Political Compass mega thread 2011

nesf

Thought it'd be a bit of fun for us to compare our political positions on Political Compass. Linkies to test


The Irish parties positions (according to the Political Compass people's analysis of their manifestos):





My own personal position on the chart:




I'm trending nationally FG but trending locally (based on politician) Labour. Are other people's results matching up well with their voting this election?

Lockstep

Myself

LeixlipRed

Rubik.

Who would The Dalai Lama vote for then?

johnie89

johnmcdnl

which justifies my SF vote

Dirk Gently

The older I get, the more looney left I'm getting. Isn't it suppose to work the other way

kev9100

I'm voting Labour and I want a coalition of the Centre-Left in the long-term so I'm not sure what to make of this.

Killer Pigeon

You're all a pile of communists :P

Cookie_Monster

Wolfe Tone

Theres mine, Im voting SF. Im near bang on Socialist on that table.

Nadser

Guess I'm a socialist!

efb

Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.97

Dozen Wicked Words

Not too far away from Nelson Mandela which will do me.

nesf

*waits patiently for any other right winger to post...*

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

evercloserunion

nesf wrote: »

*waits patiently for any other right winger to post...*

The test is obviously US-based, they have a very warped view of right-vs-left. I've seen hundreds of people take this test, including people who would be considered fairly right-wing, and a tiny percentage get anything other than left-libertarian (x<0,y<0).

Frankly I don't really like the political compass, as it tends to produce results which are at variance with the expectations of virtually everyone. Like Labour being right-wing. Surely the terms left-wing and right-wing are defined by convention and social norms, it seems that these guys are making up their own definitions and saying "turns out everyone else was wrong all this time!".

That said, it's still a bit of craic as long as you don't take it too seriously.

Another lefty here:

nesf

evercloserunion wrote: »

The test is obviously US-based, they have a very warped view of right-vs-left. I've seen hundreds of people take this test, including people who would be considered fairly right-wing, and a tiny percentage get anything other than left-libertarian (x<0,y<0).

Frankly I don't really like the political compass, as it tends to produce results which are at variance with the expectations of virtually everyone. Like Labour being right-wing. Surely the terms left-wing and right-wing are defined by convention and social norms, it seems that these guys are making up their own definitions and saying "turns out everyone else was wrong all this time!".

That said, it's still a bit of craic as long as you don't take it too seriously.

I don't know, I place almost exactly where I'd tell you I should be placed before I ever took a test, middle of the right wing, slightly liberal socially. I just think an awful lot of younger people are genuinely left wing even if they support the likes of FF and/or FG, they just have a taste for more rightish rhetoric.

Labour should be on the centre right too to be fair. Their policies are not really pro-business that much but very much based on market based solutions to problems while keeping tax very reasonable, they very much don't fit into the tax and spend left wing model that SF definitely fit very well. They are to the left of FF/FG and are a lot more liberal socially, but they aren't very left wing at all for over a decade now and have followed in UK Labour's footsteps in taking the centre (slightly) right because that's where a crap load of the voters are.

nesf

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

As per usual, you make me look like a socialist.

NSNO

I'm still not a massive fan of the test. Many of the questions are clearly American focused. I'd love if someone made a new test that was calibrated for European social norms. I'm not sure there's a mainstream party in Europe which doesn't support a basic level of social security that allows people to retain their dignity.


I also feel that the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis is out of date. It seems to combine questions to do with Religious Conservatism/Secular Equality and Authoritarian/Libertarian ideals to do with security and justice. This leads to a skew where all fair-minded people who support equality are considered Libertarians.

nesf

NSNO wrote: »

I'm still not a massive fan of the test. Many of the questions are clearly American focused. I'd love if someone made a new test that was calibrated for European social norms. I'm not sure there's a mainstream party in Europe which doesn't support a basic level of social security that allows people to retain their dignity.

What's a European norm though? There is huge disparity between the laws of various EU states on key social issues like access to abortion and gay marriage, Ireland being a conservative hotbed in legal terms compared to the likes of Sweden.

NSNO wrote: »

I also feel that the Authoritarian/Libertarian axis is out of date. It seems to combine questions to do with Religious Conservatism/Secular Equality and Authoritarian/Libertarian ideals to do with security and justice. This leads to a skew where all fair-minded people who support equality are considered Libertarians.

I think people get too hung up on where the centre is on the graph and mistake it as somehow representing the centre for their country. E.g. in Ireland you could move the centre right and a bit down while in the US you'd move it a good bit right and a bit up. In Sweden it'd go left and a good bit down and so on.

