I feel this is a key point people need understand, and if you can read on for a bit it will help a lot:
The right/left system of political ideology is poorly understood by most people - and it has been made that way intentionally to keep us divided. It'll make sense why shortly.
What is the spectrum?
It is typically sold that
right = capitalism and
left = socialism, or even communism.
But that's a smokescreen to keep people arguing and distracted.
Left and right describe
values and priorities, not specific systems. It is a spectum of ideas rather than distinct buckets of unrelated ideas. This is very important.
- Left-wing ideas generally focus on equality, social welfare, and collective action. Left-wing systems can include socialism (where some industries are publicly owned) or even more moderate social democracies (where markets exist but with strong government programs to reduce inequality).
- Right-wing ideas tend to emphasise individual freedom, personal responsibility, and smaller government roles in the economy. Systems here can range from free-market capitalism (minimal government interference) to more traditional conservative structures (emphasising hierarchy and cultural values).
The best and most effective systems, historically, use aspects of the whole spectrum to best serve humanity and the world.
So what's the problem?
On the right, capitalism is just one type of free market system.
On the left, communism is just one type of a social system.
These are both poor and extreme examples, are destructive to society, truly serve only a few in power, and don't work long term.
Our dominant system in the west today is capitalism.
Free markets have existed since before agriculture - so more than 10,000 years. They have been relatively fair and effective.
Capitalism is a recent version of a free market system and is only a few hundred years old.
It's a very destructive version that serves only a very few at the expense of everyone and everything else.
Capitalism and communism are both dominated by a tyrant class.
Most other right and left wing systems are not.
The tyrants and exploitation are what make these poor examples.
Capitalism v free markets:
Free Market systems describe an economic system where prices and production are determined by supply and demand, with minimal to no government intervention. Effective versions has existed for millenia, including in nature.
* Capitalism describes a
type of free market system where private individuals or businesses
own the means of production (e.g., factories, land, resources) and operate them for personal profit.
They took these means by force. Initially, they fenced off the commons (rivers, forests, land) and claimed it with violence, then made people work to earn barely enough to buy their very needs from them. This has expanded and accelerated into the system we have today, and included colonisation, slavery and the exploitation of people and of nature and our very life-systems.
The rich get richer, and everyone else is forced into scarcity in order to have to work as hard as possible and produce as much as possible. The output of the majority of this labour and productivity go to the capitalist owner pulling the strings at the top.
Communism v socialism:
Socialism describes shared contructs and processes that are organised to serve the whole. Examples of these constructs are a public education system or medicare. It means that human needs, required for survival, are considered a right of life, not owned by an individual for their own personal gain because they have others over a barrel.
* Communism describes a type of socialism that is dominant in
all spheres, and takes away personal freedom to act in a free way.
It is a kind of the opposite of capitalism in that there is no private ownership of the means of production, but it is capitalisms twin in that it has totalitarian goals where very few have real power, and everyone else is a slave to the system.
Why does this matter?
There is nothing wrong with free markets (fair and leads to innovation),
and it makes sense to share the means of the needs of life (you wouldn't want just one guy or company to own all of the air, set the price on breathing and determine who is allowed access to it).
BUT, capitalism and communism are both terrible, terrible versions of of left/right ideologies.
Why do we only really know about these 2 examples of left and right systems then?
In highly capitalist countries where a small handful of capitalists hold the majority of wealth and power they actively demonise socialist policies as a way to entrench their power. They never talk about socialist policies and constructs that work, but tar all constructs that can't be privately controlled as 'communism' to scare people off.
If healthcare was free, for example, then who would make billions in profits from a private insurance system?
In reality the most effective systems select the best elements from both ends of the pectrum to serve our interests.
Earth has been tinkering with complex, dynamic systems in life for 3.5 billion years. The most effective systems it has achieved in ecology mix the best of right and left ideas.
When young, an ecosystem focuses on growth and some competition to drive innovation and strength.
As the system ages it shifts from maximum growth (trees upwards at full speed) to mature growth (building complexity, interconnections and richness in resilience) through cooperation, relationships and complexity.
On thing you don't see in nature is all the power in the hands of the very few and the majority struggling to survive - which occurs in both capitalism and communism. An ecosystem utilises the best from left and right but without the tyrants.
If you've read this far -
please recognise that it's not left v right, and it never has been.
Our systems should select the best elements from both to serve us best. Societies have successfully done so in the past.
What is happening is those who are stealing all of the power and resources from the rest of us try to make us pick sides - evil communists (lefties) or the good guy free marketers (right). Culture wars are a tactical distraction.
Get off the left v right b-s. They want us arguing about it as a distraction. They want us on the side of things that lets them double down on taking over completely.
Left and Right are complimentary.
All v None is not. Don't stay dstracted and let them take it all.