Politics in one dimension
The political spectrum has traditionally been thought of as a simple line from left to right, with views becoming more and more leftist ( = liberal) to one end, and more and more rightist ( = conservative) to the other:
Farthest left ------------------------------------------------------- Farthest right
This paradigm of the political spectrum uses what is basically a one-dimensional chart. At the left end were traditionally placed Stalin, Marx, Gandhi, Black Panthers, long-haired Vietnam War protestors, the Sandinistas and present-day Communists in Russia, while the right end was traditionally associated with Hitler, John Birchers, segregationists, Mussolini, Joseph McCarthy and the people who were trying to topple Communism in Russia.
Then came the idea to use the spectrum in a different way. The defining difference between liberals and conservatives was change. "Liberal" could now be redefined as supporting new progress, while "conservative" meant someone who opposed change, and those who wanted to change things yet only back to the way they were instead of supporting progressive change were reactionaries. This conception of the political spectrum looks like this:
|----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------|
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| Radical Liberal Centrist Conservative Standpat Reactionary Revolutionary
| reactionary
Revolutionary
radical
Standpats were defined as those who absolutely opposed any change in either direction, be it progressive or reactionary. Conservatives accepted change, albeit grudgingly and only after much societal discussion and soul-searching, and in small amounts, but those at the standpat point of the new spectrum wanted only the exact status quo of the day to be preserved for the rest of eternity. 1963 today, 1963 forever. Those who pushed for progressive change more aggressively and unremittingly than the pro-change liberals, doing whatever it took to bring about the change, were radicals, to the left of even the liberals. Those who started revolutions Lenin-style and would stop at nothing to achieve their goals were placed at the very ends of the spectrum, extreme left or extreme right depending on the direction of the change they sought.
Using these new definitions, those Soviets who supported the long-established status quo of Communism would be called conservatives, while those who opposed this so-called leftist government would actually be the liberals (they would be reactionaries only if they wanted to oppose it by bringing back the czar).
This new chart could be expanded from its one-dimensional form to form a circle, or more strictly, the circumference of a circle, as if a one-dimensional line could be curved rather than straight:
Revolutionary Revolutionary reactionary
radical xxxxxx
xx xx Reactionary
Radical x x
x x Standpat
x x
Liberal x x
x x Conservative
x x
xx xx
xxxxxx
Centrist
This was done to reflect the argument that the farther one goes to the right on the one-dimensional spectrum one eventually ends up on the left, and vice versa. Tying up the ends of the straight line was now a revolutionary anti-center -- a radical center -- where extreme right and extreme left had become so violently committed to forcing the new regime on people that they melded into one at a point "between" revolutionary radical and revolutionary reactionary. The circle was moving in a more two-dimensional direction.
Politics in two dimensions
In 1970, David Nolan created a new innovation in the political spectrum. Nolan defined the labeling of ideology in terms of government involvement. He drew a line across the x-axis to represent government involvement in economic matters, in commerce and taxation. The farther to the left one moved on the line, the more one supported involvement of the government in economic life. The farther one moved to the right, the more one believed that individuals should be left alone in any pursuit measurable in money . . . and that they should not be handed out freebies by government. Then he drew another line, across the y-axis, to represent the involvement of the government in personal behavior -- matters that were not measurable in dollars. The more one moved down the y-axis, the more one believed the government should make decisions about what people do, such as whether people could smoke marijuana, have sex with another man (or another woman), or be drafted. The more one moved up on the y-axis, the more one believed in the personal freedom of the individual. He then obtained a two-dimensional chart that looked like this:
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| Liberal | Libertarian |
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|----------------|----------------|
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| Populist | Conservative |
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Those who had traditionally been viewed as "conservative" supported giving freedom to individuals in the economic sector, but not in non-economic matters. Those who fit the traditional definition of "liberal", on the other hand, supported individual freedom in the social sphere, but not in the economic sphere. If you imagine a slash-shaped line / running from the bottom left to the top right of this two-dimensional chart, you see the increasing presence of government in general as you approach the bottom left of the line and the increasing choice of the individual as you approach the top right. At the top right quadrant of this chart is libertarianism, espoused by David Nolan's own party, the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party, which he founded, emphasized liberty for individuals without intrusion from the government either personally or financially, while the Democratic Party had practiced a line of government involvement in spending money by and for people but not in people's personal lives, and the Republican Party wanted government involvement in moral issues, but not when it came to dollars (with a belief that good old laissez-faire economics was the traditional American way and an important American value). Opposite his own ideology is the bottom-left quadrant, which he labeled "populist" -- maximum power to the government to make people's decisions for them.
