The Political CompassMany of you have probably seen the political compass, or even taken the quiz corresponding to it. But it's more than just a fun chart: it represents political views on two axes, an economic one and a social one. The economic axis spans from left to right, with the far left advocating complete collectivization of the economy and the far right advocating complete non-intervention in the economy. The social axis spans from authoritarian to libertarian, with extreme authoritarians desiring the government to dictate every part of the citizens' lives and libertarians desiring the complete absence of the state (this differs substantially from the common definition of these terms). Thus, the left-right axis differs substantially to the common form. For instance, fascism is commonly labelled far-right, but economically, fascist regimes may only be halfway to the right - they're just highly authoritarian. Here's what the chart looks like (I have overlayed the ideologies myself):
Personally, though, I don't think the Political Compass is the best way of organizing ideologies, because people don't normally think in terms of "I am 37% leftist and 64% libertarian" - they simply have a set of values. Liberals value liberty and equality but not exclusively, while socialists will value equality very heavily. Communists value equality and authority. Conservatives value tradition first and foremost. Fascists value authority, superiority, and tradition. I think you get the idea.
I'm going to head off to bed now, though, so I'm going to expound on that tomorrow and talk about the left wing in the United States.
