Political rubrics

[marshwiggle]

Often in the media, and sometimes other places like this one, statements or actions by groups are actually prefixed with "far-right" or "far-left". It occurred to me that these discussions could be far more productive if people stated the rubric they were using for the labels.

So, here's an example of what I would mean in discussing funding of higher education:

• Far left - Post secondary education should be free, and everyone should be accepted, so that no academically deserving student is prevented from attending based on finances
• Moderate left - Either some cost or some limits on acceptance are necessary
• Centre - There should be a balance of government money and student cost, so that academically deserving students can attend, but everyone has to invest their own finances so that they are motivated to succeed.
• Moderate right - Government money should generally be tied to performance, for instance through scholarships
• Far right - No government money should be spent on post-secondary education; since the benefit is to the student, the student should bear the cost. Since people with the most "skin in the game" will be most motivated to work hard

Here's an example of my "rubric" for discussions of health insurance:

• Far left - Like Cuba or China, where the government controls all kinds of aspects of professionals within the system, including theit overall salary, where they may work, etc.
• Moderate left - Like the UK NHS where medical professionals are essentially government employees, and everyone is covered by government insurance.
• Centre - A system like the *Canadian system, where doctors are not government employees, but everyone is covered by government insurance.
• Moderate right - American system after Obamacare (more or less)  - Everyone, in principle, can be insured.
• Far right - American system before Obamacare - People being totally uninsured is possible.

(*I know there are many models of public insurance other than Canada's, but it's the one I'm most familiar with.)

Part of my point with this, is that in many discussions, I would say most people are actually "moderate" or "centre"; "far" is pretty uncommon. At any rate, by defining qualitative factors for each point on the rubric it becomes easier to have a conversation.

Dumb idea, or useful idea?

[lightning]

Nah. Symbolic and fluid belief systems can't be pinned down in a rubric. I try my best to avoid "left," "right," "center," "far left," and "far right." The labels are part of a spectrum that was taught to me in high school civics, but it's not useful beyond high school or selling discourse to the gullible.

[Parasaurolophus]

Your healthcare typology does not reflect a reality I recognize, partly because it mixes and matches benchmarks. I'm pretty far left, and I don't know of any of us who think that the government should have that level of fine-grained control over individual's lives. The far left isn't longing for Soviet Russia.

Similarly, your appeal to the NHS doesn't fit any moderate left I recognize, since the UK has a hybrid public/private model. Some centrists and lots of centre-right people like that idea, but few on the left do. It works better on the moderate left and centre angles when you consider what kinds of medical care are covered (e.g. pretty much everything in the UK vs. no dental or vision and patchy at best drugs in Canada).

If you find such characterizations helpful, that's great, although I worry that they lend themselves to caricature more than anything. But it's also not clear to me that this is really any issue most of us are having.

[ciao_yall]

Often in the media, and sometimes other places like this one, statements or actions by groups are actually prefixed with "far-right" or "far-left". It occurred to me that these discussions could be far more productive if people stated the rubric they were using for the labels.

So, here's an example of what I would mean in discussing funding of higher education:

• Far left - Post secondary education should be free, and everyone should be accepted, so that no academically deserving student is prevented from attending based on finances
• Moderate left - Either some cost or some limits on acceptance are necessary
• Centre - There should be a balance of government money and student cost, so that academically deserving students can attend, but everyone has to invest their own finances so that they are motivated to succeed.
• Moderate right - Government money should generally be tied to performance, for instance through scholarships
• Far right - No government money should be spent on post-secondary education; since the benefit is to the student, the student should bear the cost. Since people with the most "skin in the game" will be most motivated to work hard

Here's an example of my "rubric" for discussions of health insurance:

• Far left - Like Cuba or China, where the government controls all kinds of aspects of professionals within the system, including theit overall salary, where they may work, etc.
• Moderate left - Like the UK NHS where medical professionals are essentially government employees, and everyone is covered by government insurance.
• Centre - A system like the *Canadian system, where doctors are not government employees, but everyone is covered by government insurance.
• Moderate right - American system after Obamacare (more or less)  - Everyone, in principle, can be insured.
• Far right - American system before Obamacare - People being totally uninsured is possible.

(*I know there are many models of public insurance other than Canada's, but it's the one I'm most familiar with.)

Part of my point with this, is that in many discussions, I would say most people are actually "moderate" or "centre"; "far" is pretty uncommon. At any rate, by defining qualitative factors for each point on the rubric it becomes easier to have a conversation.

