You have the “1D” political compass of left vs right, but those terms are so broad they can describe completely opposite viewpoints. Then there’s the “2D” political compass with authoritarian/libertarian and the classic left/right, but that is still quite broad and doesn’t fit every ideology and belief well. If someone were to create a fully fleshed out N-dimensional political compass that could accurately summarise generalise to a reasonable degree of accuracy* a person’s political perspective, how many axes are needed, and what would they be?
Of the top of my head, I can think of a few:
- authoritarian vs anti-authoritarian (on the extremes, you would have dictator bootlickers who support a one-rules-all style system and anarchists advocating for no authority at all)
- internationalism vs nationalism
- egalitarianism vs traditionalism (social equality vs hierarchal society)
- environmentalist vs anti-environmentalist (every policy must consider environmental impacts vs cLiMaTe ChAnGe Is A hOaX)
- progressive vs conservative (or pro-change vs anti-change)
- intellectualism vs anti-intellectualism (pro-science vs anti-science)
- free vs regulated economy (on the extremes, no government influence of the economy at all and a state-run economy)
Please don’t treat this as an argument over why your politics are better! Debating politics is the worst kind of internet argument one can consume themselves into…
Also, please note that this post is not intended to attack anyone with the above viewpoints. Just want to make that clear.
I’d say a 3D one is good for most cases. Personal freedom, economic freedom, and political freedom, AKA the NationStates
Non-Political compass.Functionally, though, while it’s an easy visual I don’t necessarily know how useful political compasses are in general. One of my main gripes with the currently popular one is that it’s personal+economic freedom, and I don’t think there should be an economy at all[1]. I end up very lib left on it (something like -8,-8 or -9,-9) despite, again, not thinking economy is something that should even exist. Would that lean me more right on the economy, or left? Who’s to say! You’re not economically free if there is none, but also you’re as economically free as you want to be!
1: My political ideals are not how I vote, so I go as close as I functionally can.
If you don’t want an economy (money) to balance resources, how would you do it?