For example, I'm relatively conservative for my social group but compared to my parent's generation I'm very liberal socially on some key issues. I've met very few people my age (late 20s/early 30s) that would be socially conservative in the true sense but they do exist but I've known a fair few like that who are over 60.

If I had to put the social centre somewhere for the average poster on this forum I'd probably move it half way down the libertarian axis. Equally I'd move it left on economic issues because of the heavy left wing bias (in numbers, not volume) on this forum.

Doesn't make the test useless though because what we're interested in is relative positions not absolute ones, so for example me and Permabear, it's very obvious that I'm a fair bit more conservative than him socially and a fair bit more leftist economically and if you'd read the debates between him and I over the years on this forum you'd find this generally to be true. We disagree on a lot of particulars on how do things while agreeing on the need for a general rightist economic trend and liberal social trend.

z0oT

I'm pretty sure this test put me slightly to the right the last time I did it, go figure.

NSNO

nesf wrote: »

What's a European norm though? There is huge disparity between the laws of various EU states on key social issues like access to abortion and gay marriage, Ireland being a conservative hotbed in legal terms compared to the likes of Sweden.

Laws are one thing but it's clear that the majority of Irish people support full gay marriage.

nesf wrote: »

I think people get too hung up on where the centre is on the graph and mistake it as somehow representing the centre for their country. E.g. in Ireland you could move the centre right and a bit down while in the US you'd move it a good bit right and a bit up. In Sweden it'd go left and a good bit down and so on.

For example, I'm relatively conservative for my social group but compared to my parent's generation I'm very liberal socially on some key issues. I've met very few people my age (late 20s/early 30s) that would be socially conservative in the true sense but they do exist but I've known a fair few like that who are over 60.

If I had to put the social centre somewhere for the average poster on this forum I'd probably move it half way down the libertarian axis. Equally I'd move it left on economic issues because of the heavy left wing bias (in numbers, not volume) on this forum.

Doesn't make the test useless though because what we're interested in is relative positions not absolute ones, so for example me and Permabear, it's very obvious that I'm a fair bit more conservative than him socially and a fair bit more leftist economically and if you'd read the debates between him and I over the years on this forum you'd find this generally to be true. We disagree on a lot of particulars on how do things while agreeing on the need for a general rightist economic trend and liberal social trend.

You're agreeing with me here

I agree that the test is useful when comparing two people. I'd still prefer if someone did a more European-focused test. Unlike America, many of the central tenets of social democracy are accepted even by our rightist parties. Trade unionism, universal health provision and generous benefit systems highlight this.

However, I do feel that the Authortarian/Libertarian axis combines two different lines of thought. It makes it impossible (or very difficult) to be (for example) a gay conservative. They are seen to be mutually exclusive.

Rubik.

NSNO wrote: »

I agree that the test is useful when comparing two people. I'd still prefer if someone did a more European-focused test. Unlike America, many of the central tenets of social democracy are accepted even by our rightist parties. Trade unionism, universal health provision and generous benefit systems highlight this.

Surprisingly, it was devised in the UK by a political journalist and a professor of social history. Well...according to Rational Wiki that is.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Political_Compass#cite_note-0

Manach

Economic Left/Right: 6.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 3.38

omerin

C14N

I was expecting to be near the middle but at the same time, I thought it would lean a little to right and authoritarian. I think my answers near the end about sex swung me the other way.

The only thing I dislike about the test is that there are some questions I found too complex to really agree or disagree on. I would prefer to be able to justify some of the answers.

Dr. Baltar

Allow me to join you righties.

nesf

NSNO wrote: »

Laws are one thing but it's clear that the majority of Irish people support full gay marriage.

Um, do they? Definitely younger people do but there's still quite a lot of conservatives amongst the older generations uncomfortable about the issue or who just plain don't care whether it's legislated for or not.

NSNO wrote: »

However, I do feel that the Authortarian/Libertarian axis combines two different lines of thought. It makes it impossible (or very difficult) to be (for example) a gay conservative. They are seen to be mutually exclusive.

You're making the mistake of looking at them as if they were absolutes. One can be centrist while holding some hard liberal views and some hard conservative views. Not everyone is simply all liberal or all conservative. It's the balance of your views and whether you overall trend liberal or conservative that matters not your view on a single issue that defines you.

thetonynator

Did the socialist party invent this by any chance?! :P

I would have considered myself to be slightly to the right, but in the same place on the y axis:

gandalf

Interesting, it is skewed towards the US definition of Left and Right.

