To veer to the left or to veer to the right

[liv]

Someone on Twitter linked to this 2019 survey about what political opinions are regarded as "left" or "right" wing. The research is two years old and UK politics has basically imploded since then, but it seemed interesting. Particularly the fact that there is no opinion agreed by more than half of those surveyed to belong on one wing or the other. Pull-quote:

Even for the very most stereotypically left- and right-wing policies, half of the population do not identify them as such.

So the obvious conclusion from this survey, as pointed out by the person on Twitter, is that "left" and "right" are meaningless labels because there is no sensible consensus about which policies are on which side! But I'm also interested in the detail of specific views.

I'm most fascinated by the scatter plot of overlaps and divergences in opinions. At the time of the survey the key division in society wasn't left v right, it was Leave v Remain. I don't know that that would still hold true because the numbers of people of any political views at all who still think Brexit was a good idea are rapidly dwindling. But at the time, two thirds of people who identified as right-wing supported Brexit, whereas four fifths of people who identified as left-wing thought the UK should remain in the EU. Which makes the 2019 election even more incomprehensible; were Labour seriously hoping to pick up Leave votes from people whose political identity is right wingers?

I'm also slightly horrified by the top right of the plot. More than 4 out of 5 people, of any political views, think doctors should have the legal right to kill their patients. I am not going to turn this post into a rant about euthanasia, but that is really scary to me. It's bad enough going through life knowing that doctors are likely to refuse to treat me because I'm fat, mouthy, female but not hot or a mother of cute children, but the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens want doctors to be able to actively kill me? Let alone people who are even more despised by doctors than I am, such as racially minoritized people and people with intellectual disabilities. Likewise I'm really unhappy to see such a strong consensus for Malthusianism. To me there's no point "saving the environment" unless we can save the humans who live on the planet.

The whole point of the article is that we're looking at left v right rather than the two-dimensional system that includes the authoritarian-liberal axis. And I already knew that pretty much the entire electorate and all the parties are more authoritarian than I am. The so-called left in this country want stricter schools, more punishment for crimes (including even the damn death penalty *sigh*), just more "discipline" and "authority" in general, and the so-called right want these things even harder (though aren't prepared to fund the criminal justice or educational systems properly to achieve it, they just vaguely fantasize about bad people suffering). But I think there's another hidden axis here, which is how much you hate foreigners and minorities. Half of left-wing identifying people think we should restrict immigration, and a third think we should be politically incorrect (ie racist), and shouldn't have schemes to improve the life-chances of ethnic minorities. I'm guessing this may in fact be the tendency underlying the Brexit split.

The people in the survey consider "favour a powerful government over individual freedoms" to be a broadly right-wing view held by nearly half of left-wing people. To me "small government" is a pretty defining right-wing opinion. But like pretty much all the statements, we're as a population almost more split on the classification of opinions as right or left, than we are on the opinions themselves!

I think part of the problem is the tendency for some people to equate 'left' and 'right' with 'good' and 'bad' or perhaps 'nice' and 'selfish'. So people who basically want to make the world a better place consider themselves 'left-wing' but they hold some 'right-wing' views because most people have some element of selfishness / self-interest / cruelty in their politics. Support or opposition to nuclear weapons really doesn't feel like it can be classified on a left-right axis, but people in the survey who think of themselves as left-wing reckon that their support for nuclear weapons is a right-wing view. Right-wingers seem to think that both 'isolationist foreign policy' and 'financial aid for poorer nations' are left-wing views (which many of them agree with anyway).

Part of it is that people form an identity with one of the political wings, and then don't really consider whether any specific political view is actually consistent with that identity. Anyway, the somewhat dated survey is interesting; it sort of reinforces my view that I'm in a right-libertarian minority among a population that is almost entirely left-authoritarian, even though it isn't using the two-axis system. People vote for the party they think is most likely to give them a "strong" government, punish the bad people they don't like, and also provide a decent welfare system and public services. Since none of the existing political parties actually offer that as a platform, people end up voting on factors other than policies, or vote single-issue on non-partisan questions like Brexit (likewise Scottish independence, acceptance of trans people, whether we should have Covid mitigations, and a few other things like that).

I have no idea what this means for the current maelstrom in a shitbucket that calls itself a Conservative government. But anyway.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

My experience from the people I know who call themselves lefties (which ranges from old (literally old, people who remember the 60s/70s) Labour people to near-anarchists) is that they think any good opinion is a leftie one and anyone who is a leftie has only good opinions.

Even though this leads to them being shocked when a fellow "leftie" says or does something ableist, transphobic, sexist, xenophobic, etc. Which in my experience are all things that lefties can be! And believing that they can't is part of what makes them so tiring for me to deal with sometimes.

[lilacsigil]

As a fat, disabled lesbian who had cancer, I was extremely worried by euthanasia laws being introduced in my state three years ago, but in fact they were well-drafted and they've been really good: well-implemented, many protections, and well-integrated into palliative care. The majority of people who qualify and access the service instead choose palliative care. The major problem has been lack of access to trained doctors in rural areas during COVID, rather than all the issues I expected. That said, there was two decades of work put into these laws by doctors, patients, patient advocates, legal ethicists and palliative care nurses, so I would not assume that any given euthanasia law was so well constructed.

https://www.health.vic.gov.au/patient-care/voluntary-assisted-dying

Call yourself a Livertarian...

[hairyears]

I would pick out a problem with a particular axis in the multidimensional chart you're building: economic policy.

Luckily, this does have a reasonable 'left-to-right' axis from full state ownership to full libertarian economic anarchy...

The problem with this policy axis is that there is a yawning gap between policy and perception: voters who consider themselves 'right of centre' or even 'very conservative indeed' on economic policy are supporting politicians (and therefore economic policies) that far, far further 'right' on economics than they realise.

...Even if we allow for the real world, in which voters are offered a limited choice of parties and politicians, each with a mixed bag of policies.

[naath]

As someone facing a possible future filled with pain, I want the option to be assisted to die as painlessly as possible. The consent issues are clearly hard to solve. but the pro euthanasia argument is not about people who want to kill others, its about people who want (the choice to) die

[sfred]

I usually work on the assumption that there are two axes -
socialism (left) to low-tax, everyone for themself (right)
and
liberal to authoritarian
...
and the vast majority of my social circle is lefty liberal.

I've heard/read you describe yourself as right-wing before, but I'm interested to know your reasoning if you are willing to share.

[ewt]

I don't want an authoritarian government, but I yearn for a trustworthy one.

[silveradept]

That certainly tracks gets in the States, as well, although our base for where the center is would normally be considerably farther to the right economically and more authoritarian than libertarian than an actual center.

Political campaigns these days seem to run on "I'm going to get the government to hurt the people you want to see hurt" more than specifically about policies to improve lives and improve accountability.

[rysmiel]

Chewy stuff, thank you.

Support or opposition to nuclear weapons really doesn't feel like it can be classified on a left-right axis, but people in the survey who think of themselves as left-wing reckon that their support for nuclear weapons is a right-wing view.

The "should Britain have an independent nuclear deterrent?" question is one I have only recently realised that there are people here assessing in terms of "could it make a positive difference to Canada's safety in the case of an aggressively hegemonic US government", including support for said deterrent from the kind of self-identified lefties I am very used to otherwise strongly correlating with being strongly anti-nuclear weapons.

[yrieithydd]

Someone commented the other day that the UK tends to left on economics and conservative/authoritarian on social stuff, so the Tories big up their authoritarian streak in order to have their way with the economy...