View source for Left-right political spectrum

{{wikipedia|Left–right political spectrum}}
{{merge|Left, Center, Right}}
The '''left–right political spectrum''' (also called a "'''uniform linear political spectrum'''") is a system of classifying political positions, [[wikipedia:Ideology|ideologies]] and [[Political party|parties]] from [[wikipedia:social equality|social equality]] on the left to [[wikipedia:Social stratification|social hierarchy]] on the right. The intermediate stance is called [[centrism]] and a person with such a position is a [[moderate]] or centrist. On this type of [[political spectrum]], [[#Left-wing politics|left-wing politics]] and [[#Right-wing politics|right-wing politics]] are often presented as opposed, although a particular individual or group may take a left-wing stance on one matter and a right-wing stance on another; and some stances may overlap and be considered either left-wing or right-wing depending on the ideology.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Milner|first=Helen|date=2004|title=Partisanship, Trade Policy, and Globalization: Is There a Left–Right Divide on Trade Policy|url=https://www.princeton.edu/~hmilner/forthcoming%20papers/ISQ_milner_judkins2004.PDF|journal=International Studies Quarterly|volume=48|issue=|pages=95–120|doi=10.1111/j.0020-8833.2004.00293.x|pmid=|accessdate=|via=}}</ref> In [[France]], where the terms originated, the left has been called "the party of movement" and the right "the party of order".<ref>Knapp & Wright, p. 10.</ref><ref>Adam Garfinkle, Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (1997). Palgrave Macmillan: p. 303.</ref><ref>"[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/left Left (adjective)]" and "[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/left?show=1&t=1325146819 Left (noun)]" (2011), ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary''.</ref><ref>Roger Broad, ''Labour's European Dilemmas: From Bevin to Blair'' (2001). Palgrave Macmillan: p. xxvi.</ref>

In the [[United States]], a 2005 [[wikipedia:Harris Insights & Analytics|Harris Poll]] of American adults showed that the terms ''left wing'' and ''right wing'' were less familiar to Americans than the terms "[[Liberalism|liberal]]" or "[[Conservatism|conservative]]".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100209185224/http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=542 Political Labels: Majorities of U.S. Adults Have a Sense of What Conservative, Liberal, Right Wing or Left Wing Means, But Many Do Not], The Harris Poll #12 (February 9, 2005).</ref>

== Left-wing politics ==
{{wikipedia|Left-wing politics}}
{{wikipedia|Liberalism}}
{{wikipedia|American left}}
{{see also|Liberalism}}

{{ambox|text=The following was copied from English Wikipedia's "Left–right political spectrum" article; the [[wikipedia:Left–right political spectrum#United States]] section.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum&oldid=1000589292</ref> Future versions should be less specific to the United States, and have fewer red links. -- [[User:RobLa|RobLa]] ([[User talk:RobLa|talk]]) 09:53, 16 January 2021 (UTC)}}

[[Wikipedia:Peter Berkowitz|Peter Berkowitz]] writes that in the U.S., the term ''liberal'' "commonly denotes the left wing of the Democratic Party" and has become synonymous with the word ''progressive''.<ref>Peter Berkowitz, "The Liberal Spirit in America and Its Paradoxes" in ''Liberalism for a New Century'' (eds. Neil Jumonville & Kevin Mattson: University of California Press, 2007), p. 14.</ref>

[[Wikipedia:Michael Kazin|Michael Kazin]] writes that the left is traditionally defined as the social movement or movements "''that are dedicated to a radically egalitarian transformation of society''" and suggests that many in the left in the United States who met that definition called themselves by various other terms.<ref>Michael Kazin, ''American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation'' (2011: First Vintage Books ed., 2012), p. xiv.</ref> Kazin writes that American leftists "''married the ideal of social equality to the principle of personal freedom''" and that contributed to the development of important features of modern American society. He asserts that this includes<blockquote>"''the advocacy of equal opportunity and equal treatment for women, ethnic and racial minorities, and homosexuals; the celebration of sexual pleasure unconnected to reproduction; a media and educational system sensitive to racial and gender oppression and which celebrates what we now call multiculturalism; and the popularity of novels and films with a strongly altruistic and anti-authoritarian point of view."<ref>Michael Kazin, ''American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation'' (2011: First Vintage Books ed., 2012), p. xiii-xiv.</ref>'' </blockquote>A variety of distinct left-wing movements existed in American history, including labor movements, the Farmer-Labor movement, various democratic socialist and socialist movements, pacifist movements, and the New Left.''<ref>Michael Kazin, ''American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation'' (2011: First Vintage Books ed., 2012), p. xix.</ref>''

* Wikipedia links
**[[wikipedia:equal opportunity|Wikipedia:Equal opportunity]]
**[[wikipedia:multiculturalism|Wikipedia:Multiculturalism]]
**[[wikipedia:anti-authoritarian|Wikipedia:Anti-authoritarian]]
** [[Wikipedia:Labor history of the United States]]
** [[Wikipedia:Farmer-Labor]] movement
** [[Wikipedia:History of the socialist movement in the United States]]
** [[Wikipedia:New Left]].

