I never understood politics until I had a way of classifying political beliefs; the concept of a left-right political spectrum helped me do just that.
Canada’s Prime Minister called an election recently, so why not a quick primer on politics and a look at the various party platforms?
This means getting a little meta: what makes conservatives “conservative”? What makes liberals “liberal”? What’s the “left-wing” and the “right-wing”?
If you’re like me, these phrases were a foreign language a few years ago.
But understanding the political spectrum has brought a lot of clarity to my own thinking and can, I think, help bring unity and understanding to our divisive socio-political landscape.
Quick and important disclaimer: things in politics are always changing, and the classic left-right political spectrum may indeed be too simple to fully describe political belief. But as a skeleton and generalized classifications system, the concept of the political spectrum is immensely powerful.
Let’s start with who’s in power now – Canada’s Liberal Party.
Liberals and the Left Wing
Think L for Liberal as well as Left.
The terms left and right-wing originated after the French Revolution. The “right-wing” sat to the right of the officer in France’s parliament and wanted more power in the hands of the monarchy. The left were the revolutionaries and wished to limit King Louis XIV’s power.
While some specifics have changed, the left-wing is and always has been more progressive and concerned with individual rights and social justice. They are the party of change and reform. If you want to get real meta, they are the party that throws chaos into the mix and keeps us from remaining the same when change is required.
Of course, this means that exactly what is considered liberal or conservative can depend on what society has established and therefore what might need changing. For example, in Western democracy, capitalism has been the norm. Liberals today want to balance capitalistic markets with some socialized efforts in order to make necessary changes.
Thus present-day liberals want more government. In part, this is because they believe a more socialized structure helps redistribute wealth and limit things like poverty and power imbalance between rich and poor.
Inevitably, this means higher taxes which are required to pay government employees and otherwise fund these socialized structures.
How far left you are on the spectrum may affect just how much socializing you think societal structures should have. In Canada, we have a medicare system and have outlawed private healthcare to some degree. There’s not really a limit to how much you could socialize. On the far left, you find political systems like communism which more or less socializes the entire economy and tries to flatten out any sort of wealth distribution.
Canada’s Liberals
What I’ve addressed so far is the typical left-wing.
People have been criticizing the political left for taking too much control, and in Canada, several bills have entered parliament – or even been passed – concerning the policing of speech (Bill C-16), for example.
In my view, the Liberal parties in both Canada and America have gone too far. Classical liberalism championed free speech and democratic freedoms, even while attempting to create government programs that benefited the poor and marginalized. Today, they use the voices of marginalized groups to champion overzealous political moves that actually infringe on those rights and freedoms.
Liberals this year have a plan to deal with Canada’s housing issues, increase sick leave, subsidize daycare, and continue government stimuli for COVID-19 economic issues. Their COVID-19 response is more of a continuation of what they’ve been doing so far, making it seem like they expect to keep Canada in a restricted state.
Personally, I think we overspend as a nation and want to see a push towards a less socialized and over-regulated economy. Taxes are a bit too high here, and the problems that Canada’s left-wing wants to fix with government are, in my opinion, better fixed in other ways.
I’m happy the Liberals are addressing the housing concerns, though I’m uncertain that their methods will fix much. Finally, I dislike the Liberals’ approach to COVID-19. More money handouts will only increase inflation. They won’t help recreate the jobs we’ve lost.
Conservatism and the Right Wing
Where the political left-wing tends to like big government to enact change and equality, conservatives/right-wingers typically prefer small government and instead choose to emphasize individual responsibility and freedoms. On the far-right are Libertarians and Anarchists who believe there should be no government at all.
While some associate the right-wing with Nazis and authoritarianism in general, both sides of the political spectrum can become fascist and totalitarian when they enforce their ideals rather than allow for the back and forth of democratic compromise and personal freedoms.
Liberals want to change the established norms; Conservatives by contrast wish to conserve them. In Western democracy, that means protecting some degree of capitalism and free markets and taking a more cautious approach to immigration.
For the right-wing, governments are slow, ineffective, and highly corruptible.
Historically, it is true that governments tend towards corruption. This is why the Western world exists. The United States was born out of rebellion against a controlling monarchy in Britain. The Founding Fathers knew their history; they knew governments were a terror if left unchecked.
They created a democratic system complete with checks and balances for all who found themselves in power. This is why Donald Trump found some of his executive orders stopped by presiding judges. For better or worse, healthy democracy is slow on purpose.
Conservatives also think that governments slow progress and that a free market with limited regulation is more adaptable and beneficial for society. Taxes burden individuals and slow progress driven by the market. If we lift tax burdens and give the people economic freedom, they can adapt to the market and environment, create wealth and then use that wealth to create jobs and prosperity.
This political philosophy allowed the West to create such a large middle class – something mostly unheard of in human history.
Some object that freer markets mean more corruption in the marketplace, and there’s some truth here. However, conservatives generally subscribe to the idea that eventually the free market will weed out corrupt individuals and encourage beneficence. After all, what businesses are going to rise to the top? The jerk business or the helpful one?
