The Political Compass

[Viker]

No, you're a somewhat moderate libertarian (by US standards), according to the chart.


Always remember, when analyzing your results, move them about, oh, four or five squares up and right in order to compensate for the bias in the quiz.

That means I'm less than an inch left of Ron Paul! Woo hoo!

 

[T-Dawg]

That means I'm less than an inch left of Ron Paul! Woo hoo!

That's not really a good thing... Ron Paul is a radical, capitalist, Christian fundamentalist menace that presents himself as a libertarian in order to appeal to those who are easily manipulated by shallow propaganda.

 

[Reptillian]

 

[Revoltingest]

It never occurred to me that a reptile would be so socialistic!
Come join us in the pure libertarian corner! Purple beats lime green.

 

[Reptillian]

It never occurred to me that a reptile would be so socialistic!
Come join us in the pure libertarian corner! Purple beats lime green.

Lol, I don't know about some of those questions. Some aren't really political questions. I also didn't like that there was no neutral answer. Either agree or disagree...I was neutral on quite a few but felt compelled to take a stance. Still I wasn't too far from my good buddy the Dalai Lama on the political spectrum...so maybe it isn't too inaccurate of a quiz.

 

[Father Heathen]

Note the placement of Obama, and yet people still refer to him as a "socialist".

 

[Revoltingest]

Note the placement of Obama, and yet people still refer to him as a "socialist".

I'd still say he's a socialist vector, but this points out how dysfunctional the Compass is for discerning a political label.
The the likes of tax & spend Newt shouldn't be over there in the maximum economic liberty position. Moreover, the
lower left (green) quadrant is considered libertarian, but this must be a non-US view. Since American Libertarians
favor both economic & social liberty, we're virtually all purple....a much more pleasing color.

 

[T-Dawg]

I'd still say he's a socialist vector, but this points out how dysfunctional the Compass is for discerning a political label.
The the likes of tax & spend Newt shouldn't be over there in the maximum economic liberty position. Moreover, the
lower left (green) quadrant is considered libertarian, but this must be a non-US view. Since American Libertarians
favor both economic & social liberty, we're virtually all purple....a much more pleasing color.

That's because Americans have a tendency to mess up basic political terminology.

Over in the civilized world, the people you call "libertarians" are referred to as "liberals" (or "conservatives," depending on how genuine their libertarianism is) and the people you guys call "liberals" range between social democrats and moderate conservatives. A "libertarian" is simply a broad term for anyone who values social freedom, which is separate from economic policy, just like "authoritarians" can have either left-wing or right-wing economic policies.

Since the Compass was designed by Welsh socialists, it's not going to have the typical American bias.

 

[Revoltingest]

That's because Americans have a tendency to mess up basic political terminology.
Since the Compass was designed by Welsh socialists, it's not going to have the typical American bias.

Since I live in America, I use American definitions.
Example: A boot is on my foot, not my car.

 

[Flankerl]

Economic Left/Right: -6.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44

Makes sense...I'm basically a radical leftie....

I never would have guessed that Levite. Kind of awesome.



I did the test again. Seems that I moved a bit to the left.

Economic Left/Right: -6.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69

 

[mycorrhiza]

Moved both left and up a bit since the last time I did it (half a year or so ago).

 

[nnmartin]

I really can't see how your ideology could work in practice.

It seems to be a form of libertarian communism - but what is going to stop corruption and human nature in this system?

 

[T-Dawg]

I really can't see how your ideology could work in practice.

It seems to be a form of libertarian communism - but what is going to stop corruption and human nature in this system?

What stops corruption and human nature in libertarian capitalism? Or authoritarian capitalism? Or authoritarian communism? I imagine that the problem of human nature would be even worse in a system that actively encourages humans to act in their own self interest at any cost to others, like capitalism does; at least communism has the advantage in that most humans are only required to be moral, whereas capitalism requires humans to be rational for the system to work well. This is especially a problem nowadays, as technology both complicates the world and increases the ability of the wealthy to distort truth through advertisements and such, which decreases the effective rationality of each consumer. As a result, humans in a capitalist system have to both be rational enough to understand an increasingly complex world and moral enough not to deceive each other about the world.

