# So where are you on the political compass? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 18, 2001, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932 "2001-07-18T15:00:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2001, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/21 "2001-07-18T23:09:30Z")
Economic Left/Right: -4.29 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.76 Hmmmm … I’ve always seen myself as an economic conservative when it comes to matters of commerce, but liberal when it comes to a social safety net. ---
**Author:** ![MilTan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@MilTan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MilTan)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2001, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/22 "2001-07-18T23:28:53Z")
Left/Right: 1.43 Auth/Lib: -5.81 Interesting test. I wonder if the center lines for these things (I’m specifically thinking the Left/Right axis) might be a bit skewed (to my American sensibilities, that is) by this being a British test? I generally consider myself a tad left-leaning in general, but I guess in a more liberal country, I might not be as far left as I thought? ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/23 "2001-07-18T23:51:02Z")
Oh, I’ve taken this test before… Economic Left/Right: -3.88 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.86 My liberal English friends tell me this score is “impressive for an American.” 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2001, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/24 "2001-07-18T23:57:48Z")
Economic Left/Right: -1.43 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -2.67 So I’m a pinko tree hugger, eh? Damn, I thought I was at least a bit of a Tory. Oh well. Just…just…stop reading this, and well… GET A JOB! ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/25 "2001-07-19T00:13:45Z")
This test is as absurdly biased as that Libertarian “World’s smallest political test” or whatever it’s called. Some of their assumptions are just silly (If globalisation is inevitable, it should serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations…so a “trans-national corp.” is inevitably anti-humanity? Wha?) and they’re definitly pushing towards an outcome. That said, I’m : Economic Left/Right: 6.53 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -2.83 Which puts me somewhere around Friedman. Which isn’t much of a surprise, actually, given the fact that they had some pretty forced choices and I was forced to pick an extreme I didn’t agree with rather than answer the way the question was pushing. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![kasuo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8c91f0/32.png) [@kasuo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kasuo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/26 "2001-07-19T00:15:44Z")
Economic Left/Right: -1.22 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -3.46 I’m right by Gandhi but I’m so violent sometimes (in terms of road rage)… ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/27 "2001-07-19T00:33:40Z")
I came in at: Economic Left/Right: -1.22 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.71 I came in close to Simon Hughes, whomever that might be. (Probably some periennial candidate in the UK who never wins anything.) ---
**Author:** ![phartizan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba8739/32.png) [@phartizan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phartizan)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/28 "2001-07-19T01:00:01Z")
Economic Left/Right: 6.73 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.45 I suspected I was extreme, but…Yeow. I agree with **Fenris** , some pretty forced choices. What if one neither agrees nor disagrees? (Like art/business. What if I think **both** are important?) I was unable to express some of that, so maybe that contributed something to my apparent extremism. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/29 "2001-07-19T01:22:52Z")
Economic Left/Right: 1.02 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.81 I think that by American standards I may be more of an economic “leftist”. For one thing, over here self-identified “Libertarians” sometimes debate stuff like privatizing all the public roads and streets, and I’m _way_ to the “left” of that. I would also agree that they really needed a “neutral”, since I was either apathetic or wanted to say “well, it depends…” to a bunch of those questions. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/30 "2001-07-19T01:45:09Z")
Economic R/L -1.22 A/L -6.7 Smack dab between Ken Livingstone and Simon Huges. I have no idea what this means. I’m an anachist socially and almost dead center economically. Umm, coulda fooled me! ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/31 "2001-07-19T04:02:10Z")
Economic Left/Right: -6.73 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.85 Whoa. I worry myself. What country should I be living in? I don;t even consider myself a hippie… ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/32 "2001-07-19T05:02:01Z")