Dumb idea, or useful idea?

Why not discuss the ideas of education, health, etc and the merits/limits of a particular approach instead of attempting to label the person trying to have the discussion?

[Wahoo Redux]

My idea of "far left" is no government control.  The "far right" also, particularly having to do with guns and education.

Sometimes people mistake DEI or public assistance for "control."  I think this has a lot to do with the ironic rhetoric on the right as they try numerous routs, governmental, commercial, and private, to control peoples' lives----and I really think we know what we mean when we say "right" and "left."  These polarities are in our faces every day.

[Istiblennius]

While I like the idea, I don't think it really accounts for the Overton window. In 1992 I was a moderate republican voting for Bob Dole. In 2020, I was a moderate democrat voting for Joe Biden My overall fiscal and social opinions didn't changed much during that time.

In some ways, political attribution is like Middle class - Few people like to think of themselves as poor so they call themselves lower middle class. And few people are comfortable with the privilege they get from generational wealth or other systemic benefits that accrue to them, so they call themselves upper Middle class.

[marshwiggle]

Why not discuss the ideas of education, health, etc and the merits/limits of a particular approach instead of attempting to label the person trying to have the discussion?

My motivation was that when I see protests and counter-protests in the news one group or the other is always labelled "far-" something. By doing so, it implicitly prevents any honest discussion by suggesting one side is completely unreasonable (while, by contrast, suggesting the other side is completely reasonable). It's really sad when journalists and academics both do this, as these are the groups that historically have been counted on to promote calmly listening to both sides.

My idea of "far left" is no government control.  The "far right" also, particularly having to do with guns and education.

That really puzzles me. Communism is usually seen as the farthest left. (Although I think there's a distinction to be made between social and economic issues. Liberals tend to be for personal freedom on social issues but government control on economic issues, while conservatives tend to be for personal freedom on economic issues but more government control on social issues. Libertarians tend to be for less government control on both, so they don't quite fit on that single axis.)

Sometimes people mistake DEI or public assistance for "control." 

What purpose does DEI serve if it has no power? Is it just to provide advice?
 

[Parasaurolophus]

That really puzzles me. Communism is usually seen as the farthest left. (Although I think there's a distinction to be made between social and economic issues. Liberals tend to be for personal freedom on social issues but government control on economic issues, while conservatives tend to be for personal freedom on economic issues but more government control on social issues. Libertarians tend to be for less government control on both, so they don't quite fit on that single axis.)

Traditional political spectra usually anchor anarchism at the leftmost end.

Exactly how extant governments fit onto traditional political spectra is hard to say, however. Remember that Communist Russia was a totalitarian state and, thus, had a lot of structural elements in common with other totalitarian states, including the far-right.

[dismalist]

That really puzzles me. Communism is usually seen as the farthest left. (Although I think there's a distinction to be made between social and economic issues. Liberals tend to be for personal freedom on social issues but government control on economic issues, while conservatives tend to be for personal freedom on economic issues but more government control on social issues. Libertarians tend to be for less government control on both, so they don't quite fit on that single axis.)

Traditional political spectra usually anchor anarchism at the leftmost end.

Exactly how extant governments fit onto traditional political spectra is hard to say, however. Remember that Communist Russia was a totalitarian state and, thus, had a lot of structural elements in common with other totalitarian states, including the far-right.

Marsh started off insightfully: There are separate issues, and a voter can have different opinions about each of them. Perhaps his positions on any issue can be described and assigned an adjective. However, not many issues are amenable to distinction along a single dimension. Even something like "How much should government spend?" leaves unanswered the question on what, never mind positions on health care provision and financing. Virtually every policy issue is multidimensional.

And then, how do you convert positions on any one issue, assumed to have been accomplished, into a position on all issues? How do you convert a vector into a scalar?

Political scientists and psychologists have attempted to do so. The best they can do is claim, or perhaps induce, based on opinions expressed in questionnaires, that positions on a small number of dimensions describe voters. It's not all meaningless. After all, political parties are conglomerates of opinions held by voters. There must be some difference between the conglomerates!

As for the words "left" and "right", we know where their use originated, but it has been claimed that they are used nowadays only to malign opponents. A hardly existent distinction between fascists and the left was invented by Stalin, a masterstroke, and has been put to good use ever since -- for the left. I appreciate that anarchism was a leftish phenomenon. If so, I tend to leftism! :-) But there are libertarians today, with no trace of collectivism in them, who are little more than anarchists. [They won't take me, on account I'm too far left!]

