# Are politics truly a left-right linear line, or something else?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 5, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903 "2011-07-05T15:26:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/1 "2011-07-05T15:26:51Z")
Yesterday being the 4th of July I spent some time thinking about the state of politics in our coutry.
In our system, politics is presented as being left or right or somewhere in between. I do not intend this thread to be a merit of any of the positions of left or right or upside down or any other political position.
I would ask the question, is this linear model accurate to describe the wide array of political positions?
I maintain that it is NOT true, and proffer the Nolan Chart as proof:
[http://www.nolanchart.com/survey.php](http://www.nolanchart.com/survey.php)
I am sorry but I think the site makes you take the ten question quiz before you can get to the chart. I will look later for a link to the chart that avoids the quiz since that is irrelevant to illustrate non-linearity of the political landscape.
But if you wanna take it, its only ten questions and quick to do. of course if you already know of the Nolan Chart you don’t need to see it.
So is the political model of left-right only accurate?
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### Author:  [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/2 "2011-07-05T15:34:29Z")
er… [Nolan Chart - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart)
No model actually models everything about its subject matter: “the map is not the territory”
What a model does is give you a way to think analytically about something by simplifying it.
Left-right is a model that works for a lot of politics. It does not work for all possible things you can analyze about politics, hence the existence of other models such as the one you point to.
Neither of those models, nor any model at all, is “accurate” in the sense you seem to be implying.
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### Author:  [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/3 "2011-07-05T16:23:16Z")
I like the Pournelle Chart myself.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle\_chart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart)
It is interesting to note that American Liberals and Conservatives tend to actually be fairly close together on this scale, which would tend to explain how we generally manage to get through elections with a lot of angry words, but no small arms fire.
Of course these charts only work for people who actually have conherent, consistent political views.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/4 "2011-07-05T16:32:48Z")
Of course it’s not accurate-- it’s the simplest model you could devise. There are plenty of others, and we’ve done dozens of threads on this subject over the years. We even did a whole series of threads based on one model where a bunch of us weighed in on each question asked by the model. I think it was called “Political Compass”, if you want to search for those threads.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/5 "2011-07-05T16:59:18Z")
You can find just about every classification scheme conceived to date, linear or multidimensional, at the Wiki page [Political spectrum.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum) There’s some really fascinating stuff:
> [@](#):
>
> Other proposed axes include:
>
> ```
> * **Focus of political concern:** Communitarianism vs. Individualism. These labels are preferred[who?] to the loaded language of "totalitarianism" (anti-freedom) vs. "libertarianism" (pro-freedom), because one can have a political focus on the community without being totalitarian and undemocratic. Council communism is a political philosophy that would be counted as communitarian on this axis, but is not totalitarian or undemocratic.
>
> * **Responses to conflict:** according to the political philosopher Charles Blattberg, those who would respond to conflict with conversation should be considered as on the left, with negotiation as in the centre, and with force as on the right. See his essay "Political Philosophies and Political Ideologies."[21]
>
> * **Role of the church:** Clericalism vs. Anti-clericalism. This axis is less significant in the United States (where views of the role of religion tend to be subsumed into the general left-right axis) than in Europe (where clericalism versus anti-clericalism is much less correlated with the left-right spectrum).
>
> * **Urban vs. rural:** This axis may be the most useful and significant today in European as well as Australian politics and Canadian politics. The urban vs. rural axis was equally prominent in the United States' political past, but its importance is debatable at present. In the late 18th century and early 19th century in the United States, it would have been described as the conflict between Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Democrats.
>
> * **Foreign policy:** interventionism (the nation should exert power abroad to implement its policy) vs. non-interventionism (the nation should keep to its own affairs); similarly, multilateralism (coordination of policies with other countries) vs. isolationism and unilateralism
> * Relations with individual states or groups of states may also be vital to party politics. During the Cold War, parties often had to choose a position on a scale between pro-American and pro-Soviet Union, although this could at times closely match a left-right spectrum. At other times in history relations with other powerful states has been important. In early Canadian history relations with Great Britain were a central theme, although this was not "foreign policy" but a debate over the proper place of Canada within the British Empire.
>
> * **International action:** Multilateralism (states should cooperate and compromise) versus Unilateralism (states have a strong, even unconditional, right to make their own decisions).