Economic Left/Right: -4.29 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -7.02 Ok, that seems reasonably accurate, though I agree, as some have pointed out that the test is biased. I’ve actually seen this test before in a left-wing discussion forum. One fact that might be be helpful: if you answered “agree” for “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, that pushes you far to the left on economics. Different questions are weighted differently. ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/33 "2001-07-19T05:09:38Z")
Economic L/R: 0.20 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.40 And has anyone else noticed that of all the scores, not a single person has scored higher on Authoritarianism/Libertarianism than our high score of **-2.36** scored by **John Bredin**? (Unless I missed somebody, my apologies if I did.) Another note, there are only 13 politicians represented on the chart, and of those, 7 have authoritarianism scores over -2.36. Food for thought? ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/34 "2001-07-19T05:16:23Z")
Economic Left/Right: 1.84 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -3.09 I’m closest to Robin Cook, whoever he is. ---
**Author:** ![Sterra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Sterra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterra)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/35 "2001-07-19T05:48:05Z")
Economic Left/Right: -0.41 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.96 Pretty unsuprising ---
**Author:** ![BooBoo316](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@BooBoo316](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BooBoo316)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/36 "2001-07-19T06:00:16Z")
Economic Left/Right: -3.88 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -1.68 That puts me in **Ghandi** territory. Well…at least that explains the urge to wear my bedsheets. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/37 "2001-07-19T06:21:24Z")
Economic Left/Right: -1.43 Authoritarian/Libertarian: -6.23 Who the hell is simon hughes? Apparently that’s who I really am. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/38 "2001-07-19T08:10:11Z")
Ec. L/R: 3.27 Soc. A/L: -5.08 Gee, and I was such a good little socialist in high school. Just goes to show what a good stock portfolio will do for you. Yeah, there were several cases where I couldn’t comfortably choose agree or disagree because the question seemed to make an invalid assumption. For example, the “Young people have rebellious ideas, but it’s normal to grow out of them and settle down.” I agreed that it was _normal_, but that doesn’t mean I agree that it’s _right_. Who’s Charles Kennedy? I seem to be closest to him, but I’m afraid British politics was never my strong suit. –sublight. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/39 "2001-07-19T08:17:44Z")
I’m with **Fenris** …this test is biased, and also IMO pretty vague…I have no intuitive feel for what these numbers mean. Perhaps part of it is the fact that it is an English site with comparisons to English politicians. That said, I took the test and scored Economic: 3.47 A/L -1.52. Whatever that means. In the interests of fairness, I give you the link to the original 2 dimensional political quiz: [http://www.lp.org/quiz/](http://www.lp.org/quiz/) aka The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, put out by the US Libertarian Party. I just took that one and scored 90% on Personal Self Government and 80% on Economic SG, putting me firmly in the libertarian quadrant. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Doris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@Sir\_Doris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Doris)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2001, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932/40 "2001-07-19T09:41:32Z")
As Panchitaville said, very interesting to see politicians scoring high on authoritarianism. Support for the arguement that anyone wanting to be a politician shouldn’t be allowed, maybe. Just to explain who a few of the British politicians are Charles Kennedy: leader of the Liberal Democrats, left of centre now that Labour has become Torier than thou. Simon Hughes : also Liberal Democrat, spokesman on Home Affairs, IIRC (he’s wheeled out to argue with the Home Secretary, now the Tories are busy squabbling among themselves). Both are the above are nice guys, Lib Dems are big on social and environmental responsibility and equality of opportunity. Robin Cook: was Foreign Secretary, now Leader of the House. Generally regarded as an intellectual, and apparently a well regarded diplomat by um, other foreign diplomats. Ken Livingstone: Mayor of London. Kicked out of the Labour Party for daring to argue with Tony Blair. Very popular, a thorn in the side of successive governments since the days of Thatcher 😃 Likes newts. Tony Benn: just retired, (old)Labour MP, had served the longest time of any then MP. A toff who gave up his title to remain in the Commons. IMHO, a man with principles, who didn’t let politics get in the way. I think I agree that what would be left leaning in the States is probably just right of centre here. Yeah there probably was some bias in the test - it would be pretty much impossible to design one without. Their rationale for the design is reasonable, I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-where-are-you-on-the-political-compass/72932.md?page=3)