The political spectrum - the right and the left

I am of fire today! Great thing this blog. Makes me wanna write. A good thing a guess.

Switching to English so I may exercise a bit and make it available to more people.

So, there are two sides in European politics since as far as history goes.

There is a left and there is a right.

In ancient Greece, there were the democrats and the oligarchs. The democrats were the left. They wanted all citizens of the polis(city) to choose the leader, when they went to war, the laws and everything. The oligarchs would be identified with the right, preferring central governments in the personification of kings. For them it signified control, stability and cohesion. With everyone voting, events tended to influence a lot the outcome of voting. Also, skilled orators could turn everything around with a good speech in the agora. Where there was democracy, commerce and free enterprise flourished. They were much richer then the oligarch cities. But the cities led by kings had no turmoil caused by political infighting. While the democrats talked and fought for power, and in the process made many mistakes. The oligarchs pushed on and eventually, the won.

In ancient Rome, there were the populares and the optimates. The former were basically the representatives of the lower class citizens while latter represented the nobility.

Julius Caesar for example was a populares. Although his family was among the oldest and noblest of Rome, it was traditionally representing the populares. The optimates were the old, traditionalist nobility, representing not just wealth and prestige, but traditions and customs. To be noted that the populares, although the lower class party so to speak, were nevertheless represented by wealthy nobles such as Caesar, Catilina or the Gracchi. People with more humble origins made it to the senate only if they were great conquerors such as Gaius Marius, Sulla or Pompey.

So the populares would be the left, and the optimates the right.

The middle ages were no theatre for politics. Although republics existed, there wasn’t much voting going on. Just a group of wealthy nobles and not a king.

And then came the French republic.

When the French got really tired of paying for the excesses of kings, nobles and clergy who thought of themselves as superiors by right of birth, they rose up. Some attempts for peaceful solutions were made but in the end, the king failed to understand wheat was happening and made some serious mistakes. All blew up to hell, people rose up and started to provide justice. The king, queen and most of the nobles were executed. Not all French wanted a republic. But the Parisians did and eventually imposed their will. Such was the rage of the revolutionaries that the supporters of royalty, who we would identify as the right, were wiped out. A lot more happened during the revolution but as a bottom line, the revolutionaries were the liberal left. It was the birth of the liberal party, symbolizing the chaotic but energetic and far thinking left. Empowered by ideas such as self determination and meritocracy, the French went on a rampage of the traditional and conservative empires and monarchies of Europe.

French armies led by people of the humblest of origins humiliated repeatedly those led by kings and princes. The betters were brought to their knees by their lesser.

Thus, they planted a seed that would grow rapidly into the minds of the people. Soon, the established rule of the nobility would start to fall all around the continent. The left was winning.

The modern left and right in politics. The World Wars.

In the more advanced countries it was already present. In others it came with the end of WW1. But as a bottom line, the period between 1848 and 1918 represented the consolidation of the ruling principle of equality. The emancipation of nations occurred only after WW1 with the fall of the last continental empires (Prussian and Austrian).

But after wining the 1^st WW, the Antante made a grave mistake by imposing on the defeated reparations that were too humiliating to be forgotten and too lenient to stop the aggressors from starting again just 2 decades later. With the Economic crisis of the 30’s, came the rise of the right in European politics. Exhausted by a devastating war and poor by the economic crisis, the people turned to the people that fed of their fears and sorrow – the far right. And so Germany, Italy, Spain and others turned to Fascism. Fascism was the right with strong populist tendencies. This made it very different from the traditional right which relied on the power and influence of the traditionally wealthy. Fascism fed mostly on the poor who were desperate for justice and of course, someone to blame. And who to blame if not the forever evil jews and that neighbouring nation who were their rivals for centuries.

And there was of course the far right left – the communists. The communists can be compared with the French revolutionaries. Except they violently repressed any opposition without regard of social class. Meritocracy was not an issue for them as all elites were wiped out. For example, the Russian Bolsheviks killed so many of the middle and upper class that all that remained were illiterate peasantry. In the 1920’s there were so few Russians that could read that newspapers were practically pointless.

Today.

Today the liberal and conservatives remain. The names sometimes differ. The liberals are called, in some countries, labourists or socialists while the consevatives populars or Christian-Democrats. There are even some name confusion. As a Democratic Party in Europe in a right wing while in Europe’s young sister the USA, the Democrats are the left wing. Also, in some countries, the liberal party is identified with the right and contends power with the leftist Socialists. There’s also the special case of Italy where Parties have names such as “The People of Freedom” and “The Italy of Values” J

Whatever they may call themselves, there is always, a right and a left contending that small portion of the civil society that did not yet decide on what side they play. And there will always be a far right and a far left, sitting there in the shadows, waiting for something bad to happened so they may pop up and present themselves as saviours from the mortal danger of immigration, corruption, economic crisis, lack of jobs, the jews, the muslims or whatever else makes uneducated people be afraid.