== Right-wing politics ==
{{wikipedia|Right-wing politics}}{{See also|Conservatism}}
''Right-wing politics'' embraces the view that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,<ref name=":0">{{cite web|work=A Politics Glossary|url=http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/right-wing|publisher=Auburn University website|last=Johnson|first=Paul|title=Right-wing, rightist|year=2005|access-date=23 October 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819232535/http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/right-wing|archive-date=19 August 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite book|last1=Bobbio|first1=Norberto|last2=Cameron|first2=Allan|title=Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction|date=1996|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|location=Chicago|isbn=978-0-226-06246-4|pages=51, 62}}</ref><ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite book|last1=Goldthorpe|first1=J.E.|title=An Introduction to Sociology|date=1985|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-24545-6|page=156|edition=Third}}</ref> typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, or tradition.<ref name="Carlisle">{{cite book|last1=Carlisle|first1=Rodney P.|title=Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpo0000carl|url-access=registration|date=2005|publisher=[[SAGE Publications|SAGE Publishing]]|location=Thousand Oaks [u.a.]|isbn=978-1-4129-0409-4}}</ref>{{rp|693, 721}}<ref name="T. Alexander Smith 2003. p. 30">T. Alexander Smith, Raymond Tatalovich. ''Cultures at war: moral conflicts in western democracies''. Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, Ltd, 2003. p. 30. "That viewpoint is held by contemporary sociologists, for whom 'right-wing movements' are conceptualized as 'social movements whose stated goals are to maintain structures of order, status, honor, or traditional social differences or values' as compared to left-wing movements which seek 'greater equality or political participation.' In other words, the sociological perspective sees preservationist politics as a right-wing attempt to defend privilege within the ''social hierarchy''."</ref><ref name="Allan Cameron pg. 37">''Left and right: the significance of a political distinction'', Norberto Bobbio and Allan Cameron, p. 37, [[University of Chicago Press]], 1997.</ref><ref name="Fuchs, D. 1990. p. 203">[[Seymour Martin Lipset]], cited in Fuchs, D., and Klingemann, H. 1990. The left-right schema. pp. 203–34 in Continuities in Political Action: A Longitudinal Study of Political Orientations in Three Western Democracies, ed.M.Jennings et al. Berlin:de Gruyter</ref><ref name="Lukes">Lukes, Steven. 'Epilogue: The Grand Dichotomy of the Twentieth Century': concluding chapter to T. Ball and R. Bellamy (eds.), The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought. pp.610–612</ref><ref name="Clark">{{cite book|last1=Clark|first1=William Roberts|title=Capitalism, Not Globalism: Capital Mobility, Central Bank Independence, and the Political Control of the Economy|date=2003|publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]]|location=Ann Arbor [u.a.]|isbn=978-0-472-11293-7|edition=[Online-Ausg.].}}{{page needed|date=August 2018}}</ref> Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences<ref>Smith, T. Alexander and Raymond Tatalovich. ''Cultures at War: Moral Conflicts in Western Democracies'' (Toronto, Canada: Broadview Press, Ltd., 2003) p. 30. "That viewpoint is held by contemporary sociologists, for whom 'right-wing movements' are conceptualized as 'social movements whose stated goals are to maintain structures of order, status, honor, or traditional social differences or values' as compared to left-wing movements which seek 'greater equality or political participation.'</ref><ref>{{cite paper|author1=Gidron, N|author2=Ziblatt, D.|title=Center-right political parties in advanced democracies 2019|year=2019|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=22|page=23|quotation=Defining the right by its adherence to the status quo is closely associated with a definition of the right as a defense of inequality (Bobbio 1996, Jost 2009, Luna & Kaltwasser 2014). As noted by Jost (2009), within the context of Western political development, opposition to change is often synonymous with support for inequality. Notwithstanding its prominence in the literature, we are hesitant to adopt this definition of the right since it requires the researcher to interpret ideological claims according to an abstract understanding of equality. For instance, Noel & Therien (2008) argue that right-wing opposition to affirmative action speaks in the name of equality and rejects positive discrimination based on demographic factors. From this perspective, the right is not inegalitarian but is “differently egalitarian” (Noel & Therien 2008, p. 18).|url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dziblatt/files/gidron_and_ziblatt_2019.pdf|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-090717-092750|doi-access=free}}</ref> or competition in market economies.<ref>Scruton, Roger "A Dictionary of Political Thought" "Defined by contrast to (or perhaps more accurately conflict with) the left the term ''right'' does not even have the respectability of a history. As now used it denotes several connected and also conflicting ideas (including) 1)conservative, and perhaps authoritarian, doctrines concerning the nature of civil society, with emphasis on custom, tradition, and allegiance as social bonds ... 8) belief in free enterprise free markets and a capitalist economy as the only mode of production compatible with human freedom and suited to the temporary nature of human aspirations ..." pp. 281–2, Macmillan, 1996</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Goldthorpe|first1=J.E.|title=An Introduction to Sociology|date=1985|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-24545-6|page=156|edition=3rd|quote="There are ... those who accept inequality as natural, normal, and even desirable. Two main lines of thought converge on the Right or conservative side...the truly Conservative view is that there is a natural hierarchy of skills and talents in which some people are born leaders, whether by heredity or family tradition. ... now ... the more usual right-wing view, which may be called 'liberal-conservative', is that unequal rewards are right and desirable so long as the competition for wealth and power is a fair one."}}</ref><ref>{{cite paper|author1=Gidron, N|author2=Ziblatt, D.|title=Center-right political parties in advanced democracies 2019|year=2019|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|volume=22|page=24|quotation=...since different currents within the right are drawn to different visions of societal structures. For example, market liberals see social relations as stratified by natural economic inequalities. |url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dziblatt/files/gidron_and_ziblatt_2019.pdf|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-090717-092750}}</ref> The term ''right-wing'' can generally refer to "the [[Conservatism|conservative]] or reactionary section of a political party or system".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/right_wing|title=right wing – definition of right wing in English &#124; Oxford Dictionaries|publisher=En.oxforddictionaries.com|date=20 April 2014|access-date=15 November 2016}}</ref>

