The Political Compass

M

Malexander

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The Political Compass is an online test you can take for free which will place you on a dual axis political field.

The left-right axis places your economic views with Marxism being on the extreme left and neo-liberalism/libertarianism on the extreme right. The vertical axis displays how authoritarian or libertarian you are.

This is important because simple 'left' and 'right' don't accurately illustrate the real positions of lots of people. Hitler, for example, is regarded as an extreme right winger, but in reality many of his economic policies were socialist - Nazi after all is a shortening of NSDAP - National Socialist German Workers Party. There are plenty more examples all around us.

The test can be completed here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

However, I would recommend that you read the blurb explaining how it works in greater depth here: http://www.politicalcompass.org/index

Here's mine:

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Lets keep it civil :)

BTW. I know this has come up on the forums before but not for a while. So I figure there's no harm.
 
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Disappointing that the questions are geared towards policy rather than process. Some of the questions are also a little tricky to answer.
 
And to make it more relavant; our 2007 primary candidates

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Not sure how accurate their placement of the candidates is. Paul is much closer to my perspective than the chart shows and I don't think Romney is as socially conservative as he's shown here.
 
Thanks for the 2007 candidates Slash, that does indeed make it more relevant!

Disappointing that the questions are geared towards policy rather than process
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Could you elaborate on what you mean by policy rather than process?
 
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Not even going to bother trying to complete it. The questions are so politically loaded, and intentionally vague that it is impossible for me to finish it.
 
I mean...the questions are geared more towards what policies I'd recommend on socially divisive issues rather than the process the government follows in addressing my concerns.
For example, the question was posed about large corporations and pollution, and posed it in terms of the government regulating them. So while I believe that they need regulation to conform, I don't believe that it's within the *government's* purview to do the job. Forced me to answer "no", but the result is a little misleading.
I think our Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights mandates a heavily libertarian society even when that society disagrees with my personal views from time to time.
 
And to make it more relavant; our 2007 primary candidates
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I have a question, did the candidates fill out the questionnaire or did the creator of it? It makes a big difference on the outcome of the candidates political standing. Personally I would take the chart with a grain of salt. Since it would be near impossible to know how certain people would answer some of those questions. I would also like to know what information he used to come up with the answers to some of the question. Did he just go by his own idea on how the candidate would answer, or did he just fill it out to make a political point. :D
 
Not even going to bother trying to complete it. The questions are so politically loaded, and intentional vague in the questionnaire that it is impossible for me to finish it.
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Yeah, this is a pretty natural consequence of trying to quantify what (for most people) are a relatively complex collection of political views using a relatively small number of questions.

I came in in the green quadrant, which is not entirely surprising. I think it pushed my economic views a little farther left than appropriate; I'd like to see the mathematical weight given to some of those questions and my responses, and tying into the above I'd be interested in the results of a more in-depth and slightly more nuanced questionnaire.

Interesting that all (except for a couple of the crazier ones) of the candidates supposedly fall into the same quadrant. Not unexpected, of course...economically, regardless of what some here might think, our country is still more conservative that much of the rest of the Western world...which will tend to skew that scale to the right. As far as socially, considering that any respect for authority/government will (I imagine) move somebody in the upward direction it shouldn't be surprising that a group of people who have all made it their goal to actually be a part of that system will come out on that side of the line. It shows that even a two-dimensional plot has its failings: in this case, that anarchist responses and libertarian responses are often at odds with each other.

Almost forgot to post mine:

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Little to the left economically, and about as far south as you can go without answering some of the "anarchist" questions positively.

Oh, and Danzig all you do is right-click your chart, hit "view image" (or similar, depending on browser), copy the URL of the image, and then paste it in here wrapping some <img> tags around it (replacing the <'s with ['s).
 
Just for the heck of it, and because some of the questions have changed since I last opted to take the test:

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Goslash, I share your disappointments on the questions.
 
Danzig,
right click on the image, properties, highlight and copy the image URL, then paste here using the UBB script [ img ] image url [ / img ]
 
How did you get the image into the thread??
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Well, I downloaded the image of mine and then uploaded it to my photobucket account and then inserted it here using the direct URL from photobucket and the image tag here.

I'm not being very clever today as a rule as my brain is melting from reading colonial history all day so there is probably an easier way!

For example, the question was posed about large corporations and pollution, and posed it in terms of the government regulating them. So while I believe that they need regulation to conform, I don't believe that it's within the *government's* purview to do the job. Forced me to answer "no", but the result is a little misleading.
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If the government doesn't regulate corporations who will regulate corporations? Surely the point of government is, where necessary (like if a company was dumping toxic waste in a lake), to restraint the negative elements of human nature - greed, selfishness, etc

I believe the methodology of the present candidates positions is explained on the site. Probably under FAQs.

I would also be curious so see the weightings of each question. It would be really interesting.
 
Here's where I fall, the last time I took this test in 2004 I was much closer to the center left which I find kinda interesting.
 

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Thanks to Antipitas for the tip. That's pretty cool :D

If the government doesn't regulate corporations who will regulate corporations?
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The people through the courts. I draw a distinction between class action suits wherein the law doesn't violate the Constitution and government bureaus that do.
Surely the point of government is, where necessary (like if a company was dumping toxic waste in a lake), to restraint the negative elements of human nature - greed, selfishness, etc
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Yes, within the scope of their role as outlined by the Constitution, amended. Everybody sees "negative elements" they'd like to control through the government. The beauty of our system is that sometimes the government is restrained from doing so.

I fear we're wandering off-topic. I'd like to discuss this more tho'. Maybe a new thread or PM?
 
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ok...I guess I don't quite have the hang of this...but the link shows where I fall...not too far from Antipitas..
 
The people through the courts. I draw a distinction between class action suits wherein the law doesn't violate the Constitution and government bureaus that do.
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Alternately, regulation at the state or local levels. Unfortunately there seems to be more opportunity for corruption there (due to general apathy towards state/local politics among most people), but this wouldn't really violate the federal Constitution either.

EDIT: Danzig, the reason is you have tags around the link in addition t...actual code used in his post if you know how.
 
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And some people call me a right-winger. Heh.

Edit: And Danzig, get rid of the spaces. I'll use parenthesis so it doesn't show, but it should look like (img)link(/img)
 
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