Talk:Third Way/Archive 2

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Third Way (centrism) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 11:58, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

new category
I see that the category Syncretic political movements i added earlier was removed. i put it back again, as it seems to be rather justifiable: the page Syncretic politics says that it "refers to politics outside of the conventional left–right political spectrum" and "The main idea of syncretic politics is that taking political positions of neutrality by combining elements associated with the left and right can achieve a goal of reconciliation." This matches with the first sentence of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.224.72.132 (talk) 11:19, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Super Source
hi! i'm pretty lazy to do much work on this article right now, however i would like to inform you about a great possible reference for it: Steve Bastow, James Martin (2003): Third Way Discourse: European Ideologies in the Twentieth Century, Edinburgh University Press. this is handling fascism, nazism, the green ideology & the clinton-blair affair in one, and seems to show no political bias (unlike the currently first bobbio-reference in the article). it must be worked into it, however i suggest that we only put the left-leaning parts (the greens) here, as we already have a structure on wikipedia for these ideologies: syncretic politics should be the main article, this one here the more leftist, and third position the more rightist. as i only have random parts of the book on google books, i immediately include here the contents of it:


 * Introduction: a politics beyond antagonism?
 * 1 Ideology in crisis: the 'repertoire' of third way
 * 2 New labour's third way: 'modernising' social democracy
 * 3 Italian liberal socialism: anti-fascism and the third way
 * 4 Neo-fascism and the third way
 * 5 Green political theory and the third way
 * Conclusion: radical politics and the third way

let me just quote one sentence from the introduction (page 2): "However, what is often missed in many of these discussions is an awareness of the variety of ideologies of the third way that span the twentieth century and traverse the spectrum form left to right."

i have to add that categorising this article as "political philosophy" and third position as a "nationalist political ideology" as in the about text at the beginning is a sign of leftist bias among former editors. 193.224.72.132 (talk) 10:25, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

"Left Wing"
The beginning of the article includes the words

"In politics, the Third Way is a left-wing position advocating a varying synthesis of liberal economic and social policies. ... Major Third Way social democratic proponent Tony Blair claimed that the socialism he advocated was different from traditional conceptions of socialism. Blair said "My kind of socialism is a set of values based around notions of social justice"

If "Third Way" has any meaning at all, this certainly does not describe it. "Third Way" is not left-wing by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is RIGHT wing, more or less a wolf in sheep's clothing. Tony Blair is a very right wing figure and an opponent of social justice, no matter what he says or has said. The same is true of Bill Clinton, also claimed in the article to be an "adherent of the "Third Way". "

What the "Third Way" comes down to is essentially Orwellian doublespeak. ---Dagme (talk) 15:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Third way in Hungary
Here i have to bypass the fact that third way is understood in English in at least two different ways, one being the leftist interpretation overwhelmingly supported here on wikipedia, the other being the objective and neutral interpretation by scholars. See the section Super Source for more, here i'm going on accepting the leftist bias already consolidated in the article. In Hungary there is the third way party Politics Can Be Different, which is green and has managed to make the 5% threshold of the parliamentary elections independently twice. There are other parties, which allied with mainstream Socialists (MSZP). They are numerous (five as i remember), and never dared take part in the elections with their own list. Though Demokratikus Koalíció (despite its grandiose name) is only one of these, it surpasses all the others in the fanaticism of its supporters, centered around the unconditional love towards the party leader and founder, Ferenc Gyurcsány. Such parties are not worth mentioning in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.97.36.175 (talk) 08:48, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

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Biased article
I find that this article currently doesn't have a Neutral point of view. The sources used in it are all associated with narrowly defined political movements, they are primary sources. More than two years ago it was proposed on this talk page to build in a neutral source into the article, but it didn't get any reactions. In fact there are not many quality scholarly works about the issue - this just makes Bastow & Martin's "Third Way Discourse: European Ideologies in the Twentieth Century" from 2003 even more unavoidable. I just quote one sentence from page 2: "However, what is often missed in many of these discussions is an awareness of the variety of ideologies of the third way that span the twentieth century and traverse the spectrum form left to right." It clearly states that not only a sort of liberal-leaning present-day political views are third way, but the neo-fascist movements, too, not to mentions the green politics. The article needs to be reworked seriously to include other third way views as well. 193.224.72.252 (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)+


