Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Left” doesn’t mean socialism. In the long run, it comes out of the enlightenment period, quite literally. Traditionally, the left is associated with small “L” liberalism, and the right is associated with small “C” conservatism. Generally speaking, it has been a historic debate between whether the “natural” way things are is good and prudent (e.g., monarchs, religion, castes, roles, and norms), or if the way things a…
It's confusing because different people mean different things when using political terms. The political compass ( https://www.politicalcompass.org ) has two axes: left-right and libertarian-authoritarian. On it, socialists are definitely left wing (and communists far left), regardless of what the left/right wing meant at the time of the French Revolution.
Yes, the reality of politics is that they are highly multipolar. The political compass is useful, but maintaining only two axes is wildly simplistic.
Moral Foundations Theory suggests there are five axes for political views. I think this theory is one of the best for explanatory power, but is still limited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory
Suffices to say, if we look at politics through a two party, first past the post framework, I still think small letter conservatism vs liberalism is the best frame, simply because it is vague enough to be used generally.