What was named the Nolan Chart caught on with amazing and rapid success. The four categories of liberal, conservative, libertarian and populist became widespread in political discourse and the diagram Nolan drew was widely drawn and adapted. One of the most popular adaptations of the Nolan Chart on the Internet is the Political Compass site, which includes one of the many political self-tests you can take to place yourself. Similar self-tests inspired by the Nolan Chart have been numerous, reflecting the widespread popularity of Nolan's idea. The tests come with many different interpretations as to the nature of the differences between libertarian and anti-libertarian ideals of government, one of which is David Boaz's "Who Should Decide?" interpretation of the spectrum.
You may also see it with up and down differently identified:
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| Populist | Conservative |
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|----------------|----------------|
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| Liberal | Libertarian |
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or in a rhomboid form, with up strictly identified as libertarian and down as populist. Only liberal and conservative are classed as left or right, an improvement that keeps one from having to classify Falwell-adhering "populists" as left-wing and hippieish-looking Libertarian Party card-carriers at Million Marijuana March rallies as right-wing:
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ \
/ Libertarian\
/\ /\
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
/ Liberal \/Conservative\
\ /\ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
\/ Populist \/
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\/
At the very top of this chart would be anarchy, and at the very bottom would be a dictatorship with Big Brother technology that watches what you choose to eat for breakfast.
Some political scientists adapting the Nolan Chart have also decided to change the name of "populist" to "authoritarian", since many famous authoritarian dictators such as Mao were definitely not promoting the well-being of the common people (as the word "populist" really means).
Politics in three dimensions
To represent politics on a model with three dimensions, we use a Vosem Chart. Vosem, from the Russian word for "eight", refers to the chart's measuring of political ideology through three dichotomies, giving us 2 x 2 x 2 different political camps.
This three-dimensional figure's camps are based on three different spheres (no pun intended). Here are the three different dichotomies that determine a person's placement on the Vosem Chart.
CULTURAL
CLASS 1: A person belonging to the first camp in the cultural sphere supports cultural freedom. People in this camp believe in the right to have sex in any position or with any gender you want (assuming it's not rape), drug legalization, the right to burn the flag, the right to request one's life ended (suicide or euthanasia) and government non-regulation of things like prostitution, gambling and pornography. They welcome diversity in dress, means of expressive speech, language (including foreign languages being spoken in public), living arrangements, art, and ethnic varieties of food, recreation and religious ritual. Since they hold the view that activities that don't hurt anyone (except possibly the people engaging or requesting the activity themselves) should not be punished by the law, this means they believe such activity should not be punished regardless of who does it, and therefore they are strongly in favor of civil rights. Believe in equality regardless to gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, nativity, socioeconomic class . . . Characteristic catchwords: government out of our bedrooms, tolerance, intolerance, consensual, victimless crime, do your own thing, born free, chains of society, fascist police state, gestapo.
