What Do “Left” and “Right” Actually Mean?
A guide to understanding the political classifications
One of the things that pains me is how people butcher the terms “left” and “right” when discussing politics. News commentators get these terms wrong all the time. Even many of my peers in the political science and social science field frequently misuse them. It is nearly as bad as our exceptional ability to mislabel entire ideologies in politics, such as how the word “liberal” is sometimes used as a synonym for “left” and how people, when emphasizing the term “progressive,” tend to go on to describe things that are actually less progressive, just as two examples.
The terms “left” and “right” are very helpful when categorizing the history of political thought, at least in terms of political genealogy, so it is worthwhile to use them fittingly. Additionally, not using the terms adequately tends to show political ignorance. Better yet, the fundamentals are easy to understand, and most people have a decent intuition of the terms; it is just a matter of fixing a few mistakes and refinement.
So what do they mean?
For starters, a necessary caveat: these terms are not pejoratives. Each “side” uses these terms almost as slurs and this doesn’t advance anything that would approximate a helpful discussion. People tend to use the terms “left-wing” and “right-wing” to dismiss whoever they are describing. They think this person is “X,” I am “Y,” and therefore, that person has wrong views. That is the first point. “Left” and “right” do not describe value judgments and are not ethical grades; they refer to the type of argumentation.
A political argument succeeds or fails on its own merits, not because it is left or right. These terms aren’t moral or logical classifications. It can be perfectly consistent to have a political philosophy or ideology that blends left and right ideas. Many, if not most, ideologies are a blend of arguments deriving from old left and right movements. There is no necessary contradiction there.
It might be helpful to think of it like this: “Left” and “right” are to politics what taxonomy divisions are to biologists. You could put sharks and dolphins in the same category of animals if you wanted. They are both carnivores; they are grey, live in the water and have fins. However, scientists generally do not categorize sharks and dolphins together. By convention, sharks are understood to be fish, and dolphins are said to be mammals because scientists use a list of criteria to classify the animals in a way that is more helpful for distinguishing species. It aids communication and study.
So, instead of talking about how traits like being warm-blooded vertebrates with hair/fur, mammary glands, etc., classify an animal as a mammal, certain philosophical traits classify political ideas as either left or right. The idea is pretty simple; it is just a matter of discerning the traits and seeing if they belong in the “left bucket” or “right bucket.”
Let’s start with “left traits” and “right traits” before concluding with some essentials to remember and examples of misapplication.
When using the terms “left” and “right” in political thought, we use language derived from a practice starting around 1789 in the French National Assembly. During the French Revolution, the delegates met to draft a new constitution, and there were two factions in the Assembly: an anti-monarchical “party” and a “party” that was more partial to royal authority.
Those who didn’t like the king sat on the presiding officer’s left side, while the supporters of the monarchy and aristocracy sat on his right side. The two factions self-segregated until it became an almost formal tradition (this didn’t apply when Napoleon came to power, but it resumed shortly thereafter), and over time, the reference and seating tradition stuck.
The most distinct feature of the “left” was its opposition to monarchies and the aristocracy. Secondary features were its advocacy of egalitarian principles, social equality, and parity between individuals. Even if not literally equal, they argued that there can at least be an equalizer to make people more equal. A good example in the context of the French Revolution was the Cordeliers, a populist group that advocated for expanding suffrage and direct democracy reforms.
On the other hand, the most distinct feature of the “right,” was the comparative favoritism of aristocracy in the context of the French National Assembly, as seen in the advocacy of a constitutional monarchy by the Feuillants. Whereas “ the left” makes appeals to equality and egalitarianism, the “right” holds that social hierarchies are either preferable, inevitable, or irrelevant. “The left” sympathizes with the weak. “The right” empathizes with the strong or resolute.
Beyond the dichotomy of equality vs. hierarchy, there are a couple of interrelated aspects. There are also cultural and psychological appeals. “Left arguments” value personal openness and new things that broadly relate to what is called cosmopolitanism. “Right arguments” value societal stability and social order. “The right” might place emphasis on traditionalism as a means to avert unintended consequences. The so-called “Chesterton’s Fence” is a good illustration. The idea is that messing with the foundation that society is built upon can backfire, even if the attempts to change the foundation are well-intentioned.
The noteworthy traits can summarized as seen below:
In its most basic sense, left and right can refer to where representatives sit and caucus in a legislature, though we tend to abstract from this and use the terms to describe political thought. With that in mind, there are three additional things to keep in mind when using “left” and “right.” First, the terms principally refer to types of arguments and ideas, not really specific policy positions. Second, the terms are relative and on a spectrum. Third, the terms are historically contingent. People might take the latter two points as a given, but the application can still be off.
