I never really cared for the Nolan political compass I'm sure most of you are familiar with here:



Now, I just grabbed this image off the web, the point wasn't to debate where someone put the people on it. Having said that I'm curious how Libertarians will feel about the way I've defined the political compass....

Before I go any farther, America was founded on the idea that government was to play a minimal role in the affairs of society and the economy - that the job of the government was not to provide direction for society or the economy, but simply to maintain a "free environment" were the public could conduct themselves as they so chose, as long as they didn't "infringe" on the "rights" of others ("others" at that time meaning white male property owners).This is essentially the classical concept of "liberalism" - the idea of a laissez-faire approach to both economic and social policy. That doesn't necessarily mean that this is how things should be done today, but that is the history of our founders. The movement was called Liberalism and some of today's Libertarians would claim their roots from this movement.

I'm going to use the term Liberalism or Liberal, rather than Libertarian as not all Libertarians would file themselves in this category. However, if you are a Libertarian that supports Liberalism, the term should not offend you as many would argue that Libertarianism is rooted in Liberalism (again, in a historical sense).


The problem with the compass above is that the opposite of Libertarian is authoritarian, which as you can see from this example puts Clinton and Trump (in this example) fairly close to each other. The problem, IMO, is that each has authoritarian ideas but it really doesn't say much about the ideas they hold.

The Nolan system and Political Compass system (above), only measure degrees of regulation, however, this is insufficient IMO because it really tells you nothing about what is being regulated, the reasoning behind the regulations, or the intended goal. They also make the incorrect assertion that "regulations" and "freedom" are inherently contradictory, while this is not really true - it all depends on the nature and execution of the regulations.


For example, regulations that prevent slavery increase freedom. Rules and regulations are not by definition restrictive on the whole, as their net effect can be to facilitate liberty. For example, by having traffic lights we can regulate traffic in a way to reduce congestion and accidents, therefore the rules actually facilitate freedom of travel, they don't restrict it.


By referring to Left and Right purely in terms of laissez-faire vs. authoritarian, things like regulations preventing racism and regulations enforcing racism with equal degrees cannot be properly depicted. However, if we consider racism to be an issue that can be viewed in terms of Left and Right, and we view anti-racist ideology as "Leftist" and racist ideology as "Rightist", then strict regulation of racism, either to prevent it or promote it, can be shown as authoritarian Left and Right policy accordingly, while policy that takes no stance on racism at all is simply Liberal. Thus Affirmative Action is seen not as a "Liberal" program, but as a socially Leftist program that is "Left of Liberal." Likewise, the Nazi use of the State to enforce racial genocide is obviously not "Liberal" or even Leftist, it's an example of the authoritarian Right.


Obviously, in this case, both Affirmative Action and the Holocaust are examples of the use of State authority to regulate matters of race. According to both the Political Compass and the Nolan Chart these two policies would have to be lumped together on their political spectrums, which plainly makes no sense.


Likewise, by viewing Left and Right as progressive vs. conservative it insinuates that "Rightist" policy is about "keeping things the same" and "Leftist" policy is about "change," however this ultimately makes no sense either. Keeping things the same as what? There are thousands of different examples of ideology from the past and this would imply that today's "Leftist" is tomorrow's "Rightist" such that the positions are based on tradition and not ideology. For example, when applying this terminology to the former Soviet Union during the 1980s the Communist hard-liners were viewed as "conservative," but obviously "conservative" in this sense didn't mean "members of the Christian Coalition," it meant Stalinist.


So, progressive vs. conservative and liberal vs. authoritarian do not accurately describe "Left vs. Right."

So here is the political compass that I think best represents the truest nature of our ideologies...



As anarchy is the complete lack of government, the Anarchists are in the center. As you move away from the center in any direction you begin to accept the idea that government is necessary. Classical Liberals embrace minimalist government who, for example, might only support the bill of rights and nothing beyond that.

Looking at this compass I would put Trump in the top right quadrant in blue, Clinton in the lower right quad in blue, Sanders in the lower left quad in blue Johnson somewhere in the green towards the Center. I'll let you decide which quad.

Modern Dems are generally thought of as "left" where Republicans are thought of as "right", however, economically I'd argue that Dems, while they might be left of Republicans are still on the right side of the compass. I think most Conservatives, on this compass, would put themselves on the right, but closer to the center.

As an example (and to be taken with a grain of salt) starting on the right side on the economic axis you'd have right Libertarians (in green) and starting in blue closest to green Conservatives-Democrats-Republicans. Where they would differ would be on the up-down axis. Since as you move towards the center you'd support fewer government regulations, there is less up-down movement. As you move away from the center, you'd support more government regulation.

Dems and Repubs obviously support a lot of regulation and if you wanted to argue that Dems and Repubs are on the east-west axis the same, that would be fine, what would differentiate them is their movement on the north-south axis.

Again, I leave this to the reader. The point isn't for me to tell you where I think people and groups belong, but whether or not this compass does a better job of allowing people to place themselves politically relative to others.

Thoughts?

Respectfully,

E4E1