This will look good right next to the topic socialism.
Anyway, it concerns me that the right and the left make very clear (at least in my mind) actions that move us towards authoritarianism, and they are somehow are blind to the actions on THEIR side, while being very critical of the moves on the other side. It's fascinating.
Anyway, take a look at the test on the webpage. It is fun to do, and may be revealing to yourself.
I was hoping I would be right in the middle, but I wasn't far off.
A typology of political opinions plotted on 2 dimensions: economic and social.
www.politicalcompass.org
The questions don't actually dial down on your sociopolitical standing.
Libertarian vs Authoritarian is very straight forward. It's a spectrum of A) believing in the empowerment of people through the preservation of personal autonomy, or B) believing in control of the individual by the state (generally for the "greater good"). The US Constitution was created to stave off authoritarianism, as that is what was being escaped by (primarily) the Scots-Irish, when they settled in America.
Being "Left" vs "Right" dates back to the French revolution of 1789, during which time there was political reform being promoted by lords. Lords who felt the status quo (rule by the monarchy and the Church) should be maintained stood to the RIGHT of the monarch, and lords who felt there should be reform stood on the LEFT. The reform being promoted, while often poorly implemented, was to shift power from the monarchy to the people - generally, more democratic principles.
Modern day interpretation of Left vs Right seem to focus on economic principles, with many believing that being a Leftist means you're a socialist, and being a Right-winger means you're ruthless capitalist. However, this is an incorrect association, as Left vs Right has nothing to do with economic systems. Left vs Right has only to do with HOW decisions are made for a society. Socialism/Communism, and Capitalism are entirely separate philosophies for how material wealth should be created and distributed in society.
So an additional shortcoming of the above test is that there should also be a Z-axis, the position of which would be determined by how you lean in terms of your economic preferences.
So when this test asks things about racial superiority, or national pride, etc, these are irrelevant emotional hangups that plague American progressives. They're simply being presented to provide some sort of faux authoritative determination of one's sociopolitical standing.
The real test is this:
How much do you believe in:
personal autonomy (Libertarian) VS
control by the state (Authoritarian).
How much do you believe in societal decision making via:
a
citizen determined democratic process (LEFT) VS a
central control apparatus unaccountable to a democratic process (RIGHT).
How much do you believe:
your own actions should determine your material wealth (Capitalism) VS
wealth should be distributed from the more wealthy to the less wealthy, regardless of personal decisions, via a codified system of control (Socialism).
Going by the actual historic definitions of what it means to Left, Right, Authoritarian, Libertarian, Socialist, and Capitalist:
-> Most modern day Republicans/Conservatives seem to lean heavily toward being Liberal, Left-wing, Capitalists.
-> Most modern day Democrats/Progressives seem to lean closer than conservatives to authoritarianism, the right-wing, and socialism. That said, relative to countries around the world which can range all the way to hard Right authoritarian dictatorships, most American progressives I'd say still lean overall more towards being Libertarian, and Left-wing, and capitalist, but just relatively less than most conservatives. I've illustrated this below in terms of relative proximity to known authoritarian minimally or un-democratic regimes:
These things change over time. This chart would have been reversed 30 years ago - during which time I identified as a Democrat. Further back in history, it also looked differently during the times just preceding the US Civil War, when almost all slave-owners were Democrats. Etc. All this to say that personal and party values change over time. My hope is that Democratic party values can return more toward true left-wing liberalism, like they used to.