>
> * **Political violence:** pacifism (political views should not be imposed by violent force) vs. militancy (violence is a legitimate or necessary means of political expression). In North America, particularly in the United States, holders of these views are often referred to as "doves" and "hawks", respectively.
>
> * **Foreign trade:** globalization (world economic markets should become integrated and interdependent) vs. autarky (the nation or polity should strive for economic independence). During the early history of the Commonwealth of Australia, this was the major political continuum. At that time it was called Free trade vs. Protectionism.
>
> * **Trade freedom vs. trade equity:** Free trade (businesses should be able trade across borders without regulations) vs. Fair trade (international trade should be regulated on behalf of social justice).
>
> * **Diversity:** multiculturalism (the nation should represent a diversity of cultural ideas) vs. assimilationism or nationalism (the nation should primarily represent, or forge, a majority culture).
>
> * **Participation:** Democracy (rule of the majority, or mob rule) vs. Aristocracy (rule by the enlightened) vs. Tyranny (total degradation of Aristocracy, ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle recognized tyranny as a state in which the tyrant is ruled by utter passion, and not reason like the philosopher, resulting in the tyrant pursuing his own desires rather than the common good.)
>
> * **Freedom:** Positive liberty (having rights which impose an obligation on others) vs. Negative liberty (having rights which prohibit interference by others).
>
> * **Social power:** Totalitarianism vs. Anarchism (Control vs. No Control) Analyzes the fundamental political interaction between people, and between individuals and their environment. Often posits the existence of a 'moderate' system as existing between the two extremes.
>
> * **Change:** radicals (who believe in rapid change) and progressives (who believe in measured, incremental change) vs. conservatives (who believe in preserving the status quo) vs. reactionaries (who believe in changing things to a previous state).
>
> * **Origin of state authority:** popular sovereignty (the state as a creation of the people, with enumerated, delegated powers) vs. various forms of absolutism and organic state philosophy (the state as an original and essential authority) vs. the view held in anarcho-primitivism that "Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home."[22]
>
> * **Levels of sovereignty:** unionism vs. federalism vs. separatism; or centralism vs. regionalism. Especially important in societies where strong regional or ethnic identities are political issues.
> o European Integration (in Europe): Euroscepticism vs. European federalism. nation state vs. multi-national state.
>
> ```
Things are seldom simple, and this is clearly not one that is.
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### Author:  [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/6 "2011-07-05T17:46:37Z")
> [@Deegeea](#):
>
> er… [Nolan Chart - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart)
>
> No model actually models everything about its subject matter: “the map is not the territory”
>
> What a model does is give you a way to think analytically about something by simplifying it.
>
> Left-right is a model that works for a lot of politics. It does not work for all possible things you can analyze about politics, hence the existence of other models such as the one you point to.
>
> Neither of those models, nor any model at all, is “accurate” in the sense you seem to be implying.
I agree somewhat that no model is entirely accurate and would change the proposition to “Is a linear model the most accurate model”
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### Author:  [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/7 "2011-07-05T17:48:34Z")
My usual rule-of-thumb is a grid with civil liberties on one axis, and financial responsibility on the other. I guess those are the two criteria I am most concerned with, and it reveals why I can’t be happy with either major party/movement. Conservative Republicans might be somewhat more fiscally responsible (but not always) but they always seem to want to stick their noses in my bedroom. Liberal Democrats may be more live-and-let-live on a personal level, but they always seem to want to have their hand in my pocket. Centrists seem to get most everything wrong, in the spirit of compromise.
Roddy
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### Author:  [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/8 "2011-07-05T17:54:46Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#):
>
> I like the Pournelle Chart myself.
>
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle\_chart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pournelle_chart)
>
> It is interesting to note that American Liberals and Conservatives tend to actually be fairly close together on this scale, which would tend to explain how we generally manage to get through elections with a lot of angry words, but no small arms fire.
>
> Of course these charts only work for people who actually have conherent, consistent political views.
The Pournelle chart is interesting, but I always failed to understand how Communism is rational but nazism is not, at least in its results with real life examples.
---
### Author:  [@David42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David42)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/9 "2011-07-05T18:06:23Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> My usual rule-of-thumb is a grid with civil liberties on one axis, and financial responsibility on the other. I guess those are the two criteria I am most concerned with, and it reveals why I can’t be happy with either major party/movement. Conservative Republicans might be somewhat more fiscally responsible (but not always) but they always seem to want to stick their noses in my bedroom. Liberal Democrats may be more live-and-let-live on a personal level, but they always seem to want to have their hand in my pocket. Centrists seem to get most everything wrong, in the spirit of compromise.
