Sunday, April 10, 2005
The Lonely Quadrant
Political compass is web site on a mission to educate its readers about the varieties of political thought. They argue that, instead of locating political beliefs on a line that goes from left to right, we should locate political beliefs in a two-dimensional plane. The east-west axis of their plane represents support for government intervention in economic matters, while the north-south axis of their plane represents support for government intervention in social and moral matters. On their web site, you'll find a fun quiz; using your answers to the quiz, which is anonymous and takes only about 10 minutes to complete, they will pinpoint your location in the political plane. I encourage everyone who reads this to go take the quiz. Here is a picture of their plane, with a dot that represents my own quiz result:
One can, of course, extend their logic and argue that, in fact, many more axes are required to accurately depict a person's politics, and therefore that we all exist in a hyper-dimensional political space. While this is undoubtably correct, the more interesting question is: how many axes are required to depict the politics of the vast majority of people? As far as I can tell, in answering this question the web site's ogranizers have actually erred in the other direction. As best I can determine, just one axis appears to suffice to accurately depict the politics of nearly everyone.
I've seen the quiz results for many of my friends and acquaintances, and nearly all lie along the line that runs from the south-west (Democratic) to the north-east (Republican) quadrants. All the mainstream politicians I've seen classified on their site lie along this axis. The politicians in the remaining quadrants are either those that everyone recognizes as outliers (e.g. Joseph Stalin in the north-west quadrant) or those that no one recognizes at all because they are too obscure (e.g. Michael Badnarik in the south-east quadrant).
My own lonely quadrant would probably be called Libertarian by most Americans. I don't particularly like that word, since in my mind it conjures up visions of gun-toting wackos in the Montana wilderness. (Not that those people aren't libertarians. They are just crazy libertarians.) British readers might call the inhabitants of my quadrant classical liberals, which sounds nicer but means nothing to most Americans. Continental Europeans would call us neoliberals, which is a word that, in European political discourse, conjures up visions of heartless Dickensian villains.
I don't really understand why my quadrant is so nearly empty. It seems to me an entirely consistent belief system: government should interfere neither in peoples' economic arrangements, nor in peoples' social and moral arrangements. In this view, government plays the role of a referee, who has no interest in a particular outcome, but intervenes when the players can't agree on the rules of the game. Isn't that more consistent than believing that government should intervene in economic but not moral matters, or vice-versa?
Inhabitants of my quadrant oppose a lot of what the left wants: minimum wage laws and affirmative action come to mind. We also oppose a lot of what the right wants: drug prohibition and decency standards come to mind. Many Libertarians even oppose a lot of what the left and right agree on: limits on prostitution and strict immigration controls come to mind. Not that I oppose high wages, or decent behavior, or think that prostitution is an advisable career choice; I just don't think it's right to impose these values at the point of a gun.
At the core of laissez-faire politics lies the notion that our government and our society can and should be separate entities. Governments, by their very nature, deal in coercion. A government's power over its citizens ultimately derives from its ability to lock them up, or worse. Societies, at their best, operate by free cooperation. Charismatic politicians should have to lead by the force of their ideas, and leave the weapons of government power in the hands of boring technocrats.
One can, of course, extend their logic and argue that, in fact, many more axes are required to accurately depict a person's politics, and therefore that we all exist in a hyper-dimensional political space. While this is undoubtably correct, the more interesting question is: how many axes are required to depict the politics of the vast majority of people? As far as I can tell, in answering this question the web site's ogranizers have actually erred in the other direction. As best I can determine, just one axis appears to suffice to accurately depict the politics of nearly everyone.
I've seen the quiz results for many of my friends and acquaintances, and nearly all lie along the line that runs from the south-west (Democratic) to the north-east (Republican) quadrants. All the mainstream politicians I've seen classified on their site lie along this axis. The politicians in the remaining quadrants are either those that everyone recognizes as outliers (e.g. Joseph Stalin in the north-west quadrant) or those that no one recognizes at all because they are too obscure (e.g. Michael Badnarik in the south-east quadrant).
My own lonely quadrant would probably be called Libertarian by most Americans. I don't particularly like that word, since in my mind it conjures up visions of gun-toting wackos in the Montana wilderness. (Not that those people aren't libertarians. They are just crazy libertarians.) British readers might call the inhabitants of my quadrant classical liberals, which sounds nicer but means nothing to most Americans. Continental Europeans would call us neoliberals, which is a word that, in European political discourse, conjures up visions of heartless Dickensian villains.
I don't really understand why my quadrant is so nearly empty. It seems to me an entirely consistent belief system: government should interfere neither in peoples' economic arrangements, nor in peoples' social and moral arrangements. In this view, government plays the role of a referee, who has no interest in a particular outcome, but intervenes when the players can't agree on the rules of the game. Isn't that more consistent than believing that government should intervene in economic but not moral matters, or vice-versa?
Inhabitants of my quadrant oppose a lot of what the left wants: minimum wage laws and affirmative action come to mind. We also oppose a lot of what the right wants: drug prohibition and decency standards come to mind. Many Libertarians even oppose a lot of what the left and right agree on: limits on prostitution and strict immigration controls come to mind. Not that I oppose high wages, or decent behavior, or think that prostitution is an advisable career choice; I just don't think it's right to impose these values at the point of a gun.
At the core of laissez-faire politics lies the notion that our government and our society can and should be separate entities. Governments, by their very nature, deal in coercion. A government's power over its citizens ultimately derives from its ability to lock them up, or worse. Societies, at their best, operate by free cooperation. Charismatic politicians should have to lead by the force of their ideas, and leave the weapons of government power in the hands of boring technocrats.
