Left or Right

If one applies Jonathan Haidt's moral foundation spectrum in the Indian context, the Right has a superior strategy that has paid it rich dividends

The recent spate of state elections saw a bitter war of words, with each party trying to woo the masses with their ideological trinkets and dissing others'. The western world tried to neatly capture these ideologies or box them into "the Right" and "the Left". But this is a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps less than 300 years old.

The term Right and Left in the political sense originated in 1789, during the French revolution when those who desperately wanted change and were disenchanted with the aristocracy and wanted a new order based on equality and freedom sat on the left in the parliament. These were mostly revolutionists, the poor class and farmers – the have-nots. While those who wanted the status quo to carry on sat on the right - the aristocrats, the royalty and the haves.

With monarchies and aristocracies slowly dissolving with time, the Left became the dominant political ideology. It became associated with communism and socialism, which arose in France, and mostly meant social welfare and business in the hands of the government. Religion was kept out of governance. In fact, the communist regimes banned it as an existential threat.

When a new form of economic system in capitalism came into being, and a new political order arose in democracy, the spectrum of Left and Right started transitioning again and became more complex. When democracy firmly took centre stage across the world and communism started fading and failing, the Left and Right ideological battle crept into the economic and social sphere to differentiate one political party from another. Interestingly, socialism's brush with capitalism saw a new breed of socialists pejoratively referred to as gauche caviar (caviar eating leftists), socialists who liked good clothes and money and other perks of capitalism.

In the 19th century, in Europe, the Right moved from supporting aristocrats to supporting the nouveau riche, freshly minted from the new capitalist system. On social/values-based issues, there were very few areas of distinction. In the 20th century, the new Right was popularized by Reaganism and Thatcherism, which politically stood for more authority, loyalty, and social conformity. Economically, they vied to break the governments' shackles and pushed for more free markets, privatization and minimum governments. The American Left then stood for the freedom to choose, equality and economically bounded capitalism, a party of the working class, with the state providing a robust social net.

The Indian Left and Right ideas followed a similar path until the late last century. Initially, the Indian Left was essentially the communists, who advocated state control over the business and strong welfarism in the hands of the government. As a result, parties that opposed this ideology were on the Right, relatively speaking, even though they both advocated the government's vital role in business in the economic arena. In the social/ values-based sphere, they were mostly the same, appealing to specific sections of society in the minority or were backward or discriminated against.

In the late 20th century, with the ascension of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its affiliates, a new Right was formed. This new Right believed in a more brawny approach to patriotism and nationalism. Economically, however, they were no different than the Congress and other centre-left parties. There were occasional attempts by the two main political outfits to adopt more right-wing economics in the western sense, but it has not been a prime offering of distinction for either, as increased welfarism is seen to reap great political dividends. On the other hand, the very Left, the communist party in China, have had more liberal policies and beliefs in free markets.

This concept of Left and Right has been explained through the prism of a morality matrix by an intellectual powerhouse, Jonathan Haidt, in his book, The Righteous Mind. In the book, Haidt lays down the tenets of the Moral Foundation Theory – the broad basis on which human beings make decisions, carve out their preferences and form their value system. According to him, the moral matrix of humans beings consists of five key foundations: Care, Fairness, Authority, Loyalty, and Sanctity. Each of these five foundations sub-consciously or consciously determine our choices, including political ones.

The Care foundation makes us aware of suffering and cruelty and makes us focus on humanity rather than sub-sections of it. The Fairness foundation appeals to our desire to collaborate and also to our altruistic instincts. The Authority foundation is about status and rank and how our behaviour should always keep that in mind when interacting with others. The Loyalty foundation is about team play, patriotism and nationalism, about us versus them. The Sanctity foundation focuses on religion, which was a vital element in binding people together about 10,000 years ago and still is.

According to Haidt, since the mid to late 20th century, the Left, in a democratic setup, generally appealed to people's Care and Fairness moral foundations. While the Right appeal to a broader set of foundations, which further includes Loyalty, Sanctity and Authority. Haidt writes that the Right generally triggers every taste receptor of morality while the Left primarily appeals to only two and that perhaps, therefore, the Right/Conservatives are politically more skilled.

In the US, since Richard Nixon, the Right absorbed the Loyalty foundation which stood for Patriotism; the Authority foundation, which involved respect for teachers, elders and the police; and in the Ronald Regan era, adopted the Sanctity foundation through its campaign for family values and Christianity.

Every political party or candidate plays a role of a sales and marketing guru/agency which develops a strategy, a sales pitch to appeal to its customers - the public. They test and stand for different values and moral foundations and are willing to tweak their strategy to win over people. The Republican Party in the US, which was all for free markets and importing talent, took a slight turn towards anti-immigration and accepted small doses of welfarism after gauging the people's mood. The liberals have two ideologies within a party, one which is very liberal, which took to the burning of their own flag in the 1960s because the liberals opposed strong nationalism and were very socialist in its leanings and then there is a more centrist slice, which during the Barack Obama era was not opposed to using Authority and Sanctity as foundations to appeal to the end customer.

If one applies Haidt's moral foundation spectrum in the Indian context, it holds water. The Right/conservatives vigorously attempt to appeal to the masses on every moral foundation, including Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity, while the Left only caters to the care and Fairness foundation and avoids emphasis on nationalism, authority and overt, muscular religious identity. It is a superior strategy and has paid rich dividends to gain popularity and vote share for the Right.

(The writer is an international development specialist)