Classifying Arguments, Not Policies
A common mistake is when people refer to a particular government policy as left or right. This is usually wrong and a misuse of the terms. People are reasonably familiar with the popular arguments surrounding immigration, so it is a good example of this point.
What if we ask, “Are open borders left or right-wing?”
Of course, this question illustrates the point. “Open borders” is neither. “Left” and “right” all depend on reasoning and argument, which is rarely a literal thing the government is tasked with doing. For example, Donald Trump favors restricting immigration on the grounds that immigrants erode certain aspects of the social order and contribute to general disorderliness and crime. He also argues that the government needs to prioritize natives over foreigners. Those are right-wing arguments — appeals to order, stability, familialism and hierarchy.
Historically, Bernie Sanders also favored restricting immigration, but his reasoning was different. Sanders’s position was that immigrants who came to America would be mistreated and they would dilute the wages and collective bargaining power of American laborers, hurting the laborers, while the wealthy get bigger profits by underpaying workers. Here, Sanders is making a left wing argument, making appeals to protect the weak and resist growing inequality.
The converse of this works, too.
There are many proponents of right wing arguments that favor increased or unlimited immigration on the grounds that immigrants are a huge societal plus for the economy. The idea goes that new immigrants come in and stay based on their merit and skills and that you shouldn’t restrict individuals from exercising their freedom of movement for the perceived betterment of the collective of natives.
There are many left-wing arguments in favor of increased immigration, too, usually based on appeals to internationalism and cosmopolitanism. These advocates might also argue that the disadvantaged can improve their conditions by immigrating, that refugees should be accepted, or that immigrants are a collective win for everybody.
This applies to many of today’s other political discussions; “Left” and “right” are not shorthands for literal policies.
Relative and Historically Contingent
I’ll lump these last two points together. It’s worth asking “left” and “right” compared to what? As mentioned previously, sometimes when we talk about legislators, we are talking about where they sit in relation to each other (See the Senate’s seating arrangement traditions here). But in all instances, these terms need a point of reference when using them. It can be thought of as a graph from grade school algebra. The horizontal X-axis gives you the entire range of values. As X increases from (0,0) you move to the right. When X decreases from (0,0) you move to the left.
When using “left” or “right,” what is your origin point (0,0)? Sometimes, this doesn’t have to be explicitly said. Usually, you are talking about something in the context of a particular time and place. But this becomes increasingly problematic when you refer to other countries other times or a subgroup.
For example, take the American Founding Fathers. If you were alive in the 1770s and had a global perspective, you would think of the Founding Fathers as radical, far-left revolutionaries. Not only were they trying to revolt against their king, but they were outlawing aristocracy and titles of nobility, arguing that Great Britain was domineering, writing about how “all men are created equal,” and setting up a country heavily informed by liberal political philosophy.
But even within the Founding Fathers themselves, if you were just looking at them as a subgroup and excluding, say, the European politics of the day, there is a left and right wing of the Founding Fathers. Generally speaking, in the country’s early years, you had two factions: the anti-federalists and the federalists. The anti-federalists, like George Mason and Patrick Henry, were generally “on the left” and argued for more decentralization compared to the “right wing” federalists, like John Adams, who argued for more centralized power and more executive power for the president. One of the prominent “right wing” federalists, Alexander Hamilton, notably argued for an elective monarchy at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
I didn’t watch it because I hate musicals, but my understanding of the play Hamilton is that a common takeaway is the perception that Alexander was relatively “progressive.” Perhaps this also illustrates the point. It is true that progressive intellectuals like Herbert Croly liked Hamilton because of his philosophy on state-led economic policies, but considering Hamilton to be a progressive imprints too much of today’s conceptions of that period. Instead, many historians consider Hamilton’s Federalists to be the first “conservative” party in the U.S. Or you can think of it this way: Hamilton’s politics were closer to the pro-monarchy factions in Europe at the time compared to the anti-federalist's proximity to those factions.
So in the context of the American Founding Fathers, George Washington, a federalist, was “right wing,” but in the context of the politics of his day, he was “on the left.” It is unlikely that many people would call George Washington left wing today because they are using today as a reference point. Context matters.
Common mistakes and examples
In America today, we tend to equate left and right with political party positions or use them as synonyms for entire ideologies. However, left and right usually don’t map onto political parties completely or cleanly. Moreover, even positions on policy debates struggle with certain divisions. So, “left” and “right" in these cases might be the opposite of what people mean.
One of the best examples of this in America is the issue of guns/gun control. There is a large partisan divide, with Democrats and Republicans typically falling into their respective camps. How people talk about the issue tends to imply that being on the left means you don’t like guns, and being on the right means you love guns.
Historically, arms and weapons control was more of a feature of right-wing governments. For example, the periodic “sword hunts” in classical Japan. On several occasions, Japanese rulers restricted carrying swords to the Samurai and would have people’s houses search for swords to be confiscated. Or see gun control in Nazi-occupied France or sword control in medieval Europe. The rationale was to consolidate power and further the divide in social hierarchies, not to flatten them.