CLASS 2: The second cultural camp is much more puritanical. People in this camp call for repression (both through an individual's self-control and through government enactment and enforcement of laws) of personal urges. A person with these cultural views will call for said repression in the name of "tradition", or of "law and order", or perhaps will summon both. Sex "between consenting adults" is just not good enough if it violates from some social convention, religious dictum or other moral belief. While people in the other cultural camp are militant supporters of the equality of demographic groups, people in this cultural camp will sometimes sacrifice equality in the name of tradition or other causes, such as believing, perhaps, that a man should have authority over his wife. They will be much less likely to condemn racial profiling, and will even often unapologetically support it if they feel it is in the name of national security. Youth are viewed not to have the same capacity or deserve the same rights as adults, and such policies as curfews and a punitive drinking age are strongly backed. They believe parents should be given maximum power to enforce rules on their children, as the concept of authority is very important to them, people in positions of authority never to be disobeyed, questioned or mocked, even when they are in the wrong. Investment in the military is crucial and they shudder at the thought of what any cut in defense, relative to whatever has traditionally been spent for the military of their country, could do to the security of their nation. They have a strong emphasis on patriotism and accepting the nation and its laws as they are; remarks that condemn the country or acts of civil disobedience are never OK and flag-burning is out of the question. Some idealize a national homogeneity based on a modern conception of "mainstream" culture (mainstream-American, or mainstream-Canadian, or mainstream-Australian, or what-have-you) in standards for lifestyle, while others' views on proper lifestyle and rites of passage in life come from ethnic tradition. Social conventions, including restraint of emotions and traditional rules of dating and roles of the sexes, are very important to them. People and practices that are eccentric or new to them are seen as not simply "weird", but as scary, and something to be deeply alarmed by and suspicious about. Characteristic catchwords: tradition, law and order, chaos, protect people from their own stupidity, people who know better, honor and duty, these laws exist for a reason, God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
FISCAL
CLASS 1: People in the first of the two fiscal camps believe in activist government in the fiscal sphere of life. They dream of a government that provides money for social security, welfare, and college tuition, as well as offering free universal health care. Some will even go so far as to make college free and universal, just as grades K-12 are. Prescription drugs would be given to seniors for free, and Medicare and Medicaid would be under the arm of the government. Many also believe in funding for the arts, although some who are also conservatives in the cultural sphere will oppose funding certain art if they find it to be pornographic, or may even support strict legal control over what can be painted or sculpted, so that they will not have to pay any tax money to a state that will monetarily redeem the painting of art they object to. People in the first fiscal camp are in favor of government-funded charities. They do not mind paying and levying higher taxes for all of this. Down inside, they believe in the power of government to take on grand projects. They believe that if people worked together with their government, great things could happen and we could build a better tomorrow. Characteristic catchwords: compassionate, free and universal, support, invest in our country's future, cold-hearted, stingy, wants to rob our children.
CLASS 2: The other fiscal camp consists of people who oppose more government in such spending. They oppose social programs, and are readily willing to cut them or other government projects in the name of lower taxes. They push for the privatization of social security, and believe that medical plans would be best served by being privatized and left to businesses (rather than provided by the government) as well. Those in Europe work hard to have the high tax rates lowered considerably, and are often "drained" out of the country in search of lower taxes; and if those in North America, already calling for a lower tax rate in their own country, moved to Europe, they would find the tax rates absolutely scandalous and so insane as to warrant a certification of mental illness on the part of government. Generally, the more cut from taxes, the better. They are more likely to support a flat tax than people in the opposite school of thought on fiscal issues. Reasons for their views on monetarily activist government are varied and some are just primarily concerned with the rich, but generally all people in the second camp believe in responsibility. They believe that to be respected as a mature adult, a person should be able to handle his own financial affairs and not lean on support for governmental teats. For many it is an opposition to government interference in anything, anywhere, as a matter of principle. Some conservatives in the U.S., a nation founded through immigration, exploration, grueling migrations through wilderness, and rough harnessing and taming of the landscape, believe strongly that doing your own work and keeping your own rewards are important traditionally American values. People from some religious denominations find those values to be an important part of Christian conduct. Others refuse to give anything to or take anything from a government they find oppressive. Characteristic catchwords: personal responsibility, big government, tax-and-spend, welfare state, privatization, welfare cheats, rugged individualism, hard-working Americans, save you millions of dollars.
