives are at least honest about what their agenda is. The only left left with any hope are the greens. Democrats used to hold the balance of power in our senate but that now belongs to religions or environmentalists. Doesn't matter who we vote in, we get the same result. I suspect this is because our politicians and politics are not as important as corporations and economics. They are hostages to the agendas of global corporations because of the 'donations' they receive. The vote of the shareholder is far more powerful than any democratic vote, and the shareholders are mostly the rich. That is why I say it is still an aristocracy.
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Post by Parvini »

I'd just like to say that these are fanastic answers to my original question...

The thesis shared by KDream and Mistergreen that the politcal sphere has largely been superceded by the economic and, more importantly, the corporate spheres highlights a very serious issue.

i.e. Capitalism has reached the stage where individual companies weild as much power and influence over people's lives as the State... in America these big companies are married to the State at the federal level thus compounding the problem.

The question hence remains - if governments are to remain hostage to big business will anything ever rise to stop these corporations? Was Marx right about the workers rising? Or has ideology done a sound enough job to prevent such a rising ever taking place?
"The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n" - John Milton (Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 254-55)
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Post by KDream »

The workers will not rise. They have been risen, and I'd like to emphasize that they did not rose themselves, they were risen. Communism failed miserably because it didn't respect the fact that people are reaallly different and they reaally like to do whatever they want.
The workers are part of the capitalistic system and they are driven by capitalism itself. I quote " The moment people stop buying things they don't need with money they don't have, we're f***" - that's about it.
The real solution is a radical change of values. And the first two, as opposed as they might see, should be :
a) Personal freedom and ability to decide, to pursue one's way of reaching nirvana should be protected at all costs.
b) If possible, the products of technology should be provided to all people, and I do mean all, not just to all that can pay for them.
But there is yet a political? social ? economic ? system that can meet both this criteria.
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Post by mistergreen77 »

No, nor will there ever be. I do not even think these two values are good ideas. Nirvana is a religious belief - do you want to make a superstition in to an ideal? The thing most needful is for people to stop buying things they don't need with money they don't have, because otherwise we will stay f***. Yes - we need a radical change of values.

Capitalism and its accompanying religion of consumerism are the prevailing ideologies of the west. If it hasn't happened already eventually governments will become just tokens or puppets. Will there be a revolution? Maybe, but I don't see the conditions for it developing in the near future. The conflict now is in countries where capitalists are trying to convert populations to their consumerist way of life. Perhaps that is why we have terrorism? I see consumerism as the hidden poison of capitalism - capitalism by itself is a good economic system - but without any good substitutes for religion consumerism is what we have ended up with.
[size=84][color=green]“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.”[/color] - Einstein

[color=green]“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”[/color] - Nietzsche[/size]

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