The Political Compass

I think I've done something like this before (even in high school already), but in comparison I found this one relatively detailed and precise.

I ended up exactly where I'd expected to end up at: a clear way into the bottom left corner, almost exactly as much to the left as to the libertarian:

Economic Left/Right: -5.00
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.90

I notice that this puts me somewhere near the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela. Not bad ;-)

The only quarrel I had with the test was that it often asked about "sometimes" and "some" and the like, which forced me to agree with submissions that I generally disagree with. As in, (paraphrasing), "with some criminals, it is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate them", or "sometimes, protectionism is necessary". Had to say "agree" on both, though in general, I feel quite strongly that protectionism is a bad thing and it should always be assumed that there is a point in rehabilitating criminals. But "sometimes", yes, for sure ...
Had this not been so, I'm sure I would have ended up even further in the left-bottom corner.

Ehmm ... [judging on the Roundtable posters' results,] I would think it obvious enough that, apparently, there's a stark difference between one's own positioning on this scale and that of the politicians one supports. And that this would be true for the Democrats here, too. [..]

Most of you support Bush - who is way over in the right-top corner - even though you yourselves ended up in the center. Why assume that the liberal A2K'ers somehow would end up around where their politician is at?

There's a much more obvious explanation: we all vote or support politicians who are significantly more top-right than we are. I do - in the UK, I would vote LibDem, not Green. And if the A2K liberals are as far "south-west" to Dean and Kerry as you are from Bush, they probably end up somewhere near me, or at least halfway there - which would sound about right.

Now why do people end up supportng politicians far more top-right than they are themselves? Thats an age-old question ...

One answer could be philosophical: we like our politicians to be more cautious, more conservative (small "c"), more strict, than ideally we would like the world to be - as if we don't quite trust our own dreams. Basically, we dont want our politicians to be as generous with our wallets and our safety as we would allow ourselves to be.

Another answer could be systematical. We live in a world where people like Kucinich and the UK Greens are laughed away as the "loonie left". This is argued on the basis of polls which show them with minimal support - but that in principle is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the support one gathers depends on political and media acknowledgement. Even the polls themselves play a role - many Deanies probably would agree more with Kucinich, but won't even go there because they assume he "wouldn't stand a chance anyway". Basically, we live in a place where the media focuses on the top-right quadrant, and politicians only pay lip-service to politicians in other quadrants if they're from some safe, distant country, like Mandela.

Now if all of the media and political attention is focused on identifying left and right within the top-right quadrant, and thus Kerry ends up being labelled "left" and Bush "right", then people from the bottom-left quadrant would naturally start identifying with Kerry - after all, they're left, and he's the "left" candidate. Comes automatically. Partly we're not even aware anymore of how far to the right our candidate is from us - we have internalised the need for them to have had to make many compromises. For example - in the poll I said that I agreed with the principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Now imagine a society where this principle would really determine economic and social policy ... imagine it. Yeh, utopian socialism, pretty much. In the meantime, I've come to naturally consider a politician proposing that the rich should pay 5% more tax than they do now a "leftist".

O - just because I spent three times as many words on the second answer than on the first doesn't mean I give it greater credence - just takes more time to explain ;-). I think they both play a role, in very different dimensions.

I also suspect that many who register at center are only there when answering these questions, but spin away from there with their daily (real life) decisions.

In addition to the "International chart" you'll get upon finishing the test,

* See HERE how the current US presidential candidates rank, according to the site.

* And see HERE (scroll down) to see how the UK parties rank according to the site.

Very interesting ...