It's avery difficult one though because Nazis and Thatcherites are both often lumped together as right-wing but are (to me) poles apart. Likewise, anarchists probbaly consider themselves beyond the right-left dichotomy.
in economic terms right and left refers to the extent to which the economy is planned by the state. Extreme right = capitalist; the state does not interfere with the ecomomy but lets it take care of itself. Extreme left = communism; the state plans all aspects of the ecomomy and there is no private industry. In the centre you have a mixture of state run and private firms.
In politics the difference is much more blurred and most theorists talk about a circle. to the left usually means liberal ideas such as redistribution of wealth both at home and abroad and seeking to work closly with other countries to solve problems. to the right means conservative which is to maintain beneficial relations with key countries but not to get involved with things that don't concern you.
Moving further to the left you get socialism and communism. to an extent they only deal with other countries who have the same ideas and - in theory anyway - treat everyone inside their country as giving equal value ( that is, a coal worker is as important as a doctor ). On the far right there is facism which is a belief in authority through violence and power. facists believe that to stop people misbehaving there must be censorship and control through force.
In practice there has been little difference in the actions of far right and far left governments throughout history.
jim
But in economic terms you could argue that the original ideas of the NSDAP (the 25 Points) were quite left-wing in economics - similarly Mosley was booted out of the Labour Party for his radicalism (surprise, surprise!)on unemployment. Nazis/Facsicts place importance upon community however maliciously you may feel that was defined, whereas Thatcher/Reagan etc. placed stress on the individual - even at the expense of the community.
i want to distance myself from my own comment. it starts off ok but quickly decends into a pit of excrement please ignore everything but the last paragraph.
jim
oh my god i've done it again. the last paragraph is terrible. ignore it all. no the first paragraph is ok. read the first paragraph, ignore the rest.
jim.
Let's all get together and form the Democratic Centre-Moderate Tendency Alliance , then we can forget about right and left and jimmer can put his paragraph hell behind him.