Economic Left/Right: -2.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.26



However I will be giving FG my first preference.

NSNO

nesf wrote: »

Um, do they? Definitely younger people do but there's still quite a lot of conservatives amongst the older generations uncomfortable about the issue or who just plain don't care whether it's legislated for or not.



You're making the mistake of looking at them as if they were absolutes. One can be centrist while holding some hard liberal views and some hard conservative views. Not everyone is simply all liberal or all conservative. It's the balance of your views and whether you overall trend liberal or conservative that matters not your view on a single issue that defines you.

67% support gay marriage

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0915/1224278900109.html



I still think that the poll puts too much stock into issues that we in Europe are generally more liberal to as opposed issues that truly divide us on that axis such as attitudes to European Federalism etc.

nesf

NSNO wrote: »

67% support gay marriage

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0915/1224278900109.html

Just one poll though. Also the kind of issue which would be prone to PC answers being given in a poll but not necessarily people voting that way in a referendum.

NSNO wrote: »

I still think that the poll puts too much stock into issues that we in Europe are generally more liberal to as opposed issues that truly divide us on that axis such as attitudes to European Federalism etc.

I'm not sure how European Federalism would play to be honest because both the extreme left and extreme right oppose it (for different reasons) and much of the centre left and centre right are divided on the issue. It's not a clearcut social or economic issue but an extremely complex issue not limited to ideas of political nationalism, economic nationalism, economic/social competition on policy and other areas.

Pete M.

Interesting alright.

and Wow! Whole lot of Anarcho-Syndicalists knockin round.

nesf

NSNO wrote: »

I agree that the test is useful when comparing two people. I'd still prefer if someone did a more European-focused test. Unlike America, many of the central tenets of social democracy are accepted even by our rightist parties. Trade unionism, universal health provision and generous benefit systems highlight this.

Sorry, I should have addressed this point. The fact that FG/FF/Lab are on the right highlights how international a test this is. If the centre was based on American politics all three would be on the left. Outside of the US social democracy in some form is the norm with heavy engagement with unions typical, universal healthcare supported by every party regardless of left or right and the argument on benefits isn't about minimising them but making them work better at getting people back to work.

The US is the odd one out in the West on these three issues and it's hard to find people on the right in Europe who don't subscribe to some of the major tenet of social democracy, they just have different ideas about how to achieve them. As an example, I believe in universal healthcare I just believe it should be provided by the private sector not the public sector, I believe in generous benefits systems so long as the incentives within them encourage people to stay on them for the shortest period possible before going back to work, so I'd favour cutting benefits for the long term unemployed who refuse training while arguing to give good benefits to the recently unemployed. Trade unions I'm not a fan of at all in the public sector and I'd love to see large mega-unions abolished but I think small single company unions can work well but mainly I believe that we're better off with employee protection legislation than mass unionisation because all workers benefit from said legislation rather than the narrow group that benefit under unionisation.

Eliot Rosewater

The last time I did this test I was amongst college friends. One girl's response was "really?" I'm generally not quite as, well, cornered as Permabear, but I'm certainly in that direction.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

kev9100

Very heartening to see so many fellow lefties anyway.

RayM

Just out of interest, did anybody 'agree' or 'strongly agree' with either of the following questions?

The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.

What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us.

Wolfe Tone

I hope not!

takun

Odd though how far removed from ALL of our political parties most people here appear to be.

Still, I am ok with being more or less with Gandhi. Interesting that there is no one so far in the top half.

Kinski

RayM wrote: »

Just out of interest, did anybody 'agree' or 'strongly agree' with either of the following questions?

I'd imagine some did. I just want to know if anyone 'agreed' or 'strongly agreed' with this proposition:

Astrology accurately explains many things.

I suspect it increases your authoritarian score. People who take horoscopes seriously are all crypto-fascists!

Indigo Sunrise

I was in the middle of the green square when I did this a year or two ago, though I wasn't really interested in politics at that time. I vaguely considered myself to be somewhere on the left, but now I'm leaning towards libertarianism.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

evercloserunion

I strongly agreed. Companies are not NGOs or charities, even though they are often confused with them. They exist to profitably carry out their enterprises, nothing more.

Do you disagree with, for example, employee/environmental protection regulation then?

Again, I strongly agreed. Corporations are only successful when they are producing or supplying products or services that people need, so their success is an index to the benefits they provide for all of us. When companies are successful, they generate profit, which enables corporations to expand, invest, provide employment, conduct research and development, bring new products and ideas to market, and do other things that we generally agree are "good for all of us." (You cannot put "people before profit," because people can only benefit from profits that have been made.)

