Talk:Political spectrum

Imported from Requested Articles

Now that the article exists, I thought it might be sensible to move the comments over from CZ:Requested Articles so that the comments don't clutter up CZ:Fulfilled Article Requests forever more. –Tom Morris 19:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Besides giving examples of other spectrums out there, I propose that we order political beliefs into a three-axis table based on the following properties: economic freedom, political freedom, and social freedom. I'd also like to see tables where variants of the same belief are compared to each other. –Matthew Woods

Response from Bruce M. Tindall 18:06, 21 November 2007 (CST): Ah, but it might be difficult to do so in an objective way. One person's "high degree of economic freedom" is another person's "low degree of social justice"; "high social freedom" might be described as "low social order" or "low public safety" by someone else. The choice and naming of the axes for such a scheme right away implies a system and hierarchy of values. There's also the question of which axes are left out: is there a dimension for measuring, say, the relative powers or duties belonging to different groupings of people (individuals, families, "races," nation-states and their political subdivisions, genders, voluntary organizations, etc.)? After all, in the U.S., the 50 states have considerable sovereignty in certain areas; in other countries, power is more centralized; so there's yet another dimension of the political spectrum (probably not describable as any kind of "freedom") right there.

I have constructed an article which I think summarises a few of the existing attempts to produce spectrums or multi-dimensional schemas of political ideologies. Many of these are, of course, fraught with assumptions - some assume the political positions and ideologies they seek to describe (the Nolan Chart/Advocates Quiz does this, in my opinion), some seem to try and explain as a universal condition some particular political situation - imagine trying to use the Nolan Chart pretty much anywhere other than 20/21st century America and Europe and one will rapidly find that the categories and questions are totally irrelevant to many people in different societies. There's a reason why political philosophers don't spend much time worrying about coal tarriffs: they are trying to seek the universal, and societies are different. Anyway, I Am Not A Political Scientist. I do hope one comes and cleans up the mess I've left here. ;) –Tom Morris 20:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)