Political Theory

Re: The Political Compass Test

Cork — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:42:14 GMT

Here are my results:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=8.12&soc=-6.31

I agree with others here who think a number of the questions are ridiculous. The authors openly proclaim that globalization cannot serve the interest of humanity:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/faq#faq9

I smell some bias...

Re: The Political Compass Test

Wilhelm Raschke — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:38:59 GMT

I don't think these tests are very good. We should make our own, if it is at all possible.

Perhaps the idea of a "compass" or a plane on which each individual can be plotted is fundamentally flawed. Indeed the accurate graphical representation of abstractions seems like a fallacy.

Re: The Political Compass Test

wombatron — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:43:22 GMT

Physiocrat:
Potentially you could add a fourth which asks questions pertaining to how you would go about changing the government structure but I don't know how it would work.

Political tesseracts for the win!

Re: The Political Compass Test

M-la-maudite — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:19:18 GMT

Some of the questions are puzzling or confusing at best but the main issue with this test is in their labeling of the four boxes. If you compare it with the smallest political quizz done by the LP, which has a more libertarian focus; "right libertarian" is libertarian (freedom on both the economic and the social line), "left libertarian" is leftist (NOT libertarian but authoritarian on the economy), "right authoritarian" is rightist, and "left authoritarian" is authoritarian (on both the economic and the social dimension, aka comunism and fascism). Hence, there is indeed a leftist biais in the names given; but if you keep that in mind, ie that only "right libertarians" are actually libertarians, it's handy -;)

Re: The Political Compass Test

Physiocrat — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:25:56 GMT

The problem with most of these tests is that they conflate what the government should do with what you ought to happen. I think a lot of architecture is terrible and given the chance I would tear it down however it does not follow that I want the government to do this. A classic example of this is drugs- the fact I think they should be legal doesn't mean I want everyone to get high all the time.

I've toyed with writing my own test but I've never finished it. I propose a three axis test in which you have the classic economic and social axis' but also third cultural axis in which it asks you questions about how you think society should be. Potentially you could add a fourth which asks questions pertaining to how you would go about changing the government structure but I don't know how it would work. Hopefully this would give us useful distinctions.

Re: The Political Compass Test

hayekianxyz — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:31:17 GMT

Eric:
I'm an atheist

I'd say most of the people on the forums are, I think it was the fellows is who he was referring to.

Re: The Political Compass Test

Bostwick — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:12:14 GMT

xSFx:
What does Noam Chomsky stand for? Precisely, what does he advocate instead of a market?

He would probably say he is for stateless socialism, but mostly I only ever hear him defending state socialism.

He wants the workers to own the factory, etc.

Re: The Political Compass Test

Voievod — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:25:12 GMT

What does Noam Chomsky stand for? Precisely, what does he advocate instead of a market?

To me a market is inevitable.

Re: The Political Compass Test

Eric — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 02:08:25 GMT

Morty:

The Political Compass Test is no good. It takes way too many assumptions about what your answer "means" and doesn't isolate variables in many questions (i.e., it will move you in two directions at once depending on how you answer. E.g., "agree" -> down and left, "disagree" -> up and right).

It most certainly isn't a good test to see whether you are a "right libertarian" or "left libertarian" - it doesn't have the specialized type of questions that would be necessary to even begin to test that. Maybe someone here should make one of those, it might be neat. Left and right normally refer to how you see society playing out in a libertarian world, what you believe on a few issues of contention among libertarians, and your strategic outlook on how to best defeat the State.

As to your second question, anyone who supports taxation is automatically not a libertarian.

For atheists in the libertarian movement, I don't know that the Mises Institute is the best place to find them. Lots of religious types here. I'm pretty sure Walter Block is an atheist, but I don't know if he's written or spoken on the subject much.

I'm an atheist

Re: The Political Compass Test

Bostwick — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:30:26 GMT

MatthewWilliam:
And another one I found: Cartesian map of political spectrum

That's a very bad spectrum.

Re: The Political Compass Test

Scott Jefferies — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:06:09 GMT

xSFx:

I did the Political Compass Test http://www.politicalcompass.org/ and I came out as "Libertarian Right".

I'm an atheist, and after posting the results to my blog, several people identified as "Libertarian Left" started to point the finger and accuse me of being a corporatist pig/bush fan/britney spears (??). Also, they said "only Left-wing Atheism is intellectual".

you are thinking of libertarian left/right within libertarian individualism. on the test the left or right is in relation to economic viewpoint. if you have any faith in the free market and laissez-faire capitalism then you are right according to the test(in more ways than one )

libertarian left according to the test would be like noam chomsky.

Re: The Political Compass Test

MatthewWilliam — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:14:30 GMT

The word libertarian seems to have been hijacked (how surprising). In the test it means "socially liberal". I got (ec: +5.50 , soc: -2.87). The test doesn't work for anarchists of any kind. For instance I disagreed with the premise of the statement "The rich are too highly taxed". The answer closest to my belief is "strongly agree", whreas my ideal response is "there should be no tax".

I think this chart is quite appropriate when mapping all political beliefs, although I'm yet to see the test related to it. I was actually thinking of making up a test of my own.

NPOV chart

And another one I found: Cartesian map of political spectrum

Re: The Political Compass Test

ryanpatgray — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:36:54 GMT

This first question is irrational "If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations." Firstly, globalization simply "is" and does not inherently serve one interest over another. Secondly, the question implies that trans-national corporations are not run by human beings. Perhaps trans-national corporations are run by the lizard-people?

Re: The Political Compass Test

Brainpolice — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:17:53 GMT

I find that test to be flawed because a lot of the questions are quirky or irrelevant, and the personal/economic liberty dichotomy is misleading. So I'd take one's test results with a grain of salt.

As for left-wing statism, that's not left-libertarianism.

Re: The Political Compass Test

Morty — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:47:17 GMT

The Political Compass Test is no good. It takes way too many assumptions about what your answer "means" and doesn't isolate variables in many questions (i.e., it will move you in two directions at once depending on how you answer. E.g., "agree" -> down and left, "disagree" -> up and right).

It most certainly isn't a good test to see whether you are a "right libertarian" or "left libertarian" - it doesn't have the specialized type of questions that would be necessary to even begin to test that. Maybe someone here should make one of those, it might be neat. Left and right normally refer to how you see society playing out in a libertarian world, what you believe on a few issues of contention among libertarians, and your strategic outlook on how to best defeat the State.

As to your second question, anyone who supports taxation is automatically not a libertarian.

For atheists in the libertarian movement, I don't know that the Mises Institute is the best place to find them. Lots of religious types here. I'm pretty sure Walter Block is an atheist, but I don't know if he's written or spoken on the subject much.