Work · Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.)
Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction
Argues that the distinction between left and right survives because it rests on differing attitudes towards equality, while freedom distinguishes moderates from extremists.
Introduction
“Left and Right” was published in early 1994, shortly before the first Italian elections after the collapse of the old party system, and sold widely; an English translation followed in 1996. Against the claim that the distinction had become obsolete after 1989, Bobbio argues that it persists because it reflects a lasting difference: the left regards most inequalities as social and removable, the right accepts many of them as natural or unavoidable. A second axis, the attitude towards liberty, separates moderates from extremists on both sides, so that Bobbio arrives at four positions, from the authoritarian extreme left through the liberal-socialist centre-left and the conservative centre-right to the authoritarian extreme right. The book provoked a wide debate in Italy and abroad; critics objected that a single criterion simplifies too much, and Bobbio answered them in later writings.
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