Graphs are wonderful things. They help encapsulate vast amounts of data succinctly, and more importantly, act as a visual aid. One such graph, the political compass, does not deal with vast amounts of data. Instead, it deals with the political views and ideologies of the populace.
The left wing and the right wing, usually used in common parlance, is obsolete in the era of the internet, and is wholly inadequate for representing the myriads of political beliefs in the zeitgeist. Therefore, the political compass is used.
The political compass is made up of 2 axes, as is the case with most 2-dimensional graphs. (Well, you’d be hard pressed to find a 2-dimensional graph not containing 2 axes, but I digress.)
The horizontal axis
The horizontal axis represents the economic scale.
If your position is left of center, you believe that some degree of re-distribution of wealth to reduce poverty and crime is essential for the efficacious functioning of society and that income inequality is the worst enemy of the economy. You believe in higher taxes for the rich and desire effectual tax reallocation to fund programs like universal healthcare (free healthcare for all citizens), tuition free college and a social safety net. You also wish for more regulations on businesses to help protect people from deceptive advertisements and harmful products, to safeguard the environment, and to protect workers and animal rights.
If you happen to be right of center, you believe that income inequality is merely the product of capitalism and that government intervention (specifically, in the economy) and taxation. You believe in lower taxes and dislike most government programs with the aim of re-distribution of wealth. You maintain that the invisible hand of the free market has the ability to fix everything and that government regulations only hinder its ability to generate economic growth.
The vertical axis
The vertical axis represents the degree of government (or any other ruling organization) intervention in society.
The further up you go up this axis, you get a greater magnitude of authoritarian beliefs. Authoritarians believe that government control of public and private life is not only justifiable, but morally right. This may mean the support for excessive usage of bans, for instance, the ban on gay marriage, the ban on certain books and religious scriptures and the ban on alcohol and several recreational drugs like marijuana and methamphetamine, the support for the sedition acts, blasphemy laws and laws against apostasy. They also support government intervention in international conflicts. It is important to note that the examples above refer mostly to right-wing authoritarians, as they simply are greater in number than left wing authoritarians in this day and age. They maintain that the freedom of expression should have limits, in addition to libel and slander. This could mean penalization for hurting religious sentiments and punishment for hurting nationalistic pride and beliefs like flag burning, expressing support for an enemy state and sedition.
At the bottom of this axis lie the libertarians. A libertarian is someone who believes in little to no government intervention. The most ardent libertarians even believe that a government shouldn’t exist! They maintain that governments, for the most part, are corrupt and intrusive and therefore should possess as little control over public and private life as possible. Most libertarians are also “first-amendment absolutists”, which means, barring libel and slander, the government cannot interfere with a citizen’s freedom of expression, no matter whose sentiments are hurt or how vile the persons “expressions” are. They believe that most recreational drugs should, not only be decriminalized, but also legalized. Most libertarians are also dovish on the subject of wars. They do not believe that the government should intervene militarily in international conflicts.
These axes quadrisect the graph into four quadrants, namely, the Authoritarian Left, the Authoritarian Right, the Libertarian Left and the Libertarian Right. Lets discuss them in detail.
The Authoritarian Left
The Authoritarian Left is the combination of the economic left wing position and the support of an authoritarian government. The authoritarian left believes that there is something fundamentally wrong with free market capitalism and the only way to rectify is is for the government to make the economic decisions for its citizens. They may also describe themselves as communists and/or socialists. However, contrary to popular belief, not all communists and socialists are Authoritarian. In an authoritarian left wing government, private property will be limited or abolished by law. Usually, there is a single party system in such countries. However, theoretically that is not a necessity. The freedom of expression is not an absolute right in these countries, and those who speak against the nation or the government could be punished in the court of law. Following a religion and its practices may be discouraged, and may even be a punishable offense in some regimes.
Examples of countries or regions belonging to this quadrant: the Soviet union, Maoist China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba.
Examples of political figures belonging to this quadrant: Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Leon Trotsky, Kim Jong-Un.
Authoritarian Right
Authoritarian Right is the amalgamation of the support of right wing economics and the socially authoritarian position. The authoritarian right believes in Laissez-faire economics and are strongly anti-communism. There is also an added baggage of communalism, religious fanaticism and nationalism attached to this quadrant, which in theory has nothing to do with the economic right wing and is not intrinsic to authoritarianism. The Authoritarian Right is also fairly hawkish in terms of foreign policy and support using a large percentage of the GDP on the military. In an Authoritarian Right wing country, the government would ban speech which hurts religious and national sentiments. Atheism and secularism may be also be banned, as is the case with many middle eastern countries. They usually have an official religion, and many are theocracies and monarchies.
Countries belonging to this quadrant: Nazi Germany, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Pakistan, USA under Reagan, India.
Political figures belonging to this quadrant: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Marine Le Pen, Theresa May, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan.
Libertarian Right
The Libertarian Right, like their authoritarian counterparts, are free market capitalists and anti communists. However, they may not be nationalists or overtly religious, and they do not have the baggage of communalism attached to them. As mentioned previously, they believe in the power of the invisible hand of the free market. They believe in minimum government intervention and taxation. A subset of libertarianism is called anarcho-capitalism or AnCap for short. AnCaps believe that a government should not exist, and instead, the private sector should provide the populace with goods and services, which includes the police, the military and courts.
Some libertarians, known as minarchists, believe that the state should only exists to solely to protect citizens from aggression, theft, breach of contract, and fraud. Minarchists generally propose that the only legitimate governmental institutions are the military, police, and courts. Many libertarian right wingers also believe that taxation is theft.
Countries belonging to this quadrant: USA
Political figures belonging to this quadrant: Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Frederic Bastiat, Milton Friedman
Libertarian Left
The Libertarian Left is the combination of the economic left position and the libertarian position. Most people in this quadrant believe in a single payer healthcare system (universal healthcare), tuition-free college, a livable minimum wage, absolute freedom of expression, legalization of most recreational drugs, higher rate of taxation on the wealthy and a significant transaction tax on wall street. They maintain that banks have become “too big to fail”, which means that if the banks fail, it will take the economy with them, as was the case with the housing bubble crisis in 2008 and the Great Depression in 1929. To combat that, they believe in more regulations on the big banks like the Glass-Steagall banking act of 1933 and the Dodd-Frank act of 2010. They believe in effective redistribution of wealth to give the populace the equality of opportunity, as they claim it doesn’t exist in most countries, especially in “capitalist America”. They believe that America has a exceedingly hawkish foreign policy and wish that the government would spend the tax-payers money not on war, but on its citizens.
Countries belonging to this quadrant: Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden.
Political figures belonging to this quadrant: Karl Marx, Noam Chomsky, Bernie Sanders, Franklin D Roosevelt, John F Kennedy,Jeremy Corbyn, Mark Blythe, Paul Krugman, Mohandas Gandhi.
Various Political figures, ideas and countries, from my perspective.
*What isn’t visible
-2,10= Kim Jong Un
0,10= Adolf Hitler
10,-10= Anarcho-Capitalism
Note: China should be part of the authoritarian left, NOT the authoritarian right.
This is merely the tip of the iceberg. These things are infinitely more complex than what you’ve read here, since we must account for the multitudes of political opinions and beliefs. What was once solely a question of left, right and center has flourished into a multi-dimensional conversation. Perhaps in the future, even the political compass will become obsolete and would be replaced by a 3 dimensional graph. Until then, however, we must become well acquainted with this compass, and use it to evaluate nations, their leaders, and ourselves.
Advytv 