Left and Right

The Significance of a Political Distinction

Norberto Bobbio

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780745615615, 9780745615608
• eBook ISBN: 9781509514120
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Following the collapse of communism and the decline of Marxism, some commentators have claimed that we have reached the 'end of history' and that the distinction between Left and Right can be forgotten.

In this book - which was a tremendous success in Italy - Norberto Bobbio challenges these views, arguing that the fundamental political distinction between Left and Right, which has shaped the two centuries since the French Revolution, has continuing relevance today.

Bobbio explores the grounds of this elusive distinction and argues that Left and Right are ultimately divided by different attitudes to equality. He carefully defines the nature of equality and inequality in relative rather than absolute terms.

Left and Right is a timely and persuasively argued account of the basic parameters of political action and debate in the modern world - parameters which have remained constant despite the pace of social change. The book will be widely read and, as in Italy, it will have an impact far beyond the academic domain.

1
A Challenge to the Distinction

1 ‘Left’ and ‘right’ are two antithetical terms which for more than two centuries have been used habitually to signify the contrast between the ideologies and movements which divide the world of political thought and action. As antithetical terms, they are mutually exclusive, and together they are exhaustive within that eminently conflict-riven universe. They are exclusive in the sense that no doctrine or movement can be both left-wing and right-wing at the same time. They are exhaustive in the sense that a doctrine or movement can only be either left-wing or right-wing, at least as far as the more rigid application of the twin definition is concerned, as we shall see later.

The antithetical pair, left and right, can be put to descriptive, axiological or historical use, as I have often said of what I call the ‘great dichotomies’ which divide up every field of knowledge. They are descriptive in that they can summarize two sides of a conflict, evaluative in that they can express a positive or negative value-judgement of one side or the other, and historical in that they can indicate the passage from one phase to another in the political life of a nation. Their historical use can, in turn, be either descriptive or evaluative.

The opposition between left and right represents a typically dyadic way of thinking, which has been variously explained in psychological, sociological, historical and even biological terms. There are examples in all fields of thought; the all-inclusive distinction or dyad dominates every discipline. In sociology it is society/community, in economics market/planned, in law public/private, in aesthetics classical/romantic, and in philosophy transcendent/immanent. Left/right is not the only distinction in the political sphere, but it is encountered everywhere.

There are distinctions in which the two constituent terms are antithetical, and others in which they are complementary. The former interpret a universe as a composition of divergent entities which oppose each other, whereas the latter interpret a harmonious universe composed of convergent entities which tend to fuse into a superior whole. The left/right pair belongs to the first type. Given that triadic thought is often generated from dyadic thought or represents, as it were, a development from it, the transition from one to the other will differ according to whether the dyad one starts from consists of antithetical or complementary terms. In the first case the transition occurs through a dialectical synthesis or negation of the negation, in the second case through composition.

The following reflections arise from the assertion that there is no longer any relevance to the distinction between left and right which, over the two centuries since the French Revolution, has been used to divide the political universe into opposing camps, an assertion which has been made repeatedly in recent years, to the point of becoming a cliché. It is now de rigueur to quote Sartre who, it appears, was one of the first to argue that left and right were empty vessels. They are no longer supposed to have any heuristic or classificatory value, and emphatically no evaluative application. Often they are referred to with a certain irritation, as though they represent one of the many linguistic traps which political debate can fall into.

2 There are various reasons for this opinion which is gaining increasing currency, and countless examples could be produced every day. Let us look at a few.

The first doubts about whether the distinction had disappeared, or at least ceased to have the same descriptive force, arose from the so-called crisis of ideology, and therefore the pointlessness of contrasting the ideologies involved. The objection which can easily be raised is that ideologies have not disappeared at all, but are still very much with us. The ideologies of the past have merely been replaced by others which are new or claim to be new. The ideological tree is always green. Besides, it has been shown repeatedly that there is nothing more ideological than declaring the demise of ideologies. Then again ‘left’ and ‘right’ are not just ideologies. To reduce them to purely ideological expressions would be an unjustifiable simplification: they indicate opposing programmes in relation to many problems whose solution is part of everyday political activity. These contrasts concern not only ideas, but also interests and judgements on which direction society should be moving in; they exist in all societies, and it is not apparent how they could disappear. Naturally, one could reply that such contrasting positions exist, but they are not the same as those encountered when the distinction was created, and during the period of its success these positions have changed so much as to make the old names anachronistic and therefore misleading.

