I’m only reasonably familiar with US and UK politics, in which while the US is further to the right of the UK, the general axis on most issues is aligned the same way.
In other words, give someone in the UK and someone in the US two policies, a left wing one and a right wing one (by their standards) on almost any issue, from either a UK or a US party; be that tax, defence, disabled rights, indepence of central banks, climate change, drugs, abortion, deficit reduction, funny walks… both will easily be able to place which policy is considered left wing, and which policy is considered right wing.
Is that the case in other countries in general or not? And if not, are there any notable examples (e.g. the “right wing” parties supporting higher taxes than “left wing parties”) and if so please elaborate.
Bonus question: If as I suspect, there are a few outlier but mostly most country’s major political parties basically place their positions in roughly the same place on these axis… has anyone really identified, to any real consensus, what makes an idea right or left wing and more particularly why supporters think this way?
Bonus question 2: Any recommended reading on this matter?
You misunderstand me completely. I’m not saying that a Conservative in the UK is the same as a Republican in the US. I’m saying that, for example in teh climate change position the Conservative position will be more to the right than that of the Lib Dems and Labour (while UKIP will be even further to the right and Greens will be even further to the left).
The surprise (in climate change) would be if the Tories were more green than the Libs.
Or put yet another way - what the flying fuck do gay rights have to do with climate change?
My understanding of politics is that if you take the position of two major parties in two different countries on either of those issues, anyone will be able to identify one as being right wing and one as being left wing.
**What’s up with this bizarre axis that it seems you can measure almost any policy on? **
Haidt argues that political ideologies flow in large part from moral intuitions that consistently differ between conservatives and liberals across cultures.
IMO, true Libertarians would be very left wing on gay marriage and very right wing on estate taxes. Or put a bit more generally, there are people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
Jonathan Haidt claims there are a lot of consistencies across national boundaries on morals and right/left dichotomies. According to him of the 5 major morals Liberals tend to value care and fairness high and not care about the other 3, as you move to the right care and fairness go down while the other 3 (authority, purity, ingroup) go up.
The paper Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition
Discusses a lot of international studies on conservatives.
Some traits like statism do seem confusing though. In the US there is a heavy anti-statist philosophy on the right (and arguably on the left) in Europe that supposedly isn’t the case.
On edit I see a lot of other people mention Haidt’s work.
Took a while - but I’m reading the Haidt book now.
I would honestly say that it’s hugely changing the way I relate to others. Out of the three viewpoints he describes I would be the libertarian type, and there’s something wonderful about turning the contempt I feel for left and right wingers alike into a sympathy for them, they can’t help it, it’s genetic.
Of course that is not how he would want his book to be taken, I’m being a bit sarky. And they would feel the same way about me, absolutely.
Speaking more seriously for a moment, categorising these bizarre at first glance moral differences in the way he has done, makes so much sense. You get it, especially if you read it as a human.
Once I’ve finished it and fully digested the ideas within I’ll start a thread about it. But for the meantime, thanks for this so much, it’s probably the most important book I’ve read this year.
