Right-wing Politics - Positions

Positions

The meaning of right-wing "varies across societies, historical epochs, and political systems and ideologies." According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, in liberal democracies the political Right opposes socialism and social democracy. Right-wing parties include conservatives, Christian democrats, classical liberals, nationalists and, on the far Right, racists and fascists.

There has been considerable criticism of the reduction of politics to a simple left-right axis. Friedrich Hayek suggests that it is incorrect to view the political spectrum as a line, with socialists on the left, conservatives on the right, and liberals in the middle. He places each group at the corner of a triangle.

Eatwell and O'Sullivan divide the Right into five types: 'reactionary', 'moderate', 'radical', 'extreme', and 'new'. Each of these "styles of thought" are seen as "responses to the left", including both liberalism and socialism, that have arisen since the French Revolution of 1789.

The 'reactionary right' looks toward the past and is "aristocratic, religious and authoritarian".

The 'moderate right' is typified by the writings of Edmund Burke. It is tolerant of change, provided it is gradual, and accepts some aspects of liberalism, including the rule of law and capitalism, although it sees radical laissez-faire and individualism as harmful to society. Often it promotes nationalism and social welfare policies.

The 'radical right' is a term developed after the Second World War to describe groups as different as McCarthyism, the John Birch Society, Thatcherism, the Republikaner Party in West Germany, and so on. Eatwell stresses that this use has "major typological problems" and that the term "has also been applied to clearly democratic developments."< It includes right-wing populism and various other subtypes.

The 'extreme right' has four traits according to Roger Eatwell: "1)anti-democracy; 2) nationalism; 3) racism; 4) the strong state". He adds that violence is now dropped as a characteristic.

The 'New Right' consists of the liberal conservatives, who stress small government, free markets, and individual initiative.

Other authors make a distinction between the centre-right and the far right. Parties of the centre-right generally support liberal democracy, capitalism, the market economy (though they may accept government regulation to control monopolies), private property rights, and a limited welfare state (for example government provision of education and medical care). They support conservatism and economic liberalism, oppose socialism and communism. The phrase far right, by contrast, is used to describe those who favor an absolutist government, which uses the power of the state to support the dominant ethnic group or religion and often to criminalize other ethnic groups or religions. Typical examples of leaders to whom the far right lable is often applied are Francisco Franco in Spain and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. The US Department of Homeland Security defines right-wing extremism as hate groups who target racial, ethnic or religious minorities and may be dedicated to a single issue. The phrase is also used to describe support for ethnic nationalism.