Recently it has been argued that, since the concept of a left wing has been so drastically emptied of its descriptive powers as to be one of the least informative expressions in political usage, the time has come to replace the old pair of terms with a more appropriate one: that of progressives and conservatives.¹ But some have taken a more radical stance, rejecting any residual dichotomy in their vision, and arguing that this last dichotomy is one of those ‘follies’ of political jargon, which we must free ourselves from in order to form new groupings, based not on positions, but on problems.²

3 Secondly, it is argued that the division into two distinct and opposing political camps has become inappropriate, and the resulting political spectrum insufficient, in the increasingly complex political world of large-scale societies, particularly large-scale democratic societies which tolerate and indeed presuppose the existence of a multitude of pressure groups and interest groups which compete with each other (and which on occasion oppose each other, and on other occasions make common cause with each other; they converge on some points and diverge on others, like dancers joining together and then turning their backs in an elaborate choreography). Basically, the objection is that in a multi-faceted democratic society, in which many forces are at play, which agree on some points and not on others, and permit a great variety of alliances, problems cannot be posed in antithetical form as one thing or another: either left or right, and if it is not left-wing, it must be right-wing, or vice versa.

This objection strikes home, but it is not decisive. The distinction between left and right does not at all preclude, even in everyday language, the existence of a continuous spectrum which joins the left and the right, or of intermediate positions where the left meets the right. These positions make up a central area between the extremes which is well known as the ‘centre’. If one wanted to flirt a little with the terminology of logic, one could say that while the dyadic concept of politics can be defined as the excluded middle, according to which politics is divided into just two parts, which are mutually exclusive, with nothing in between them, a triadic concept can be defined as the ‘included middle’, according to which there is an intermediate space between the left and the right which is neither one nor the other. In the first case, the two terms, which have an ‘either … or …’ relationship, are contradictory; whereas in the second case, in which the intermediate area can be expressed as ‘neither … nor …’, they are opposites. No problem then: black and white are divided by grey, and day and night are divided by dusk. Grey takes nothing away from the distinction between black and white, and dusk takes nothing away from the distinction between day and night.

4 The fact that in many democratic systems with high levels of pluralism the ‘included middle’ can become so all-embracing as to relegate the left and the right to the extreme margins of the political system does not in any way invalidate the original antithesis. As the centre is defined as neither left-wing nor right-wing and cannot be defined in any other way, its very existence and raison d’être are based on this antithesis. The duration of dusk varies according to the season and the latitude, but its duration in no way affects the fact that its definition depends on the definition of day and night.³

Identification of this intermediate space allows for a more graduated interpretation of the political system, as the centre which is closer to the left, the centre-left, can be distinguished from the centre which is closer to the right, the centre-right. Equally, on the left, one can distinguish between a moderate left which tends towards the centre and an extreme left which is opposed to the centre, and on the right, a right wing which is attracted towards the centre and a right wing which distances itself so much from the centre as to be equally opposed to the centre as to the left. If it is then considered that whatever way the centre is divided up there is still a centre which remains intact and could be defined as the centre of the centre, a spectrum emerges with a range of positions.

It need hardly be said that fragmentation of the political system is assisted by the adoption of proportional representation. This fragmentation can be clearly seen in a chamber of deputies shaped like an amphitheatre, in which the various positions are represented, moving from the extreme right to the extreme left. However, the distinction which divides the elected representatives in each sector is still between left and right. While in the British parliament, one has to sit either on the left or on the right, reflecting the great left/right antithesis, representatives in a parliament like the Italian Montecitorio are graded from right to left (or vice versa). However, the nostalgia for a first-past-the-post electoral system (whether based on one or two ballots) which has arisen in recent years and has led to repeated attempts at reform and a referendum, reflects a desire to return to a bipolar political system. This campaign, which has finally achieved success through an act of parliament, is proof enough that a dichotomous interpretation of politics persists even in a fragmented system, whatever views might be expressed, and leaving aside all doctrinal arguments. Besides, what better proof could there be of the persistence of this dichotomy than the presence, even where there is pluralism, of a left wing which tends to perceive the centre as the right wing in disguise and a right wing which tends to perceive the same centre as a cover for the left which does not wish to show its true colours.