> Roddy
I quite agree with you. Did you ever notice the inconsistency in the platforms of both Republicans and Democrats? Neither has a platform which is possible to achieve in its entirety. The small government does not have manpower to enforce the morals of the people, it would take a huge government to be effective at policing the people in every area republicans want us policed.
On the other hand, Democrats want personal freedoms but at the same time they want the huge alphabet soup government with all kinds of agencies with jurisdiction in the social arena–which inevitably will lead to regulating our personal lives by its very nature.
Libertarianism of course says a small government is best because it does not have the power to interfere in our social lives.
Authoritarianism says a big government to regulate every aspect of our lives is best. This is what we have mostly wound up with, in my opinion.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/10 "2011-07-05T18:13:33Z")
> [@David42](#):
>
> I quite agree with you. Did you ever notice the inconsistency in the platforms of both Republicans and Democrats? Neither has a platform which is possible to achieve in its entirety. The small government does not have manpower to enforce the morals of the people, it would take a huge government to be effective at policing the people in every area republicans want us policed.
>
> On the other hand, Democrats want personal freedoms but at the same time they want the huge alphabet soup government with all kinds of agencies with jurisdiction in the social arena–which inevitably will lead to regulating our personal lives by its very nature.
This is basically a big tent problem. There are two major parties in the U.S., and both parties include factions with serious opposition to the agenda of other factions within the party.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/11 "2011-07-05T19:53:57Z")
Ultimately, for a truly accurate political model, you’d need one dimension for each political issue. Whether a person supports a right to abortion does not determine whether they support a right to gay marriage, and neither of those determines whether they support private gun ownership, and none of those determines where they want the tax rates to be, or how they’re distributed. Certainly, there are correlations, and some regions of the political space are more densely populated than others, but they’re all independent.
I suppose one could take a large survey of people to populate such a model, and then find the eigenvectors of the resulting distribution. If one were to do so in any country with a two-party system, I expect that the highest-weight eigenvector would correspond to the difference between the two parties. Then you’d have to debate which of the other eigenvectors are significant enough to be worthy of inclusion.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/12 "2011-07-05T21:47:32Z")
> [@David42](#):
>
> The Pournelle chart is interesting, but I always failed to understand how Communism is rational but nazism is not, at least in its results with real life examples.
To the extent at least that communism (more strictly, Marxism) is based on a (incorrect and failed) theory of human society, whereas Nazism is considered based on two fundamental rejections of rationality: the Nietzschean rejection of all moral values as artificial, and their substitution by a mystical race-myth. Which of course may be a drastic oversimplification of both, ymmv.
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### Author:  [@MattProle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MattProle)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/13 "2011-07-05T23:47:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Ultimately, for a truly accurate political model, you’d need one dimension for each political issue. Whether a person supports a right to abortion does not determine whether they support a right to gay marriage, and neither of those determines whether they support private gun ownership, and none of those determines where they want the tax rates to be, or how they’re distributed. Certainly, there are correlations, and some regions of the political space are more densely populated than others, but they’re all independent.
>
> I suppose one could take a large survey of people to populate such a model, and then find the eigenvectors of the resulting distribution. If one were to do so in any country with a two-party system, I expect that the highest-weight eigenvector would correspond to the difference between the two parties. Then you’d have to debate which of the other eigenvectors are significant enough to be worthy of inclusion.
I like this.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/14 "2011-07-06T00:04:54Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> To the extent at least that communism (more strictly, Marxism) is based on a (incorrect and failed) theory of human society, whereas Nazism is considered based on two fundamental rejections of rationality: the Nietzschean rejection of all moral values as artificial, and their substitution by a mystical race-myth. Which of course may be a drastic oversimplification of both, ymmv.
Pournelle, I think, defined it as the belief that we lived in a rational universe and that we could use reason to improve the world and perfect mankind, while people on the other access believe that human nature is innate and fixed and social problems and human imperfection are inevitable.
It measures Utopian sentiment and asks the question, “Can we be better than we are?”
