Left vs Right: Which is best political ideology?

Left wing and Right wing, then there is also Leftist and Rightist ideologies, Capitalist, Communist and Socialist ideologies, this gamut of words are used to describe varied political ideologies. You must have heard of them everywhere. But I can bet many people who use these words presently, do not know the actual meaning of them. These words, in a sense, have lost their true meaning somewhere, due to people using them without thorough understanding. Here in this post, I will explain the true meaning of these words and the exact context of the political ideologies associated with these words. Finally, I will highlight, out of all these ideologies which is the best one.

Left or Right, both these words were first used in the French Revolution of the 18th century.

France had Monarchy back then which means, one king and his dynasty who would rule the nation. Some people supported the monarchy and some people opposed it, as they favoured democracy. The French Parliament had a seating arrangement for both of them in such a way, that the people sitting on the right were those who were loyal to their Monarch, mainly the wealthy class who did not want a change in the monarchy. Those sitting on the left were the ones who were poor, deeply desiring a revolutionary change in the existing system. Therefore, the definition of “Left” & “Right” in some ways was formed in this manner. For the right wing, the other words used are conservative, the establishment supporters, the upholders of the existing system. On the other hand, words used to describe Left wing are reformists, those desiring a change the revolutionaries. From that time, there have been a few changes to the meaning of these words till present times.

Today, these two words can be best described by the ideologies of the different American political parties. America has two political parties, namely Democrats and Republicans.

The Democrats are also known as the Left-wing party and the Republicans are known as the Right-wing party. There are some varied policies, decisions and opinions on several matters which are different between the Left and the Right-wing parties. The ones belonging to the Left wing are of the strong opinion to separate religion from the government. They support same sex marriage and oppose the Death Penalty. They want to be open to the Immigrants. They want to increase the taxes on the rich and generally support Globalization and are Pro-Immigration. Those supporting the Right wing party, have opinions generally opposite to the left wing party in these matters. They want Religion and Government to be hand in hand, and the country to be united under one official State religion. They are mostly against Abortion and want to keep the taxes at the bare minimum, so as to give encouragement to innovation and entrepreneurship. In most ways, they support the ideology of Capitalism. They are not Pro-Immigration and want to keep it restricted so that, as much as possible, the country’s culture can be conserved. Therefore, they are also known as Conservatives. Obviously, it can be said that any political party or any of its members can by themselves support some opinions of the Left wing and some opinions of the right wing. This does happen in Politics. More appropriately, it can be deduced, which party is Left-leaning i.e. mostly in support of Leftist ideologies and which party is Right-leaning i.e. mostly supporting Rightist ideologies. The numerous ideologies of Left and Right can be classified in one more way. Left and Right wing can be labelled as Economically Left or Economically Right wing and Socially Left or Socially Right wing. In Social, the issues covered are mostly religion-related, abortion-related and same-sex marriage related among others. In Economical, the issues differentiating the Left and Right wing are mostly about how much the government interferes in the running of the country’s economy. More the interference of the government in the country’s affairs and economy, more it starts leaning towards the left wing ideologies. Lesser the interference of the government, in the country’s affairs and its economy, it starts leaning more towards the right wing ideologies, economically. In here now comes the definition of “Communism”.

The Communist ideology is defined as an extreme left wing ideology because, communists believe in total control of government over the country’s economy. “Socialism” can be defined in the category of Center-Left as the socialist ideology believes in a partial control of government over the country’s economy and affairs. Those who come in the category of Center-Right and the Extreme-Right, believe that lesser the interference and control of government over the economy, the better it is. They are certain that freer the markets are of the governmental control, the better it is for the economy. Now in the perspective of India, you may be wondering which party can be classified into Left wing ideology, and which into the Right wing ideology. In case of Socially Left wing or Right wing for the religion aspect, mainly three parties emerge in India. BJP,Shiv Sena and AIMIM. The remaining parties fall in the Left wing ideology due to their secular views like Congress, AAP, JDUTMC and CPI-M. If we look at the economical aspects, the economical Left & Right Wing, then almost all the parties of India support the left wing ideology, because they support the concept of Subsidies. They support the increment of taxes levied. Till the 1990s, India’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was fully closed. We had closed markets at that time. That was the level of left leaning in economic matters for Indian political parties. But at the same time, we can see the opposition of death penalty and support of same sex marriage in India. These are the other characteristics of the Left wing ideologies. In India, though none of the parties openly support these views. Therefore the words Left or Right are an improper way of classifying Indian political parties and it is better to we do not use these words to classify them. We should only see their independent policy decisions to decide which is correct or wrong and thus judge the parties accordingly. Now the question arises that which one- the Left or Right is the best ideology? The correct answer is CENTER. Neither is the Left wing ideology perfect nor is the Right wing ideology. We can say this with 100% surety, because we have seen countries following the Extreme Left wing ideologies like China and Russia. China had Mao and Russia had Stalin, both who were famous for their mass killings. The countries following the Extreme Right wing ideologies in the present times, mostly the Middle Eastern countries, who define themselves by one religion. If you live in one of these countries and commit small transgressions against their religious practices or make a mockery of their faith, you can consider yourselves finished. This is why both the ideologies, Extreme Left or Extreme Right Wing are dangerous to follow.

It is better not to pursue both of them. But both the Right & Left have some good views which can benefit the Center. For example- it is better to be Economically Right wing as it keeps the country’s market open. Such as the most successful countries like the Nordic countries, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands etc keep their markets fully open and liberalized. Thus being Economically Right wing is better to follow as it encourages entrepreneurship too. But in some areas, the government should necessarily intercede and in some sectors, higher taxation is very much required. There in comes the Left wing, like in the sectors of Healthcare, or the education sector, all these successful countries have observed that these two sectors namely- healthcare and education should retrieve higher taxes for its betterment. Therefore for these sectors, following Left wing ideology is better. Immigration is another such policy where it is observed that following the Right wing views are better as seen in today’s world, in the case of European countries who were till now Left leaning in immigration policies. They had an Open Door Refugee Policy which was not regulated regarding the intake of refugees which caused them heavy losses and a marked increase in crime rates. Here the issue of Cultural Preservation also arises, regarding which, the views of Right wing are mostly correct. But when they include their religion also in cultural preservation, there the right wing ideology becomes wrong. Moreover, the issue of supporting the death penalty or opposing it is very much open for debate. The rights and wrongs of the topic can be considered and deliberated. Thus the other discussed issues can be said with surety as to which ideology is correct for which issue. So friends, heres hoping that you have liked this post. Do resteem this video and its information with others, comment your views and opinion. Till than Thank You!