List of political ideologies

Overview of various political ideologies

List of political ideologies refers to the various sets of ethical ideas, principles, doctrines, myths, or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. Political ideologies are concerned with many different aspects of a society, including the economy, education, health care, labor law, criminal law, the justice system, and the environment.

Overview

Political ideologies are often categorized by their position on the political spectrum, which ranges from left to right. The left-right spectrum is a system of classifying political positions, ideologies, and parties from social equality on the left to social hierarchy on the right. However, political ideologies can also be classified based on other dimensions, such as their stance on authoritarianism versus libertarianism, or their focus on individualism versus collectivism.

Major Political Ideologies

Liberalism

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but they generally support free markets, free trade, limited government, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), capitalism, democracy, secularism, gender equality, racial equality, internationalism, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as organized religion, parliamentary government, and property rights.

Socialism

Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprises. It includes the political theories and movements associated with such systems. Social ownership can be public, collective, cooperative, or of equity.

Communism

Communism is a philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state.

Fascism

Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete, and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties.

Anarchism

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of authority and rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. Anarchism calls for the abolition of the state, which it holds to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful.

Also see

• Political spectrum
• Left-wing politics
• Right-wing politics
• Centrism
• Libertarianism
• Authoritarianism
• Democracy
• Totalitarianism