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### Author:  [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/15 "2011-07-06T00:06:36Z")
> [@David42](#):
>
> Yesterday being the 4th of July I spent some time thinking about the state of politics in our coutry.
>
> In our system, politics is presented as being left or right or somewhere in between. I do not intend this thread to be a merit of any of the positions of left or right or upside down or any other political position.
>
> I would ask the question, is this linear model accurate to describe the wide array of political positions?
>
> I maintain that it is NOT true, and proffer the Nolan Chart as proof:
>
> [DOTATOGEL # Login Toto Macau Dan Bandar Toto Macau Bet Termurah](http://www.nolanchart.com/survey.php)
>
> I am sorry but I think the site makes you take the ten question quiz before you can get to the chart. I will look later for a link to the chart that avoids the quiz since that is irrelevant to illustrate non-linearity of the political landscape.
>
> But if you wanna take it, its only ten questions and quick to do. of course if you already know of the Nolan Chart you don’t need to see it.
>
> So is the political model of left-right only accurate?
According to the chart I am a statist. I agree.
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### Author:  [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/16 "2011-07-06T01:32:54Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#):
>
> My usual rule-of-thumb is a grid with civil liberties on one axis, and financial responsibility on the other. I guess those are the two criteria I am most concerned with, and it reveals why I can’t be happy with either major party/movement. Conservative Republicans might be somewhat more fiscally responsible (but not always) but they always seem to want to stick their noses in my bedroom. Liberal Democrats may be more live-and-let-live on a personal level, but they always seem to want to have their hand in my pocket. Centrists seem to get most everything wrong, in the spirit of compromise.
> Roddy
Yeah, the [political compass](http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008) model seems to represent both sides of the coin (social and economic) pretty well. It highlights that there isn’t much difference between the US parties fiscally and shows how authoritarian the Republicans are on the social scale, especially compared to the rest of the world.
---
### Author:  [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/17 "2011-07-06T05:52:16Z")
> [@David42](#):
>
> The Pournelle chart is interesting, but I always failed to understand how Communism is rational but nazism is not, at least in its results with real life examples.
It is explained in the article. Rational is a lousy label. IIRC, it refers to the belief that the human condition can be improved by political action. Utopian\<-\>Anti-Utopian might be a better label.
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/18 "2011-07-06T16:50:41Z")
> [@David42](#):
>
> The Pournelle chart is interesting, but I always failed to understand how Communism is rational but nazism is not, at least in its results with real life examples.
The “Rational versus irrational” axis doesn’t mean what you’re probably thinking it does. What the chart is saying is not that Communists are rational and Nazis are not, but that Communists believe all inequity and trouble can be solved through the application of reason, whereas Nazis do not (Nazism actually places the very existence of conflict and inequity at the heart of its philosophy.) It’s not that Nazis didn’t believe in being rational; merely that they did not feel rationalism would result in perfection of the human condition. Communism is at the precise opposite extreme; Communists believe you can perfect society if you tinker with it in a certain scientific manner.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/19 "2011-07-06T17:06:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Ultimately, for a truly accurate political model, you’d need one dimension for each political issue. Whether a person supports a right to abortion does not determine whether they support a right to gay marriage, and neither of those determines whether they support private gun ownership, and none of those determines where they want the tax rates to be, or how they’re distributed. Certainly, there are correlations, and some regions of the political space are more densely populated than others, but they’re all independent.
>
> I suppose one could take a large survey of people to populate such a model, and then find the eigenvectors of the resulting distribution. If one were to do so in any country with a two-party system, I expect that the highest-weight eigenvector would correspond to the difference between the two parties. Then you’d have to debate which of the other eigenvectors are significant enough to be worthy of inclusion.
[vague hand-wave]I think this has been done, at least for members of Congress (which has the advantage that they have measurable preferences related to specific bills), and the result was that (about, memory is vague and I have no idea how to google this) 90% of the variations could be mapped on a left-to-right axis. Adding a second dimension dealt with about 5% of the remaining idiosyncracies. I don’t remember if they discussed how many dimensions they needed to reach 99 or 100%.
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### Author:  [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-politics-truly-a-left-right-linear-line-or-something-else/587903/20 "2011-07-06T17:26:58Z")
Was it this? [http://www.republicanliberty.org/libdex/index.htm](http://www.republicanliberty.org/libdex/index.htm)
There was certainly more variation left to right.
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