I am in the run-up to a set of exams. And you know what that means. Lots of procrastination, although very little actual blogging.
I have just retaken the Political Compass test. I have come out as:
Economic Left/Right: 1.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.21
This is the first time I have appeared on the right on the economic axis. The last time I took this test, I was just about bang-on the centre, at -0.13. This continues the slow rightward trend.
In the meantime, I have moved even further towards the ‘libertarian’ end of the chart. The result makes me look like a bit of an extremist, or at least an outlier.
Of the four quadrants, mine is probably the most deserted. For perhaps obvious reasons, ‘left–libertarian’ and ‘right–authoritarian’ tend to have the highest concentration of inhabitants, because these ideologies are often — lazily — seen as going hand-in-hand.
The authoritarian right contains just about every major political party and almost all the governments of the EU. The libertarian left contains green and socialist parties. Meanwhile, the authoritarian left contains such delightful characters as Stalin, Robert Mugabe, Pope Benedict XVI and the BNP.
Going through all of the pages on the Political Compass website, it is difficult to find any allies. I feel a bit lonely. Worse still, I can’t tell which party I am closer to between the Lib Dems and the Greens. But they are both very distant.
It seems as though I am destined to be the third corner in a triangle between the Dalai Lama and Angela Merkel.
Boring update: I found out by chance that this post contains the 400,000th word that I have written on this blog. Blimey. Someone needs to get a life.
Haven’t redone it, although it’s overdue, I normally do it every year, will do when it’s not past 2am, but I find I veer all over the place on the economic scale depending on the question set (they vary them). Market based solutions make you ‘right’, high safety net puts you ‘left’. I think markets are more about choice and liberty than left/right redistribution/taxation, so I think the methodology is flawed, but when the questions are more biased towards markets I score about -3, if there are more safety net, I score -6ish. I’m virtually always -6 or more libertarian though (and my g/f is about -7/-7!).
I’m convinced you fit into the LibDems in the currently polity, and when we get a proper electoral system and the parties can split and realign, you’d be in different Liberal party to me; I’d be in the one with the sane Greens, about a third of the Lib Dems and the bits of Labour that we like (like Unity and B4L)…
FPTP creates the need for broad churches; there are Lib Dems further to your right (David Laws being one), even if they are mostly left of centre. But FPTP means vote to beat who you most hate out of the top two, so I believe you’re stck with the SNP where you are…
I would expect some changes as some of the questions. Could go either way. Should art that doesn’t mean anything be art? I don’t care. But it’s either agree or disagree. One change must make a difference.
I’m not even clear on any updates to the questions. I don’t remember the one about the freedoms and law before. But that could be just my memory. if they change so would your responses.
But you are not alone I’m pretty close to where you are although slightly higher on the chart. Bossy boots that I am.
Yeah, that’s part of the fun of retaking the quiz I think. The questions to change a bit from time to time. Although I think it is still far from perfect, you would assume that it gets better over time. It doesn’t allow you to compare like with like, but it is still very interesting to see how my political views change over time.
You are not alone. I’m still much where I was when I first took the test – a centre left leaning libertarian (-2.13, -6.1) on this one, but another test that I took has me leaning to the right economically, but still way out in the libertarian extremes. I guess it depends what kind of economic questions are asked.
Green – Libertarian?
ROFL.