Talk:Political spectrum

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This Politics related article has been assessed as SIGNIFICANTLY PROBLEMATIC in one or more ways. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

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This article requires attention for the following reason(s):
  • Contains many disputed claims not backed up with sources. Tagged since September 2021

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Split this article?[edit]

I think this article needs to be split up, one dealing with the political spectrum and its advantages and disadvantages as a way of mapping political positions and other articles on political philosophies,i.e I think conservatism needs its own page.--John stetson (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Proposed Overhaul[edit]

This article is marked as problematic. I think since we have some reasonable articles on Liberalism, Conservativism, Libertarianism, Socialism etc it would be wise to cut the fat from this name-space and refocus it on political spectrums. Possible structure:

  1. Left-Right 1D Spectrums
  2. Left-Right Libertarian/Authoritarian 2D Spectrums
  3. Horse-shoe theory

The specifics of each political position/tendency is better covered in its own article which we can link to from here. The only loss would be our stuff on Centrism which could just be moved to its own namespace. I'm finishing up one or two articles of my own on so it may be a little while before I get round to actioning this but I thought I'd throw this plan out to see how people feel. Let the bitchy slap-fight discussion begin... Tikitime2 (talk) 10:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)


Probably going to remove the collectivism stuff[edit]

Respectfully, it's a bit crap. There's simply no way to meaningfully position objectivists as "collectivists", The whole section seems to spuriously conflate having a serious collectivist ethic or political ontology with any reference to groups or sub-divisions within society. Is there a good defence of this or alternative, because I'm not really convinved of its value atm and it seems more confused and wrong than it is illuminating or helpful. Tikitime2 (talk) 22:59, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I mean, a lot of individualists still collectivize, even if unwittingly and unconventionally. Racists and self-proclaimed "Western chauvinists" claim that Western values include a push towards individualism, but then go onto collectivize themselves by skin tone and ancestry. Carthage (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I think this just further proves that the way collectivism is being used in that section is incorrect/unhelpful. The collectivism of socialists is very different qualitatively to the collectivism of identity politics and the collectivism of "secular humanists". It's genuinely just treating any identification of an in or out group as a sign of collectivism which is so broad that it encompasses almost all political ideologies.
Economic collectivism is different to ethnic collectivism is different to humanism. If we are going to cover this topic we need to offer a much more thorough treatment than this. Tikitime2 (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I have no disagreements about that. That said, the "colloquial" definition of collectivism is very different from the "polsci" one. Carthage (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
Seconding the removal about collectivism. It's basically complete nonsense that doesn't reflect any reality concerning political spectra. Axe it. Monochroma (talk) 19:50, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I actually initiated an AfD about this a while back. Apparently people thought that we should just move all the low-quality garbage to the political spectrum article. Is this article a wastebasket? Carthage (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Apparently, considering the recent proposal to merge left wing into this page, yes Ioe bidome (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Color problem in the The one dimensional model section.[edit]

Greetings,

[Brand new, my first attempt at posting.]

Look at the headings on the article page:
"Anarchism — Communism — Socialism — Social Liberalism — Centrism — Classical Liberalism — Conservatism — Monarchism — Fascism".

Do you see how "Social Liberalism" is so difficult to read? There is not enough contrast between the yellow of the font and the white background, especially for people with vision problems. "Socialism" is only marginally better and could use better contrast, too. If this website cares about inclusion, please, somebody with the knowledge / the authority, change the yellow to a more contrasty color. Forest green has not been used. (Spring green may also lack enough contrast.) [I am sure whoever created the headings did not make "Social Liberalism the most difficult to read on purpose.]

Thank you for your help, Golgafrinchin Ark B (talk) 18:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
(And if anybody could direct me to a tutorial on altering signatures, I would like to try that. .^_^. )

Comparisons between anarchism and Marxism-Leninism[edit]

I don't think it's entirely fair to say the key difference between the two is that "Marxist-Leninists are typically more open about what their revolution will involve". It's not just the revolutionary period which gives Marxist-Leninists the label of authoritarianism, but what came after as well: totalitarian regimes which involved continuous mass surveillance, arbitrary and politically-motivated imprisonment and execution, suppression of free speech, etc. I think it should be reasonable to say that an anarchist society post-revolution wouldn't have any of those things, or else it could hardly constitute as anarchistic.

It also doesn't really mention how the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War aren't necessarily representative of the entire ideology. I'm also not entirely sure whether the reference used actually states everything listed. From skimming it, I couldn't find any mentions of anarchists establishing labour camps, for example. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 00:56, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Anarchists and Marxists Leninists want the same thing as an end point, they differ primarily in how they think we should get there and what organising the revolution will look like. The Spanish Civil War is important because it is arguably the most cited and referenced example of Anarchism actually working in the modern-era which featured anarchists abandoning their abstract principles. There are others though, CHOP/CHAZ is very instructive. An autonomous zone was formed and not long after that "autonomous zone" had to put together an armed militia to make sure fascist thugs couldn't sabotage it, and that included kicking out media figures/journalists who were suspected of gathering intel and producing propaganda for the alt-right. So basically, anarchists got themselves an autonomous zone and within a matter of a few weeks found themselves in charge of an armed border-force that censored media! Woops!
The fact that more conventionally socialist movements have done such things is more to do with the relative success of those movements compared to anarchist experiments that tend to collapse far more quickly and therefore never actually have to make those kinds of decisions or get their ideals messy in quite the same way a besieged Cuban might, for instance. I think it's pretty safe to say based on the behaviour of anarchists when they HAVE had that kind of influence to say that anarchist revolutions simply appear less dangerous because they are easier to romantacise. Not because they have proved at any point in history to be markedly less violent or aggressive. Tikitime2 (talk) 20:03, 30 September 2025 (UTC)