Rethinking the Political Spectrum

American Thinker ^ | September 09, 2009 | David G. Muller, Jr.

[neverdem]

The classic 20^th-century political spectrum is gravely flawed as a depiction of the range of philosophical opinion.

The Traditional Political Spectrum

The common depiction of the political spectrum traditionally shows communism at the left end, fascism at the right end, and less extreme political systems at various points in between:

This depiction of the spectrum, and its nearly universal acceptance as a self-evidently accurate framework, has had a number of adverse corollary effects on political thinking and discourse.

• Because tyranny is found at the extremes of the spectrum, the socially and politically comfortable place to reside is near the center. Centrists - moderates - are seen as mild and wise, eschewing extremism, splitting differences, encouraging compromise.
• In the hyperbole of political campaigns, partisans to the right of center can tar their opponents as socialists or communists, while partisans on the left likewise can call their opponents fascists or Nazis.
• Liberty is limited or lost as a political objective. There is no liberty under either communism or fascism, while both strong liberals and strong conservatives - because they are closer on the spectrum to the extremes, are depicted as mirror images, only too eager to limit liberty. The logic of the spectrum indicates that moderates should be the champions of liberty, but who ever hears moderates taking liberty's side? They are too busy splitting differences and compromising. Demanding liberty is just so, well, extreme.
• There is no place on the traditional political spectrum for libertarianism. It's not associated with the tyranny of the extreme left or right, but neither is libertarianism found among the centrist moderates. Yet it exists. Something is wrong here.

Thank Joseph Stalin

Indirectly yet powerfully, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is responsible for the classic political spectrum commonly used to show the relationships between schools of political thought and the systems they engender. This is what happened:

Adolf Hitler's National Socialist movement was, as the name clearly says, a party of the left. While not explicitly Marxist-Leninist, National Socialism accepted the essentials of that worldview while adding Germanic racial supremacism to the mix. This is not the place to lay this out in detail, but it is part of the historical record. Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism includes the best recent treatment of the subject. Thus it was not astonishing that in 1939 Hitler and Stalin found ample common interests to establish an alliance, nor did it astonish that Communist Party members in the West almost unanimously took up support for Nazi Germany. The alliance simply recognized the ideological kinship between the two.

Then in 1941, Hitler turned on his fellow socialist and invaded the Soviet Union. How was Stalin to explain or rationalize this turnabout? What ideological signboard could he put around Hitler's neck that would make sense in the Soviet political context? Certainly Stalin could not let it appear he had been duped by a fellow socialist, nor could he allow Hitler to give socialism a bad name. The solution was to label the bad guys, Hitler and the Nazis, as polar opposites of the good guys, Stalin and the Communists. Fascism - a leftist, socialist doctrine - was abruptly and absurdly labeled a phenomenon of the extreme right.

From 1941 onward into the postwar era, Soviet propaganda, diplomacy, and scholarship consistently depicted Nazism as a right-wing phenomenon, communism on the left, with the Western powers arrayed on a vague spectrum somewhere in between. Western academics and journalists fell into the same practice, often but not always because of their own leftist sympathies. Few bothered to contest the analysis and assumptions that underlay the new model, and it was a convenient way to depict and describe political camps. Thus the classic political spectrum of the 20^th century became second nature to everyone, not just to communists.

A More Accurate Spectrum

The mental framing device of a political spectrum is not a bad idea in itself. There are indeed relationships among tyranny, liberalism, conservatism, and other political phenomena that lend themselves to depiction on a spectrum. But the spectrum must reflect reality.

There is something nonsensical about a political spectrum that spans the range between tyranny and ... tyranny. If one end of the spectrum is the home of tyranny, then shouldn't the opposite end of the spectrum be the home of liberty, tyranny's opposite? The new spectrum is a rough measurement of liberty: very little liberty on the left end, quite a bit on the right end. At the left extreme reside the hard tyrannies of communism and fascism, as seen historically in such places as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, or North Korea. A bit to the right are the softer tyrannies of socialism, as commonly practiced in Western Europe. Liberalism comes next, then "moderation." Moving further along the spectrum toward greater liberty, one finds conservatism, and finally libertarianism.

