How we view the political spectrum is wrong.
It should be a circle, and here’s why.
This is the traditional political spectrum, as illustrated by the political right. There are numerous problems with this, but we’ll get to some of that.
One of the issues we have in looking at politics between the left and right is definitions. Both sides define the various types of political systems in different ways, each in a way that’s more favorable to their own worldview and unfavorable to their opponents.
Typical politics, huh? Unfortunately, true.
Why “unfortunately”? Well, because both are always leaving something out.
But before we get to that, let’s fix that chart, shall we? Take a good long look at it. Forget the political system labels, look at the three labels below the chart. “Slavery” twice, and “Freedom” once. In the middle.
Misleading to say the least. Let’s try this:
What’s different? Not only the shape, but the labels. In human history, it’s clear that the political systems governing our various countries, empires, and what-have-you have always varied between giving the people thus governed sometimes more and sometimes less freedom — however you define that. So, how do you define “freedom”?
Dictionary.com defines it like this:
1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
4. political or national independence.
5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: The formerly enslaved seamstress bought her freedom and later became Mary Todd Lincoln’s dressmaker and stylist.
6. exemption from the presence of anything specified (usually followed by from): freedom from fear.
7. the absence of or release from ties, obligations, etc.
8. ease or facility of movement or action: to enjoy the freedom of living in the country.
9. frankness of manner or speech.
10. general exemption or immunity: freedom from taxation.
11. the absence of ceremony or reserve.
12. a liberty taken.
13. a particular immunity or privilege enjoyed, as by a city or corporation: freedom to levy taxes.
14. civil liberty, as opposed to subjection to an arbitrary or despotic government.
15. the right to enjoy all the privileges or special rights of citizenship, membership, etc., in a community or the like.
16. the right to frequent, enjoy, or use at will: to have the freedom of a friend’s library.
17. Philosophy. the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination.
Whew! That’s a lot! Which is why I used different terms.
The American Right Wing prefers to use “Freedom” a lot. Especially now that it’s demonstrating a clear preference for Autocracy. But this is about politics in general. Not a specific political system, which are always going to use differing definitions of “freedom” and what that means in their particular system. Not to mention how they want you to think of their system.
So, I’m going to use political terms to describe political systems, and economic labels for economic systems.
So, now we’ve got Democracy vs. Autocracy. Both terms describe a wide spectrum of political entities. They range from systems that encourage citizen participation with little centralized authority or combined systems like the British and their Parliamentary Monarchy on one side with systems like North Korea or, say, Hungary, on the other.
But as opposed to the “traditional” spectrum above, you can more clearly see how there are actually two economic approaches between the polar opposite types of political systems. That “traditional” chart fails to show that, and makes one think that one end is like the other. That end point may be, but the two differing approaches are very much separate types of economic structures.
For instance, in the first traditional chart, you see what I call two anomalies. First is the label for Naziism next to Fascism, with the latter further towards “slavery”. While one can argue over it, the fact is that Naziism gave birth to Fascism, and is the actual beginning of it. The two are hardly that far apart. I would also argue that Fascism did not put the Germans or Italians into “slavery”, as such, but Monarchies (and Imperial systems with monarchial emperors) actually did sometimes make common people into literal slaves.
On the other end, the second anomaly is between “Socialism” and “Communism”. The placement of either one here is historically and definitionally wrong. Communism is not a political system, although within its philosophy it does decentralize authority. Similarly, Socialism isn’t a political system at all, and can be (and is currently) being used by completely different and opposing styles of governments, either Autocratic or Democratic. The entire reason either is placed there is because the Right Wing in the US always sees those as having been used by the USSR and the “Communist” China.
For a similar reason, I didn’t use “Capitalism” on this chart — because it, too is an economic system. Like Socialism, it can and is, used by both Democratic and Autocratic systems. Like Socialism, there are elements of it which can be manipulated to cause that particular system to move more towards Autocracy, yet aren’t in and of themselves, autocratic in nature.
You’ll also notice one other strange thing about that “traditional” chart — everything on the right is a political system yet on the left, they’re all (except liberalism) economic systems. Hmm, I wonder why that is?
