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Where do you score on this political compass/test?

There are a number of "Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Yes/No" questions.
 
Economic Left/Right: -5.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.26

which apparently puts me somewhere between Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. :boggled:
 
My computer skills are not that great, so I blew the posting of the chart. Ecconomic -10, Social -7.5.
 
Soapy Sam said:
I somehow lost the image.
On a 45 degree line from the bottom left corner, about 2/3 of the way up the green area, which I think would surprise most of my friends. I think where I might have chosen "Don't know or a middle choice, I went for the more liberal option as default. Two beers and I'd have been over near Pixymisa someplace.
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Interesting, sounds like roughly where I am.

Economic Left/Right: -4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.23


ETA: Next task is to find the last time I answered this, and see if anything has changed.

I wasn't quite sure how to answer some of the questions, or, rather, how the answer would be interpreted. I can see, for example, that one advantage of a single-party state is that things get decided more quickly. I don't for one minute wish I lived in such a place.
 
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Say for example, after taking the test, you turn out to be a Right Wing Libertarian, after the pole switch will you become a Left Wing Authoritarian.

Sarah Palin in some vaguely ethnic kaftan sticking flowers in the barrel of guns, marching on protests for universal, state funded healthcare, singing songs and carrying signs "Nuclear Power - Nein Danke".

Cameron and Osborn finally lay claim to their suppressed homosexual inclinations and become lovers, reintroduction of Comprehensive schools, re-nationalise the trains and power companies, beer and sandwiches become the order of the day at 10 Downing Street as they invite Arthur Scargill to re-form the NUM.

China throws off the Communist dogma and embraces the free market economy and becomes the world's leading econ........wait a minute...did I miss the Pole switch.
 
gumboot said:
Well how about we start with "the rich are taxed too much". I have major issues with that question. I've explained them - it's entirely dependendent on where you live and what tax rates are like there.
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Hmm, a fair point; it should indeed vary from country to country, although most western nations probably have tax rates at least in the same ballpark, I'd guess. It's difficult, since taxation of the rich seems quite an important defining issue of left/right, and I can't think of a better more universal way of asking the question. I suppose something like "the rich should be taxed considerably more than the non-rich" might be clearer, but it also waters it down somewhat.

Anyway, I suspect that there's an awful lot of people who would answer the question as it is the same way whether "the rich" were taxed 50% more or 50% less; some people want the rich to be very highly taxed, and some think they should not be taxed any more than anyone else.
 
Rat said:
Hmm, a fair point; it should indeed vary from country to country, although most western nations probably have tax rates at least in the same ballpark, I'd guess. It's difficult, since taxation of the rich seems quite an important defining issue of left/right, and I can't think of a better more universal way of asking the question. I suppose something like "the rich should be taxed considerably more than the non-rich" might be clearer, but it also waters it down somewhat.
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Actually my understanding is tax rates vary quite enormously from country to country in the west. I know that rates in Scandanavia, for example, are much much higher than here in NZ.

You're right too about the rewording not working so well - you could argue that a rich person paying 30% tax is being taxed considerably more than a poor person paying 30% tax.

I can see arguments both ways as far as the question of higher tax rates for higher incomes, so even with a clear-cut question like "should the rich be taxed at a higher tax rate than the poor" would give me trouble.
 
gumboot said:
Actually my understanding is tax rates vary quite enormously from country to country in the west. I know that rates in Scandanavia, for example, are much much higher than here in NZ.
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Yes, but practically all (income) tax systems have a principle of progressive tax rates, and in most (if not all) countries have made them less progressive in the last 20 or so years. That holds for the Scandinavian countries too. So while New Zealandic (?) taxes may be lower, they're lower for everyone. In that respect, I don't see much problem with the question. A New Zealander will compare the lowest tax bracket of 11.5% with the highest of 35.5% (wiki), while a Dane will compare the lowest effective tax rate of approx. 30% with the highest effective tax rate of approx. 45% (wiki). When you look at it that way, Denmark has a lower income tax structure than New Zealand. :)
 
Limited choices - where was "neither agree nor disagree"? I think I win although I'd have to say that age is clearly mellowing me!
 

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Pardalis said:
You guys think it's healthy to be that far on one side?
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Well, I have had a bit of a cough.

You almost seem proud of it.
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Not really, I thought it was funny.

I don't care where people want to place me, I am more of an issues person. My district just elected a tea partier to the US Congress. I don't care so much about where I am relative to my peers.
 
I asked because IMO when one is too far off on one side, the less likely that person is to ever be able to change its mind about anything.
 
ddt said:
Yes, but practically all (income) tax systems have a principle of progressive tax rates, and in most (if not all) countries have made them less progressive in the last 20 or so years. That holds for the Scandinavian countries too. So while New Zealandic (?) taxes may be lower, they're lower for everyone. In that respect, I don't see much problem with the question. A New Zealander will compare the lowest tax bracket of 11.5% with the highest of 35.5% (wiki), while a Dane will compare the lowest effective tax rate of approx. 30% with the highest effective tax rate of approx. 45% (wiki). When you look at it that way, Denmark has a lower income tax structure than New Zealand. :)
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That's still going to heavily influence how you answer that question though. My issue with the question (varying tax rates from country to country is only one example) is that a person answering it will be influenced by a huge range of variables that they can't possibly take into account.

For example a NZer might say the rich should be taxed more because they think the entire country's tax system is way too low. But they might not think that rich people should pay tax at a higher rate than poor people.

Alternatively you might come from a country with high tax rates and you might feel like the level for the rich is fine, so you say they shouldn't be taxed more, but you think it's too high for the poor, so you feel that relatively speaking there should be a big jump in tax rate from rich to poor.

The problem with the question is when it asks if rich should pay "more" tax, it doesn't indicate in relation to what? More than the poor? More than they do now? More than everyone else? More as an absolute value, or more as a percentage of income?

The question can be interpretated a multitude of ways, and each will give different answers. And many of the questions seem to be like that. If you're consistently interpreting questions differently to how the survey authors meant them, you'll end up with a grossly skewed end result.
 
Pardalis said:
You think being off the chart is a good thing?
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Everything I have seen in ther world around me indicates that the true answers are to be found down here in this corner.

Certainly better than being up there in the same corner with Thatcher and the Shrub.
 
leftysergeant said:
Everything I have seen in ther world around me indicates that the true answers are to be found down here in this corner.

Certainly better than being up there in the same corner with Thatcher and the Shrub.
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I think most people would consider it better to be somewhere around the middle. In fact I think that's pretty much the definition of the middle. Extremists at any end of the spectrum are seldom helpful.
 
am I wrong, or does this test seem to rate most folks as "Progressive Libertarians"?

which is kind of a contradiction, since many Progressives insist on government intervention & programs to push forward the Progressive agenda.

...including myself.
 
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