What about monopolistic or near-monopolistic firms? Preventing them from abusing their market dominance might be worse for them than allowing them to exploit it at the expense of consumers, but it is arguably better for society.

I strongly disagreed. Your answer to this question reveals a lot about your attitude toward power and authority. Someone who believes in astrology essentially has faith that an unexplained cosmic force is controlling his personality, life, and destiny. Such a person will probably be more likely to submit to a totalitarian political authority than someone who believes that her life is shaped by her own free choices.

This is possibly a cause of the left/libertarian-leaning bias of the results, because surely virtually everyone disagrees with this.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

evercloserunion

Not necessarily—but a social responsibility is not the same thing as a responsibility to comply with the law. We might feel, for instance, that because McDonald's peddles French fries and greasy hamburgers for profit, it has a social responsibility to fund campaigns that promote healthy lifestyle choices. If McDonald's doesn't do this, it will not be in breach of the law, but may be accused of lacking a sense of social responsibility.

Laws like employee and environmental protection legislation reflect a belief that corporations have a social responsibility to protect these interests. Legal responsibility is not born out of nowehere, nor does it come about for no reason.

Some social responsibilities attain legal force through legislation, others don't. Believing that a corporation's only social responsibility is to deliver a profit to its shareholders means rejecting the idea that corporations have social responsibilities corresponding to those enshrined in the legislation.

Some companies are so-called natural monopolies, meaning that competitors cannot profitably enter the marketplace and that the consumer is best served by the existing firm. To break up a natural monopoly would put the consumer at a disadvantage. Monopolies which are not natural monopolies, and which are not backed by the power of the state to prohibit competition, will be broken down over time by the market. Even if the government had not intervened, Microsoft would not have been able to hold on to its advantage indefinitely. Other companies (Apple, Google) and technologies (open-source, mobile technologies) were always going to threaten its position.

I'm not sure I buy that, in all cases at least. Undoubtedly some natural monopolies can be broken down over time by the market. But where a dominant firm controls access to essential facilities or resources which it denies to potential competitors, or engages in practices like predatory pricing to foreclose the market, surely there is potential for a monopoly to continue past the point where it is most beneficial for consumers.

Following from this, a similar question to the above; do you disagree with the existence of competition regulation in (in particular) the EU and US? It seems to me that you must if you believe that the interests of large corporations and the interests of society are always aligned.

C14N

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

So if they chop down a rain forest and destroy a natural habitat in the name of making money, that's okay for them? Or if they use child labour to further their profits?

I did agree with this question but not strongly. I know companies need to make money and that it's really their main purpose, but at the same time they are made up of people who should have a conscience.

nesf

RayM wrote: »

Just out of interest, did anybody 'agree' or 'strongly agree' with either of the following questions?

The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.

I agreed with it because that's how SMEs should work. In general, what's good for business in a free market is good for society because the price mechanism and competition. Think of it in terms of the market for shoes, the price mechanism helps consumers buy the quality level they want and competition means companies have a very strong incentive to give us good shoe experiences because it'll mean repeat business. This doesn't apply to all markets, the housing market is an example of a market that requires heavy enough regulation due to the one-off nature of both sales and purchases in general and the externalities involved in building a house but in general for broadly traded goods like food, shoes, nails, clothes etc the company's interests align with consumer interests for the most part so long as there is competition in the market place.

What's good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us.

I agreed with this for a variety of reasons. The first is as above, company interests and consumer interests align so long as there is competition in the market because companies to be successful need to provide consumers with what they want. The second reason is that a successful company gives a lot back to a country by a) creating jobs either of the mass employment variety or the low numbers, high wages variety and b) through taxation of said company. We want our industries to be successful because through the jobs and taxes they provide we can afford social schemes like universal healthcare and the welfare state. Without successful business we don't have the money to fund the State.

Yes, one can come up with individual cases where a business' success was not in the interests of the State at large but these tend to be exceptions and the average successful business in this country is a net benefit for the State and its people, it's just we barely notice them. Think of all the successful shops, export businesses, hotels etc et al that provide jobs and taxes for our State to see how business interest coincides with national interest in general. This isn't an argument for zero regulation or zero taxation of business but it is an argument for fostering a pro-business environment with regulation that is not burdensome (not not necessarily "light touch" either).

Colmo52

Ec -3.12,
Soc -2.82