Gorby,
you have communism on the extreme left and nazism/fascism/empire
(religious/secular) on the extreme right. Autocrats can be either
right wing or left wing. I made a slight ambiguity in my previous
post, i think. sorry.
Members of the Right Wing are considered to be the more
conservative factions, those who want to preserve the existing
capitalist status quo. For example, countries like Saudi Arabia are
right-wing governments. Arabia is a strongly-Muslim-influenced
country; strongly meaning tottering to the edge of fundamentalism.
Right-wing countries usually retain much traditional practices,
many of which could be considered outdated. For eg, PAS is
considered right-wing because the states it rules prevents a high
degree of social intercourse for residents; men and women are not
allowed to hold hands or kiss on the streets. In Saudi Arabia,
ladies are expected to wear veils all the time. PAP is considered
right-wing because in the 50s and 60s, it sided with the British,
the status quo then, and now it refuses to change a number of
socially conservative laws eg. the law concerning oral sex between
consenting adults. Right-wing govenrments are also those which
retain existing institutions and do little to change them, or
regress them to previous states. In our local context, the
centralization of the newspapers into SPH in 1980s is considered a
right-wing move, since it clamped down on Freedom of the Press that
was existent in Britain, and basically turned teh Straits Times
untio something not unlike the newssheets during the Roman Empire
in Europe, where the Senate used them to inform about policies (see
a parallel with the "national interest" motive?).
Members of the Left Wing are the more radical factions. Down here
we need to distinguish three terms: Communist, Communism, and
Communist Government. Communism is the ideology, communist is the
person with the ideology, and Communist government is the
institution implementing the ideology. Communism is decidedly
left-wing, since it invloves the destruction of Capitalism, and
freeing of people from the Capitalist class system. Since pure
communists share these ideals, they are left-wing also. they are
left wing because they advocate change to existing institutions.
Communist governments are a more tricky matter. They are left-wing
to the extent which they change existing systems of adminiatration
and social organization, and right-wing to the extent which they
seek to maintain the social quo they set up; left wingers usually
advocate continuous change. The Chinese government, for example, is
considered right-wing. It retains Imperial-era detention laws,
refuses social change etc.
Cheers,
the pikamaster
