People often think of right-wing ideologies as promoting a vertical social structure, whereas left-wing movements tend to pursue a horizontal organisation – a paradigm that is also suggested by Christianity, which is the most widespread religion in the civilisation we belong to.

It is indeed characteristic of the right that they organise society into a pyramid, on the basis that it is natural to use human beings as instruments. There is no need to enter into any detail to show this; it is enough to go through the history of the last two centuries to realise that the rise of personal rights in several parts of the world coincided with the overcoming of radical right-wing regimes. Yet it must be noted that, in various instances, the vertical paradigm is strongly mitigated by aspects of solidarity which bring some societies governed by the right close to situations that are typical of the horizontal organisation.

It is also true that right-wing ideology envisages a hierarchically modelled society, characterised by unequally distributed rights and duties, and a lack of guarantees for people living in the lower segments of society. But it does sometimes happen that outspokenly right-wing governments abolish the death penalty, protect some basic rights, take special care of health and education, and address labour issues in terms of worker guarantees and not just productivity demands. In short, the right-wing organisation of society culturally tends towards verticality, while yet in practice, it can detach itself considerably from its original paradigm, sometimes achieving an organisation that does not differ significantly from that of societies which do not identify with a right-wing ideology.

On the other side, there is a somewhat widespread belief that left-wing ideology is based on the recognition of individuals and the protection of their fundamental rights. Whether this belief is true or false, the application of the left-wing organisational model has in general led to diametrically opposed results, in particular in ‘Real Socialism’ regimes: deportations, massacres, significant restrictions to personal liberty and freedom of thought, intolerance of other people's views, and the creation of hierarchies that were essentially identical to those existing in countries ruled by the most radical right.