andrewducker | I haven't done this in a while

I'm now at:

Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.38

I think I'm about the same, as in somewhere between Gandhi and the Dalai Lama...

Economic Left/Right: -5.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.21

It's odd they have so few examples on the libertarian side of the line.

It'd be nice to think that that's because few people throughout history are that barking mad.

A more likely reason is that the more authoritarian types are the ones most drawn to politics.

Can't do it in the office here, as the firewall blocks it for some reason... maybe I'll try it at home later.

Mind you, the last two times I tried put me right on the origin point or very slightly left/lib. (0,0) or (-2,-3) IIRC.

-- Steve has documented proof of his "moderate" credentials, apparently.

I believe the British idiom for my reaction is "ballocks"... upon taking the test it gave me a (-4.6, -5.7). As flattering as it is to be compared with the Dalai Lama and Pres. Obama, I strongly doubt that I'm that strongly left-lib unless the centre of the chart has moved hugely right-authoritarian in the past five years.

-- Steve believes in moderation, something the quiz really didn't address too well. (Too many questions were in the form of "all [x] are..." or "[y] is always..." How does one make allowance for the lack of universality in just about everything?)

(You do know that Korzybski was a key influence on Robert Anton Wilson, don't you?)

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.74

I'm drifting towards the centre.

I think the 2-axis system is bollocks dreamt up by American nutjob libertarians to try and justify their batshit insane politics...

That seems batshit insane to me. It's a definite advantage over the normal "left-right" single axis discussions that most people seem to be involved in. Without it I'd look like a fairly plain centrist, rather than actually being somewhat on the fringes.

Excapt that this specific system was dreamed up by a UK based journalist and a UK based pollster. The site FAQ used to say that, but that was more than ten years ago.

This is better than a simple left/right scale, but even this is flawed (I've seen a good three-way 3D grid once or twice, but...)

> The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal "anarchism" championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America's Libertarian Party, which couples social Darwinian right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.

See? concocted to give Ayn fucking Rand a nice place to live.

Not "concocted" - filling a complete failing in the left-right dichotomy. Because if you've got a system that doesn't include anarcho-syndicalism and libertarianism (at extremes) then it's as completely fucking useless as one that doesn't include communism, or the position of the Labour party.

This is just the problem with the commonest usage of the Nolan chart. If Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were anarchists, then I'm Queen Marie of Romania.

Depends what you mean by "anarchist". Ayn Rand didn't believe people should be told what to do. Does that mean she was an anarchist? Certainly not an anarcho-syndicalist, but "anarchist" is such a wide term that I'd argue that it would include objectivists.

Anarchism is about achieving adulthood.
Ayn Rand is about permanent adolescence.

Anarchism isn't _about_ anything. It just is.

Have you taken this one? I think that its approach is quite different from the "World's Smallest Political Test" libertarian propaganda.

I got bottom left:

Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.79

And a ton of the questions seem to me completely unsuited to a UK audience, so I doubt the "dreamed up by a UK based journalist and a UK based pollster" mentioned above.

I remember when it first appeared, and it was made by people fed up with the way that the UK had a horribly partisan system where everything was either Left or Right. The questions have changed over time, presumably as it's spread and gained usage in countries other than the UK.

I did mine earlier when

miss_s_b posted it, and came out very similar to what you've got here - just to the left of centre and very libertarian (my graph's visible here). So hello, kindred spirit!

Most of my friends are further left than me, too, which sometimes makes me feel as though I have accidentally turned into Mrs. Thatcher without realising it. It's nice to do the test and find that I still fall on the 'correct' side of the middle line. :-)

Nah, Maggie was very much top right, all that "can't buck the market" was spin, she sold of monopolies as monopolies and thought profit was wonderful, neither is a liberal market-based economic position.

But because people believe she was a market favouring PM, they're against markets by default, unless you reword the questions.

@Andrew, you're drifting to the 'right' because the question set puts belief in economic freedom as left/right, which is palpably bobbins, but as you're picking up a lot more on economic theory it puts you more 'right wing'. It should be putting you (and me) further down.

@Andrew??? What is this, Twitter or FB? You can reply to me under the post...

And it's clear that they're referring to economic left/right (socialism/capitalism), as opposed to any other left-right. I believe they say so on their site.

I believe in more personal freedom than I do economic freedom (although I believe in a fair amount of that too). Separating those onto two separate axes seems reasonable to me.

It was a remark specifically for you but that might also apply to Penny given her background, ergo it's perfectly valid to let you know I'm specifically referring to your original post but in a reply to someone else to whom it's relevent.

And I was using @replies on BBs and forums and in comment boxes way before bloody twitter nicked the idea.

They say they're referring to socialism vs capitalism, but if I go in and put avowedly market socialist answers, they'll put me on the right (I've tried this). Jock Coats is also on the right, despite his very firm commitment to mutualism, a commitment that borders on anarcho-syndicalism, the definition of what should be bottom left.

