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Socially Right: Government should interfere with society and social lives of citizens

Socially Left: Gov should NOT interfere in society and social lives of citizens.

Economic Right: Gov should NOT interfere in the economy (tax and spend too much)

Economic Left: Gov SHOULD interfere in the economy (tax and spend much).

Your definitions for Socially Right and Socially Left are reversed. Effectively, the difference between the right and left is:

The right believes in greater personal responsibility with the belief that this freedom will lead to individual success that will open up opportunities for those who are less fortunate. This means that a citizen is responsible for his own life. He must work to earn money. With this money, he can buy food, healthcare, education and consumer items, etc. The government will take a comparatively smaller proportion of this money and with this tax, will use it to pay for key services- law and order, defence, infrastructure etc. The government will interfere as little as possible in the economy, as only the economy can run the economy, and business knows better than politicians.

The left believes in greater state responsibility for the benefit of all citizens, with the goal of a more "equal" society. This means that a citizen will work to earn money, and the government will take a comparatively larger proportion of this. With this tax, the government will pay for more services- law and order, defence, health, education etc. The government takes on a greater responsibility in controlling the economy and in governing people's lives, as the politicians do not allow businesses free reign, and the government sets certain basic standards for all of society.

DOWNSIDES FOR A SOCIETY THAT IS TOO FAR TO THE RIGHT-

-A grass-roots right wing policy is often known as free-market capitalism. This is effectively unhindered capitalism. This has many fatal flaws. The idea of this system is that the rich create jobs and this helps the poor to better themselves. However, this is impractical, as poverty is very hard to break out of, due to all the health provisions that would be required. What you would get is the poor earning money, but in a free market society, they would have to spend all the money on food, healthcare and education. This would mean only the lucky few would break out of poverty.

-With less money to spend, only the government only provides the basic need for society. Things such as health care and education become accessible only to those who have money. Ultimately, this creates a situation in which only the people with adequate financial security can lead healthy lives and meet their full potential.

-Allowing a purely free economy to guide a society means a lot of faith is placed on the people who have the most money, influence and power. With human nature, greed can play a huge role in people's motivations and decisions are often made by the rich that will only benefit themselves at the expense of the poor. This type of greed had, for example, led to the corruption by powerful executives on Wall Street which ultimately played a huge part in the failure of the global economy in late 2008-2009.

-Social equality is diminished in favour of individual rights and freedoms. In a society where everyone is equal with equal power, this would not pose a problem. However, no society has successfully achieved such equality. As a result, survival of the fittest plays a big part and a selfish attitude can begin to thrive.

DOWNSIDES FOR A SOCIETY THAT IS TOO FAR TO THE LEFT-

-Personal responsibility is diminished in favour of social equality. This essentially means taxing the rich and giving to the poor. This can be detrimental as some poorer segments of society may start to feel that society owes them something rather than taking charge of their own lives to improve their situations.

-The left-wing philosophy gives the government more money to spend and, with more money, there's more opportunities to spend irresponsibly. An extreme example currently happening in some European countries is that governments spend larger amounts on social benefits and citizens take advantage or start to develop a sense of entitlement.

-More government control of the private sector means more bureaucracies and more "hoops to jump through", which can increase costs for doing business and thus negatively impact growth.

Ultimately, any system that is pure right or pure left is flawed. The best solution is a mix of the two. An extreme in either direction means too much control by either the government or by the private sector. The trick is how to find the right balance.

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13y ago
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12y ago

They represent the two main political ideologies that we have develeoped.

The Right Wing take the stance that it is better for the people if they have as little government interference in their lives as possible. They also tend to be hands-off when it comes to businesses as well. The Right are also more isolationist, and encourage trade within your country, so all money remains withing your economy. As an extension of this, the Right tend to be more opposed to Immigration. They also believe that minimal government interference and low taxation means that people should be ore responsible for themselves and securing their own economic security. As a whole, they are a conservative bunch, and value the old ways of life and are mistrustful of change. They are more generally associated with the establishment (e.g-monarchy or religion).

The Left, on the other hand believe that businesses manipulate and exploit their workers and are more pro workers' rights and unions. Because of this, the Left have a history of imposing stricter regulations on businesses. The Left are more supportive of welfare and providing a social security safety net for people so that if they are unemployed, the government will always look after them. However, the con to this is that they are in favour of higher taxation. They tend to be more socially liberal and receptive to new ideas (in other words, they are the ones who historically have pushed for womens' rights and more recently homosexual rights). And additionally, value links with other countries and trade with them more willingly, and believe that immigrants on the whole, enhance a country. They are more generally associated with progressiveness and reform.

I believe the terms come from the time of the French Revolution and in their chamber, those who were pro the monarchy and nationalism sat on the right and those pro the people and revolution sat on the left.

Extremes of both views are not good. Communism, such as in Soviet Russia and China is an example of the Left Wing ideology taken to its extreme, resulting in the deaths of literally millions, and Hitler and Mussolini were extreme Right-Wing thinkers.

Nowadays, the Conservative Party of the UK and the Republicans of America are moderate-right and the Labour Party of the UK and the Democrats in the USA are moderate-left.

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11y ago

Assuming you at least understand that they are ways of identifying political ideologies, we'll start from there.

The Right Wing generally believe that giving people the power is the best course of action, and that minimal government interference in the lives of individuals will lead to prosperity. They take a hands-off approach in most areas, including the economy, as they do not place large regulations on businesses. Fundamentally, they believe that a thriving, 'free' economy will lead to a better nation. Because of this, they tend to be more isolationist, wishing to sever ties with other countries and minimise immigration. The Right are often known as conservatives.

The Left, on the other hand believe that if people's welfare is at stake, it is the government's job to intervene, whether it be economically or socially. They are generally more supportive of state resources, like state school and a national health service. It is often said that the Left prefer the idea of 'big government' and they are more prone to fighting for equality first and foremost as a way of improving peoples' lives. Socially, they are more supportive of the Unions and rights for workers, as opposed to protecting the interests of businesses. They are often known as socialists.

Personally, I am Left Wing, and I hope I don't come across as too biased. Either extreme is not good. Far Right is nationalism, or Nazism such as Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's Italy. The Far Left is Communism, as in the Soviet Union or Mao's China.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's your general idea.

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12y ago

As far as i am aware being right winged means that you believe in democracy as opposed to left wing which tends to lean towards communism, i might be wrong but that's what I'm led to believe.

wrong. left wing belives in new ideas, equality, internationalism and people helping each other with their problems. right wing belive in the same ideas, inequality, nationalism and people helping themselves

Here is a more balanced answer. The left wing believes economic inequality should be struggled against or in extreme cases ended by force, the right wing believes the only ways to curb economic inequality are too restrictive to individual freedom, impractical, or harmful to efficiency, or some combination of these, or in extreme cases that economic inequality is desirable.

On the far right is fascism, which "affirms the irremediable, fruitful and beneficent inequality of men"-Mussolini. On the far left is Anarchism, which views all hierarchy of any form in which anyone has more power than anyone else as restrictive (they want to abolish capitalism as well). Nearly as far left is Communism, which seeks to abolish all social inequality through the use of (theoretically) limited (theoretically) democratic government hierarchy. Almost all Americans are far closer to the center.

The moderate left party in America is the Democratic Party, the moderate right party in America is the Republican party.

Another set of words people sometimes use are, from left to right, radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary.

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8y ago

In politics, left means liberal, and rightmeans conservative.

Left can also mean socialist.

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Q: What does it mean in politics to be left wing or right wing?
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Continue Learning about American Government

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