Critique: Other Political Maps – Center for Upper-Left Policy

A critical survey of political maps, or what’s wrong with left-right?

There are several problems with the Left-Right (Liberal-Conservative, Stalin-Hitler) political spectrum commonly taught in American schools and used by American journalists.

(See FIG_LR2)

1. The L-R spectrum is not well-defined. What is actually being measured? The labels are often used merely as tribal-warfare name-calling, such as, “leftist-extremist” or “far right-wing”.

2. The L-R spectrum has a big government (progressive) bias; Small government positions are left out. In theory, the smallest government (anarchy) would be furthest from BOTH Hitler and Stalin, which then absurdly makes anarchy a “centrist” position!?

3. The two “extremes” are closer to each other than either is from the “middle.” The so-called horseshoe theory (credited to Jean-Pierre Faye in 1971) bent the line so the ends meet, resembling a horseshoe. This sees the problem, without fixing it.

FIG_LR3 illustrates these problems and also the so-called horseshoe theory; the curved nature of the horseshoe shows the need for two dimensions.

Other Political Maps (In two dimensions: Beyond Left-Right)

There are dozens of two-dimensional models developed to improve the broken and over-worked one-dimensional Left-Right spectrum. Some took considerable effort to include many (30-100) colorful political labels; these might be useful as a glossary (not a map) if they only included better definitions for the terms they use: liberal, progressive, conservative, libertarian, authoritarian, collectivist, individualist, social, economic, personal, tough-minded, tender-minded, traditionalism, mutualism, communism, socialism, fascism, capitalism, and more! These are real examples of labels taken from a plethora of political models and websites. (One graph had almost 100 political labels crammed into its two dimensions!)

The Political Compass is the best known and worst offender. It traces back to July 2001 with acknowledged intellectual influences from Wilhelm Reich and Theodor Adorno. The criticism of the PC will also apply to the many similar copycat approaches.

The basic problem remains; the X-axis and Y-axis are poorly defined. A map shows distance between locations, so how exactly is “X” defined in order to measure the center and the extremes of “X?” In theory a compass is only for direction. It points north, but it does not measure distance to the North Pole.

The Up-Down dimension is “defined/labeled” as authoritarian vs. libertarian.

Rather than properly define the two political dimensions, a false sense of measurement is created by providing a 60+ question quiz to locate people. The Political Compass had 62 questions in 6 different sections in 2014. People were asked whether they agree or disagree with statements such as “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Clearly useless when Robespierre and Louis XVI could have easily agreed on that much!

For a two dimensional map, it is fundamentally wrong to have more then only two questions. The extra questions are either redundant or require extra dimensions. If the questions are correlated (most likely) then reduce the number rather than imply a phony precision in the measurement. If the questions are not correlated (independent), then more than two dimensions are needed.

The excessive questions expose a deeply hidden flaw: two people could disagree on every one of sixty statements and STILL be placed next to each other on the PC map! People are misled to believe they are political neighbors where they are actually polar opposites. This is absurdly misleading, at best, and utterly useless for rational political purposes.

The Political Compass (62 questions)

https://www.politicalcompass.org

Left-Right is “certainly fine for discussing economics” but is “wrongly used to describe social attitudes.” “That’s why we added a social scale.”

The economic (left–right) axis measures one’s opinion of how the economy should be run. In economic terms, the political left is defined as the desire for the economy to be run by a cooperative collective agency, which can mean a sovereign state but also a network of communes, while the political right is defined as the desire for the economy to be left to the devices of competing individuals and organizations. The test’s propositions lead the individual taking the test to reflect on issues such as “Is military action that defies international law sometimes justified?”, “Should mothers have demanding careers?”, “If economic globalisation is inevitable, should it primarily serve humanity or multinational corporations?”

The other axis (authoritarian–libertarian) measures one’s political opinions in a social sense, regarding the amount of personal freedom that one would allow. Libertarianism is defined as the belief that personal freedom should be maximised, while authoritarianism is defined as the belief that authority should be obeyed. This makes it possible to divide the political landscape into four colour-marked quadrants: authoritarian left (red in the top left), authoritarian right (blue in the top right), libertarian right (yellow or purple in the bottom right), and libertarian left (green in the bottom left). The makers of the Political Compass say that the quadrants “are not separate categories, but regions on a continuum”.

The Political Compass has a big-government (progressive) bias. Others have a small-government (libertarian) bias, such as the E-F Map.

The Libertarian “Nolan” Chart and Quiz

World’s Smallest Political Quiz (10 questions)

https://www.theadvocates.org

The LP quiz is the oldest. The axes are labeled “economic” and “personal” freedom. That distinction is rather dubious. All economic freedoms are personal. All personal freedoms are worthless without economic freedom. The diagram is really one-dimensional (not two); it is an Up-Down diagram that measures support for several issues of liberty and individual rights.

It is typically used by libertarians to identify how strongly “libertarian” a person is.

In “Eight Ways to Run the Country: A New and Revealing Look at Left and Right” (2007) Brian Patrick Mitchell defines a political map in two dimensions: “kratos” and “arche” (Force and Rank); similar to the E-F model, Kratos is like the Up-Down Freedom attribute and Arche is like the Left-Right Equality attribute.

“What did Left and Right stand for to begin with? . . . The opposition of Left and Right has been around since the French Revolution”

“The second half of the 20th century . . . inspired a Cold War view of Left and Right, based on more or less government. The Left was collectivist; the Right was individualist.”

“. . . it became harder and harder to maintain fascism and communism as polar opposites.

. . . Some theorists have wondered whether the two might not converge at some point. The spectrum seemed to bend at the ends to form a horseshoe”

“In 1964, German born British psychologist Hans Eysenck put forth the first known bipolar scheme, adding an Up and Down opposition of authority and liberty to the familiar opposition of Left and Right.

. . . The theory fit the mid-century fashion of psychologizing political differences, pioneered in 1950 by Theodore Adorno and the other authors of “The Authoritarian Personality”

Hans Eysenck Political Personalities

Left-Right Authority-Liberty (Up-Down, Tough-minded/Tender-minded)”

Adorno devotees in Britain tried to improve upon Eysenck’s scheme with their own “Political Compass”

(See Figure 1.2) The Political Compass

. . . The problem here is the identification of Left and Right with economic freedom, opposing Communism with European free-market Neo-liberalism. This defies the historical origin of the Left-Right difference.

Beyond the insipid questions, there is a much deeper problem with excessive questions. Two people could literally disagree on every one of 62 statements and STILL be placed next to each other on the PC map! This is fatal for political purposes. People mistakenly believe they are political neighbors and they are actually polar opposites. This is absurdly misleading, at best.