‘Authoritarianism’ vs. ‘Liberalism’: our own attitudes
Does a newspaper simply ‘mirrors’ the world or change the way we understand, interpret and evaluate the world?
Can images and news be translated into ‘political ideas’?
Does a newspaper define what party you vote for?
ACTIVITY 1: Complete the Political Compass Survey to give you an understanding of left / right . . . authoritarian / libertarian . . .
If news media (and other media forms?) exhibit bias, how can we identify and critically understand it? A good starting point may be to identify our own social-economic-political bias, so take this survey from ‘The Political Compass’ (link to test).
Post up the image of your results from the Political Compass and make some brief notes that show your understanding of left / right politics and authoritarian / libertarian forms of social control.
Some notes on the map of political ideas by dr.Al
Left vs Right Economic Governing
Leftwing (Marxist and Socialist approaches) support equal sharing/distribution of wealth and resources through large scale state interventions. Traditional Marxist views propagate that the proletarian state should control all means of productions – the factories would belong to ‘the workers’ – or their political representatives. The extent of this state control and its democratic flexibility triggered infinite debates within the left and across the spectrum of political opposition Many leftwing and Anarchists supported the formation of direct forms of democracy, in which the ‘workers’ voice would not be mediated by any form of state bureaucracy.
Socialist parties advocate the partial control of economy by the state. Certain industries and services are publicly owned (i.e water, electricity) but many other are private and abide by the rules decided by democratically elected governments. Welfare state provides health, education, pensions, unemployment benefits and other form of support to vulnerable and less privileged citizens. These services are largely funded by taxes paid by individual citizens and corporations.
Neoliberal ideologies advocate the total privatization of the economy and the diminishing of the role of the state. Market will regulate itself and will expand without any restrains posed by laws, taxes and state intervention. This ideology highlights individual ‘liberty’ – which means unconstrained freedom but also personal responsibility for the production and the consumption of goods and services. Neoliberal thinkers support for example the privatization of services such as education, health, police, transport etc and the cancelation of the taxation that funds them.
In between these three basic orientations there are multiple variations both in terms of historical examples and ideological visions. Despite the iconic importance of Marx for the formation of Soviet and communist states in Europe and Asia (Soviet Union, China, Korea), many Marxists thinkers believe that these states had nothing to do with Marxism. Kornelious Castoriadis and Guy Debord described these states’ condition as ‘bureaucratic capitalism’. According to their view, economic inequality in the Soviet world as expressed through the privileged position of party officials and states operatives.
Libertarian vs Authoritarian Social Governing
When it comes to social governance, Libertarians support total freedom of self-expression and the absolute disengagement of ‘unwritten rules’ from what a citizen is officially expected to do in her/his public or private life. People should be free to look, behave and socialize as eccentrically and unexpectedly as they want as long as they do not threaten of violate the freedom of others. Culture, sexuality, style, religion, beliefs should be expressed freely. In the political domain, there are elections or some process of switching governing bodies through some type of commonly agreed method.
Authoritarians propagate the absolute control of morality and personal life by the state. Regulations pertaining to cultural, political, sexual and social expression define all aspects of public and private life. State dictates what is allowed to be said and not. Media, arts and public life are heavily restrained and censored. Those who violate the rules are punished. Power remains stable and concentrated and does not change hands through democratic processes.
All the above is a very general map of ideological orientations, some of whom have historically materialized leading to different types of social and political formations, whereas some others shaped primarily the theoretical field of politics and public debates. The variety and the complexity of these ideas is reflected in media organizations and printed press. Newspapers do not merely support parties: they present a spectrum of debates and various ‘shades’ of ideologies. Opinion columnists (who work for the same newspaper) might express radically opposing views on a number of issues. Parties are in themselves internally divided by conflicting fractions.
A significant part of media theory and history is concerned with the relationship between ideological pluralism and newspapers. For example, James Curran and Jean Seaton in Power without Responsibility explored how why ‘radical’ leftwing press – which was ‘independent both of government and the opposition in Parliament’ — ceased at some point, to exist. One of the many questions today, is not only where a newspaper is situated in the ideological map but if large ‘territories’ (or else combinations) of ideas are completely vanished from newspaper coverage — and if so why?
About the Political Compass
In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.
If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it’s fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot (all communist leaders) with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.
That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That’s the one that the mere left-right scale doesn’t adequately address. So we’ve added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.
Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitrary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities existed in Spain during the civil war period
You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.
The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( ie an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (ie extreme deregulated economy)
The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal “anarchism” championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America’s Libertarian Party, which couples social Darwinian right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.
In our home page we demolished the myth that authoritarianism is necessarily “right wing”, with the examples of Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot and Stalin. Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today’s Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.
A Word about Neo-cons and Neo-libs
U.S. neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the “free market”, in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion.
ACTIVITY 2: Take a screen shot of your Political Compass Survey and post on to your blog (this will help to give you an understanding of left / right . . . authoritarian / libertarian . . .)
