Can somebody please explain what the terms left wing , right wing, and centre mean when referring to politics. 
Politics
- Thread starter Bahco
- Start date
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Read up on your history Originally based on where different groups of politicians sat
Originally based on where different groups of politicians sat
Depends where you 'stand': in front or facing
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Looks like nobody else knows either!
IIRC it started in pre-revolutionary france, when a Parliament was reluctantly called by the King. the pro-king people sat on one side of the chamber (I think the Right) and the "reformists" sat on the other.
Nowadays, "Right-Wing" tends to be people who are in favour of big business and free markets (compared to Left-Wingers who may be in favour of consumer rights and opposed to exploitation by monopolies); with Right Wingers in favour of cutting taxes (usually, especially for the rich!) whereas Left Wingers tend to be in favour of maintaining and improving the public services that those taxes pay for.
In America in particular, the terminology in common use has been manipulated so that Left wingers are described as liberals (strangely, in the US "Liberal" is seen as a term of abuse!) who are considered to be in favour of derestricting drugs, free love, draft-dodging, humane treatment of criminals; rights to abortion and contraception etc - which are not really Left/Right issues, but Authoritarian/Personal Choice issues.
In Europe the Right-Wing parties are sometimes called "Christian Socialists" (which puzzles Americans who think Socialism means the Soviet Union) and Left Wing parties are sometimes called "Democratic Socialists" which puzzles Americans still more, since the US Democratic party is far to the Right of them.
Since all parties try to maximise their share of the vote, they will tend to cluster their declared policies around the current most popular views, so there is often little to choose between them. They will tend to show their innate prejudices when dealing with matters that are not big vote winners; like, should Government employees in Cheltenham be allowed to join a Trade Union; or, should Local Authorities be allowed to run Public Transport operations.
Nowadays, "Right-Wing" tends to be people who are in favour of big business and free markets (compared to Left-Wingers who may be in favour of consumer rights and opposed to exploitation by monopolies); with Right Wingers in favour of cutting taxes (usually, especially for the rich!) whereas Left Wingers tend to be in favour of maintaining and improving the public services that those taxes pay for.
In America in particular, the terminology in common use has been manipulated so that Left wingers are described as liberals (strangely, in the US "Liberal" is seen as a term of abuse!) who are considered to be in favour of derestricting drugs, free love, draft-dodging, humane treatment of criminals; rights to abortion and contraception etc - which are not really Left/Right issues, but Authoritarian/Personal Choice issues.
In Europe the Right-Wing parties are sometimes called "Christian Socialists" (which puzzles Americans who think Socialism means the Soviet Union) and Left Wing parties are sometimes called "Democratic Socialists" which puzzles Americans still more, since the US Democratic party is far to the Right of them.
Since all parties try to maximise their share of the vote, they will tend to cluster their declared policies around the current most popular views, so there is often little to choose between them. They will tend to show their innate prejudices when dealing with matters that are not big vote winners; like, should Government employees in Cheltenham be allowed to join a Trade Union; or, should Local Authorities be allowed to run Public Transport operations.
Left-wing, right-wing and centre are very broad, one-dimesional terms to categorise people's political persuasions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-right_politics
which although is also disputed does give a decent outline of the myriad of ways people can be viewed as either extreme and the difficulties of labeling people as a result.
Most people are more left wing on some issues and more right wing on others, so personally I do find these terms often applied with laziness and used as a slight to another, which generally is not helpful to constructive debate. It often immediately brings out prejudices or sympathies if someone is classed as left or right wing, which I think is a poor reflection on our inability to address the subject matter on its own merits and look at the many shades of grey instead of black and white images to categorise positions.
For me the crux of the right wing/left wing political debate is the degree of government intervention, the extreme right wing being in favour of a complete free market with little government intervention, the left being the complete opposite; also, the right having the concept of the individual as the central focus, the left having collective socialism at its heart.
However, in reality, extreme right wingers often intefere a great deal more than idealogically they might be expected to; extreme left wingers creating a system that's unmanageable to the detriment of its socialist ideals. Sometimes the more extreme one side gets the more indistinguishable it becomes from the other extreme side....the National Socialist Party in Germany were a case in point.
As for the centre, I believe it refers to the combination of the two wings, but this is just as difficult to pin down. Many may see the Liberal Democrats as in the centre, yet others might say they are more left wing than the current Labour Party.
It is a good question to ask, but when looked at it should become clear the many inadequacies of using such terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-right_politics
which although is also disputed
does give a decent outline of the myriad of ways people can be viewed as either extreme and the difficulties of labeling people as a result. Most people are more left wing on some issues and more right wing on others, so personally I do find these terms often applied with laziness and used as a slight to another, which generally is not helpful to constructive debate. It often immediately brings out prejudices or sympathies if someone is classed as left or right wing, which I think is a poor reflection on our inability to address the subject matter on its own merits and look at the many shades of grey instead of black and white images to categorise positions.
For me the crux of the right wing/left wing political debate is the degree of government intervention, the extreme right wing being in favour of a complete free market with little government intervention, the left being the complete opposite; also, the right having the concept of the individual as the central focus, the left having collective socialism at its heart.
However, in reality, extreme right wingers often intefere a great deal more than idealogically they might be expected to; extreme left wingers creating a system that's unmanageable to the detriment of its socialist ideals. Sometimes the more extreme one side gets the more indistinguishable it becomes from the other extreme side....the National Socialist Party in Germany were a case in point.
As for the centre, I believe it refers to the combination of the two wings, but this is just as difficult to pin down. Many may see the Liberal Democrats as in the centre, yet others might say they are more left wing than the current Labour Party.
It is a good question to ask, but when looked at it should become clear the many inadequacies of using such terms.
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