Talking About Politics: LEFT WING & RIGHT WING

I left my heart in San Francis-...

Hi. James from engVid.

I'd like to do a lesson today with you on politics.

I know, you're used to grammar and vocabulary, but it's always good to expand your horizons,

that means your learning abilities and look at things that you may not need today but

you will need in the future, especially when you have, you know, educated conversations.

In your own languages you often speak about religion, politics, sexual relations, and

in this lesson what I want to teach you is a way to understand English terms, what they

mean to us when we hear them and what we're trying to tell you when we're saying them.

That way you can get into political conversations, and that doesn't mean, you know, who's right,

who's wrong, but be able to explain where you're from, what it's like, and where we're

from and maybe understand each other a little better.

Are you ready?

Let's go to the board.

I said I left my heart in San Francisco.

There's a reason for it.

Notice E says: "I'm a lefty."

Quick story for you so you understand.

A long time ago back in England there were two houses.

There's the queen, I'm sure you probably know that England has a queen, and they let the

common people vote and there would be one side where the people with title, or princes,

and counts, and dukes would sit; another side where the common people would sit.

I'm wondering if you can figure out which side which sat.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I know, difficult.

Let me explain.

So if you were the king or queen you sat in the middle, and you'd have your nobles, that's

your knights, your kings, your dukes, your princes, barons; on the other side the common people.

Well, I'll let you know.

This is my right side.

On the right side the barons, and the kings, and the dukes would sit; on the left side

would be the common people.

After a while what happened was people started referring to people on politics as right and left.

Why?

Because on the right side, the nobles, the kings, the princes, they wanted things to

stay the same.

They liked what they had, they didn't want to have anything to change.

Of course, the common people who are on the left side, they were the ones who had money

and they were paying for things and not really seeing things change, and they were like:

"Hey, if we're paying, we should get to change things."

So this became known as "left wing" and "right wing" because it was in the house of politics

where the king would sit, there was a left side and a right side.

Today's lesson is going to explain to you what that old way of thinking has changed

into in the modern day, and where we sit now.

You ready?

Let's go to the board.

Okay.

You see this thing here?

It's called a pendulum.

A pendulum is basically you can have a string with a rock, and once you move it, it goes

back and forward, back and forward, and swings.

Politics, which is the business of people being together, "polis" meaning people.

That's what it means.

Politics.

The people choose, and often sometimes they change in the way they look at things.

Center is when the pendulum isn't moving.

Center.

And as you can think, it's probably a nice place to be.

But there's more movement or activity when the pendulum goes up to the right or up to

the left.

That's when we see a lot of changes.

And it's good to understand what terms are used and how they affect us.

So let's start with...

Well, let's start with the left, the common people.

All right?

Most of you would know the extreme version if you've heard of it...

Or let's go here first.

When we talk about left, we talk about all for one and one for all.

If you're French, it's the three musketeers.

One for one and one for all.

It means we all work together for a good community or a better community.

No one person is above the community.

No one person is better than the community.

Okay?

So that's all for one.

But we all will work for the individual, but the community is the most important part.

And that will help you understand the most extreme form of left, left-sided politics

which is communism, which is communityism.

Right?

This is the most extreme form.

An example of this would be in 1918 to 1991 in the U.S.S.R.

We now call it Russia.

Okay?

What this means is the government is in control of everything; the economy, how people make

money, and how land is given out.

And the government tries to give everybody the same amount of land.

Everybody, I know it's crazy, but hey, that's what they're supposed to do.

Everybody gets the same amount of land, the same amount of money, and everybody gets jobs,

and everybody does what they like to do to help the community get better.

That's the book communism, by the way.

Real communism doesn't work that way, but that's the way it should be.

Normally when we think of communism we think of the economy and how things work, which

is the government controls how things are made and what gets made.

Okay?

There's no private business or enterprise.

You don't have your own company.

It belongs to the government, which belongs to the community, which belongs to everyone.

That's the most extreme.

As you can see, they tried this experiment from 1918 to 1991, and other countries have tried it.

Didn't quite work as well as we thought, so people have kind of backed away from that.

A lesser form or something not as serious we have called socialism.

Socialism is existing right now in France.

A country in Europe, in the middle of Europe, nice, little country, and it's a little different.

They like some of the ideas of communism, but they were like:

"Dude, you gone too far. Sometimes I want to go to Jeremy's Bakery and eat from Jeremy's.

I don't want state-run bakery goods."

So what they said and what socialism is about is we have to be social.

Yes, we're a community, but it's more of our interaction, how we work together, we're social.

All right?

We're not always one community.

