LEFT/RIGHT

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 379.

LAW

Law is a set of public and enforceable rules that apply throughout a political *community. Law can be distinguished from other social rules on four grounds. First, as law is made by the *government and thus reflects the ‘will of the state', it takes precedence over all other norms and social rules. Second, law is compulsory; citizens are not allowed to choose which laws to obey and which to ignore, because law is backed up by a system of coercion and punishment. Third, law consists in published and recognised rules that have been enacted through a formal, usually public, legislative process. Fourth, law is generally recognised as binding upon those to whom it applies; law thus embodies moral claims, implying that legal rules should be obeyed.

Natural law is usually distinguished from positive law. Natural law is law that conforms to higher moral or religious principles, meaning that law is a vehicle through which *justice is expressed or guaranteed. Natural law theories can be traced back to Plato (427–347 BCE) and Aristotle (384–22 BCE), and to the idea of Godgiven ‘natural rights' in the early modern period. They became fashionable again in the twentieth century in association with the ideas of *civil liberty and *human rights. Positive law is defined by the fact that it is established and enforced. The law is the law because it is obeyed. The ‘science of positive law' therefore frees the understanding of law from moral, religious and mystical assumptions, a position developed by John Austin (1790–1859) into the theory of ‘legal positivism'. H. L. A. Hart (1961) refined legal positivism by distinguishing between a primary and secondary level of law. The role of primary rules is to regulate social behaviour; these are thought of as the ‘content' of the legal system (for instance, criminal law). Secondary rules, on the other hand, are rules which confer powers upon the institutions of government; they lay down how primary rules are made, enforced and adjudicated, and so determine their validity. Another distinction is between public and private law. Public law lays down the powers and duties of governmental bodies and establishes the legal relationship between the *state and its citizens. It therefore includes constitutional and administrative law, taxation and welfare law, and is usually taken to encompass criminal law as well. Private law apportions *rights and responsibilities amongst private citizens and bodies, and thus establishes the legal relationships within *civil society. It includes the law of contract and property law.

Significance

Law is found in all modern societies, and is usually regarded as the bedrock of civilised existence. Nevertheless, questions about the actual and desirable relationship between law and *politics – reflecting on the nature of law, and its function and proper extent – have provoked deep controversy. Liberal theorists portray law as an essential guarantee of stability and *order. The role of law is to protect each member of society from his or her fellow members, thereby preventing their rights from being encroached upon; as John Locke (1632–1704) put it, ‘without law there is no liberty'. Law should therefore be ‘above' politics, in the sense that it applies equally to all citizens and is impartially administered by the *judiciary. This is reflected in the principle of the rule of law, the idea that law ‘rules' in the sense that it establishes a framework to which all conduct and behaviour conform, no distinction being drawn between government officials and private citizens, the rich and the poor, men and women, and so on. However, in believing that law's central purpose is to protect liberty, liberals have always insisted that the proper sphere of law must be limited. The classical interpretation of this position was developed in J. S. Mill's (1806–73) ‘harm principle': the idea that the only legitimate use of law is to prevent ‘harm to others'.

Conservative theorists, in contrast, link law more closely to order, even to the extent that ‘law and order' becomes a single, fused concept. This position draws from a more pessimistic, even Hobbesian, view of *human nature, and from the belief that social stability depends upon the existence of shared values and a common culture. Patrick Devlin (1968) thus argued that society has the right to enforce ‘public morality' through the instrument of law. This position goes clearly beyond Mill's *libertarianism in implying, for instance, that society has the right to protect itself against ‘non-consensus' practices, such as homosexuality and drug taking. In the 1980s and 1990s the *New Right took up a very similar position in extolling the virtues of ‘traditional morality' and ‘family values', believing also that these should be upheld through the *authority of law. Alternative and more critical views of law have been advanced by Marxists, feminists and anarchists. Marxists have traditionally argued that class biases operate within the legal system that uphold the interests of *property and *capitalism. Feminists have linked law to *patriarchy and argued that it is one of the principal devices through which women's silence and subordination is maintained. Anarchists, for their part, portray law as unnecessary and intrinsically oppressive, and look towards the construction of a lawless society regulated by reason and human sympathy alone.

Left and right are terms that are used as a shorthand method for describing political ideas and beliefs, summarising the ideological positions of politicians, *political parties and movements. They are usually understood as the poles of a political spectrum, enabling people to talk about the ‘centre-left', ‘far right' and so on. The most common application of the left/right distinction is in the form of a linear political spectrum that travels from left wing to right wing as shown in Figure 2.2.

However, the terms left and right do not have exact meanings. In a narrow sense the political spectrum summarises different attitudes towards the economy and the role of the state: left-wing views support intervention and *collectivism, right-wing ones favour the *market and *individualism. However, this distinction supposedly reflects deeper, if imperfectly defined, ideological or value differences. Ideas such as *freedom, *equality, fraternity, *rights, progress, reform and *internationalism are generally seen to have a left-wing character. Ideas such as *authority, *hierarchy, *order, duty, *tradition, reaction and *nationalism are generally seen to have a right-wing character. In some cases ‘the Left' and ‘the Right' are used to refer to collections of people, groups and parties that are bound together by broadly similar ideological stances.

Significance

The origin of the terms left and right dates back to the French Revolution and the seating arrangements adopted by aristocrats and radicals at the first meeting of the Estates General in 1789. The left/right divide was therefore originally a stark choice between revolution and reaction. The wider use of the terms demonstrates their general value in locating political and ideological positions. However, the terms are simplistic and generalised, and must always be used with caution. Problems with the conventional left/ right divide include the fact that it appears to offer no place for