 * If you want it to include mention of specific ideologies as "third wave" you need to quote rather more then something the article does in fact mention. The article says (in the opening sentence) that "thirdwayism" is a synthases of left and right wing politics.Slatersteven (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * To make it clear, we need RS that identify a given party of ideology as "Third way".Slatersteven (talk) 15:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

delinked (not Die Linke)
It's interesting that Blair's name pops up about 18 times in the article (and 6 times in Talk), but I see no link to his page.

Also, BTW, I agree that the Third Way in no way can be considered leftist. EricClarion (talk) 22:42, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

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"Akin to centrism"
I feel like this is a slander upon centrism Robin J Thomson (talk) 15:21, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Third way / Third position
"Not to be confused with third position". The two are the same thing though? A centrist position on the left/right economic scale. (Policies on other issues can obviously differ with party, organisation and so on) Third means it's not capitalist or communist. The term is inherently vague and used differently by different people but can include anything from certain forms of liberalism, social democracy, the so-called "nordic model" to even national socialism (atleast in theory such as the 25 point program which is distinctly third way, ie both right and left policies, though it was never fully implemented in practice)

Wikipedia makes this distinction "third way" / "third position" here when these policies include things like racism but this seems like an original invention. A way to separate "good third way" from "evil third way". 2.249.140.219 (talk) 16:02, 7 May 2022 (UTC)


 * You're probably right in that most associated groups have probably used the two terms interchangeably, though there does also seem to be some soft justification for divergence in some usages of the terms: Terza Posizione, International_Third_Position
 * I'm inclined to believe that while they can and have been used interchangeably, they also can and have been used distinctly. Thus there is some incomplete overlap justifying the two separate pages. Pretty much all significant political ideologies have wide and inconsistent usages of their labels over time.
 * It would definitely be a good idea to include a section for: Third Way vs Third Position, in the articles. Darkmagine (talk) 01:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Gobbledygook Lead section.
The lead section does not meet Wiki standards. See Manual of Style (lead section).

It is too vague, it should be free-standing and define Third Way. For example, how is an (American) Third Way Democrat different from a regular one? It relies to much on lazy-hyperlinks and off-article definitions. Perhaps European and American Third Ways need separate articles? One paragraph makes Third Way-ers look like Republicans. --108.252.225.238 (talk) 22:44, 21 December 2014 (UTC)Doug Bashford


 * THANK you! for encapsulating in a single word ("gobbledygook") exactly what's wrong - without actually having a WP tag for it - with rather a lot of this entry. It's impenetrable, it's jargon-rich, it's 'insider-speak', and it's primarily useful for those speaking within the echo-chamber with their specialized language -- not humanity at large. (Which is kind of ironic, for something related to social welfare vs. 'elites', no? >;-)) Calls to mind Monty Python - contrast (if possible!): "an autonomous collective...vs a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes..." vs. "an anarcho-syndicalist commune..." etc.....
 * ....with the actual bit from this entry: "rejects the state socialist conception of socialism and instead accepts the conception of socialism as conceived of by Anthony Crosland as an ethical doctrine that views social democratic governments as having achieved a viable ethical socialism by removing the unjust elements of capitalism by providing social welfare and other policies and that contemporary socialism has outgrown the Marxist claim for the need of the abolition of capitalism as a mode of production".
 * You just can't penetrate that bloviation / wall o' jargon, really - it's like one of those joke entries to an academic journal to demonstrate they'll take anything that matches their "in-speak". See "Sokal Hoax", for the brilliant "paper": "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity". (Except the person who wrote the above was entirely serious - and can't write no better.) A Doon (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Joe Biden
The US section characterized Joe Biden as Third Way, which I find a little hard to swallow. Is there any significant sourcing indicating this? I think you will find most sources discussing his political approach as more left-wing populist. There is certainly nothing Third Way about all the trade wars he's conducting. Jonathan f1 (talk) 21:51, 9 December 2022 (UTC)