Political Compass

Position of UK political parties in the United Kingdom general election, 2015

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The Political Compass™ 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 Pournelle Chart, 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:

Nolan Chart	Political Compass
Libertarian	Libertarian Right
Conservative	Authoritarian Right
Authoritarian	Authoritarian Left
Liberal	Libertarian Left

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™ 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 18^th 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

See the main article on this topic: Loaded question

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:

Proposition	Remarks
If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.	Supporters of supply side economics have no way to answer this, as they believe there is no conflict of interest between humanity and large corporations. When this was pointed out to the test writers, they responded that someone with this belief should answer "Strongly disagree", and the test will move them to the right.
Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public.	Even Ayn Rand believed that the government should punish those who commit acts of fraud.
The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.	This and similar propositions fail to distinguish between those who hate art and literature and those who like it but feel that the state should not be involved. This criticism fails to make the distinction between importance and state involvement. It also makes the same mistake the proposition about economic globalization made, as supporters of supply side economics often believe that Free-Market Capitalism allows artists to be more successful than any other economic system.
Astrology accurately explains many things.	The test writers indicate that they put this in to gauge a person's belief in "determinism", which they believe is correlated with authoritarianism. Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, has expressed similar views: that belief in deterministic patterns to history "abrogates the democratic responsibility of each one of us to make our own free contributions to the evolution of society, and hence lead to totalitarianism"; but he was referring to historicism, which is tied to authoritarian ideologies. Astrology, in contrast, came from traditional cultures, which (while it may cause prejudices) is non-ideological, explaining why even Conservapedia — a well-known hotbed of authoritarians and pseudoscience — is not too hot for that pseudoscience, while twice as many Democrats believe in astrology as Republicans — so this question might actually have the opposite effect on political position to what was intended.
Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal.	All Many propositions in the test use absolute terms such as always, never and only. The issue here is that wording propositions in such a manner can influence the answer since only one exception to the statement is needed to disagree with it. Many anti-abortion Republican politicians in the United States would disagree with this statement. For example, Jeb Bush supports abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy and has further exceptions for situations involving rape and incest.

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.

Differing vocabulary

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., Economic Nationalism). 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).

External links

• The Political Compass™
• An alternative quiz with less loaded questions that makes use of the political compass format. (some of the questions are US-specific though, like the question about Intelligent Design, which is not even intelligible to most people outside the US.)
• Another quiz similar to the above (again, with an American bent).
• Spekr, another alternative "political compass" quiz but this time made by anarcho-capitalists with the intent of making you into an anarcho-capitalist whether you want to be one or not through absurdly loaded questions.
• Who are you in 1917 Russia?, another alternative political compass quiz. This time set during the Russian revolution.
• Political Typology Quiz, another alternative political compass quiz by the Pew Research Center.
• 8values, a quiz that tracks position along four axes instead of two