"Right wing" redirects here. For the term used in sports, see Winger (sport).
In politics, right-wing, the political right, and the Right are positions that seek to uphold or return to traditional values and/or authorities. The term is used in contradiction to the term 'left-wing'. The left/right terminology in politics appeared during the French Revolution, as radicals would sit on the left-hand side in political assemblies and the moderates on the right-hand side, a practice that continues to the present day in the French National Assembly.[1] The term 'right' has been used to identify a wide range of political movements, tendencies and thinkers. Ideologies considered part of the right include: Traditionalism, Conservatism, Neoliberalism, Laissez-faire, Objectivism, Monarchism, Aristocracy and Reactionism.
[edit] History
The term originates from the French Revolution, when liberal deputies from the Third Estate generally sat to the left of the president's chair, a habit which began in the Estates General of 1789. The nobility, members of the Second Estate, generally sat to the right. In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who supported the Ancien Régime were commonly referred to as rightists because they sat on the right side. It is still the tradition in the French National Assembly for the representatives to be seated left-to-right (relative to the Assembly president) according to their political alignment. As this original reference became obsolete, the meaning of the term has changed as appropriate to the spectrum of ideas and stances being compared, and the point of view of the speaker. For example, by the late 19th century, the French political spectrum tended to be perceived as being composed of the far left (Socialists and Radicals), the center-left (Liberal Republicans), the center (Moderate and Conservative Republicans), the center-right (Constitutional Monarchists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists), and the far right (Ultra-Royalists and Legitimists).[citation needed] See political spectrum and left-right politics for further discussion of this kind of classification. As new social issues arose, right wing views continued to be concerned with keeping "traditional" values (often religious values), which has more recently been expressed, for example, as emphasis on the preservation of individual and corporate rights through constraints on government power. The values and policy concerns of the right vary in different countries and eras. Also, individual right wing politicians and thinkers often have individual priorities. There are no universally accepted objective criteria to determine which of two sets of beliefs or policies is more right-wing. (See political spectrum) Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, one of the earliest attempts to study the rise of industry and commercial development in Europe, was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, Smith is expounded how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity and well-being. It also provided one of the best-known intellectual rationales for free trade and capitalism, greatly influencing the writings of later economists. Smith was ranked #30 in Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history,[2] and he is known as the father of modern economics.[3] In nineteenth century Britain, laissez-faire capitalism found a small but strong following by such Manchester Liberals as Richard Cobden and Richard Wright. In 1867, this resulted in a free trade treaty being signed between Britain and France, after which several of these treaties were signed among other European countries. The newspaper The Economist was founded, partly in opposition to the Corn Laws, in 1843, and free trade was discussed in such places as The Cobden Club, founded a year after the death of Richard Cobden, in 1866.[4][5] However, Austrian scholars consider that laissez-faire was never the main doctrine of any nation, and at the end of the eighteen-hundreds, European countries would find themselves taking up economic protectionism and interventionism again. Objectivism is a philosophy[6][7] developed by Ayn Rand in the 20th century. Objectivism holds that reality exists independent from consciousness; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation; that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness through acting in one's "rational self-interest"; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure, consensual laissez-faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and respond to. [edit] Contemporary usageStrands of right wing thought come in many forms, and individuals who support some of the objectives of one of the above stands will not necessarily support all of the others. At the practical political policy level there are endless variations in the means that right wing thinkers advocate to achieve their basic aims. The right tends to emphasise stability before ideology, and to this end supports a decentralised economy based on economic freedom. The right has tended to support civil liberties where they are threatened by ideology but right-wingers, for example Pinochet in Chile, have been known to curtail liberties and centralise power in order to maintain stability. [8] Like left-wing, right-wing movements include both with culturally liberal and conservative movements, making economic policies a more universal difference between the left and the right. The right advocates separation of powers, whereas the left advocates consolidated powers.[9] In recent times, the right is almost universally associated with economic freedom. The most notable distinction between left and right is in economic policy. The right advances policies such as property rights, free markets, and free trade. The left advocates equal outcome and ideologies such as socialism or communism ranging from radical to moderate. Economic liberalism is the economic component of classical liberalism. Theories in support of economic liberalism were developed in the Enlightenment, and believed to be first fully formulated by Adam Smith which advocates minimal interference by government in the economy, though it does not necessarily oppose the state's provision of a few basic public goods.[10] These theories began in the eighteenth century with the then-startling claim that if everyone is left to their own economic devices instead of being controlled by the state, then the result would be a harmonious and more equal society of ever-increasing prosperity[11]. This underpinned the move towards a capitalist economic system in the late 18th century, and the subsequent demise of the mercantilist system. Private property and individual contracts form the basis of liberalism. The early theory was based on the assumption that the economic actions of individuals are largely based on self-interest, (invisible hand) and that allowing them to act without any restrictions will produce the best results, (spontaneous order) provided that at least minimum standards of public information and justice exist, e.g., no-one should be allowed to coerce or steal. While economic liberalism favors markets unfettered by the government, it maintains that the state has a legitimate role in providing public goods.[12] For instance, Adam Smith argued that the state has a role in providing roads, canals, schools and bridges that cannot be efficiently implemented by private entities. However, he preferred that these goods should be paid proportionally to their consumption (e.g. putting a toll). In addition, he advocated retaliatory tariffs to bring about free trade, and copyrights and patents to encourage innovation.[12] Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch contend that right-wing governments tend to bring economic freedom and rich countries have consistently more right-leaning governments while poor countries have consistently more left-wing governments.[13] The annual surveys Economic Freedom of the World and Index of Economic Freedom are two indices which attempt to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations, using a definition similar to laissez-faire capitalism. Some say that a two-dimensional political spectrum would portray their political position more accurately.[14] (See Nolan chart, Pournelle Chart, Political Compass). The centre-right Gaullists in post-World War II France advocated considerable social spending on education and infrastructure development, as well as extensive economic regulation and even a limited amount of the wealth redistribution measures more characteristic of social democracy. As noted above, the political use of the terms "left" and "right" has evolved across linguistic, societal, and national boundaries, sometimes taking on meanings in one time and place that contrast sharply with those in another. Two prominent political ideologies, very different from one another, are widely considered "right-wing", but in each case, for different reasons, the classification is controversial. Libertarianism has focused on the preservation of individual and corporate rights through constraints on government power, while not necessarily favoring "traditional" values. Some on the right reject the rights-based assumptions of this philosophy. Conversely some libertarians do not consider themselves to be right wing and reject the traditional one-dimensional political spectrum, preferring to think in terms of liberty vs. authority rather than socialism vs. capitalism. Some associate ethno-nationalism, anti-elitist, populist groups with the right.[15][16] According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and facism has historically attacked communism, conservatism and parliamentary liberalism. The Italian Facist party was originally founded by prominent socialist figures and attracted support from trade unions and labor movement. Some fascist movements have become more monolithically right-wing, and became intertwined with the radical right.[17][18] fascism opposed communism, conservatism, liberalism. Many scholars accept fascism as a search for a Third Way among these fields.[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] [edit] Postitions around the world[edit] Tradition
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