Placing the political world into this more accurate framework yields a number of important corollary benefits and insights:

• Gone is the muddled notion that if one moves too far from tyranny, one only encounters more tyranny. Liberty is the opposite of tyranny, and the more accurate spectrum makes that clear.
• Leftist critics become less persuasive when depicting conservatives as incipient fascists. They can no longer warn that if one becomes too conservative, one becomes a fascist tyrant. To the contrary, the conservative is identified with liberty, while the liberal has more affinity with tyranny, whether soft or hard.
• Moderates lose their hallowed position and aura of wisdom and restraint. They are simply a bit more conservative than liberals and more liberal than conservatives, i.e. they are less jealous of their liberty than are those to their right.
• Libertarianism has a home. It resides at the right end of the spectrum, reflecting the maximization of liberty.

Where is one to place oppressive regimes that are not particularly ideological? On the classic spectrum, they are often placed on the right, between conservatism and fascism. But consider their essential attributes: severe limits on liberty, the confiscation of productive assets by the government or cronies of the dictator, weak rule of law. These attributes have much more in common with socialism than with conservatism; indeed, many such regimes call themselves socialist, whether or not a political science purist would agree.

The most important effect of the new, accurate political spectrum is the clarity it brings to political analysis and discourse. Where the measurement of liberty was obscure or absent from the classic spectrum, it is the foundation for the new spectrum. Political parties, their candidates, past or present political systems from around the world, all can be placed with rough accuracy on the spectrum. And if one values liberty, it becomes far easier to distinguish the better from the worse.

David G. Muller, Jr. is a writer in Northern Virginia

[zeugma]

I believe that chart is by far the best representation of political thought that I’ve seen over the years. A line doesn’t really adequately cover the real world, whereas a plane does a lot better job of it. I’m about a 85/85 on that chart.

[MrB]

Let me expound on your point, if I may...

The left side of the spectrum involves concentrating the power and decision making locus into the hands of fewer and fewer people. In order to make the populace supplant their goals and decisions with the goals and decisions of these few, force must be used.

The right side of the spectrum, including the true liberals (”conservative” really is meaningless), decentralizes and dilutes the decision making locus to the individual, culminating in anarchy where the individual does whatever he wishes to do without regard to others.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Federalist 51

[decimon]

I believe that chart is by far the best representation of political thought that I’ve seen over the years.

Same here. That's one version of what's usually called the Nolan Chart.

My belief is that you can't much restrict either of social or economic freedom without restricting the other. I can't come up with anything as simply intuitive as the Nolan Chart to show that process.

[decimon]

I’m about a 85/85 on that chart.

Where I would fall would depend on if I'm answering from my more philosophical or more practical mind. That is, whether I'm considering where we could be or where we might proceed from where we are.

[TChris]

The best representation is one that is two-dimensional, not one.

On one axis is the usual left-to-right, liberal-to-conservative spectrum. On the other axis is the spectrum from totalitarian-to-libertarian.

In other words, one axis represents your political beliefs, the other represents the degree to which you think those beliefs should be enforced on everyone.

An example of a totalitarian conservative would be the biblical Pharisees, or the Taliban. A totalitarian liberal would be Stalin, Hitler, Castro, etc..

[pilipo]

I have seen this before but find it misleading in important ways. If, for example, "Left Liberal" referred to the "liberal" 19th century values, then it would represent the "Personal Self-Government" position more accurately.

[Impy]

The call real anarchy “anarcho-capitalism”. When you hear about anarchists on TV it’s always the misnamed leftists who protest at the WTO.

[Impy]

It’s BS that anyone calls fascism “right wing”.

[neverdem]

Thanks for the chart.

[Ditto]

...totally agree, but they could have added anarchy on the far far right too... real anarchy not that fake radical left kind.

Ditto that. Even the dope smoking Libertarians believe in some laws and government to protect individuals from predators. Pure anarchy is the law of the jungle.. perfect freedom to do whatever you have the power to accomplish with no government to interfere at all. The hell hole of Somalia or the tribal territories of Pakistan are examples of places with no government and no law. The guy with the most guns can do whatever he wants.

