Why I think the political compass test is bullshit

Author: TheUnderdog

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TheUnderdog
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The political compass test often looks like this:


My objections with this is it has 2 axises:

1) An economic scale (left vs right)
2) A social scale (libetarian vs authoritarian)

The economic scale is out of whack.  The economic scale should be measured in authoritarian vs libetarian.  Economically left is the same thing as economically authoritarian (people in this category tend to favor Medicare for all for instance, which is not a libetarian idea) and economically right is the same thing as economically libetarian (lower taxes).  

With this new definition, the following becomes true:

-Someone who is "libetarian left" is libetarian on social issues and authoritarian on economic issues.  They are therefore a leftist.
-Someone who is "libetarian right" is libetarian on social issues and libetarian on economic issues.  They are therefore a libetarian.
-Someone who is "authoritarian left" is authoritarian on social issues and authoritarian on economic issues.  They are therefore an authoritarian.
-Someone who is "authoritarian right" is authoritarian on social issues and libetarian on economic issues.  They are therefore a conservative.

Therefore, someone who is ancom is not as libetarian left as you can go (since ancom is I think exactly the same thing as communism as their talking points are exactly the same), but instead is as left as you can go, and someone who is ancap is not as libetarian right as you can go, but just as libetarian as you can go.

With few exceptions, there is no such thing as a libetarian leftist.  These people are just leftists.

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@TheUnderdog
I agree that the political compass test is bullshit but so are most of your other assertions.


Economically left is the same thing as economically authoritarian

Bullshit.  Keynesian economics form the core of left-wing economic thinking.

Keynesian economists and generally argue that aggregate demand is volatile and unstable and that, consequently, a market economy often experiences inefficient macroeconomic outcomes – a recession, when demand is low, and inflation, when demand is high. Further, they argue that these economic fluctuations can be mitigated by economic policy responses coordinated between government and central bank. In particular, fiscal policy actions (taken by the government) and monetary policy actions (taken by the central bank), can help stabilize economic output, inflation, and unemployment over the business cycle.  Keynesian economists generally advocate a market economy – predominantly private sector, but with an active role for government intervention during recessions and depressions

Keynes's ideas became widely accepted after World War II, and until the early 1970s, Keynesian economics provided the main inspiration for economic policy makers in Western industrialized countries.  Governments prepared high quality economic statistics on an ongoing basis and tried to base their policies on the Keynesian theory that had become the norm. In the early era of social liberalism and social democracy, most western capitalist countries enjoyed low, stable unemployment and modest inflation, an era called the Golden Age of Capitalism.

America's economic success in the 20th century is primarily credited to left wing economics.  No economic policy in a free and fair republic is authoritarian.  If the people don't like the economic solution, they may replace the politicians and demand better results. 

By definition, the political party that is working to restrict voting rights and lessen the democratic voice of specific sets of people is the more authoritarian.  Milton Friedman's Reaganomics trickle-down voodoo always promised lower taxes for all but only delivered lower taxes for the rich, always promised lower government spending but only re-directed spending to friends in the oil and global armaments industries, always promised less regulation but only liberated the rich from responsibility while imprisoning the poor by  criminalizing poverty. 

(people in this category tend to favor Medicare for all for instance, which is not a libetarian idea)
No, its a liberal observation that healthcare is never a free market economy.  In a truly laissez-faire healthcare market, the doctor has to look the patient in the eye when he charges $8000 to set a broken leg and the doctor must suffer the indignation and outraged of the fleeced which would force the prices down.  The unnecessary bureaucracy of the health insurance industry and the restriction of health insurance decision-making to employers, not employees was tolerable until deregulation in the 1980's permitted overcharging to soar while services were increasingly limited.  If the people were truly free to decide, they would vote tomorrow to make healthcare available on demand paid for by a flat 9% tax and any true libertarian would support the people's right to so govern themselves and free themselves from the burden of a inefficient bureaucracy that doubles the price of healthcare while reducing the quality of outcomes.   To the extent that government interference promotes wasteful health insurance and endorses corporate oversight of employee healthcare decisions, Medicare for All is more libertarian than the present condition.

With this new definition, the following becomes true:
But your new definition is entirely without merit.  Why not stick to the definitions as offered in the encyclopedias, then everybody is talking about the same thing?

Therefore, someone who is ancom is not as libetarian left as you can go (since ancom is I think exactly the same thing as communism as their talking points are exactly the same),
Anarcho-communism might be a sustainable form of government for bandits and cavemen but such philosophy amounts to nihilism in the post-industrial world.  A stateless society is by definition a defenseless society and both the Korean and Spanish experiments in such were quickly overrun.  I note that even the USSR and the Spanish Communist  Party worked hard to absorb Catalonia- even the sharing of putative economic objectives is no protection for an unorganized state.

With few exceptions, there is no such thing as a libetarian leftist.  These people are just leftists.
Only after you re-defined the meanings of the words you use.  If I define all fruit as citrus I can then make an argument that there's no such fruit as apples but there's little merit to making a statement true by falsifying the terms.


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@TheUnderdog
 Economically left is the same thing as economically authoritarian
That is incorrect.  Economically left is as much complete anarchism as complete state ownership of all capital. 
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@TheUnderdog
The economic scale should be measured in authoritarian vs libetarian.  Economically left is the same thing as economically authoritarian
No it isn't. You can have authoritarian lefties and anarchist lefties.

You can enforce equality (auth) or you can have an anarchist society where everyone has equal power to vote on things and sharing of resources.

The right-wing is all about hierarchies, and that can be authoritarian or libertarian as well. You can have authoritarian, enforced hierarchies (caste system) or you can have naturally-occurring (libertarian) hierarchies (people are all different and will achieve different outcomes).

Since lefties want to close hierarchal gaps (egalitarianism), they are generally considered more authoritarian because the government is the usual tool by which to achieve/enforce that. However, that is not always the case. It just depends on the system under which they are operating.
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Please learn to spell Libertarian since you used to identify as one.
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lol this is the average libertarian criticism of the political compass.

The test is old and there's no neutral on it,  portraying politics on axises is tough and thats why tests like 8values are better
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@TheUnderdog
I was shocked the time I discovered that fascism was classified as an extreme right-wing ideology. It's basically communism without social programs.
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@Benjamin
That is absolutely false.