The left-right political spectrum seems utterly bizarre to me...

The left-right political spectrum seems utterly bizarre to me. The definitions of "left wing" and "right wing" change so much depending on the area, time, and context. It feels almost meaningless. Is it really worth keeping up this extremely outdated concept? I'm so tired of reading articles about some "right wing agenda" or "left wing viewpoint". How about actually describing WHAT they believe instead of just labeling it on some useless, sporadic spectrum that no one can even agree upon?

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Going by what it meant in its original usage (French revolutionary politics), it roughly amounts to equality versus hierarchy.

It's beyond stupid. I'm in favor of a lot of what many people would consider to be socialist programs (healthcare, contraceptive services, drug treatment, etc...) but am also firmly in favor of a "republican" immigration policy. But I can't have that apparently

I learned at school that hitler was on the right and everyone on the right is a Nazi

and my dad taught me that stalin was on the left and everyone on the left is a communist

and Veeky Forums taught me ideology doesn't come in 2 genders its more of a spectrum like what Bill Nye the science guy says

Going off this, it started as a descriptive method of categorization and ended up becoming prescriptive. So that now people try to fit every single belief on the axis regardless of whether or not it really fits.

Use this one instead.

Republican immigration policy is basically "dont let them fucking spics in unless they work for 60$ per week in my sweatshop".

It's an order-recursive spectrum like all polarities.

>"dont let them fucking spics in unless they work for 60$ per week in my sweatshop".

Except the average republican doesn't want illegals precisely because they work for 60$ perk week in a sweatshop.

Who cares what the average reptard wants? Well, definitely not the GOP heads.

Left and Right are defined in classical terms.

You use right hand to hit someone and left hand to nurse them back.

In practice, soft stance = left, hard stance = right.

No, it's literally defined by how the National Assembly sat.

Your explanation doesn't make sense pre-Nixon era.

Where democrats are more hardliners and republicans are the liberal.

Well the entire idea of a duality is crucial to party politics and general elections. It's important that there be at least two distinct sides or factions that oppose one another, or else you wouldn't have parties in the strict sense, because "party" means a partial interest, like a slice of a cake, to use an allegory.
It is taken for granted that everyone in a democracy will vote in their own best interest. That's why "worker's" parties rule in Europe, because most people are workers. But my point is, if everyone voted for the same party all the time, what would be the point of elections? There'd be no point. And in that case, how would the rulers be justified, if there were no elections? From where would they be sanctioned to rule? You would have a situation like in China, with a "one-party government", which is an oxymoron because like i said, "party" implies a partial interest, and not the interest of the whole society.

Most people are workers in US too, yet US workers don't win anything.

US corporatism has taken over both parties, its especially evident in Republican side of things. The mainstream democrats are more moderate as it tries to balance both the corporates and the workers interest. Bernie type wants worker interest over corporate interest.

It's the nature of party politics and coalition-building. Not much you can do about it.

This is the way I've come up with to designate someone as left or right in simplest of terms. If you are not egalitarian, then you are not on the left.

Even David Duke is in favor of equality under the law. He is not keen on the idea of material and political equality of blacks and whatnot. Leftist, from social democrats to full on Marxist-Leninist, believe that equality is a principle in and of itself worthy of concentrated government effort.

Right wingers, from libertarians to nazis to Evola, all believe in principles ordering people to their proper places. This can be from their own individual merits, tradition, or blood.

I'm not sure. I think anti-egalitarianism is crucial, but i think it may transcend the entire left-right dichotomy. People who are "on the right" are not necessarily against equality in all its forms.

But you have a point. People who are "on the left" often tend to believe more firmly in equality. And on the contrast, people "on the right" tend to be skeptic towards enforcing equality. Still, the spectrum of left and right is clearly flawed, like i stated here: The spectrum is propped up and given a sacred role, because the democratic systems need at least two poles, or factions, in order to function.

>People who are "on the right" are not necessarily against equality in all its forms

Much agreed, I am a right winger myself. My idea is that the chips will fall as they may and people should be free to rise above it in their own way. Actively enforcing equality is unnecessarily meddlesome at best and destructive at its worst.

Wouldn't encouraging class mobility be a great thing to America as a whole? Getting those generational poverty class to a middle class would help American productivity greatly.

Doing nothing hasn't done much since they've been stuck there forever. Encouraging government policies that uplift the generational poverty seems like a rational economic thing to do. Yet political idealism seem to hold this back.

>change so much
Thats because its all ministry of truth stuff designed to keep the proles bogged down in an engineered controlled fight while the elite screw them.

I am all in favor of making them economic independent and strong, but I am skeptical of government involvement to do so.

Thomas Sowell pretty much summed it best decades ago in saying that in all his research he hasn't seen a single group welfared into prosperity, or even out of poverty. It may have prevented starvation and kept their head above water, but never elevated them significantly.