CORPORATE
CLASS 1: People who are in the first camp on this final dichotomy are, all around, pro-corporate. The way they see it, corporations should be treated and protected with the same rights as individuals. They want businesses to have the power to hire and discriminate against whom they want -- if an employer doesn't want an immigrant or a member of an ethnic minority working for him, he shouldn't be required by hire any people in that group, even if they are indisputably qualified. They also want everyone's business to be protected by private property rights -- the owner paid to keep the space and he can insist in anyone he wants leaving the business, including using the police to enforce this wish. Anyone walking on a business' premises against the wishes of the owner is viewed as trespassing. They oppose the right of people to strike or otherwise rebel against a business, and will favor laws that allow a corporate head to have his employees arrested for striking. They can be very strongly anti-union and view management as knowing best. Corporate monopolies are just seen as part of the game. As they see it, pure freedom of the market will take care of any injustices or inequities, and will promise diversity and creativity. If something done by a business is unethical and/or harmful, people will make the right choice by choosing another business, thereby regulating themselves. They trust the patron public will know and decide what is right. Some even support reversing government restrictions on dishonestly mislabeling or misrepresenting your advertised product. They are not quite as concerned with or offended by Enron/WorldCom type corporate dishonesty as their opponents. Strongly pro-copyright, they favor punishing Napster and want to hunt down other music site offenders on the Internet. Characteristic catchwords: it's their business, free enterprise, the magic of the market, property rights, intellectual property violator.
CLASS 2: Someone in the second camp opposes corporate power and rule of the business over the individual. They believe that a corporation is not a person and cannot be a person, and therefore does not deserve the same rights as a person. Businesses are viewed as a form of authority, akin to government authority, that can be oppressive. The major heads behind huge corporations, furthermore, are viewed as greedy rich folks who will do anything to make even more and keep the oil flowing to them. Many of these people are anti-WTO, anti-IMF, etc. If you see someone engaged in a protest against "corporate goons", taking it to the streets like the Seattle protestors of 1999, they no doubt belong to this camp. They consider discriminatory or otherwise unethical behavior by a business owner or manager completely inexcusable. They consider it unacceptable to have to watch anyone -- even one person -- be legally hurt by a business' practices in order to get people to finally bring the business down with their own boycott. They do not trust the common people alone to be able to drive every and any immoral business into the ground with their purchasing choices. They fail to see any flourishing of diversity or creativity of products due to the market; rather, they view increasingly richer cannibal companies as having homogenized the market and given us too few different companies and too few products. The overwhelming power of a few names over radio stations has likewise ruined the diversity of music. Some even turn to Internet file-sharing. They are opposed to the concept of "intellectual property". Characteristic catchwords: corporate greed, people before profits, Naderism, sell-out, monolithic corporate culture, pigs, Micro$oft.
Now, to make a Vosem Chart out of these three spheres -- cultural, fiscal and corporate, we'll need to map them to the three dimensions. Nolan placed libertarians on the right and populists/authoritarians on the left when he drew his chart. Our dilemma is whether to do this, or to place all people from the permissive cultural group (Group 1) on the left side and all people from the restrictive cultural group (Group 2) on the right side. Consider that people view Adolf Hitler, or even Jean Le Pen, as clearly being right-wing rather than left-wing -- even though they called for constructive government programs that spent a lot of money. In 2002 Le Pen campaigned for a government that did far more for people than people are were used to. Yet we consider Le Pen to be clearly on the far right -- a real right-winger -- because of the racism aspect (as we do with Hitler). The issue of racism seems to trump fiscal issues when judging this man's placement on the political spectrum. Likewise, if you ask people what the most conservative part of the United States is, most will answer with the Bible-Belt South (quite a pro-welfare, have-more-pity-for-the-poor part of the nation compared with the Midwest, in which all-around conservatives are strongest, or even much more libertarian parts). For this reason, the cultural sphere (corresponding to Nolan's "personal freedom" scale) will be mapped on the x-axis. On the left we have Group 1 from the cultural sector, and on the right we have Group 2.
Now add the y-axis and we can add the fiscal sphere. Since people in the activist, higher-taxing government group want to take care of financial matters from the top and want higher taxes, we'll put them at the top. Lower down will be the people who want to cut out the social services.
