Left wing, right wing, liberal, conservative. There are so many different words used in connection with so many groups when it comes to politics that the ordinary person can be forgiven for finding the whole thing a bit of a headache. Fortunately, when explained properly, it’s fairly straight forward to understand. I hope you find this quick guide helpful or, at the very least, vaguely interesting.

The Spectrum

This is best visualised as a kind of line with markers along it. Here’s one I made earlier:

As a whole, left wing ideology generally supports social reform and change. It also advocates the removal of inequality among people. Examples of modern left wing parties are: Labour Party (UK), Democrat Party (USA) and the Communist party of China.

The right wing usually stands for the maintenance of traditions, capitalism and nationalism. Modern examples include: Conservative Party (UK), Republican Party (USA) and the British National Party.  

The two lines I’ve drawn either side of socialism, liberalism and conservatism are to represent a theoretical bubble containing ideologies which would be counted as “centre-right” or “centre-left”. These are special in that they are non-extremist and seek to work within the existing government system.

Though I have drawn the spectrum here as a line, as it is usually represented, in reality a horseshoe-shape would be more appropriate. This is because, in practise (as has been seen in the past through the Nazis and communism in Russia) extreme left and extreme right parties behave in a surprisingly similar manner, whatever their motivation, employing totalitarianism to achieve their ends.

In my following articles I will discuss each area in greater detail, I just didn’t want to bore anyone to death here.