Left and Right

Left and Right - The Significance of a Political Distinction

Read: Left and Right - The Significance of a Political Distinction by Norberto Bobbio

Allan Cameron’s introduction:

All words change their meaning slightly over time, but while socialism, for instance, is anchored to some form of common ownership, the left/right distinction existed before socialism became a major force in European politics, and continued to exist in countries which claimed to have adopted socialism as the basis for their economic systems.

Bobbio then moves on to argue that the left tends towards equality and the right tends towards inequality.

Egalitarianism can therefore be divided into a kind of utopian regimentation and a more pragmatic approach which asks three fundamental questions: Between whom? In what? On what basis? All social organization involves elements of equality and inequality, and the difference between left and right is a question of degree within a particular cultural and historical context.

It is thus an essential aspect of Bobbio’s thought that the modern political universe is made up of two entirely separate axes: left/right and liberty/authoritarianism.

In Bobbio’ s theory, the two axes in politics combine to produce four categories: the extreme right, the moderate right, the moderate left and the extreme left. The extremists are authoritarian, and do not accept the rules of democracy, and although the moderate left and moderate right disagree over the question of equality, they accept the same rules for the political game.

he makes clear his distrust of the centre, which wields disproportionate influence by holding the balance of power, and is often opportunist.

Destruction of the left/right distinction leads to alienation from the political system , as can be seen in the United States, which tends more than Europe towards an indistinct bipartisan system

Chapter 1

Sartre who, it appears, was one of the first to argue that left and right were empty vessels. They are no longer supposed to have any heuristic or classificatory value , and emphatically no evaluative application. Often they are referred to with a certain irritation, as though they represent one of the many linguistic traps which political debate can fall into.

Besides , it has been shown repeatedly - that there is nothing more ideological than declaring the demise of ideologies . Then again ’left’ and ’ right’ are not just ideologies . To reduce them to purely ideological expressions would be an unjustifiable simplification : they indicate opposing programmes in relation to many problems whose solution is part of everyday political activity . These contrasts concern not only ideas, but also interests and judgements on which direction society should be moving in ; they exist in all societies, and it is not apparent how they could disappear.

No problem then : black and white are divided by grey, and day and night are divided by dusk . Grey takes nothing away from the distinction between black and white, and dusk takes nothing away from the distinction between day and night.

• Includes a difference between inclusive middle and included middle.

and so on…

Chapter 6

Marco Revelli’s criteria: