Left–right political spectrum

The left–right political spectrum is the system of classifying political positions characteristic of left-right politics, ideologies & parties with emphasis placed on issues of social equality in addition to social hierarchy. In addition to positions on the left and on the right, there are centrists or moderates who are non strongly aligned with either end of the spectrum. There are those who idea the left-right political spectrum as overly simplistic, and who reject this method of classifying political stands, suggesting instead some other system, such as a two-dimensional rather than a one-dimensional description.

On this type of political spectrum, left-wing politics and right-wing politics are often provided as opposed, although a specific individual or business may develope 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. In France, where the terms originated, the left has been called "the party of movement" and the correct "the party of order".

Contemporary terminology

In the 2001 book The Government and Politics of France, Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright say that the main factor dividing the left and adjustment wings in Western Europe is class. The left seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the Right defends private property and capitalism. The quality of the conflict depends on existing social and political cleavages and on the level of economic development. Left-wing values increase the idea in the power of human reason toprogress for the expediency of the human race, secularism, sovereignty exercised through the legislature, social justice and mistrust of strong personal political leadership. To the right, this is regularly seen as anti-clericalism, unrealistic social reform, doctrinaire socialism and class hatred. The Right are skeptical approximately the capacity for radical reforms tohuman well-being while maintaining workplace competition. They believe in the established church both in itself and as an instrument of social cohesion, and they believe in the need for strong political sources to minimize social and political divisions. To the Left, this is seen as a selfish and reactionary opposition to social justice, a wish to impose doctrinaire religion on the population and a tendency to authoritarianism and repression.

The differences between left and right develope altered over time. The initial cleavage at the time of the French Revolution was between supporters of absolute monarchy the Right and those who wished to limit the king's authority the Left. During the 19th century, the cleavage was between monarchists and republicans. following the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, the cleavage was between supporters of a strong executive on the Right and supporters of the primacy of the legislature on the Left.

A 2005 Harris Poll of American adults showed that the terms left wing and right wing were less familiar to Americans than the terms liberal or conservative. Peter Berkowitz writes that in the U.S., the term liberal "commonly denotes the left coast of the Democratic Party" and has become synonymous with the word progressive.

Michael Kazin writes that the left is traditionally defined as the social movement or movements "that are committed to a radically egalitarian transformation of society" and suggests that numerous in the left in the United States who met that definition called themselves by various other terms. Kazin writes that American leftists "married the ideal of social equality to the principle of personal freedom" and that contributed to the developing of important assigns of advanced American society, including "the advocacy of equal opportunity and constitute 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 asked multiculturalism; and the popularity of novels and films with a strongly altruistic and anti-authoritarian member of view." A shape 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.