Timstuff presents "The Political Wheel"

[Timstuff]

I have long felt that the "left and right" concept of the political spectrum is very naive and does not even come close to doing justice to what the world's political makeup looks like. There are a lot more than two directions that people go in with political opinions, however we seem to oversimplify them as being as simple as "yes" and "no." I myself am more in favor of the wheel model of the political spectrum, and I have made a handy illustration to demonstrate it:

Obviously it's not perfect, and it's influenced by my own political ideas, but I think that this is the general direction we should be approaching politics from as opposed to the simplistic idea that everything either fits into "liberal" or "conservative". As you can see, some ideas that we may consider "bad" such as anarchy and tyranny are not actually at the left or right, because ultimately both liberalism and conservatism lead to the same place depending on where you go with them.

 

[StorminNorman]

The two sides are collectivism and individualism, the only question becomes one of consistency.

 

[Timstuff]

^ I can't disagree with that, and that's definitely an important aspect which I'm glad you brought up. However it is still a bit more complex than simply "how much of each do you support," hence why it is a wheel and not simply a "collectivism vs. anarchy" slider to replace the old "conservative vs. liberal" slider. What the wheel does is categorize why people drift towards one or another, and depending on how far to each you drift, your reasons for going there can yield very different results.

For example, if you're living under a totalitarian regime or living in anarchy with no rule of law at all, the reasons why you live that way ultimately don't mean much. The tyrannical regime is still going to control every aspect of your life that it can, and in anarchy you're still not going to have any order. However, if someone is drifting towards collectivism because they see it as the next step toward a utopia, it will be a much different government than who is drifting towards collectivisim because it wants everyone to follow the same religion, even if both paths both lead to the same place (tyranny). Both take away a similar amount of freedom, but from different areas of life. Once you take away all freedom, you end up with tyranny, just like when you remove all government you end up with anarchy, regardless of the path that led you to want less and less government.

The thesis behind the wheel is that there are more views than just conservatism and liberalism since each is part of a spectrum that includes varying degrees of collectivism and individualism. Another way to look at it is "social" liberalism and conservatism vs. "fiscal" liberalism and conservatism. Social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, if taken to their extremes lead to individualism, while fiscal liberalism and social conservatism both lead towards collectivism, and yet they are not usually paired up that way in Western politics. I don't consider that to be an inconsistency, so much as I see it as the way people tend to think, since people's political views are usually more complicated than just being in favor of either collectivism or individualism.

 

[SuBe]

I think Normie needs to make a Chart. I don't disagree 100%, but feel it is off.

 

[StorminNorman]

^ I can't disagree with that, and that's definitely an important aspect which I'm glad you brought up. However it is still a bit more complex than simply "how much of each do you support," hence why it is a wheel and not simply a "collectivism vs. anarchy" slider to replace the old "conservative vs. liberal" slider. What the wheel does is categorize why people drift towards one or another, and depending on how far to each you drift, your reasons for going there can yield very different results.

For example, if you're living under a totalitarian regime or living in anarchy with no rule of law at all, the reasons why you live that way ultimately don't mean much. The tyrannical regime is still going to control every aspect of your life that it can, and in anarchy you're still not going to have any order. However, if someone is drifting towards collectivism because they see it as the next step toward a utopia, it will be a much different government than who is drifting towards collectivisim because it wants everyone to follow the same religion, even if both paths both lead to the same place (tyranny). Both take away a similar amount of freedom, but from different areas of life. Once you take away all freedom, you end up with tyranny, just like when you remove all government you end up with anarchy, regardless of the path that led you to want less and less government.

The thesis behind the wheel is that there are more views than just conservatism and liberalism since each is part of a spectrum that includes varying degrees of collectivism and individualism. Another way to look at it is "social" liberalism and conservatism vs. "fiscal" liberalism and conservatism. Social liberalism and fiscal conservatism, if taken to their extremes lead to individualism, while fiscal liberalism and social conservatism both lead towards collectivism, and yet they are not usually paired up that way in Western politics. I don't consider that to be an inconsistency, so much as I see it as the way people tend to think, since people's political views are usually more complicated than just being in favor of either collectivism or individualism.

One problem is dealing with terms "Conservative" and "Liberal" as opposing view points. Conservativism is obviously a relative term - it's reactionary. The reason the two are seen as opposing is European in origin (Nationalism being reactionary, liberalism revolutionary). A reactionary America (think Ron Paul, not Sarah Palin) is liberal due to the nature of this country's founding.

So you have Collectivism on one side, Individualism on the other with their placement as "Right" or "Left" dependent on the nature of the country.

Then it's simply a matter of taking that definition to different aspects of social science:

Religion: Collectivism (i.e. State Religion or even a Communist imposed State Atheism) - Individualism (personal religion and spirituality.)

Government: Collectivism (totalitarianism) - Individualism (Anarchy)

Economic: Collectivism (Communal property rights) - Individualism (private property rights). I use property rights rather than the typical Capitalism/Communism because even a regulated economy relies upon the idea of communal property rights and is a collectivist philosophy.

Moral: Collectivism (Rousseau's idea that morality exists on in society and has no basis for an isolated man) - Individualism (Aristotle's belief in Reason as a primary function. Think Taoism and the notion of Tao).

These can all be listed on a right/left spectrum, but only when separated as such. It's difficult to chart an entire personal philosophy on a chart.

 

[Paradoxium]

I think Aristotle had it right. You need to be more meta in your differentiation. Most of these theories derive from "de facto" Democracies.

I see politics nowadays as... instead of loading different software utilities, why not just get a new operating system. People might call it crazy, but I don't care. Economically speaking, many de facto Democracies are destined to bankrupt and that will hurt hard. It is too easy to spend more than cut. It has a short future time orientation; it's a design flaw. Over at Econlog, there was this great quote:

1. It is very difficult to cut Federal government spending, because so much of it is mandatory.

2. It is very difficult to increase Federal government spending, because so much of it is mandatory.

 

[Paradoxium]

http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2011/02/17/this-week’s-column-going-galt/#ixzz1EFOJBvXd

http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel/is-seasteading-the-future.html

Stossel is starting to expose some of the different thinkers, particularly Patri Friedman. I have discussed about Patri quite a while back, so its nice to see it might make the mainstream. But I did not go in breadth about Seasteading.