5 Allow me another digression: the ‘included middle’ is not the same as the ‘inclusive middle’. The ‘included middle’ attempts to find its own space between two opposites, and although it inserts itself between them, it does not eliminate them, but draws them apart, prevents them from coming into contact and brawling, and dispenses with the stark choice between left and right by providing an alternative. The ‘inclusive middle’ tends to go beyond the two opposites, incorporating them in a higher synthesis, and therefore cancelling them out. In other words, left and right cease to be two mutually exclusive totalities like two sides of a coin which cannot both be seen at the same time; they become two parts of a whole, a dialectic totality. This can be distinguished from a mechanical totality, which consists of a combination of compatible parts that join together precisely because they are compatible, and from an organic totality, in which the individual parts are a function of the whole, and therefore not antithetical but convergent in relation to the centre. Dialectical unity, on the other hand, entails a synthesis of two opposing parts, one of which is the assertion or thesis and the other is the negation or antithesis. This synthesis is not a compound, and represents something entirely new. While the ‘included middle’ could be expressed by the formula ‘neither … nor …’, the ‘inclusive middle’ could be abbreviated to ‘both … and …’.

In political debate the ‘inclusive middle’ is usually presented as an attempt at a third way – that is to say, as something which transcends the politics of left and right, unlike the centre, which is simply in between the left and the right. In practice, the third way is in the centre; but in theory, it claims not to be a compromise between two extremes, but to supersede them both, and therefore it accepts and suppresses them at the same time (in contrast to the ‘included middle’, which rejects and separates). It is not, then, a mediated third, but a transcended third, where the first and second entities are brought together in their interdependence and suppressed as unilateral assertions, rather than being separated and left to survive in opposition to each other. Every middle entity presupposes the existence of the other two entities, but the ‘included middle’ realizes its own essence by driving them out, and the ‘inclusive middle’ by feeding off them. The ‘included middle’ is essentially practical politics without a doctrine, whereas the ‘inclusive middle’ is essentially a doctrine in search of a practical politics, and as soon as this is achieved, it reveals itself as centrist.

The history of political thought – or perhaps I should say, political fantasy – can produce thousands of examples of such third ways. I have insisted on this point, perhaps more than necessary, because the crisis of the left has led to the recent success of the ideal of liberal socialism, which is a typical expression of ‘inclusive middle’ thought. A triadic combination is always the product of a crisis, and hence a fear that an antithesis has exhausted its historical vitality. Every form of synthetic thought is somewhat paradoxical, because it attempts to bring together two opposing sets of ideas, which have always proved to be incompatible, and therefore alternatives. The paradox is justified by the fact that all forms of synthetic thought always prove to be fruitless once they are put into practice unilaterally.

Another example of this synthesis of opposites occurred on the right, in an equally serious period of crisis. This was the ideology of the conservative revolution which followed the First World War as a response by the right to the subversive revolution which had brought the left to power in one vast country, and threatened to spread elsewhere.⁴ For the purposes of our argument here concerning the opposition between left and right and its possible disappearance, the theory of the ‘inclusive middle’ can be interpreted as the synthesis of opposing positions with the intention in practice of saving whatever can be saved of one’s own position by drawing in the opposing position and thus neutralizing it.

6 A third reason for rejecting the traditional opposition between left and right and claiming its demise is the view that it has lost a great deal of its descriptive value, because the continuous development of society and the creation of new political problems (political in the sense that they require solutions through the traditional instruments of political activity – that is to say, activity aimed at collective decisions which, once they are taken, become binding on the entire community) have produced movements which cannot be categorized in terms of the traditional opposition between left and right, as claimed by the movements themselves. The most interesting current example is that of the Greens. Are the Greens on the left or the right? If we use the criteria usually adopted for making this distinction, it appears that sometimes they are on the left and sometimes on the right, or that they are neither left-wing nor right-wing. The Greens could be defined as a transversal movement, which has become a political buzz-word, albeit a pejorative used in another context. This is because green issues run through all the enemy camps, and pass effortlessly from one camp to another, thus proving that in practice there is a third way of subverting the dyad, in addition to being in the middle (the centre) and going beyond (synthesis). This moving through the spe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Introduction
• Preface to the First Italian Edition
• 1 A Challenge to the Distinction
• 2 Extremists and Moderates
• 3 The Left/Right Distinction Survives
• 4 In Search of the Criterion which Governs the Distinction
• 5 Other Criteria
• 6 Equality and Inequality
• 7 Freedom and Authoritarianism
• 8 The Pole Star
• A Reply to the Critics (1995)
• Notes
• End User License Agreement