When activists like the NRA voice opposition to gun regulations, they predominantly use left wing arguments. They appeal to protect the parity between people. The thought is that guns are a tool that the weak can use to defend themselves and put them on equal footing with a larger and stronger attacker or encroacher. This idea is also reflected in the way proponents speak of firearms. Many are likely familiar with the phrase “great equalizer” which refers to guns generally. Samuel Colt, inventor of the famed Colt Paterson revolver, even marketed his wares with the slogan “God created men, [Colt] made them equal.”
Outside the more common 2nd Amendment arguments, opposition to arms control can be found among groups on the left historically. There is an unattributed saying popular amongst anarchists that “Once you go far enough left, you get your guns back.” referring to the desire for revolution requiring arms to overthrow hierarchies. See also the Black Panther’s opposition to gun control, who saw guns as a necessary tool to protect the African American community from police violence and a tyrannical government. Variants of those arguments are also incorporated into the grander gun control debate.
Conversely, proponents of gun control typically rely on right wing arguments. Standard points are that the prevalence of guns is not conducive to social cohesion; it is an anathema to public safety and order and should be reserved for a sub-group of people, e.g., police and military.
Of course, there are right wing arguments opposing gun control based on traditionalism, familialism, and social order. And there are left wing arguments in favor of gun control based on cosmopolitan-type arguments. Cesare Beccaria, who is credited as being the father of modern penology, was one of the foremost advocates during the Age of Enlightenment for the right to bear arms. In Crimes and Punishments, Beccaria gives both left and right wing arguments that have survived into America’s contemporary gun debate.
Because ideologies tend to be a mix of left and right arguments, what does it mean to say an ideology, government, or person is left-wing or right-wing? You have to consider the totality of their arguments/positions and see where it falls on the imaginary number line. If Ideology X emphasizes or includes more left wing ideas, we can say it is left wing and you can add caveats when needed. Similarly, if Ideology X emphasizes or includes more right wing ideas, we can say it is right wing.
A good example of this in American history is progressivism. Typically, progressivism is considered on the left, which is correct in my estimation. However, some key planks of progressivism are actually right wing. Important features of progressivism are technocracy (rule by the experts) and the scientific management of society for purposes of social efficiency (see Taylorism). Those are hierarchical and have an appeal to social cohesion. But, when you look at the entirety of progressivism and its goals (the link goes to the Progressive Party Platform of 1912. The Progressive Party isn’t representative of all of progressivism, but it is a sufficient overview of the relevant points), especially its emphasis on fighting corporate corruption, association with labor causes and direct democracy initiatives, etc., it averages out to be on the left side of the axis.
Another common mistake is thinking that “left” and “right” refer to how powerful the government is. This is an entirely different concept. This is why the political axis, with more than one dimension, tends to add a Y-axis that usually ranges from “authoritarian to libertarian” or “totalitarian to democratic.” Granted, this is muddied by what I consider bad political axis charts like the Nolan Chart.
Related, another mistake is to think that “far left” means Joseph Stalin-communism and “far right” equals Hitler-nazism. There are a myriad of ways that left and right can manifest. Neither has to be authoritarian, though either could be. That is why the aforementioned political charts add another axis.
“Far-left” societies could include authoritarian regimes like Maoist China or non-authoritarian regimes like historic Friesland (now in modern-day Netherlands and Germany). Friesland was basically an autonomous egalitarian commune polity known for its “Frisian Freedoms”—its weak government was effectively nonexistent. It was notably resistant to feudalism and aristocracy. You can read more about its rural communalism here.
“Far-right” could include nonauthoritarian medieval Iceland. It appears to be a traditionalist society with social divisions and emphasis on a strong social order held together by chieftains. However, it wasn’t authoritarian — it essentially had no central authority at all. While the Icelanders technically were pledged to Norway, it was a philosophical anarchist society insofar as the government had no acknowledged coercive power.
Other examples of “far-right” authoritarian states could include contemporary Iran, a very socially conservative theocracy, or historical imperial Japan with its rigid caste system of shoguns, daimyos, samurai, peasants, craftsmen, and the emperor. This system, in addition to being paternalistic, could be characterized as a version of martial rule.
It is worth understanding these perspectives not only for political debate but also for establishing meaningful conversation. Understanding where these opinions overlap and diverge can bridge gaps and hopefully encourage constructive debate. I’ll conclude by throwing a grenade into the mix. What would you say if someone asked, “Is North Korea today left or right wing?” or, “Is capitalism (by that, I mean an economic condition where all factors of production, land, labor, and capital, are allocated by the market, presupposing private property) left or right wing?”
