Apollo, you're trying to apply single-axis political thinking to a multi-axis analysis. If you're using a conventional left-right thougbht and trying to stick that on a 2-axis scale, the results are not going to make any sense - which is why you're running into all the problems that you're talking about, because you are still applying government intervention on the L/R scale. With a 2-axis graph, economic policy is separate from style of governance.
Obama very much has a capitalist policy, hence why he is right of center on an economic scale. He also believes in great levels of government intervention via entitlement programs, hence why he goes up on the authoritarian scale. You being center-left apparently illustrates that you believe in LESS government intervention than Obama, while you favour greater wealth-distribution (or less income inequality). There's no question that the exact plots on the graph are suspect, but as I said to PH, it's a useful conceptualization precisely because it demonstrates how little difference there actually is between political figures, whereas a single-axis scale tends to hide that information because social/governance issues end up confounded with economic policy.
Wealth redistribution is both a government intervention and an economic policy. You cannot seperate the two from each other and get results that make any sense.
I'd still like an explanation as to how my liberterian friend who favors something very close to laissez-faire capitalism is considered center-right while Obama is far-right. If pure capitalism is a far-right ideology, wouldn't he fit there?
Also, while I consider myself to be slightly left-wing, I would be considered center-right by European and perhaps American standards. In any case, I certainly support a capitalist system.
You're confounding the issue by talking about the compass using single-axis terms, which makes the entire discussion quit confusing. On a single-axis, fascism lies to the extreme right while communism lies to the extreme left. On a compass, communism remains on the far left, but fascism lies on a spectrum across the extreme top (because fascism is not tied to any single economic policy, while it is tied to a particular form of authoritarian governance).
I can sort of see that. On the other hand, the Compass's definition of left and right are so very different from the convention L/R scale that they lose their meaning entirely.
In terms of the views on the poor (both social darwinism and eugenics), on a pure L/R scale they lie far-right. On a 2-axis, they fall across the top but are unbound from particular economic policy.
True. However, most economic systems (with the exception of laissez-faire capitalism) are also political systems, because they are directed or influenced on some level by government policy.
The term "far-right" has lost all its meaning on that Compass. Or are multicultural European welfare capitalists far-right? You tell me.
Once again, it's because you're trying to take analysis from a single dimension scale and apply it to a multidimensional scale. On the compass they are (well, at least right of center; as I said before, take the plotted positions for countries in particular with a helping of salt), because the L/R scale is not bound to governance, just economics, and European welfare states ARE capitalist countries that have some level of wealth redistribution, but they aren't collectivist societies, either. The center is halfway between Pure Collectivism and Pure Capitalism; there's no question that every democracy on Earth is at least marginally closer to capitalism than collectivism.
That's what I meant. By trying to seperate out social views, the Compass warps the definitions of right and left until they lose much of their common meaning. This means that it cannot be brought into any discussion using the traditional L/R scale or definitions of freedom and authoritarianism.
Entitlements are a form of wealth redistribution using government intervention. If we separate them, the Left-Right scale now has a completely different meaning (that would explain why the Compass calls all these center-left politicians far-right). This also leads to absolutely bull**** conclusions like Obama and Romney being almost as authoritarian as Hitler and Assad. That, in and of itself, shows how badly designed this scale is.
Well, separating them means L/R measures only economic policy. Whether or not you think that's a bad thing is totally up to you. On the other hand, it does mean different cultures can talk within the same frame of reference. Otherwise, you end up with statements where you think "the poor are lazy" is a center-right position, where the center-right pretty much everywhere other than the US would probably take some issue with that statement.
I do consider it a bad thing, because economic policy, social policy, and government intervention are inseparable in some ways. Entitlement programs are all three! Gay marriage, abortion, and drug regulation are social policies that are subject to government intervention (which is not automatically authoritarian).
"The poor are lazy" is a center-right position on the L/R scale, being consistent with traditional capitalism... oh wait, that's
far-right now (I'll get to that in a second).