Finally, comes the corporate sphere. If you draw one square for people from Group 1 of the corporate dichotomy and one square for people from Group 2 of the corporate dichotomy, you can fit a left-right cultural dichotomy and an up-down fiscal dichotomy on each of the two squares:
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| New Labour | Authoritarian | | Liberal | Totalitarian |
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|----------------|----------------| |----------------|----------------|
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| Libertarian | Conservative | | Anarcho- | Paleo- |
| | | | syndicalist | conservative |
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Cut two squares like these out and place one on top of the other and you can see the three dimensions needed for a Vosem Chart. Your two layer "cube" will look something like this:
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--+-------------|--+------------- |
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| |-------------+--+-------------+--|
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|--+-------------|--+-------------| |
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| --------------+----------------+--
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Making the corporate sphere into your z-axis, we can now place each of the eight permutations of cultural, fiscal and corporate views into one of the eight boxes, completing a Vosem chart. Placing the big business side (Group 1) behind the anti-corporate side (Group 2), we can fill all eight camps in:
---------------------------------
| New Labour | Authoritarian |
--+-------------|--+------------- |
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Liberal -+- | | Totalitarian | |
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| |-------------+--+-------------+--|
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|--+-------------|--+-------------| |
| | | | | -+- Conservative
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| | Libertarian | | |
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| --------------+----------------+--
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Anarcho-syndicalist Paleo-conservative
Looking at this complete Vosem Chart, we see:
Left, upper, anterior: Cultural freedom, a government that provides plenty of social services, and brakes on the power of business. This is your prototypical, all-around liberalism, including socialism or true communism.
Left, upper, posterior: Cultural freedom, fiscally active government, and pro-big business. This is similar to the ideology, in a nutshell, of the British New Labour Party, so New Labour is what we're going to call it. This ideology has acquired some popularity in several European countries. People of this group have a positive, upbeat view towards the value of work and the power of corporations to do benevolent and fulfilling things. They believe that with just the right corporate leadership, the working man or woman can produce and be paid for commodities that can be enjoyed by all. Be it the Farmer, the Artist, the Engineer, or even the Bishop, their archetypical worker, as they see it, can create socially redeeming goods and services for which they will be paid by the state and/or industry, able to enjoy the fruits of the labors of others working in their ideal society. Unlike totalitarians, those in the New Labour camp believe in the freedom of businesses to innovate and choose what to produce.
Left, lower, anterior: Personal freedom, elimination of services such as welfare, social security and student money from the government, and anti-corporate ideology. This is the combination of anarcho-syndicalism. It's what many people call the "left-libertarians". More liberal than the libertarians, anarcho-syndialists are anti-government, but they find business to be behaving in too oppressive and authoritarian a manner. Your stereotypical anti-corporate, anti-WTO, anti-anything protestors.
Left, lower, posterior: Personal freedom, opposition to government spending, and free enterprise. Libertarianism, just as David Nolan, Harry Browne, and their co-partisans know it, fit here. When libertarians describe themselves as being "economically conservative", they mean they fit in the conservative group in both fiscal and corporate issues, being at the bottom and at the back of a Vosem Chart. Libertarians believe in the primacy of the individual, and hold the fiscal political views they do because of their belief in responsibility and independence from government. What goes on in someone's bedroom is nobody's business.
Right, upper, anterior: Government intervention in cultural life, a strong activist central government, and brakes on the power of business. The opposite of libertarianism, this is the category of strongest power of government. This is the totalitarian end of the spectrum. Government conforming to this ideology will regulate all spheres of your life, including serving as the power to keep business under check. Businesses will be controlled under this system by being told by the government what to produce and sell, how much, and how to sell it. Similar to communism, except without the social freedom important to communist and socialist ideology.
Right, upper, posterior: Social restrictions, lots of government involvement in fiscal services, and focus on the rights of businesses. The true authoritarians, emphasizing the upholding of authority, be it of government or of business. Being a member of society and abiding by its rules is very important to them, and they hold the views they do on fiscal issues because they consider government an important central guiding force in society. You abide by your society's restrictions and contribute to your society, you get government entitlements in exchange for your sacrifices. Neocons, who, although far to the right, do not oppose "big government" in the typical conservative way and have unseverable ties to big business and faith in the power of the military, belong to this group.
