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Left-wing politics

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Left Wing Ideology: This is a political-evaluative belief cluster, which means that it is a group of related beliefs about politics found in people that support the political left and oppose the political right. It is predictive of the side they will take on political issues, on how they will vote and the types of leaders that they will oppose and support. This ideology is historically pro-laborer, defensive the disadvantage, pro-egalitarian, pro-redistributive justice, tending towards “Robinhood Syndrome” (which is the inclination to take from i.e. tax the rich and give to the poor), anti-militarism. The extreme left is historically pro-communist and the middle left if pro-socialist, or pro social-democrat or pro-social liberalism. They are pro-green, pro-animal rights, pro-environment. On matters of criminal justice tend towards leniency to youth, and severe sentences for white collar crime. In the economic realm they are pro-welfare state and anti-big business. Critics of left wing ideologies accuse left-wingers as being impractical about finance, and that in their zeal to help the “little guy” they tend to overspend, and over-tax and under-attend to issues of wealth creation. They are also criticized for being naïve about defence because their disdain for violence and wish to make world safe, leads them to under-spend on defence thus leaving a society vulnerable to its enemies. One theory of the psychology of left wing ideologies is that it is based on an identification with who they percieve to be the victim. They also have a tendcy to apply the victim-oppressor paradigm to the analysis of political events, whereby they are ever-ready to look for a victim and an oppressor in a situation while ignoring the possibility that no one is at fault or both are at fault, or that manipulation is at work by one or other party to play the victim game so as to capture their support.

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