the political spectrum

okay... so this left/right thing confuses the hell out of me

so the 'left' is 'liberal'?
and the 'right' is 'conservative'?

labour are supposedly liberal, and national conservation, but labour support more regulation of social/economic issues than national, which puts labour at the right but national are menat to be the 'right' right?

then weve gone full circle and got no where

another: act are much more liberal than anybody, wishing to do away with all but the most essential legislation, but get lumped at the far right. not particularly conservative is it? to want to get rid of legislation?

what?

I think you went wrong about there.
the left is socialist or communist, or less perjoratively, state-centric. labour are showing this tendency more and more. they are finding their roots again imo with interventions and intrusive legislation.

Yeah, there's a tendency these days (mostly within the US) to conflate liberalism with "the left" and conservatism with "the right", which, from my understanding, is a total fallacy.

The left/right wing distinction refers to economic philosophies (socialism(left) vs capitalism(right)) and the liberal/conservative distinction has much to do with, for use of a better word, "values"... conservatives wish to maintain the status quo in this regard, while liberals seek to overturn the "white male dominated society".

There is no contradiction in calling someone a left-wing conservative (I'd think you'd find Vadz to be one of these ) or a liberal right-winger (e.g. an ACT voter)


Or something like that

Bang on gummi, most varient of the "left/right spectrum" have two axes - social and economic being one.

I consider myself socially liberal and economically conservative in many ways...

(the left liberal, right conservative is from wikipedia not me!)

its just so confusing... because i would have put it that the far right should be fascist (total regulation) and the far left anarchist (totally liberal)

but act always get put at the far right, even though they are socially and economically liberal

labour then are the fascists, regulating as many social and economic factors as they can before they get voted out (not that i necessarily believe they will be voted out this election)

shouldnt this whole political spectrum thing just be thrown out... or at least relied on less heavily by mainstream media?

Exact opposite to me you filth.

At the extreme edges e.g. fascism and communism there are similarities, merf, it's almost like a ring.
Fascism is actually "National Socialism" - economically it was a controlled, socialist system - the difference was that the ideology wasn't socialist/humanist but racial. Strip away the racial ideology and Nazi Germany could easily have been say Britain under Labour post-1945 or any of a dozen "Social Democratic" European post-WW2 governments.

ah i see
so fascism has some sort of ulterior motive?

'communist' states have mostly been fascist havent they? china, soviet union etc.

the problem is if the spectrum is a ring, where does anarchy stand?
or is this entirely outside of the ideology of having a political spectrum now?
it certainly isnt/wasnt in england, france, spain in the 1800s

gah, politics annoys me but i cant stop thinking about it!

and i have so damn many questions!

Yep, while Fascism was certainly economically dictated, similar to socialist systems, the main exception was that workers rights were squashed. Some of the dictates even took on similarities to classical economics, such as abolishing legislation that kept wages rigid and high, i.e. laws that empowered unions, set a minimum wage and protected long-term employment contracts.

There was price fixing and public works projects however which are some exceptions.

Also would you say racial purity was a central pillar in Mussolini and Franco's ideologies? I agree that it was with Hitler’s (obviously) but not so much the others....

Franco was popular amongst the Catholics from memory, so maybe this contained racial undertones?

I have the fascist manifesto somewhere in storage, need to go have a look see…

Generally speaking this is how I consider myself too, socially liberal (especially when it comes to sexuality, cultural tolerance, drugs, civil unions, secular humanism et al) although more centrist these days when it comes to crime and increasing police presence.

Although given my allowance for occasional fiscal policies, I should probably consider myself more economically “moderately conservative”

I think some aspects such as an alleged ulterior motive can depend on the ruler.



I disagree; while both were command control economically, communism was more about enforced equally, especially when it came to equal wages and state owned property/industry. Where as for fascism economic disparity and private property was allowed, Corporatism and the rich had their place, so long as they used their wealth and property to serve the state.

However I know Hitler considered the ability of capitalists to live off interest as parasitic, quite similar to Keynes “euthanasia of the rentier” actually. It was in keeping with everyone being a productive member of the state I suppose.




That’s a can of worms; anarchism is a very diverse ideology, there are all sorts of schools of thought. Such as Anarcho-capitalists, Individualist Anarchists, Anarcho-Syndicalists and Socialist-Libertarians to name a few of the more prominent denominations...

I was talking to a historian online a few years back who claimed anarchism had its origins in ancient Israel (I think from memory after the division of Israel and Judea) however some Taoists claim it was China and I know the etymology of the word can be traced to ancient Greece.

An = Not
Arch = Ruler
Ism = Belief.

That’s about the only commonality when it comes to anarchism though I’m afraid, while anarchists share a hatred of authority, they can be plotted in a few different areas on the political spectrum socially and economically, especially when it comes to private/personal property, theories of value and whether money/interest is allowed, taking note that some reject the political spectrum completely.

Not *quite*. While they weren't unionised, they had plenty of state support including salary setting, subsidised holidays and accomodation etc.

Even during WW2, German workers had it pretty sweet when it came to hours etc

socially very conservative especially in attitudes
towards women



http://www.photius.com/countries/spain/society/spain_society_social_values_and_at~68.html

Agreed, I'm certainly not the traditionally "neo-classical at all costs" economic that economically conservative would suggest. In fact in some tests I've done I've been mildly economically left - I think mainly due to the fact that I believe society has bigger goals that override totally free market capitalism, even if I think free markets are generally a good way of delivering economic growth...

me:

Fuckin liberals!