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.
Agrarian parties still exist in most actual democracies, in some countries they even have a significant presence in their parliament. Nowadays they are mostly about the farmers thinking they should be allowed to completely destroy the environment that sustain their farms in the name of short term profits.
Hmm. So nowadays that ideology should probably be lumped together with “corporate greed vs. sensible thinking” -axis to keep the number of dimensions reasonable.
They are not corporate per-se, the bulk are small farmers that through a mix of conservatism and short sighted self-interest think the rest of the people should give them massive subsidies for the privilege of destroying what’s left of the ecosystem. The greedy suits play a part by keeping the internal propaganda machine well oiled and financed, but they are not the ones dumbing cow shit on the steps of government buildings for the right to wipe out Europe’s last forests for example.