Of course, people criticize this view. Inevitably, someone can gain so much power that they burden society, corner a market, raise costs, or generally abuse the resources that they’ve been able to obtain unencumbered by government interference. Therefore, left-wingers say, we should limit the market or even control it fully.
Canada’s Conservatives
Everything in Canada is relatively left-leaning. Even our conservatives call themselves the Progressive Conservatives (PCs), and they’re a much more “centrist” party, i.e. in the middle of the political spectrum.
This year, the PCs are focusing on rebuilding after the economic and emotional difficulties of the pandemic. In a less-typical conservative move, they’re planning on giving companies money to recoup losses and invest in mental health services. In a more classic conservative move, they’re hoping to pass bills that limit government power and create accountability.
It seems like the PCs are shifting even more left so that they can steal some of the Liberal voters instead of appealing to classical conservative values. This alienates more conservative Canadians while giving more political ground to the left-wing.
Politically, there’s a point to which you play the game and a point at which you change the rules. Liberals have been trying to change the rules for a long time, and the PCs are letting them. Canada’s Conservatives can barely be called conservative anymore since they keep playing the Liberals’ game.
That might sound adversarial, but the push and pull of democracy is important. There’s a reason why we go back and forth on the left-right political spectrum: sometimes we have to conserve the societal structures we’ve put in place; other times we need to progress. Do too much of one over the other, and you risk destabilizing society.
By playing into the Liberals’ hand, the Progressive Conservatives will become irrelevant and allow our society to swing even further left.
What about the NDP, Green Party, and PPC?
In Canada, we’ve got several other political parties that land at various places on the political spectrum. They also complicate the voting process in a couple of ways.
When there is enough overlap between two parties, they will attract voters of similar political bent. This is called splitting the vote. That means fewer votes for both parties, giving their political opposition a bit of an advantage.
With the creation of the more right-wing People’s Party of Canada (PPC), for example, people suspect that Conservatives will lose some votes.
Here’s a brief overview of the other parties:
The New Democratic Party (NDP) came into existence in the 1960s in order to appeal to further-Left types. More recently, the PPC launched as a way to appeal to those hungering for a more true conservative party, understandable given each other party’s increasing leftward shift. The Green Party is an environmentally focused left-wing party.
In my opinion, the NDP is increasingly irrelevant because of the Liberal Party’s leftward shift. Their platform talks a lot about making life economically easier for Canadians, but how they’ll do that is less clearly stated. No doubt it means interfering with the economy as much as they deem necessary.
The PPC is interesting to me as someone who dislikes the social and economic hyper-liberalism that is increasingly prevalent today. It’s refreshing to see someone challenge the growing establishment, and despite what their critics will say, they seem to have a balanced approach to things like Indigenous issues and the environment.
The Green Party has always fascinated me. I share some of their philosophical underpinnings from an environmental perspective (their vision to end commuting and focus on local life in particular). That said, their dreams are so lofty and their plans unclear that even if they did get in power, I doubt they would be able to manifest their vision.
What to Watch in 2021
I’ll highlight two things I think are worth keeping an eye on this election: 1) the COVID-19 response and 2) the PPC.
A major point of contention this year is the COVID-19 response, specifically whether or not we should be mandating vaccines.
The Conservatives seem to have a more moderate response to vaccines, but they’re still more or less mandating them. Their response to COVID-19’s economic impact seems more robust, focusing on opening up and recreating jobs. The Liberals want to keep COVID restrictions while giving money to businesses to keep them alive. Personally, I prefer the Conservatives here.
For me, the PPC is most interesting this time around. Maxime Bernier has been campaigning hard, and many hunger for true conservatism. Bernier and co. are fitting the bill for those folks, and doing surprisingly well on polling. However, vote splitting and Canada’s First Past the Post system (which requires winning regions, not just getting votes) may affect outcomes.
As an aside, some will label the PPC “alt-right,” but that movement is quite a minority and much stronger in its views than even the more vocal right-wing these days.
As you’d expect, the PPC is aimed at limiting government size and power while lowering the tax burden. This is probably a good idea considering Canada’s national debt. With liberal governments, this debt is a non-issue. Even the Conservatives this year have a high spending plan, though they do intend to “balance the budget.”
The PPC is also making preservation of free speech a concern, which I think is missed by the other parties who seem to have turned a blind eye to things like Bill C-16.
Talk Politics Across the Spectrum
In sum, the further left you go on the political spectrum, the larger your government structure and more progressive your attitudes about change. The further right you go, the more conservative things get, with a tendency to shrink government power and allow for a more free economy.
I said it earlier: the left-right political spectrum is a simplification. But it’s a helpful simplification, as I hope this post was helpful albeit brief.
Where do you land on the political spectrum when it comes to different issues? Are you right-wing in your economics but left-wing in your social policy? Comment below or message me your thoughts.
Better yet, have the taboo conversation: talk with other people about politics.
The less we talk about politics (and religion), the more likely, perhaps, our polarization and disunity. But if we seek to understand others, perhaps we can achieve a culture that thinks less in terms of left vs. right, us vs. them and thinks instead in terms of “us.”
