[Gormo]

The problem is that these terms do signify real, stable ideologies, but the vast majority of people are superficial trend-chasers who don't actually adhere to any stable ideology, so misuse these terms to refer to whichever tribe they emotionally associate themselves with at the moment.

IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime, but contrived cultural wedge issues seem to have eclipsed actual policy positions in most public discourse, so gets called "conservative" despite its policies being almost the diametric opposite of what was called "conservative" 30 years ago.

[paulryanrogers]

> IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime

Can you elaborate?

[Gormo]

Tax hikes on American consumers and businesses.

Expansions in federal spending against growing budget deficits.

Government pursuing ownership or de facto control of private industry.

Aggressive use of executive fiat to pursue novel policies without clear legislative basis.

Federal interventions that try to direct or challenge state sovereignty on numerous issues traditionally outside the scope of federal authority.

Hesitant foreign policy that seems overly deferential to traditional US adversaries, especially Russia.

[esafak]

Trump is left of Carter, Obama, etc. ? How are you defining left-wing, exactly?

[Gormo]

Yes. Far to the left of Carter, who I'd consider a moderate conservative, and marginally to the left of the more centrist Obama.

I'm construing left-wing as (a) seeing an expansive role for the state -- and in the US especially the federal government -- as being a prime mover in social and especially economic matters, (b) willingness to use political power in novel and unprecedented ways to address perceived social and economic problems without being constrained by established legal and constitutional norms.

[OkayPhysicist]

You're confusing authoritarian vs libertarian ideology with left-wing vs right-wing ideology. They're two different axes, with debatable degrees of correlation. "We're going to give the government absolute power in order to best benefit everyone" comes from a very different belief system than "We're going to give the government absolute power to benefit the dictator, or my position under him".

Under your model of the world, Anarchists (the communist ideology) and Libertarians (the radical free market ideology) occupy the same place on the left-right spectrum. Which is... definitely not where any serious political theorists would put them.

[Gormo]

> You're confusing authoritarian vs libertarian ideology with left-wing vs right-wing ideology.

I'm certainly not. In the US, there is a significant overlap between libertarianism and conservatism, due to American political traditions themselves being rooted in constitutionalism and suspicion of centralized power.

Rather, I believe it is you who is confusing "conservative" vs. "progressive" political philosophies with whatever haphazard accumulation of policy positions have coalesced in the Republican and Democratic parties due to the tactical incentives of the immediate moment.

> "We're going to give the government absolute power in order to best benefit everyone" comes from a very different belief system than "We're going to give the government absolute power to benefit the dictator, or my position under him".

I don't think the latter statement applies to any particular political ideology -- rather, it describes the incentives of a particular type of functionary that exists under all dictatorships; all dictatorships are publicly justified by some doctrinal system aimed at improving "society" in some way, and all institutional systems consist of a mix of people pursuing the outward-facing goal of that ideology and those pursuing their own aggrandizement while paying lip service to that ideology.

And if your starting point is a constitutional system that's designed to avoid concentration of political power, and one that draws clear boundaries around the state and its role in society, then it's impossible to classify any ideology that aims to wear down those boundaries and use the political state to force any kind of social change as any sort of "conservatism".

This is the definition of radicalism; there are many flavors of radicalism, and those may be at odds with each other on account of pursuing different ideological goals, but the lack of regard for the established order them puts them on the same end of the left-right axis, only distinguishing themselves from each other on another, perpendicular axis.

> Under your model of the world, Anarchists (the communist ideology) and Libertarians (the radical free market ideology) occupy the same place on the left-right spectrum.

I don't quite agree with that, on account of the "radical free market ideology" you're attributing to libertarians not actually being a prescriptive ideology at all, but rather a defensive posture against other people's prescriptive ideologies. The communist "anarchists" you're referring to have a detailed vision for how everyone else should live, and aim to impose that vision through force, while the libertarians are fundamentally just opposed to anyone forcefully imposing any particular vision. So that pretty clearly puts the communists on the left and the libertarians on the right.

[esafak]

I've said all I want to say but I wanted to share this to ground future debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

[esafak]

That describes everyone from Hitler and Mussolini to Mao. They all believed in big government, and wielding it internally.

[Gormo]

Yes, it describes everyone who aims to use unrestrained political power to reshape society, i.e. the precise opposite of what "conservatism" actually means.

[silverquiet]

Perhaps conservatism doesn't necessarily fit into a left-right spectrum neatly. I recently saw fascism described as a version of collectivism that caters to the right.

[1718627440]

> I recently saw fascism described as a version of collectivism that caters to the right.

Yes, I think that's its definition.

> Perhaps conservatism doesn't necessarily fit into a left-right spectrum neatly.

While conservatism is right, right isn't necessarily conservatism. Conservatism more describes a center-right party, the extreme right often is what is called fascism, with one alternative being fundamentalism. I think conservatism and fascism are pretty much mutual exclusive.

[esafak]

No, not necessarily. Conservatives condone social engineering as long as it agrees with their beliefs; e.g., to promote specific religions, and heteronormativity. Look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#Beliefs_and_princ...

I think you are describing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_conservatism

[Gormo]

Nothing in Russel Kirk's concept of conservatism implies any of the specific policy positions you're attributing to conservatism per se.

Someone whose political agenda is to force society to confirm to a doctrinal ideology that in opposition to the established broad status-quo norms of that society is by definition not a conservative.

[dragonwriter]

> IMO, the current US administration seems to be the most left-wing in my lifetime

Can you name even a single left-wing policy or rhetorical position of this administration?

