Political Compass



The Political Compass&trade; is an online test made in the UK by a political journalist and a professor of social history. It places people's political views on two axes instead of the traditional left-to-right axis.

The compass uses two axes to assign political views, a technique used by the earlier Nolan Chart and, as well as some other political charts. It has the same "corners" as the Nolan chart, which has led some to view it as an unattributed use of the Nolan Chart. However, the economic/social axes are rotated 135 degrees:

Note that the above are not 'conversions' that hold true in every individual; while Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, would be regarded as liberal by the Nolan Chart for not wanting to completely privatize Social Security, the Political Compass regards them as right of centre for their economic policies.

The compass
The Political Compass&trade; uses a two-axis chart, with each test-taker falling between -10 and +10 on each axis.

The X-axis measures economic positions, ranging from the far left, "Communism" (-10), to the far right, "Neo-liberalism" (+10). The labels vary on different versions of the graph, but this range measures how much or little government intrusion in the economy is favoured.

The Y-axis measures social positions, from "libertarian" /"anarchism" (0 to -10) to "authoritarian"/"fascism" (0 to +10). This range measures a person's stance on government intrusion in personal or social matters (from feeling it is not appropriate to feeling it is, respectively).

The test
The test consists of 62 propositions in six categories, covering areas such as economics, religion, culture, and what governments should and should not be allowed to do. The respondent can answer each proposition with one of "Strongly agree," "Agree," "Disagree," or "Strongly Disagree."

Criticism
There have been some criticisms of the test, some of them mentioning the test's failure to take into account the political and cultural differences between America and Europe and noting large discrepancies between the scores that actual people get on it and the scores posted for politicians and political parties.

The following are RationalWiki-specific criticism.

Writers' anti-neoliberal bias?
The political journalist and professor of social history are very much left-wing; they speak a good deal about "neoliberal orthodoxy," in a similar way that Conservapedia might use the phrase "Darwinist orthodoxy." A major difference between the two usages is that there is no consensus in favour of neoliberalism among economists in the way that there is such a consensus in science in favour of Darwinism.

The test writers chart the political positions of prominent politicians, political parties and governments across the democratic Western world, but the only one in which results for different years are compared side-by-side is the case of parties in the UK. This analysis shows that the Conservative and Labour parties' scores are only a hair's breadth away from each other, especially on the economic scale.

The test writers bemoan this reading and lay it on Tony Blair quite heavily in that article. It is possible to conclude that when they say, "Voter turnout is highest when ideological differences are most significant," it is probably code for "We hate Tony Blair." Not to say that Mr Blair does not deserve this, but there it is.

Authors' pro-capitalist bias?
The political compass has been criticized by socialists, particularly Marxists, for a few reasons, which include:


 * The political compass test fails to account for the Marxist view of economics and government. Marxists, for instance, wish to have an empowered state only as a transitional "authoritarian" stage to develop the conditions for the economic system of communism, which is "libertarian" and lacking in any central government; that is, they are both "authoritarian" and "libertarian" at the same time by the metrics of the political compass test. Because of this, most communists are placed on the lower edge of the "libertarian left" section (where anarchists would be placed).


 * The political compass test is "metaphysical"; it fails to, from a Marxist view, account for the changes in class society that result in certain ideological trends being viewed as "moderate" or "radical" relative to that time in history and merely views what is "left-wing" or "right-wing" in a static condition. For example, during the 18th century in France, liberals were viewed as a radical force, and monarchism was the status quo, unlike the current situation.


 * The political compass places proponents of anti-government free-market capitalism in a "libertarian" position, despite their economic views allowing, as Marxism would hold, increased exploitation and otherwise oppression of the workers. For example, anarcho-capitalists, despite claiming to reject governments, would, in their ideal society, permit objectively "authoritarian" practices such as starvation of the poor, uncontrolled and total corporate dominance over individuals, debt slavery, etc.

Loaded propositions
Although this cannot be known for sure due to the test writers' declining to release the scoring details, it is possible that the entire test was rigged to bash the UK Labour Party by portraying its position as significantly to the right of the average score attained by respondents on the test.

As evidence of this, many propositions on the test present "neoliberalism" and other ideas in a fallacious strawman fashion, similar to what Conservapedia does, except to a different set of "liberals."

Examples of such loaded propositions are:

Broader problems
The writers insist that the centre of the chart must remain fixed and unmoving to chart the changes in the political "center of gravity," possibly over as long as 200 years. Yet the test is highly dated, as many of its propositions (e.g., concerns over counter-terrorism and the commercialization of drinking water) would have made no sense 40 years ago, let alone 200, while others (e.g., several about race and ethnicity) would have been answered very differently even by the radical left-wingers of old.

Usage of the word 'libertarian'
The writers seem to use the term "libertarianism" to mean social and cultural liberalism. There also seems to be an implicit assumption made by the writers of this test that all leftists favour a more regulated market than rightists. Particularly the left "libertarian" quadrant seems reserved for those who want government control over the economy and are socially liberal. For some people, the appropriate terms to use are different: they would say this is a progressive viewpoint, not a left-libertarian one. Modern market-oriented left-libertarians, using said others' terminology, are staunch supporters of a laissez-faire economic system supporting free trade and property rights that are taken to be "rightist" viewpoints by the writers. Their position is leftist only insofar as they believe that "workers" are exploited by their "bosses" and deprived of the fruits of their labour.

Interestingly the early socialist movement heavily overlapped with the classical liberal movement. The compass works from the unstated assumption that any critique of corporate power is somehow "anti-business" or "anti-market". There is no way for modern-day left-libertarians to answer many questions without giving a false impression.

Only a libertarian could think that libertarianism is the opposite of authoritarianism. The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, for example, lists "clement, forbearing, gentle, indulgent, lax, lenient, tolerant" as antonyms for authoritarian and "democracy, self-governance, self-government, self-rule, freedom, self-determination, autonomy, sovereignty" as near-antonyms for authoritarianism." Libertarian ideas can actually be quite authoritarian, in a narrow sense, such as Walter Block who thinks that destitute people should be allowed to sell themselves into slavery, or more broadly insofar as "libertarian theory is loath to consider the presence of negative externalities to be a sufficient condition for even ideal government interventions, much less an intervention in the real world".

Usage of the words 'left' and 'right'
Furthermore, it is questionable whether supporting more government intervention in the economy is exclusively left-wing. For instance, the writers dismiss the idea that the BNP is a far-right party because they support tariffs and the welfare state. However, it is entirely possible to be "right-wing" (i.e. more accepting of inequality) while supporting government intervention in the economy so long as the motive is consistent with far-right beliefs (e.g., ). The writers eschew the more traditional and academic definition of "far-right" in favour of equating it with neoliberalism. Even though some neoliberal policies (e.g., the negative income tax) would be more easily embraced by those of the left (i.e. less accepting of inequality) than those on the right. Overall their definition of far-right and far-left is somewhat unorthodox and, in some cases, may not give you a very accurate position of your beliefs on a more traditional political spectrum.

This usage of the words 'left' and 'right' is an innovation that fits in with the usage of two spectra.

Raison d’être?
The creators claim their model is superior to the traditional political spectrum due to the latter's limits. But this is a massive strawman, as the Compass, unlike the spectrum, is marketed as a tool to plot precisely the positions of most politicians. An advantage of the political spectrum is that it, by contrast, does not claim such an ability. While the Compass claims to be able to sort out the nuances of differing ideologies between Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, the concept of the spectrum only claims one thing: that there are such things as left and right and that there are many nuanced differences around those poles (i.e. That not all conservatives are Mussolini and that not all leftists are Lenin).