Is The New Left left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation The New Left scores −07 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −09. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is The New Left authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, The New Left scores −07. Participatory democracy, consensus decision-making, hostility to hierarchy including in its own organisations.

Atlas / Organisations / The New Left

The New Left

1956–1975 · US, Europe · Libertarian Socialist · Movement · coding confidence medium

−07ECcollective

−09CUpluralist

−07AUpluralist

−05SClocal

−08IDuniversal

+04CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Liberation rather than administration: participatory democracy, anti-imperialism, cultural revolt against bureaucratic society.

Economic model

Community control, cooperatives, opposition to both corporate capitalism and Soviet planning.

Organisation of powers

Participatory democracy, consensus decision-making, hostility to hierarchy including in its own organisations.

Reading note

Explicitly rejected the old left's economics-first framing, which is why it lands at the far corner of the cultural axis rather than the economic one.

Check a claim about The New Left. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −07

Coded −7: community control and cooperatives against both corporate capitalism and Soviet planning.

Programme textThe Port Huron Statement (1962) criticises both systems as bureaucratic.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −09

At the liberal pole: liberation rather than administration.

Programme textThe statement's opening concerns are racial injustice and the bomb, not wage bargaining.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −07

Coded −7: participatory democracy as the founding demand.

Programme textPort Huron calls for decisions to be made by those affected by them.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −05

Coded −5: community and campus as the units of action.

Documented act or statuteOrganising was neighbourhood and university based rather than national.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −08

Coded −8: anti-imperialist and internationalist.

Programme textOpposition to the Vietnam war was framed as solidarity rather than as national interest.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +04

Coded +4: mass direct action, with a small faction turning to bombing.

Documented act or statuteThe Weather Underground split in 1969 and was repudiated by most of the movement.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

United States

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). The New Left. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/newleft/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.