> but contrived cultural wedge issues seem to have eclipsed actual policy positions in most public discourse,

“Cultural wedge issues” are about actual policy domains, and have a real left-right valence.

> gets called "conservative" despite its policies being almost the diametric opposite of what was called "conservative" 30 years ago.

30 years ago? The height of the neoliberal consensus when the Right leaned heavily on the cultural wedge issues of opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and affirmative action?

(I guess it was also just after a midterm election where the Republican Party, being out of the White House for the first time in a while and having just taken a Congressional majority after mostly being in the minority for a generation was also emphasizing restraining government and elected officials more than the Right normally has before or since, but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism.)

[1718627440]

I do not live an the USA, but besides clear political goals, the anti-educational spirit is something that used to be common in the political left.

[Gormo]

> Can you name even a single left-wing policy or rhetorical position of this administration?

Tariffs. Deficit spending. Federalization of law enforcement. Hyperpoliticization of social questions. Government ownership/direction of private industry.

> “Cultural wedge issues” are about actual policy domains, and have a real left-right valence.

They've not been about actual policy domains until relatively recently. These issues have been marginal with respect to actual policy considerations for decades.

> 30 years ago? The height of the neoliberal consensus when the Right leaned heavily on the cultural wedge issues of opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and affirmative action?

GOP candidates in certain regions invoked various wedge issues on the campaign trail in order to put them over the top in elections for contested seats. Upon election, they then did nothing whatsoever to shift the actual policy needle in relation to these issue, and focused precisely on "neoliberal consensus" economic issues of the exact sort that the current administration is diametrically opposed to.

> but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism.

But no, it actually is the "essence of conservatism" where conservatism is an actual political philosophy, and not an empty term that refers to the haphazard policy preferences of whatever faction a particular political party happens to be pandering to at any given moment.

[dragonwriter]

> Tariffs. Deficit spending. Federalization of law enforcement.

None of those are left wing (or even “more frequently associated with the less right wing of the two major parties in America”)

In fact, in the period where the GOP has been the more right-wing party, deficit spending has been associated more with them being in power.

> Government ownership/direction of private industry.

Fascist corporatism is not left-wing (state ownership as a proxy for and in the interest of the working class is a feature of some versions of leftist theory, but this isn’t something that Trump’s industrial intervention even makes a rhetorical appeal to.)

> > [...] the Republican Party, being out of the White House for the first time in a while and having just taken a Congressional majority after mostly being in the minority for a generation was also emphasizing restraining government and elected officials more than the Right normally has before or since, but that was pretty obviously a tactical adaptation to the immediate circumstances, not the essence of conservatism.

> But no, it actually is the "essence of conservatism" where conservatism is an actual political philosophy, and not an empty term that refers to the haphazard policy preferences of whatever faction a particular political party happens to be pandering to at any given moment.

No, you’ve confused libertarianism/minarchism with conservatism. Conservatism, as an “actual political philosophy”, or rather a broad political orientation which is not a single unified philosophy but is conprised of distinct philosophies tending in the same broad direction, arose in response to and is exactly resistance to the downward, equalizing, leveling drive of enlightment liberalism.

The on-and-off rhetorical appeal to libertarianism by the Right especially when out of power is, exactly, a matter of “whatever faction a particular political party happens to be pandering to at any given moment.”

[IAmBroom]

> None of those are left wing (or even “more frequently associated with the less right wing of the two major parties in America”)

> In fact, in the period where the GOP has been the more right-wing party, deficit spending has been associated more with them being in power.

You're using circular logic: "You can't describe left wing as doing something the GOP does, because I define them to be right wing."

[Gormo]

> None of those are left wing (or even “more frequently associated with the less right wing of the two major parties in America”)

These are quintessentially left-wing in the context of the past century of American politics.

> Fascist corporatism is not left-wing

Of course it is. It was deliberately designed as an alternative means for achieving socialist ends by socialists disillusioned with Marxism. It's always characterized itself as a "third way", but still one that seeks to radical change society through political force, and in opposition to those who want to conserve the status quo and admit change only through gradual development. The former is the traditional definition of "left" and the latter of "right".

> No, you’ve confused libertarianism/minarchism with conservatism. Conservatism, as an “actual political philosophy”, or rather a broad political orientation which is not a single unified philosophy but is conprised of distinct philosophies tending in the same broad direction, arose in response to and is exactly resistance to the downward, equalizing, leveling drive of enlightment liberalism.

It should be clear that in a US context, I'm referring to specifically Anglo-American conservatism, which does differ from other varieties in its devotion to particular forms of constitutionalism and to economic liberalism, i.e. the Burkean variety, and not to continental forms of conservatism which have had little historical significance in America.

> The on-and-off rhetorical appeal to libertarianism by the Right especially when out of power is, exactly, a matter of “whatever faction a particular political party happens to be pandering to at any given moment.”

The problem is that you're presumptively conflating party with political philosophy even in levying this criticism. In terms of US presidents in my lifetime, I'd regard Carter, Reagan, and Clinton as conservatives, both Bushes and Obama as moderates, Biden as being on the center-left, and Trump as being on the far left.

Actual political philosophy cuts across party lines -- the parties themselves are just coalitions of factions that are mainly aligned due to mutual tactical opposition to the other coalition, and not by any shared worldview. The nature of these coalitions has far more influence on what rhetoric they employ on the campaign trail than it does on what actual policy positions they take once in office.