This is a think-piece.  I hope that it will inspire you to think about its subject matter. Please approach it with an open mind.

Hello Everyone.  I’m going to take a moment to discuss the political spectrum and compass. 

This is part one of a series discussing this topic.  Today’s topic concerns the eastern hemisphere of the “political compass.”  The compass, like many others, contains northern, southern, eastern, and western points.  These points represent authoritarianism, libertarianism, and the right and left wings, respectively.

Politics is “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.”

I’m proposing a different version of the political compass, that better represents this definition.  In the next sections, I’ll compare and contrast the two models to explain why I believe that my own model is a better representation of the full spectrum of political thought.

So, let’s talk about it.

The northern and southern points represent authoritarianism and libertarianism, respectively.

The authors of the “accepted model” compass list this as the “social axis,” determining how much personal freedom an individual should have.  In other words, how much power and influence should a government have on an individual’s life, and should authority be obeyed? 

Those who support a powerful government that should be obeyed, even at the expense of personal liberties, would be considered authoritarian. At its most extreme end, you would have a totalitarian government, one that has the power to enforce its laws under the penalty of death.

At the other end of the spectrum is libertarianism.  These are people who are instead skeptical of state power and seek to minimize its influence, even if that leads to a loss of security and stability.  At its most extreme, you have anarchism, the abolition of government entirely.

I’m not going to spend a ton of time with this axis, as my own compass would contain a nearly identical axis.  Both would seek to ask “how much power should the government have?” 

I have many more issues with the next axis, so let’s get to it.

The western and eastern points represent left- and right-wing ideologies.

The authors list this as the “economic axis,” which determines how the economy can be organized.  Goods and services can be owned collectively.  This is a left-wing or communist/socialist organization of the economy.  Or they can be owned by individuals.  This is a right-wing, or capitalist organization of the economy.

I feel that defining the left and right by economics alone is extremely reductive.  The left and the right originated in the French Revolution in the late 1700s.  The King, the nobility, and the clergy sat at the top of a social hierarchy.  They exercised and abused complete control over economic, social, and political power.  The peasants, who made up over 98% of the population, were at the bottom of the hierarchy.  Because of this, they had little to no political power yet did almost all the labor.

Abuse by the upper class would cause the country to break out into a violent and bloody revolution.

In court, the revolutionaries sat to the left of the King.  They proposed that political power be equally distributed across society.  They wanted social equality through a democratic republic. The loyalists sat to the right of the King.  They defended the current social hierarchy.  In their minds, power should remain concentrated in the nobility. This is the origin of the terms “Left” and “Right” in political parlance. 

While economics was a motivating force behind the French Revolution, it was not the only one.  The Left, from its foundation, has been focused on promoting social equality. The right, social hierarchy.  In fact, the struggle for egalitarian and hierarchical politics predates the terms “Left” and “Right.”

Whether one thinks the economy should be collectively or privately managed is just a reflection of whether one thinks society should be collectively or privately managed.  I think that the accepted model compass misses this.

A political compass should ask who gets to have power, and how much.

In keeping with the historical context of the left and social equality versus the right and social hierarchy, I’m proposing a new compass instead.  The authority-liberty axis remains the same. those who want more government influence on people’s lives and a greater ability for the government to enforce its laws are authoritarian.  Those who want less government influence on people’s lives and a lesser ability to enforce its laws are libertarian.

I would instead define my left and right by promoting social equality and social hierarchy.  This is the historical definition of the political left-right. It even includes the economic definitions!  As mentioned earlier, a communist one would be more egalitarian, where wealth is owned collectively. A capitalist organization of the economy is a hierarchical one, where people who have more capital have more power.  However, it would be “left-wing” when compared to feudalism, which has more rigid hierarchies.  Feudalism has no position on the accepted model political compass.

This also allows for a better understanding of how governments are organized too.  Democracy is the egalitarian distribution of political power and is a left-wing concept.  Right-wing governments have power concentrated in one person (autocracy) or a few people (oligarchy). 

This also allows for some interesting political structures that might seem counterintuitive at first. For example, an authoritarian democracy would be a left-wing government that is run by its people and has significant power to enforce its laws.  This government does not necessarily have to have a communist economy.

Likewise, a libertarian autocracy could exist. Rules and laws are decided by one individual, but adhering to those laws is a matter of personal discretion.  This government does not necessarily have to be a capitalist one.

In my opinion, my proposed version of the political compass allows for a more diverse and inclusive perspective regarding politics.  One that is not reduced to economics, but is concerned with who gets to have power and how much. 

Lastly, I’ll be using the rest of this series to dive into an idea.  This idea is that people are a collection of left- and right-wing ideas, of authoritarian and libertarian ones.  Understanding the framework from which an idea came can help us understand each other a little better. 

How did this content make you feel?  Please let us know in the comments. If you enjoyed it, please check out some of our other content!  If you would like to get the latest updates, please subscribe and check out our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter profile