Right, lower, anterior: Low freedom in moral issues (social tradition), no services or entitlements from the government or taxes paid to the government, corporations not endorsed as having human rights. This comes closest to the pattern of traditional societies (i.e. static cultures without social or technological change from era to era). Sex roles and the rituals of birth, dating, marriage and procreation were heavily ritualized and preserved from generation to generation. Government had not expanded to include services like welfare to people, and big business had not been created yet. Unlimited authority to business owners was not recognized by whatever governments existed, and the social contract prevented it. It's not surprising that such an old system would match up with an ideology that in the United States is popularly called paleo-conservatism (from the Greek root paleo, meaning "old"). American paleo-conservatives, typically rural and living in traditional communities, often Old World European in character, are the most likely of the eight political groups on the Vosem Chart to support States' Rights. By the criteria of the "Change" spectrum, they would be the most reactionary out of the eight and therefore represent the right of the spectrum.
Right, lower, posterior: Low social freedom, small government in fiscal spheres, and big business. This is the party-line combination for such parties considered to be "conservative" as Conservative, Republican and Tory.
These eight ideologies are not just the sum of three criteria, differing only from each other by the package of beliefs in one or two or three spheres that makes the distinction. Each eighth of the Vosem Chart is also unique and has a character and a way of synthesizing the different components of ideology all of its own. For instance, a conservative and an authoritarian would probably be in favor of having the police used to arrest people for holding a strike, while a libertarian, although also at the back on the corporate dimension of the chart, would have more qualms about the idea. Someone in the New Labour slot would be less strongly to the left on social issues than would a libertarian or an anarcho-syndicalist. An American paleo-conservatives of course are much more likely to support Dixie secessionist ideas than an American from any of the other groups on the cultural right. Although they are both on the anterior half of the chart on corporate issues, a totalitarian would focus on developing government programs and policies that would dictate what a business was supposed to produce and serve, while a paleo-conservative would be more concerned with pressuring government to abolish laws that enforce power granted to businesses. A libertarian's stance on fiscal issues stems from objections to government interfering with your life and using your money without your permission, while a conservative would be more likely to believe that you must prove yourself as responsible and hard-working in this tough world, being strong by being able to stand on your own two feet.
Looking at the Vosem Chart, we can find the opposite of any of the eight ideologies by locating the box across from it on all three axes. The opposite of libertarian (left, lower, posterior), the most anti-government of the eight, for instance, is totalitarian (right, upper, anterior) -- total government. Likewise, the opposite of anarcho-syndicalist is authoritarian, the opposite of New Labour is paleo-conservative, and, of course, the opposite of conservative is liberal.
One can find out how close people of other ideologies are to oneself by counting the number of axes that are different and the same. For example, suppose you are an anarcho-syndicalist. You obviously have a lot in common with other individuals in your own category, lower left, at the front of the chart. Your closest allies from other political groups (differing in only one sector each), would be paleo-conservative (cultural), liberal (fiscal) and libertarian (corporate). You would feel more distant from those who differ from you on two out of three axes (having only one sector in common): New Labour (cultural), conservative (fiscal) and totalitarian (corporate). You would be the most unlike of all your antithesis, authoritarian, unlike you in any way. No wonder think-tankers up in their editors' buildings, giving invariable praise to George W. Bush while writing articles for neocon mags, and pierced kids, holding protests where there's somebody you can find to be against just about anything (from Nike to the police to the captivity of Tibet), hate each other so vehemently.
So when trying to figure out how like or unlike another a political candidate is when people are throwing around terms like "paleocon" or "left-libertarian" to label the candidate, or to see where a political figure really fits amidst all the hype and labeling, or to understand the real nature of the differences between you and your co-workers of different ideologies, or if you just want to see how relatively compatible you are with that Gemini libertarian, the Vosem Chart provides a multifactorial, three-dimensional method for a three-dimensional world. It can't help with the Gemini, but it can help in understanding the new world around you in the 2000s.
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