And what they say is: "Look, the government runs a lot of the social programs."

In this case, things like daycare where babies get taken care of or children get taken care

of; medicine, when you go to the hospital; social welfare, if you lose your job, the

government gives you money; and retirement, when you work no more and you don't...

You're too old to work, they give you money.

In socialism what they say is very big and important things-medicine, communications,

roads-those are government things.

Business should have no business in business.

Or in other words: Business is not allowed to be in because this is too important to

the society.

So this is about the community, this is about the society.

So you're allowed to have your own private business.

So if you want to have a little English school, no problem, have an English school.

If you want to start your own video company, go ahead.

You want to start a hospital?

Sorry, that's the French Government, not you.

So they separate by saying the most important things are run by the government, but you

can have some private companies.

So some private companies are allowed.

Cool?

All right.

Let's go to my favourite place.

Ta-da, it's Canada.

What?

It's in the center.

That's right, eh?

Canada is central because they believe social programs are necessary, so a little socialist,

but they think sometimes people can make good decisions and governments shouldn't always

tell you what to do.

So they're right in the middle.

They've decided that we should have more private business and social programs.

So while in France you'll notice medicine is run by the government, in Canada you can

have the government which does take care of its people, but you can also have a private

industry that can take care of people.

So if you don't like the government's business, you can go out of it and say: "You know what?

I want to go to a doctor."

In fact, we have our medicine paid for in Canada, but you have to pay for a dentist.

And in some cases the government will pay for a dentist for you, so they balance or

try to balance private with social.

Cool? All right.

Okay, so when we...

The pendulum swings to the right we go up to conservatism, and we're going to look at

the United States of America.

Sorry, Latin America, I know that you're Americans as well, but generally we consider in Canada

"The United States of America" its official title. Okay?

So we're not insulting you.

In conservatism...

Do you remember I talked about the rights, they like things to stay the same?

Well, also they like to be able to do their own business.

That's part of being conservative.

And if we look up here, we'll go here, conservatism it starts one before all.

They really care about the individual.

They want individual rights, not to have government tell them what to do.

They prefer lower taxes.

They don't want to pay taxes for a government that's not doing anything for them.

They like less regulation, that means less laws telling them what to do.

It makes them a bit freer to do what they wanted to do.

And you have to remember if the people who originally wanted this were knights, barons,

and dukes who were independent people, who had their own way of making money and took

care of their own things, so they didn't see why a government or a king should be able

to tell them what to do.

And that's where we have American on conservatism.

Some people would say it's actually more moderate than a lot of other countries, but when you

think about it, most Americans will tell you private business can do the job better than

government and that's why they're here over here.

For instance, in America, private healthcare, well, healthcare is done by insurance companies

which people pay for.

And I've made a small mistake, here.

When I said "medicine", in Canada, we pay for medicine.

That's in case... That's drugs.

We pay for our drugs.

What we don't pay for is healthcare.

Healthcare are your doctors.

Okay? So healthcare.

We don't pay for our healthcare or our doctors.

United States, you do.

Okay?

Sorry, a little mistake there.

But in the US you do pay for this.

We do pay for our drugs.

Now, if we skip over here and we let the pendulum go a little bit further, we go to the highest

form of conservatism, and that's fascism.

We can look here at Italy from 1922 to 1945.

Fascism is really interesting because, well, in communism, the government runs everything.

In Fascism the government doesn't run everything.

They work with business so they like the idea of business, but they do it for the country,

for the nation because fascism has a lot to do with what we call nationalism, caring about

more the nation.

In communism they care more about the community.

Fascism is more about the nation, not necessarily the individual people.

That's why they can have business in fascist states or fascist countries.

Italy was a fascist country for a pretty long time, 1922 to 1945.

Yeah?

Some people would say that there's not much of a difference between communism and fascism,

and there is.

Fascism is more national, so they do whatever they're doing is for the country.

Remember, not necessarily the people but the country itself, and they will do whatever

to make the country great.

Communism tends to want to spread, it's more international looking.

All right?

So now that we understand the pendulum and how it swings, let's see how well you understand

left wing and right wing.

One for all or one before all?

Ready?

Okay, so we talked before, we're going to do our quiz, and just a little hint for you

on some things you've heard before and may be confused by.

Political systems and economic systems go together.

So many times when you hear communism, sometimes you're talking about the political system,

sometimes they're talking about the economic system.

Generally if you're talking about communism, as you can see here, they go hand in hand.

If you have a communist government, you'll have a communist economic system because the

economics of communism is to be in control, the government controls how things are made,

who makes them, and where they're made.