Ergo, they say they're measuring one thing, but are in fact measuring something else.

Left/right should be measured by belief in redistributive tases and preferred system of ownership, saying I think I should have a choice of where to buy my food shoul not put me further to the right, but that's what they're actually measuring (I lost the dataset I did on this years ago, unfortunately, but I did go through and put in a vast variety of different answers.

Market socialism and mutualism are forms of economic freedom that are incredibly left wing by any sane definition. That they've managed to make favouring them push you to the right means their dataset and questions don't work to their avowed aims.

Separating different types of freedom qould be fine, but that's not what they're saying they're doing. Three way axis, political, social and economic freedoms would be good, but then I think you'd need a fourth--I don't believe you can be economically free if you live in poverty, hence I believe in strong redistribution, but others say that's the opposite of economic freedom.

The last bit is why I favour a citizen's income. If only I could make the figures add up...

Yeah - I agree with your comments over there. The vast lift of Africa out of poverty over the last decade or so, and the general improvement of living conditions over the whole world have been down to economic growth, and I think that (regulated and controlled) capitalism is the best way to do that.

that anyone can even conceder condensing the complexity of a persons political thought onto a 2 axis graph really really angers me.

this is why the two party bullshit [plutocracy/oligarchy] in $country has made 'politics' a word most people spit, while politicians rake in hundreds of thousands of $currency a year, ensure they, their family and friends remain wealthy and powerful, while simultaneously insure that we are docile, malleable cash-faucets.

if democracy is the worst form of government, save for all the others we have tried, why the hell have we stopped trying? Is it perhaps because we have been beaten?

(yeah i totally took the bait, but you hit a nerve - of all the graphs in the world, these ones make me want to punch someone the most.)

a) I don't think that anyone considers that you can accurately contain the whole of a person's political beliefs onto two axes. I don't think anyone is even trying to. They're just showing people where they lie on two axes that they believe are important.

b) I don't believe in two party nonsense either. Which is why I'm much happier in Scotland where we have five parties in the government (and I'd be happier with even more). I'm pushing for AV as a stepping stone to even more representative systems. And we clearly haven't stopped trying to improve democracy, as can be seen by the amount of effort a lot of people are putting into things like that.

But the 4-way graph indicates a 4 party system would be better, and it's much much better than the normal default of "is this left or right wing".

Using this sort of tool is a good way to indicate two party systems are bad.

Chris Lightfoot's political survey is much superior. While a little dated now, it has the advantage of being based on actual data.

And, contrary to the comment by

crm above, it turns out that two axes are perfectly adequate to chart the range of political beliefs in the UK. Just not the two axes on the political compass survey. In that respect,

momentsmusicaux is quite right - this survey has no sound empirical basis, and has long been employed as a recruiting tool by libertarians.

I don't believe for an instant that 2 axes are adequate. And while I'd definitely say that pragmatism is definitely a component of my political beliefs, I view liberty/authority as being just as important (sometimes trumping pragmatism on certain subjects).

As for it being a recruiting tool for libertarians, it's doing a solidly bad job of it, judging by how few actual libertarians there are.

Lightfoot's principal components analysis finds only two important axes, of which one is much more important that the other. It's a neat study.

Disappointingly, however, the link I gave you in haste only seems to point to the initial version of the work. The 2005 version was more rigorous, and more interesting - but the link from the page I gave you doesn't seem to be working. Sorry about that, I didn't take the time to check.

The 2005 survey found two important axes. The less important one corresponded roughly to the traditional left-right spectrum - but was relatively weak. The main, much stronger axis was what Lightfoot dubbed the "axis of UKIP", with Eurosceptics who believe in retributive justice at one end, and Europhiles who believe in reformative justice at the other. You might imagine this is the same as the libertarian/authoritarian axis, but it isn't quite. It has much more to do with attitudes towards out-groups, which other psychological research has shown to be important in the formulation of political opinions.

So it seems that, to a first approximation, your attitude to people outwith your own group is what determines your political stance. To a second approximation, your attitude toward taxes and economic redistribution also play a part. And to a third approximation, we're all special snowflakes.

I'm a fan of both as tools, but neither can truly reflect anyone.

I had planned to get hold of the initial algorithms (Chris was very insistent they be open) and then get an updated data set.

But that means remaining on good terms with my YouGov contacts, and I think I've burnt my dridges there "your methodology is deeply flawed, your sampling system is deeply biased, your weighting system is obviously innaccurate and the only reason your polls are consistent is because of the flaws in the above, they're consistently wrong in a number of key indicators" was the summary of that position.

And becuase Chris based his data on YouGov data, I am less inclined to take the raw data as meaningful anymore.

If we could get the same sort of dataset out of ICM or MORI, that'd be very cool, but they can't really question at that depth over the phone :-(

While the stats might well be interesting, all they can tell is a cluster of opinions that go together. They can't tell you the root causes of those opinions. "The axis of UKIP" is pithy, but it's going to be based on deeper stuff.