 

[nnmartin]

I agree, that is true and Communism or Socialism seems to be the way forward, even though many of it's versions in the past have not worked out so well.

but my point was that with forms of Communism we would need a reasonable level of authority to hold the system in place, otherwise human greed (aka:capitalism) would start taking over.

So what I am saying is that we cannot really have communism and great liberty at the same time - the right balance must be found and maintained.

 

[mycorrhiza]

I agree, that is true and Communism or Socialism seems to be the way forward, even though many of it's versions in the past have not worked out so well.

but my point was that with forms of Communism we would need a reasonable level of authority to hold the system in place, otherwise human greed (aka:capitalism) would start taking over.

So what I am saying is that we cannot really have communism and great liberty at the same time - the right balance must be found and maintained.

My answers kinda fit with social democracy, along with a few liberal ideas thrown in. Greed wont take over if the power is distributed equally, as a single person can't stand up against the collective. If the society is free from government, this single person is free to start his own capitalistic company, but would someone agree to work for less pay, and live an all-over worse life just to work for him?

If we manage to give welfare to all, free health care, free food, free homes, free education etc and let the workers run the companies together (which results in a better distribution of money within the company), why would anyone want to work for a capitalist?

The realsocialist countries were all quite flawed. Poor, dictatorship, corrupt leaders, etc. The way to communism must be democracy and strong labor unions rather than revolution. It's a long process, not something that's done over a year or less.

 

[nnmartin]

that sounds good if it could be achieved.

my points of concern would be along these lines:

1. How would you stop monopolies forming?

2. Would you be in favour of a salary cap?

3 If the companies are all going to be privately owned (as I believe you are saying) then how can we regulate their modes of operation and salary schemes?


and as I said earlier, the real issue seems to be human greed. Very hard to control and keep at bay unless some form of coercion is used. (which I think is fine to an extent)

 

[mycorrhiza]

1. How would you stop monopolies forming?

2. Would you be in favour of a salary cap?

3 If the companies are all going to be privately owned (as I believe you are saying) then how can we regulate their modes of operation and salary schemes?

I'm not exactly a pro on politics, but I'll try to explain.

1. In the first stage, by regulations and taxes. Making the patent laws less strict would also help the smaller companies. We also need to use strikes and boycotts. In the second stage, after the government has disbanded or is kept at a minimum level, a monopoly wont be able to form as people already have access to everything they need. No one would prefer working in a privately owned company over a collectively owned company.

2. In the first stage, yes. Unions will be able to handle the salaries, hopefully.

3. Collectively, and not privately. At a start, mostly state- and commune-owned companies, but later on run by Unions and workers. We regulate it through good ol' competition. If the collective company provides a better pay, a less stressful job and more benefits, no one will want to work for the private company. Taxation is also helpful in this. Give privately owned companies higher taxes than the collectively owned ones and it wont even be profitable to run a private business.

Good education is fundamental to all of this too, so people will know what they actually vote for and not just read the party slogans. The right-wing Moderaterna won the last elections by simply calling themselves a worker's party and promising to create more jobs. They weren't a worker's party and very few jobs were made. The result? Tax-breaks for privately owned companies and the rich (like removing the wealth tax) as well as a weaked Union and a worse school system.

If only the Swedish Social Democratic Party went back to being, you know, Social Democrats, this could easily be reality. They have a strong center leader now, but he is pro Capitalism. He has a background in the labor unions though, so we'll hopefully see that the unions get more power.

 

[nnmartin]

ok, sounds good.

I'll come back to the thread later with some more ideas.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Economic Left/Right: -6.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.59

Show graph on separate page for printing

 

[9Westy9]