Left and right are a bunch of words, and we have to be careful to not misuse them too badly.

[lightning]

Dungeons & Dragons character alignments do a better job than the left-center-right spectrum that we get taught in high school. My friends and I in high school figured that out real fast. Here's your rubric.

Lawful Good       Lawful Neutral       Lawful Evil         

Neutral Good      Neutral              Neutral Evil

Chaotic Good      Chaotic Neutral      Chaotic Evil

[dismalist]

Dungeons & Dragons character alignments do a better job than the left-center-right spectrum that we get taught in high school. My friends and I in high school figured that out real fast. Here's your rubric.

Lawful Good       Lawful Neutral       Lawful Evil         

Neutral Good      Neutral              Neutral Evil

Chaotic Good      Chaotic Neutral      Chaotic Evil

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something.

--Richard Feynman

[lightning]

Dungeons & Dragons character alignments do a better job than the left-center-right spectrum that we get taught in high school. My friends and I in high school figured that out real fast. Here's your rubric.

Lawful Good       Lawful Neutral       Lawful Evil         

Neutral Good      Neutral              Neutral Evil

Chaotic Good      Chaotic Neutral      Chaotic Evil

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something.

--Richard Feynman

there are those that win on the Price is Right and there are those that argue with the "correct" prices on the Price is Right

[Sun_Worshiper]

I am basically fine with Marsh's framework. And I agree with several of the points he is making in the op:
- people throw around these labels all the time without really thinking about it,
- it would be good to think about politics more systematically, especially when categorizing,
- most of the people on this board are fairly moderate and few are on the 'far' side of the spectrum.

But I'm not convinced it will meaningfully enrich conversation around here. What conversational usefulness does it carry beyond "so-and-so is moderate right on this topic by on the Marsh-scale"?

[marshwiggle]

I am basically fine with Marsh's framework. And I agree with several of the points he is making in the op:
- people throw around these labels all the time without really thinking about it,
- it would be good to think about politics more systematically, especially when categorizing,
- most of the people on this board are fairly moderate and few are on the 'far' side of the spectrum.

But I'm not convinced it will meaningfully enrich conversation around here. What conversational usefulness does it carry beyond "so-and-so is moderate right on this topic by on the Marsh-scale"?

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the "Marsh-scale" is correct; I'm merely stating that if someone prefaces their comments by their own scale, then it makes it easier to see how a productive discussion may be had. For instance, for post-secondary education, I think "free-for everyone" and "students pay all their own costs" are both extreme positions. So, for me, anyone who isn't tied to one of those positions is someone I think I can have a useful discussion with about how to allocate government funding and to/for whom.

(I kind of make an implicit assumption that most people will see themselves as non-extreme; in other words, I don't imagine many people would describe their own views as extreme, but I may be wrong.)

But using the example of PSE again, if someone has a different scale than I do, even seeing their scale and where they'd place themselves on it would be much more useful than just hearing their position, because it would give an idea about where the Overton window would be for them.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I am basically fine with Marsh's framework. And I agree with several of the points he is making in the op:
- people throw around these labels all the time without really thinking about it,
- it would be good to think about politics more systematically, especially when categorizing,
- most of the people on this board are fairly moderate and few are on the 'far' side of the spectrum.

But I'm not convinced it will meaningfully enrich conversation around here. What conversational usefulness does it carry beyond "so-and-so is moderate right on this topic by on the Marsh-scale"?

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting the "Marsh-scale" is correct; I'm merely stating that if someone prefaces their comments by their own scale, then it makes it easier to see how a productive discussion may be had. For instance, for post-secondary education, I think "free-for everyone" and "students pay all their own costs" are both extreme positions. So, for me, anyone who isn't tied to one of those positions is someone I think I can have a useful discussion with about how to allocate government funding and to/for whom.

(I kind of make an implicit assumption that most people will see themselves as non-extreme; in other words, I don't imagine many people would describe their own views as extreme, but I may be wrong.)

But using the example of PSE again, if someone has a different scale than I do, even seeing their scale and where they'd place themselves on it would be much more useful than just hearing their position, because it would give an idea about where the Overton window would be for them.

Fair enough. Seems like quite a production for every poster to lay out their vision of the left-right spectrum before each post, but your point is well taken that doing so would give us a clearer sense of how they see the issue.