Japanese Politics: Political spectrum (Pt. 3)

Political policies: 

Parties are described in according to it’s policies. Below are the following policies:

Collective VS Individual value:

Left wing: Found on the left of the spectrum. It favours collective culture (where working well in a collective group) over individual freedom. Thereby collective equality of everyone is favoured over individual freedom. Although equality may be a good thing, it causes censorship to maintain social harmony. In the extreme case is communist party.

Right wing: Found on the right of the spectrum. Individual freedom is favoured over collective equality. Although there are freedom, it could lead to great inequality and great disparity between the rich and poor.

Economical values and government ownership (Pro-welfare VS Pro-business):

Left wing: As socialism support social equality, welfare system to support everyone is encouraged. The government take ownership over most of the social infrastructure (such as healthcare) and make it more public thereby promoting a pro-welfare system. There are reduction in private business through greater regulation, higher taxation and protectionism (anti-free trade). Tax money are redistributed into the welfare system.

Right wing: As liberal favours individual freedom over social equality, the government encourages free market. Government intervention in business is less, allowing a pro-business approach, less regulation and less taxation. This also means privatisation of public service sector such as healthcare. Capitalism is another term to express the market operating freely.

Military approach:

The left or right wing does not determine a party’s  military stance. However, Left-wing party have tendency to be less militarised and have a more pacifist approach. Public expenses are usually focused more on the welfare of the state. Whereas right wing has the tendency to be more militarised and have a pro-security approach.

More policies:

Other than the policies discussed above, other policies includes:

• Social power: Control (totalitarian) VS No control (anarchism)
• Level of sovereignty
• Foreign policies: e.g. interventionism VS non-interventionalism or multilaterialism VS Unilaterialism/Isolationism
• Foreign trade: Globalisation VS Autarky
• Responses to conflict
• Role of religion
• Urban VS Rural focus
• Protectionism
• Openness and diversity issues: multiculturalism
• Progressive views on matters such as same sex, abortion, immigration, death penality

Traditional politics used the left and right wing spectrum to describe political ideas. Below is a table that elaborate the differences:

Traditional political spectrum:

The use of left-right-wing politics began in 1789 French Revolution. It is later used to differentiate the level of progressive (left wing) and conservative (right wing) policies.  Understanding the left-right wing spectrum will give you a better understanding of traditional politics.

Left wing ideologies includes Social Democracy, Federalism, Socialism, Communism, Collectivism and Marxism. Right wing ideology includes Capitalism and Conservatism.

Here are some example of parties within the traditional political spectrum:

In the context of Japanese politics, below provide the illustration of where modern Japanese party resides within the traditional left-right wing spectrum:

Complex and realistic spectrum:

Although the traditional left and right wing spectrum model provide good basic understanding of politics; it is outdated and does not show the multifaceted stance on various other policies outside the basic scope of cultural-socio-economic policies.

Attempts had been made to more accurately conceptualised political spectrum such as Vosem chart or Three axis model of political ideology. However, these model cannot accurately represent each party’s political stance.

Below is an example of showing Japanese party political spectrum in a more complex approach by considering economical values and military values.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Political_spectrum#Conservatism

https://www.quora.com/What-is-left-and-right-in-politics