But the historic facts are clear. The USSR — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — was never a “Communist” country. They used that label to gather supporters during the Revolution, but when they put their government into place, they used “socialist” in the name — because that was the economic system they copied to their own devices. The excuse was that socialism was merely a “path” towards an eventual “communist” utopia. Yeah. Sure. We saw how that turned out, didn’t we?
China was no different. Both countries were governed by what were clearly Autocratic governments, which in spite of sham “elections”, never truly gave their people any real voice in governing themselves. Both focused on doing what the monarchies before them had done — steal the country’s wealth for those at the top.
But, today, in Europe, numerous countries are using socialist principles in designing and handling their economies, using Democracy as the guidance for who actually controls the rules. All have been magnitudes better managed and successful, economically, than either the USSR or China ever were or dreamed of being. Of course, along with that, Capitalism is an integral part of those economies, also. They just try to balance the two economic philosophies for the best results.
So, now what? Let’s look further at my new chart.
At the top is Democracy, and at the bottom is Autocracy. You can split the circle into two halves, but really, it’s more of a continuum between the two. The further to the left you go, the more “Socialist” you get until you hit about 9:00. To me, that indicates a more centralized system, with Democratic elements of control. On the right, you move towards Capitalism on the right till you get to about 3:00. Pretty much the same, with a balance between Democracy and Capitalism similar to on the other side at 9:00.
In doing this, you don’t eliminate Socialism in a Capitalist system (we do use city owned police, don’t we?), nor do you eliminate Capitalistic ideas in a Socialistic system — again, private ownership of small business is always allowed and welcome, right? In both directions from 12 noon, it’s a continuum, with elements of each on both sides.
But if you move either side more downwards, you are introducing Autocratic elements into your system. More control from the top and less for the people. That goes pretty much either way. Any economic system can be placed at any point on this circle that fits its placement between Capitalism and Socialism according to the political system that controls it and how far towards the bottom that political system fits on that circle. That is going to vary a lot, depending on the country in question.
While I didn’t use the labels “Capitalism” or Socialism” physically on the chart above, they do actually belong there, but as literal “side” elements. One is an approach that uses private enterprise to benefit society and the other uses public entities for the same purposes. They combine themselves on this chart positionally to illustrate how they are controlled by the political system they’re integrated with. For instance, the European countries which heavily use Socialistic principles in controlling their economies, also use Capitalist elements, and they are equally important in how they operate, so those countries strangely belong on a line somewhere between 8:50 and 9:10, depending on how much of each economic system they use. You can’t just stick them on a spot and call it done.
My point is that you cannot simply define someone’s political philosophy by their economic philosophy. The two are quite different animals. It doesn’t matter if you have a Capitalist economy or a Socialist one — if you remove the ability of your people to have a say in how you govern that system, you are an Autocrat — left or right doesn’t matter. Autocracy is Autocracy, whether you approach it from the left or the right. The end point is the same — you end up with something very similar to North Korea.
(Oh, and that “anarchy” thing? That’s clearly NO GOVERNMENT — so it really fits into the center of the circle, wouldn’t it?)
At least in the United States, what we have to fight for now is the pernicious efforts of the Right Wing to educate the American public to think like the right wants them to think — so they can gather more power, in part to disadvantage minorities and “immigrants”. (As if doing that to immigrants has ever worked out well in this country.)
Progressives in the US are far from being “Socialists”, as they are accused of being by the GOP. If the European Socialist parties are somewhere between 8:45 and around 7:30 over there, in the US, Progressives are only around 8:55 — maybe 8:50. But the Democratic Party is around 1:00! Clearly right of center (or in this case, 12 noon.).
Hardly the stuff of “slavery”, huh?
Now, don’t get me wrong. This is the US, where anyone can believe whatever political crap they want to, and I’m sure just like there are plenty of Hitler wanna-be’s out there (Trump!), there surely are some folks out there who have someone like Lenin in mind.
But I assure you, both of those want the same thing, and it ain’t “dictator for a day”! They’ve just got differing approaches as to how to get there.
