Jeffery Winkler Political Terminology Among the most ill-defined phrases in English are the phrases "right wing" and "left wing", in reference to political philosophy. The origin derives from the British parliament building. If you stand in front of the British parliament building, facing the door, the House of Commons is to your left, and the House of Lords is to your right. When they built the U. S. Congress building, they put the House of Representatives, the lower house, to the left, and the Senate, the upper house, to the right. Therefore, in the 19th Century, left-wing came to mean poor, and right-wing came to mean rich. Then the phrases left-wing and right-wing came to refer to the sort of legislation or rhetoric that would be going on in that side of the building. For instance, in the left wing of the British parliament building, the House of Commons, people would be pushing to increase the percentage of the population that could vote, and other reforms. In the right wing of the parliament building, the House of Lords, people were pushing to prevent reforms, and maintain the status quo. Thus left-wing came to mean wanting change, and right-wing came to mean not wanting change. This is the main definition used today. The more left wing you are, the more change you want. The more right wing you are, the less change you want. Of course, the extreme right wing is reactionary and wants to go back to the way things were in the past, which itself is change. Therefore both the left wing and the extreme right wing want change, but they want very different change. Once you get into differentiating between different kinds of change, it becomes extremely complicated. You could say that the left wing wants change and to progress, and the extreme right wing wants change and to regress. However, the extreme right wing doesn't consider it regression. Suffice it to say that basically, the left wing wants change and the right wing doesn't want change. You could retroactively apply these labels to societies in the remote past. In the Roman Republic, most politicians fell into two camps, the Optimares and the Populares. Both these groups were self-serving, and in reality Rome was an oligarchy. However, these groups took different approaches towards accumulating power. The Populares were demagogues who gave the people all kinds of things in exchange for support. The Optimares ignored the people. The Populares, like the Grachi brothers, had to rely on popular support since they lacked other political connections. We could describe the Populares as left wing and the Optimares as right wing. In Victorian England, there were people who tried to pass legislation to help the average person. In 1829, they passed the Catholic emancipation. They passed the Reform Bill in 1832. They abolished slavery in 1833. The despised Corn Laws, passed in 1815, protected British producers by imposing heavy duties on imported grain, The monopoly kept the price out of reach of most people. The Corn Laws were repealed in 1846. In addition, around this time, there were important amendments to the poor laws, extension of local governmental powers in towns, improvement of popular education, and other reforms. The people who supported these reforms were left-wing, and the people opposing them were right-wing. In the Soviet Union, under Gorbachev, Yeltsin and other reformers were left-wing, Gorbachev himself was a centrist, and the traditional hard-liners were right-wing. You could say that without changing his views, Gorbachev slowly shifted from being left-wing, to being centrist, to being right-wing, simply because of the shift of the world around him, and the context within he was viewed. You could say that those who want change, which is usually described as reform, are left-wing, and those who don't want change, who benefit from the status quo, are right-wing. We've been talking about people advocating small or slow change but you could also have people advocating large or fast change, such as a rebellion or revolution. During the French Revolution, the revolutionaries wanted very large change, and King Louis XIV wanted no change whatsoever. You had bipolarization with only the extreme left wing and the extreme right wing. Often the change the left wing advocates involves helping the masses of poor people, or some oppressed minority, such as advocating the abolition of slavery, or women's suffrage. However, they could be advocating some other change such as the prohibition of alcohol, or overthrowing the government. Throughout the Communist and former Communist world, the left wing and the reformers and the right wing are the hard liners. Shortly after the fall of Communism in Poland, the reformers like Walesa controlled the government. Later people were dissatisfied with how their lives had changed, and former Communists won big in the parliament. Later, I read an article in TIME magazine that referred to Poland as having a "left of center government". I assumed they were referring to before the parliamentary elections. As I read further, I suddenly realized that the writer was referring to after the parliamentary elections. The writer must have been aware of what the election results were, so how is this possible? The writer was using the phrase "left wing" to mean "right wing", and the phrase "right wing" to mean "left wing". This isn't the only time I've heard this usage. I've heard other people specifically using these phrases to mean the opposite of what they normally mean. How is this possible? Traditionally the left wing has tried to help poor and disadvantaged people. Often the way it achieves this is through government regulation. Examples include minimum wage, child labor laws, and worker safety laws. This isn't always true. The great 19th Century left wing achievement, the repealing of the Corn Laws, was nothing more them getting rid of government regulation. Nonetheless. the left wing became associated with the concept of government regulation. This gave rise to a new definition of left wing and right wing. Left wing came to mean trying to increase government regulation, and right wing came to mean trying to decrease government regulation. The more government regulation you support, the more left wing you are. The less government regulation you support, the more right wing you are. According to this definition, Communism is the extreme left wing. This can lead to very ironic descriptions. In Communist and former Communist countries, the reformers would be described as right wing, and the hard liners would be described as left wing. Usually, a stereotype example of left wing versus right wing, is a rebellion against a government. A rebel seeking to overthrow the government wants enormous change. A government being rebelled against wants no change. However, according to the above definition, in the Nicaragua civil war, the Contras would be right wing, and the Sandanistas would be left wing. You would actually be describing a rebel group trying to overthrow the government as right wing, and the government they're rebelling against as left wing. Yet, it gets far stranger than this. There are people who carry this second definition to hyperbole. According to the normal definition, someone trying to overthrow the government wants enormous change and is extreme left wing. According the second definition, if someone is against government regulation, such as that designed to help poor people, they are right wing. You could expand being against government regulation to being against the government itself. Therefore trying to overthrow the government would be extreme right wing. The militia movement in the United States today is strongly anti-government and occasionally advocates overthrowing the government, and is therefore described as right wing. This is amazing. In Nicaragua, the rebels were described as being to the right of the government, simply because the government was Communist. With the American militia movement, they are described as right wing, specifically because they advocate overthrowing the government. Could you imagine someone referring to the French revolutionaries as right wing? Traditionally, trying to overthrow the government was the stereotype of the far left wing. Not only does this second definition contradict the more common first definition, but if you were to try to apply it to the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution, it would contradict itself. The existence of this second definition has led to much confusion regarding the usage of these phrases. Generally, the word "liberal" means left wing, and "conservative" means right wing. However "liberal" also implies supporting immoral behavior, and "conservative" implies being against immoral behavior. Probably the reason for this is because as time went on, there was more equality, and minorities gained more rights. Simultaneously, as time went on, society became more accepting of previously taboo behavior, such as premarital sex, etc. Eventually, these two phenomena became associated. If you say that things were better in the past, or that the changes or trends in society have been good, it's unspecified which phenomenon you're referring to. It's implied that you're referring to both of them. Also both phenomena have the common element of allowing people to do things. Allowing women to vote, or blacks to enter country clubs, was viewed as analogous to allowing teenagers to be promiscuous, or to wear less in public. You can see today how left wing liberals try to equate being against someone choosing to commit sodomy, with prejudice.