On the far left extreme, I would say places like North Korea and Cuba have transcended mere Communism, and instead become totalitarian, dictatorial monarchies. Marx and Lenin are just ideological fig leafs.

[SunkenCiv]

instead of this:

this:

thanks neverdem.

[FreeKeys]

What???    You mean you really can't tell the difference between live-and-let-livers and control freaks?Huh???

The ancient left-right political spectrum was developed when the world was still based on feudalism, a system made up of only "givers" and "takers," (serfs and landlords, or taxees and taxers), long before there was any widespread protection of free (UNcoerced) trade or any developed entrepreneurial ("middle") class (which engages only in mutually-agreed-upon transactions).  That ancient spectrum is so useless (or useful to only the deceitful) in modern times it must be relegated to the status of being hopelessly obsolete. 

Notice how some people even try to put socialists on the "left" and fascists on the "right" (as if they trampled peoples' lives any differently), and then trap you into accepting the bizarre and evil notion that freedom is somehow a "compromise" between, or a combination of, two allegedly "opposite" collectivist extremes.  This, of course, is absurd on its face, and actually leaves limited-government advocacy and the essence of freedom totally off the chart out of the picture.

Further, doesn't it also strike you as obvious that when you try to draw a parallel between the good guys and the bad guys,  you often wind up whitewashing the bad guys instead of  tarnishing the good guys as you intended? 

Newsflash!:  Your basic political choice is NOT which type of control freak or which type or how much intrusive government to have, but WHETHER to have ANY intrusive-type government AT ALL.  YOU may be prone to irrationality or hysteria; YOU may be afraid of individual liberty. ... but that does NOT give you a right to remove LIBERTY from the choices altogether, which is what the "left-right" spectrum essentially does.

Isn't it time YOU started thinking outside the "Which type of powerful government should we have?"  box?
 

-- excerpted from THIS page

[FreeKeys]

That's one version of what's usually called the Nolan Chart.

Some other versions are linked here: http://FreedomKeys.com/nolancharts.htm

[bvw]

Good. Can add Anarchy at the far end.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I'm so glad that the complex interworkings of our beliefs about the natural world, politics, economics, religion, family, society, friendship, etc. can be properly and completely represented by a few words strung along a single line.

I can stop thinking now, and agonizing about why so many people have such complex and unique views on life.

They are all obviously insane and need to be medicated or institutionalized.

[Ouderkirk]

So while there may be some people calling themselves anarchists because they want to steal a TV during a riot, they really aren't.

Most anarchists are little more then common thieves. But when confronted by a person brandishing a firearm to secure their property, they will recoil into their standard libtard mentality

[raygun]

A political compass is a more accurate depiction of one's political ideologies than a spectrum of political continuum.

That is to say, that there should be two different axis, and a vector that is comprised of components of both axis will plot to a point. The axis reflect philosophies concerning both personal and economic liberty in conjunction with governmenental authority over both.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

[raygun]

Actually, what I learned about the polical spectrum was that it distinguished conservative from liberal with regards to how much social change each advocated. The more conservative one was the less social change they would tolerate.

At each end of the spectrum were those who were militants, i.e., ultraconservative radicals (reactionaries) that would use violence to keep / prevent change from occuring. However, reactionary conservatistism results essentially in revolutionary radical libaralism (wrap-around to the far left). That is because if change is the norm, then preventing change is de facto liberal.

Same thing with the other side of the spectrum, militant radical liberal (revolutionary) results in reactionary radical conservative. That is, only so much change can actually be progressive, change that is too great or socially encompassing results in some sort of re-establishment of pre-existing socials structures, ecoomic policies or other social norms.

[FreedomPoster]

That’s about where I tend to land on those things as well.

[FreedomPoster]

>>It’s BS that anyone calls fascism “right wing”.

On that note, see the Hayek quote on my FR profile page. It’s the 3rd one, two paragraphs long. He covers this issue quite well, I believe.