The Political Spectrum

Centre-Left. Far Right. Centre Right. Centrist. Far Left. The majority of people use one of the five aforementioned labels to describe the political beliefs of themselves and the beliefs of others. The broader categories of Left and Right stem from the French Revolution, where supporters of the monarchy would be positioned to the right of the king in the Estates-General, and whereas the revolutionary republicans would sit to his left. The staunch royalist loyalists were then known as conservatives; they wished to "conserve" the monarchy and all other traditions. In stark contrast, the republicans became known as liberals; they wished to "liberate" the French people from the hierarchical social order. Thus arose the beliefs that conservatives aimed to preserve the institutions of the past and that liberals aimed to change them.

However, I believe that the one-dimensional political spectrum we have become accustomed to is not a useful one. It plots people on a scale that prevents us from understanding people's beliefs. Most would consider General Pinochet to be an extreme right-winger, but would Ayn Rand be categorised similarly, given that their economic views were similar? In the 2017 French Presidential Election, Marine Le Pen was often referred to by the media as "far right", despite Emmanuel Macron's economic policies being further to the free market utopia than Le Pen's.  In order to fully understand a person's political ideology, we need to evaluate their beliefs on two scales: an economic axis, ranging from left to right; a social axis, ranging from libertarian to authoritarian.

Courtesy of www.politicalcompass.org

The compass does not show four distinct categories, but rather, it shows two continuums. The majority of political parties in Western representative democracies are positioned somewhere in the Authoritarian Right; Western economies are capitalist, for the most part, but support some level of government involvement in society. However, much of the electorate is in the Libertarian Left.

To provide a better explanation as to where some prominent leaders, orators and scholars stood, I have provided another graph, plotting the beliefs of prominent individuals.

Courtesy of www.politicalcompass.org.

As the second chart shows, Stalin advocated for both authoritarian social and economic policies, whereas, although Hitler advocated for similar levels of force by the State, he was much further to the right economically.

Courtesy of www.politicalcompass.org.

Thatcher's noted support for the capitalist model, combined with her strong, socially conservative convictions placed her in the Authoritarian Right.

Other models with the goal of plotting political ideologies have arisen, but I believe that this is the most effective. It plots political beliefs on spectrums, treating opinions as continuous data, rather than discrete data. This means that we can better illustrate shifts in political belief. In addition to this, we can more easily see how close (or far) we are from major politicians. Many would shudder to think that they might be in the same category as Hitler; the political compass might show that they are at opposite ends of the same category.

Furthermore, the test is "evergreen". The questions asked in this test are not specific to one election cycle in a particular region; they can be used ubiquitously in the Western World. In addition to political questions, another type of question is included in the test. The test involves a list of statements from which candidates decide if they strongly disagree, disagree, agree or strongly agree. Some of these statements are blatantly political, such as, "The freer the market, the freer the people". However, a few of the questions pinpoint political beliefs more effectively. One such statement is, "Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all." This statement, on the surface, seems out-of-place on a political opinions test. But the question is essentially an authoritarian-libertarian question. Those who answer "strongly agree" or "agree" are typically more authoritarian; they are more likely to be in favour of censoring literature, artwork and music that they find to be "degenerate".

The greatest advantage is the ease of taking the test. The Political Compass test is taken anonymously and results are not logged. The test can be completed within a few minutes, and it is easily accessible. Although some questions are worded ambiguously, there is no debate that The Political Compass is far more efficient than the archaic, one-dimensional Left-Right model.