And I disagree that Obama/Romney being as authoritarian as Assad being a bull**** conclusion. The U/D scale measures authoritarian policy without moral judgement. Obama and Romney both have just as many interventionist policies as Assad, just expressed in a different way. Indeed, it's a useful means of critique to show how a variety of different methods can all occupy the same political space.
Do they kill people who disagree with them openly? I'd consider that to be a much stronger and pervasive government intervention than anything Romney or Obama have done.
Partisans get driven crazy by multidimensional political analysis because it doesn't mix well with their perceptions of the political landscape. A lot of people can't wrap their heads around how two or more parties that seem so different can occupy the same political space, despite wildly different ideas about methods.
Many of them do occupy a similar economic space, but vary wildly in professed social views.
The fact of the matter is that, within democracies, mainstream parties have virtually no significant difference between them other than a few wedge policies or ideas; style of governance and economic policy diverge very little from each other. The more divergent they are, the less equal they are in terms of number of times elected. As the Democrats and Republicans have pretty similar time represented in office generally (not necessarily Presidency) - at least in the 20th century - it stands to reason that there is very little of substance that differs between them.
I sort of agree with you about that. Outside of social views, the Republicans and Democrats are both very, very similar (and even their social views are slowly merging).
However, when you have a system that calls the UK, Obama, and Romney far-right authoritarians while I (who hold more right-wing viewpoints than most Democrats) am considered center-left and my friend [a liberterian in the American sense (neo-liberal)] is considered center-right, you know there's a serious problem with it.
In essence, it turns capitalism into a far-right ideology by booting fascism and its horrible oppressive far-right policies out of the L/R axis and into a new U/D one. This makes it possible to classify moderate center-left welfare capitalists as right-wing extremists (which is, as I've said, inconsistent with the labeling of me and my friend as moderates).
Now, I wonder who wrote the Political Compass. What economic views could they possibly hold? Let's take a look at something from this page:
http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012This is a US election that defies logic and brings the nation closer towards a one-party state masquerading as a two-party state.
The Democratic incumbent has surrounded himself with conservative advisors and key figures — many from previous administrations, and an unprecedented number from the Trilateral Commission. He also appointed a former Monsanto executive as Senior Advisor to the FDA. He has extended Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, presided over a spiralling rich-poor gap and sacrificed further American jobs with recent free trade deals. Trade union rights have also eroded under his watch. He has expanded Bush defence spending, droned civilians, failed to close Guantanamo, supported the NDAA which effectively legalises martial law, allowed drilling and adopted a soft-touch position towards the banks that is to the right of European Conservative leaders. Taking office during the financial meltdown, Obama appointed its principle architects to top economic positions. We list these because many of Obama's detractors absurdly portray him as either a radical liberal or a socialist, while his apologists, equally absurdly, continue to view him as a well-intentioned progressive, tragically thwarted by overwhelming pressures. 2008's yes-we-can chanters, dazzled by pigment rather than policy detail, forgot to ask can what? Between 1998 and the last election, Obama amassed $37.6million from the financial services industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. While 2008 presidential candidate Obama appeared to champion universal health care, his first choice for Secretary of Health was a man who had spent years lobbying on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry against that very concept. Hey! You don't promise a successful pub, and then appoint the Salvation Army to run it. This time around, the honey-tongued President makes populist references to economic justice, while simultaneously appointing as his new Chief of Staff a former Citigroup executive concerned with hedge funds that bet on the housing market to collapse. Obama poses something of a challenge to The Political Compass, because he's a man of so few fixed principles.
I lack the knowledge to comment on much of that, and I even agree with a few things. However, it
strongly suggests that the page was written by a bunch of butthurt leftists along the lines of Cenk Uygur. Couple that with the discrepancy between the placement of politicians and that of me and my friend, and I reach a conclusion: Their "analysis" of mainstream American political parties and their candidates is simply a vehicle for them to express their anti-rightist, or perhaps even anti-capitalist agenda.
EDIT: Oh, and before you accuse me of ad hominem for those last few paragraphs, remember that a great deal of my post was devoted to explaining the fundamental problems with such a system and how it diverges so much from the L/R scale that it really doesn't mean much of anything (this debate started when you made reference to and used its classification of American politicians as a source of information).