I fully approve of datamining people's responses to things, but it's not nearly enough to give you a solid theory.

(I'd also argue that liberal/authoritarian were people's attitudes to people outside of their group. Do you want to stop them doing the things they like, or are you willing to let them be different? Everyone is in favour of free speech of the people who are just like them - it's their opinion of whether people have a right to say things they don't like that tells you whether they're actually in favour of free speech.)

I've just stuck the 2005 version back up at

http://politicalsurvey2005.beasts.org/

where it can reside forever.

The analysis is at

http://ex-parrot.com/~chris/wwwitter/20050415-my_country_right_or_left.html

Chris's initial objection was that politicalcompass was shit. He was right. Sadly he still his. A quick critique of some questions,

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.

This seems to assert that the interests of humanity are not aligned with said corporations. Which is odd, because to a large extent the corporations exist to provide humanity with the products they want to buy.

Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment.

The obvious extremes are full employment as a policy paid for with printed money and hyper inflation, or printing money to force inflation and hiding it in banks irrespective of the effect. If I'm not in favour of either plan how do I vote?

It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product.

If I disagree am I preferring a society with no drinking water at all or a society with free drinking water everywhere?

The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.

In what way is the social responsibility different to the other ones? Do companies even have social responsibilities? I own a large fraction of a company, I think it's responsibility is to do what I want. For a large company that's usually aligned with profit but the question isn't restricted to listed companies only.

The rich are too highly taxed.

Define rich. Most people define rich as people who earn twice what they do.

Those with the ability to pay should have the right to higher standards of medical care.

Should this read 'those who pay should be able to purchase higher standards of medical care'? I'm training for a marathon and I hurt my knee. It's a ridiculous waste of NHS money to treat me immediately because I'm not a priority. If I disagree am I suggesting it should be illegal for me to privately pay for physio so I can complete the marathon? If I agree am I suggesting the NHS should give me priority treatment because I can afford to pay privately without actually making me do so?

it goes on....

Economic: +6.62
Social: -1.08
Pretty much where Professor Friedman is shown.

Sounds about right.

I'm in the bottom left hand corner. No surprises there.

Is this one of the innumberable fake-ass internet tests that are designed to show that everyone is REAAAALY looneytarian if only they'd unleash their inner sociopath and embrace congitive dissonance?

That would put them in the bottom right corner. And I know almost nobody there. So not _terribly_ likely.

Oh, hey, now that I've clicked on it, it's "politicalcompass.org", so YES that's exactly what it is.

And no, while "embrace your inner sociopath" and cheerlead for him mightily may be a bottom-right position, the true purpose of these test is to skew all non-patently-insane views into bottom-middle.

(Which is to say that, among other things, it plants me bottom and center-left, which is frankly insane.)

I'm curious as to why that's insane?

Because citing my position as "centre-left" only makes sense in the American context, wherein economically I'm Loony Left, whereas outside the USA I'm middle-to-conservative. On social issues I'm "Loony left" again in the USA, which puts me bog-standard "let everyone do whatever the fuck they want" majority dead-middle centrist in every civilised country on the planet.

In the mean time, calling me "libertarian" is a joke specifically because "Libertarian" means, in the US-centric context of PoliticalCompass, "holds a gun on people while I rape them and blames them for not having a gun to defend themselves from me".

Aaah. From a Canadian viewpoint I guess that makes sense. I live in a theoreticlly civilised country, in which only 30% of the population believes that homosexuals are inherently inferior, and we actually equalised the age of consent a whole 13 years ago.

You seem totally mainstream for civilised society - but I don't kid myself that that civilised society is anything more than a fringe of the planet.

I refuse to allow the number of people holding stupid positions to skew the centre - the number of idiots making a mistake does NOT skew the truth towards the mistake, so why should the number of people holding the same political position skew the "center" closer to their position?

This is a statistical argument - median vs mode vs average, I suspect.

But whether you're working from an average of world positions, or from the range of theoretical positions (from homosexuality being illegal->legal from book-burning->free speech, etc.) it sounds like you're going to come out on the extreme liberal end of things.

I'm not sure how much more liberal than you you think people get.

last time i took this i was:
Economic Left/Right: -3.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.54

today:
Economic Left/Right: -2.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.15

so i've moved slightly closer to their interpretation of my self image as centrist and strongly liberal/libertarian in the non-american sense. although the change is probably within the margin of error between impulsively choosing x or strongly-x on their quiz.

The Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -3.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.10

So that's what a death penalty democrat looks like. I'm relieved to see I'm the Anti-Bush, though.

I'm -6.5, -4.3, in the bottom left hand corner, a little below Gandhi. The leftness doesn't surprise me, but the libertarian does, though as far as I remember that's roughly where I was the last time I took the test.

I haven't done this in a while

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