Political Compass mega thread 2011

Wolfe Tone

So again, it seems you are saying that it is desirable to pay people as little as possible, the absolute bare minimum to keep them alive, all so you can "reinvest"? Or am I picking you up wrong?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

nesf

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

So again, it seems you are saying that it is desirable to pay people as little as possible, the absolute bare minimum to keep them alive, all so you can "reinvest"? Or am I picking you up wrong?

Competitiveness isn't just about rock bottom wages, in fact for the kind of industries Ireland does rock bottom wages would be a really bad thing. The reason is primarily worker motivation. Poorly paid workers don't work very hard or very well compared to decently paid workers. Any company that demands rock bottom wages for high level work will get nowhere. It's only in the really low skill jobs that really low wages are acceptable and that is generally only the case because such jobs are mere stepping stones for people rather than long term careers most of the time.

When most of those on the right say we need lower wages they're not saying we need the lowest wages. The issue is this: we need our external determined wages, those in the export sector, to match up with our internal determined wages, those in the domestic sector. We can play silly buggers and drive up our domestic wages by selling houses to each other but doing so cripples out export sector because if export determined wages are relatively low compared to internal ones then workers are poorly motivated etc leading to a poorly working export sector. We don't need rock bottom wages but we do need wages that are comparable to our major trading partners and that means we need out wages to be similar to those in the rest of the EU which means we need welfare rates and public sector wages around the same level too.

irishh_bob

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: 0.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.05

KnifeWRENCH

^ Quite similar to you.



Although when I did it a couple of years ago, I was slightly to the left instead of slightly to the right.

I'm giving Labour my first preference, so I'm not too sure how accurate it is. (I'd consider myself lower down on the libertarian axis tbh.) Still a bit of fun doing it though.

El Weirdo

Here I am.

telekon

The vast majority, like myself, seem to be in the 'green bit'. (I can't post it for some reason, anyone want to let me know how? )

I think everyone's socially liberal attitudes askew the results as from an economic and justice viewpoint, I would be quite conservative...

FreudianSlippers

tmclaughlin02

Surprised by the result. Thought I'd be on the right and more authoritarian. How good an indicator are the particular range of questions?

leincar

This has me towards the Green end of things. The last election maybe, not GE 2011.

Soldie

Killer Pigeon

Eliot Rosewater

It's strange - I did the test twice, answering the same accept for 2 or 3 "undecided" ones, to which I answered Strongly Agree the first time and Strongly Disagree the second time. The results were a full two units apart (in the economic direction).

Anyway, here's the average. Far out as people go, I suppose.



I found it interesting watching my changing results on this quiz from the ages 17 onwards. I started roughly centre, and travelled a line curving downwards to where I'm about now.

evercloserunion

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

It's strange - I did the test twice, answering the same accept for 2 or 3 "undecided" ones, to which I answered Strongly Agree the first time and Strongly Disagree the second time. The results were a full two units apart (in the economic direction).

Anyway, here's the average. Far out as people go, I suppose.

<snip>

I found it interesting watching my changing results on this quiz from the ages 17 onwards. I started roughly centre, and travelled a line curving downwards to where I'm about now.

At 17 I was a socialist, I have since completely abandoned that ideology and the change in my position as per the test has been minimal to be honest. I don't think the test adequately reflects the very large difference between a left-wing approach to capitalism and socialism proper. That is, a communist would get much the same score as someone who just really supports a social democratic market economy.

ei.sdraob

evercloserunion wrote: »

At 17 I was a socialist.

If there ever was good reason for 17 year olds not to vote :P

IrishWhiskeyCha

What I find fascinating about this thread, and it has actually has reinforced my belief about forums, is how unrepresentative a forum can be of national demographics. The majority of people including myself are in the Green Quadrant and virtually 95% are Libertarian, which I would find hard to believe if a proper independent survey was taken randomly. Not saying this to antagonise just an interesting observation. Anybody agree?

AhSureTisGrand

Economic Left/Right: -0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.72

nesf

IrishWhiskeyCha wrote: »

What I find fascinating about this thread, and it has actually has reinforced my belief about forums, is how unrepresentative a forum can be of national demographics. The majority of people including myself are in the Green Quadrant and virtually 95% are Libertarian, which I would find hard to believe if a proper independent survey was taken randomly. Not saying this to antagonise just an interesting observation. Anybody agree?

Average user here is under 35. People under 35 tend to be more socially liberal and more to the economic left than the average of the population normally. Nothing surprising at all in this thread.

Cat Melodeon

I did this a good few years ago, was well over to the right and up. I've definitely been getting more left-wing as I've gotten older (36 now), will probably end up an anarchist if this continues.

evercloserunion

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If there ever was good reason for 17 year olds not to vote :P

Ridiculous, I know socialists in their 30s, should we deny 30 year olds a vote? Joe Higgins is an MEP and has a strong chance of getting into the Dáil. Clearly it's not just the 17 year olds.

I know you were half-joking, but it is actually a common enough argument against giving young people a vote that they would use it to vote for positions we disagree with, which is absurd and anti-democratic.

FreudianSlippers

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

ei.sdraob

evercloserunion wrote: »

Ridiculous, I know socialists in their 30s, should we deny 30 year olds a vote? Joe Higgins is an MEP and has a strong chance of getting into the Dáil. Clearly it's not just the 17 year olds.

I know you were half-joking, but it is actually a common enough argument against giving young people a vote that they would use it to vote for positions we disagree with, which is absurd and anti-democratic.

Its a joke calm down , instead of worrying about 17 year old voting how about figuring out ways of getting the election turnouts to be higher. I swear anyone who complaints and doesnt bother to vote have only themselves to blame.

evercloserunion

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

Not everyone in the green quadrant is far-left. As I said above, you could get a very far left score just by being a social democrat. I'm sure social democrats scare you as well but you must agree they're not as bad as the reds hiding under your bed.

K-9

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-4.62&soc=-2.46

K-9

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

It isn't really, none of the main 3 parties are Left as represented by the diagram, only SF would be.

Lockstep

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I swear anyone who complaints and doesnt bother to vote have only themselves to blame.

I wish I could like this more than once.

The amount of people who don't vote or get involved politically but feel entitled to complain really irritates me.

WeeBushy

Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=6.75&soc=9.03

I think we should start a political party

LeixlipRed wrote: »

I find some of your posts truly scary. That's the worst of the lot so far. I just can't believe how naive you are. Try explaining this post to someone who just got laid of by a MNC as part of a cost-cutting measure so they can exploit cheap labour in Dictatorstan. How would you begin to rationalise it?

His beliefs are scary.....f*ck sake mate , your the one who talked about the 1916 rising and bin charges and called them 'the same thing' before , You may disagree and think that socialism is the way to go , But hes right , You cant make jobs out of nothing , socialism at its heart doesnt work , Id rather most people in jobs and some of them poor than everyone in sh*t jobs and all of them poor

Eric Cartman

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The sheer amount of far left people actually frightens me.

blue square is best square

Anonymous1987

What I expected, previously I scored slightly into the green quadrant but previous to that I was centre right also so I guess I've come full circle.

For a good deal of the questions I find myself pondering whether to reject a statement based on an exception to the rule but I think the best way to approach it is to agree or disagree with the sentiment of the statement rather than the language or logic of the statement.

The way the questions are phrased, many people end up in the green quadrant, a worthwhile exercise would be to read through the FAQ and revisit the test.