Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: Can someone please explain "right", "left", "far-left", "far-right" etc whatnot?
by
o48o
on 18/01/2024, 12:45:44 UTC
Hold on, putin isn't left or right, he is outside of political spectrum. Even if he once was part of a country that called itself communist, there's nothing left of that expect corruption.


But here you underscore the futility of using the "left right spectrum" to understanding politics. It simply doesn't work these days. Trump has shown he will support absolutely anything if it means getting elected, even if it's an anathema to so-called "conservatives" or those on the political "right".

As I said in my original reply to this question: do not use "left" and "right". These terms are old and outdated, and will only confuse people.
While it is a spectrum, those words still hold meaning in any country that has a working democratic government, because they basically still are grouping same values as they did in france where it started.

From the values standpoint, Right is still heading for the monarchy in terms of finances and conservatism in terms of values. And left for distributed power and progressivism. These ideologies affect economy and how taxes are spent.

There's an authoritarian-democratic axel as well and higher we get on authoritarian with that axel, more left and right start to lose meaning, as democratic government itself loses meaning. But when we still operate in democratic country, left and right have meaning. Constitution and other laws are there to keep any radical changes somewhat moderate, and countries more stable so that no one party or one man can corrupt everything.

There are people who are technically outside of this spectrum, because they only serve themselves, not the political parties or countries. But if we had to choose, serving yourself is far closer to far right, as it's closer to monarchy. And if outcome is what far right wants, their policies are often called far right, even if these people themselves wouldn't be far right or far left.

And you were oversimplifying it. Fascist right wants state surveillance and censor opposition as well, like they have done it in the past. Current far right is very much echoing same arguments from the past.