Well, that's going to have to have a political system that follows that because you can't

really have a democracy where people vote, and then the government tell them what's going

to be done and how.

So generally, communism will be economics and politics together, but people can refer

or talk about them separately as different things.

So don't get confused with the two.

You have to understand if they're talking about how things are done or how things are run.

Okay?

Socialism also has politics and economics.

In socialism for the politics, the government-once again, notice how I talk about the government-gets

to decide which is...

Which things that they are in control of, from healthcare, education, communications. Yeah.

You think: "That's private."

Some countries, no.

The government decides what gets put on and who gets to do it because they think it's

important for the society more than the individual.

Okay?

And economics is the same thing.

Well, if someone is making those decisions, then they usually start telling people, who

and what to do, who to do it, and how to do it or when to do it.

So these two tend to go together, but they can be separate. Okay?

Finally, this one is actually easy, capitalism and conservatism usually go together.

Capitalism, though, has the belief that private hands or private companies make the best decisions

better than governments.

In conservative politics they think the individual should be free to make the decision and that's

why these two go together rather well because you get the individual who happens to be a

private business owner, they work well together.

So, and sometimes these couples go together.

Not always, but you'll find they generally do, and you have to listen carefully sometimes

because it can be confusing if you're having an economic conversation or political one.

Okay?

Let's go to the board and do a very quick test to see how well you understood before.

What is communism and which one's capitalism?

And if you notice my Star Wars' figures.

I want you to take a good look here. You go: "Which one's which?

Why are you using them? Why are you using them?"

Well, when we think more of the fascist kind of governments, think more like a Darth Sidious.

Okay?

Individuals.

Remember we talked about the individual is more important?

I'm not saying they're all evil. Okay?

Fascism did have its time, it wasn't a good place, or it wasn't a good thing.

And you can think it's a little dark, but it's about the individual.

When we talk about communism, this piece of...

It's more about the collective of the community.

You can see how communism is about the community.

Individual versus community. Right?

Okay, cool.

I hope you got the visuals, that'll help you.

Communism is a big piece of...

Well, fascism can be a little bit evil sometimes, it's about the individual.

The collective, the individual.

Ready for your test?

Let's go.

And those of you who are Star Wars fans are like: "I think, I think not."

Well, that's my... That's Yoda. Sorry.

[Laughs]

"Do not think. Think..." Whatever.

Let's go to the board for your quick quiz. Okay?

Let's talk about social...

Okay, first one:

"Communism and socialism are on the __________ of the political pendulum."

Would that be the left or the right?

Communism and socialism.

A bit tricky on that one, but think about it.

Na, na, na, na-na, na, na, na, na.

Hint, hint.

Okay.

Remember we talked about the left in politics?

It was for the people, the common people.

In "communism" we have community, and in "socialism" we have social, which are people.

So we would say it was on the left.

Yes, I know I put that piece on my right shoulder, but it's on the left.

Left. All right? Good.

Let's try the next one. You ready?

"Moderate countries __________ social programs.

Moderate countries __________ social programs."

Do they have them or don't they have them?

O Canada.

We're so proud of that song.

Yeah, some of you went: "Oh yeah, Canada is central and moderate,

and they have social programs." Right?

They have social programs because moderate means basically middle, so they'll have some.

Not everything, but some.

A little less, well, much less in many cases than the communism or socialist brothers, there.

And the final question:

"In countries that are conservative, private businesses __________ allowed."

Are they allowed or not allowed, what do you think?

Hmm, well, here, let's take a look.

We said conservative, and earlier on I told you about capitalism and conservatism.

If you put that that would be this, they are allowed because capitalism usually goes with

conservative countries. Right?

Private business, private entities or business for you. Cool?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our little chat together on politics.

As I said before, it's a bit of an advanced lesson because some of you are still working

on basic grammar or vocabulary.

But you have to understand that you have to grow and go.

Right?

So you may be here, but later on you'll be using these terms if you go to school or you

have to take an IELTS exam or something like that, these terms will be brought up.

So if you have an understanding now, it'll be easier to deal with it later.

All right?

Anyway, look, you have a good day.

But before we go anywhere I want you to go to my favourite place in the universe:

www, what? eng, and I always get this wrong,

this one.

Okay, got it right this time.

eng as in engVid, eng as English, v as in vid.com (www.engvid.com).

Okay?

Don't forget to subscribe, and as the pendulum swings, it could be here, here, or here.

I'm sure one day it'll be down here as well.

But don't forget to subscribe, and I look forward to chatting with you soon. All right?

Have a good one.

And thanks, as always, for being on engVid.