In Europe, economic conservatives are usually considered liberal, and the Right includes nationalists, idealists, nativist opponents of immigration, religious conservatives, and, historically, a significant number of right-wing movements with anti-capitalist sentiments, including [[Conservatism|conservatives]] and fascists, who opposed contemporary capitalism because they believed that selfishness and excessive materialism were inherent in it.<ref name=":2">Leonard V. Kaplan, Rudy Koshar, ''The Weimar Moment: Liberalism, Political Theology, and Law'' (2012) p 7-8.</ref><ref name=":3">Alan S. Kahan, ''Mind Vs. Money: The War Between Intellectuals and Capitalism'' (2010), p. 184.</ref> In the United States, the Right includes both economic and social conservatives.<ref name=":4">Jerome L. Himmelstein, ''To the right: The transformation of American conservatism'' (1992).</ref>

* [[Wikipedia:Social order]]
* [[Wikipedia:Social stratification]]<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref name="autogenerated1" />
* [[Wikipedia:Tradition]]

* [[Wikipedia:Nationalism]]
* [[Wikipedia:Idealism]]
* [[Wikipedia:Nativism (politics)]]
* [[Wikipedia:Opposition to immigration]]
* [[Wikipedia:Conservatism]]
** [[Wikipedia:Fiscal conservatism]]
** [[Wikipedia:Social conservatism]]
* [[Wikipedia:Fascism]] (note: 20th century fascism opposed capitalism and liberalism.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" />)

== Interactions with voting methods ==

Duncan Black proved that when the candidates distributed along a line and the voters prefer candidates closer to them, then there always exists a Condorcet winner and this candidate is closest to the median voter.<ref name="Black 1948 pp. 23–34">{{cite journal | last=Black | first=Duncan | title=On the Rationale of Group Decision-making | journal=Journal of Political Economy | publisher=University of Chicago Press | volume=56 | issue=1 | year=1948 | issn=00223808 | jstor=1825026 | pages=23–34 | url=https://us.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/24492_Dowding_Chapter_01.pdf | access-date=2022-03-21}}</ref> In that median voter sense, all Condorcet methods pick the optimal candidate.

However, other voting methods may be biased towards the center, like the [[Borda count]], or towards the edges of the spectrum, like [[Plurality voting]] and [[instant-runoff voting]]. A bias away from the center leads to [[center squeeze]] which can often be demonstrated by the [[Left, Center, Right|left, center, right]] election scenario.

== Links ==

* [[W: A Conflict of Visions]]

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Political spectrum]]

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