He also noted the economic prosperity of minorities that are legally prosecuted against. In the 80s when he was talking about this, there were anti chinese laws in Malaysia on the books as plain as can be, no subliminal or SJW phantoms. Despite that the average Chinese made thrice the average Malay. The other obvious examples are the jews

This whole school of thought is best exemplified by Booker T because he wanted blacks to be economically independent and strong first. I'm inclined to agree with him at this point. Just appealing for legal equality just puts you at the mercy of a mostly white polity and will make you impotent at best

Both of those two are perfectly explained by the fact that powerful interest group/connections supported them.

For the Malay Chinese, the Chinese diaspora in Singapore,China and Taiwan. For the Jews, the American/European government connection is one that's very obvious. So they were never independent as they are dependent on powerful allies. Its like being surprised that South Africans whites are rich due to their trades with British/America while the blacks are poor.

Now I'd wonder if Malaysia island was moved near Pakistan, the Muslims would be the richer ones.

>So, where to start.

>The number of ideologies does not decrease the further left you go and increase to the right.

>"Tribes“ is not a far right political systém.

>The white words indicate types of society in general, except for the very specific Soviet Union and, somehow, Property. Is property to Anarcho-capitalism as Unitary Republic is to Democracies?

>Hitler was definitely more Nationalist than Czarist. He was also a dictator and not a king.

>Kingdom is not a more individualistic form of Empire.

>Fascism isn't a kingdom.

>Czarism is a monarchy.

>There are two regimes in cursive on the chart – Ancient Regime (?) and China, which is literally listed as Tyranny. Tyranny is not a political ideology.

>While the Totalitarianist half of the triangle is filled with names, there are no advocates for the Individualist corner. Are there no Confederalist, Separatist or Anarcho-Capitalist political figures? (inb4 no TRUE...)

>Where would anarcho-communism fall on this? It can't go to Individualism, because that is taken by Property (hahaha that will never stop being funny), and COMMUNISM is extremely TOTALITARIAN. Sorry ancoms this chart won't accomodate you either.

>What do the lines in the triangle even mean???

>The collected Czars of history are not one being.

>"Competition is cruel, it divides people into winners and losers. By creating a totalitarian monopoly, we can end cruelty.“ sounds like a villain's speech from The Incredibles.

>It's literally just the regular square chart, except filled with the ramblings/strange categorizations of the creator and with the entire possibility of leftists being against totalitarian states removed.

The Malaysian Chinese didn't receive any aid from China. The Qing Dynasty considered those who left China to be traitors, and the only support the Chinese Communists gave to Malaysian Chinese was to the Malayan Communist Party which was eventually crushed by Commonwealth troops. The Malaysian Chinese prospered because the British Empire's divide and rule policies gave them free rein with the economy while shutting the Malays out, and afterwards they were just plain better at business.

economist.com/news/leaders/21722177-income-based-benefits-would-work-much-better-malaysias-system-racial-preferences-should-be

>Yet the results of Malaysia’s affirmative-action schemes are not quite what they seem. Malays in neighbouring Singapore, which abjures racial preferences, have seen their incomes grow just as fast as those of Malays in Malaysia. That is largely because the Singaporean economy has grown faster than Malaysia’s, which may in turn be a product of its more efficient and less meddling bureaucracy. Singapore, too, has been free from race riots since 1969.

>If the benefits of cosseting bumiputeras are not as clear as they first appear, the costs, alas, are all too obvious. As schools, universities and the bureaucracy have become less meritocratic, Chinese and Indians have abandoned them, studying in private institutions and working in the private sector instead. Many have left the country altogether, in a brain drain that saps economic growth.

>Steering so many benefits to Malays—developers are even obliged to give them discounts on new houses—has created a culture of entitlement and dependency. Malays have stopped thinking of affirmative action as a temporary device to diminish inequality. As descendants of Malaysia’s first settlers, they now consider it a right.

>The result is that a system intended to quell ethnic tensions has entrenched them. Many poorer Malays vote reflexively for UMNO, the Malay party that introduced affirmative action in the 1970s and has dominated government since then, for fear that another party might take away their privileges. With these votes in the bag, UMNO’s leaders can get away with jaw-dropping abuses, such as the continuing scandal at 1MDB, a development agency that mislaid several billion dollars, much of which ended up in officials’ pockets, according to American investigators. Minorities, in turn, overwhelmingly support parties that advocate less discrimination against them.

>The ambition to improve the lot of Malaysia’s neediest citizens is a worthy one. But defining them by race is a mistake. It allows a disproportionate amount of the benefits of affirmative action to accrue to well-off Malays, who can afford to buy the shares set aside for them at IPOs, for example, or to bid for the government contracts Mr Najib is reserving for them. It would be much more efficient, and less poisonous to race relations, to provide benefits based on income. Most recipients would still be Malays. And defusing the issue should pave the way for more nuanced and constructive politics. Perhaps that is why UMNO has resisted the idea for so long.

But in Malaysia, the Malays are the majority compared to the rich Chinese minority. The roles are reversed in America.