I took this test of political orientation (hat tip: Althouse) and the results were no surprise: somewhat to the right, somewhat libertarian.
Here were my actual figures, and where I stand on the grid:
Economic Left/Right: 1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92
How about you?
The questions were a little vague for my liking. I took the test nevertheless and ended up somewhere in the Milton Friedman range.
I do like how the site explains that there isn’t a whole lot of daylight between Hitler and Stalin. A disappointing and shocking revelation to today’s liberals.
The test is loaded.. (as much as adorno loaded his crapola work)
from question 1 onward
(including lack of spell check)
If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.
a trans-national corporation is not a being, it has no interests but to make money for its shareholders, who are primarily all humanity. even a poor man in harlem collecting cans can afford one share of something a year and can buy them that way from various places (if they smoke, drink, and do without for a couple of days. if homeless can have blackberry cell phones they can buy a share)
its VERY loaded…
and VERY PC in which you WILL not get a valid measure if you answer truthfully based on empirical facts which do not reflect pc party selected approved positions
Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races.
I agree wholeheartedly.. when did a chimpanzee ever save a life performing open heart surgery? can we expect crickets to write their music to a score and harmonize with the katydids?
arent those races?
you see… if you really accepted the our as inclusive of all humans as a single race, then you would think my answers are the only ones.
howevers since the authors are playing socialist games, they assume that your not going to see yourself the same as the rest of the human race. so emphatically answering yes would not be considered the way i put above, but would make you a kkk grand poobah
it in effect is more a test of whether you know and align yourself with the diktat, and not whether you fall here or there in libertarian authoritarian positions. up is down, down is up, and so on.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
sure if you dont see men as your enemy and your a doctor fighting cancer…
No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it’s foolish to be proud of it.
ah… no its not, depending on whose borders your enclosed in.. and it ignores that people are proud of the culture and things that they created on that land, not the land itself without that promise
People are ultimately divided more by class than by nationality.
to answer that one you have to first accept that class theory is valid in how it decides to view the world. ie, the answer is ony within communism… if you dont see society broken down by set theory, and recognize a set is an arbitrary division of which you can make up literally infinite lines of division, you might not accept class warefare (war socialism) as a view of reality.
Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment, they require regulation.
who said they cant in a society where liability law is mature?
“from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a fundamentally good idea.
now, do you think agreeing with that would put you in the authoritarian place given thats where it puts you, or will they put you in the 180 degree oposite? thats where they put themselves when portraying what they are about
The freer the market, the freer the people.
again, they dont state from where they are scoring from. ie what basis is their reality. so if they are communists, they would say no.. but if they were liberatarians, they would say yes… now, scoring outcome would depend on what you agree with combined with what they agree with giving inverted answers
Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theatres or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis.
well this depends. if schools stopped dumbing down people so they blindly accept diktat and instant zeigiest then maybe such venues would be more profitable and maybe venues i wont mention would not be (and such problems then would solve themselves given public tastes and propriety at different levels of intelligence (and when people are watching))
All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
you see, i agree with that.. its better that murders, pedophiles, pederasts, sexual sadists and such who act out their urges should all be kept in prison with their own kind..
The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline.
are we talking learning to like the whip, or learning self control?
It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals.
anyone here want to inform the public as to the reformability of sociopaths, psychopaths, sexual sadists?
The businessperson and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.
that makes no sense since i am not the man running a command economy where i need to maximize something for some higher master in some context.
A same sex couple in a stable, loving relationship, should not be excluded from the possibility of child adoption.
this says nothing as to their actual natures. given how some partnerships of all kinds, lead to a multiplicative effect of nastiness, the question is unreal other than as a political nonsense
No one can feel naturally homosexual.
no one ‘feels’ naturally heterosexual either
its not a feeling, but you can have a feeling about something, which is not the same as it being a feeling itself
worse than astrology
I forgot to mention that I found the questions both silly and obvious in what they were getting at, as well as simplistic and misleading.
Still, I thought it was interesting that the results placed me about where I’d expect to be.
Economic Left/Right: 4.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.92
Artful, of course it’s loaded. That’s the point. Just answer the questions.
I’m just above you and slightly to the right:
Economic Left/Right: 3.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.15
Found the questions difficult to answer as they were, as pointed out by others, loaded.
That said, my results were
Economic L/R: 1.75
Social L/A: -2.25
Not the way I see my position. I call myself a small “l” conservo/libertarian, which I think would be more like 3.0 L/R and -4.0L/A.
Took it last week when Althouse linked to it, was within one square of dead center, tho the error bars had me leaning to libertarian/right.
Course, I was really playing around with some of the oversimplifications on the questions, deciding to interpret them as I saw fit rather than what they were (often quite obviously) aiming at. Maybe that confused it enough to plop me down in the middle, despite the error bars catching the correct leaning.
I was not allowed past the first page because I considered two or three of the questions ill-posed and refused to answer.
On a similar test in the past I’ve scored as a conservative-leaning libertarian.
I agree with the past comments: The questions are vague and loaded. And may I add, it looks as if they are purposely so, crafted so as to gauge the proximity of one’s political opinions to Libertarianism.
I ended up 1.9, 3.39 on their economic and social scales respectively. Can’t argue with the results on economics, because I’m not and never have been a dogmatic laissez-faire advocate (I believe the free market is generally capable of holding its own, but not always; and I believe in the necessity of protectionist policies to guard against external economic upheavals). What I’m surprised at is my relatively low score on the social front, because I consider myself a pretty strong social con (an inevitable result of being an Orthodox Jew).
I’ll say this for the test, however: In separating between economic and social views, it has the right idea. When people lump them together, it makes it difficult to understand how, for example, in Israel the majority are against an absolutely free market (as evidenced by the recent J14 demonstrations) while being hawkish in their foreign policy views. If anything, the test doesn’t go far enough, because it puts foreign policy views in the “Economics” rubric, which doesn’t do justice to the example I just gave.
Perhaps a three-dimensional compass would be better; more dimensions, even better, but they couldn’t be depicted visually.
Economic Left/Right: 1.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.56
Most questions are open to interpretation and, ummmm, nuance. (So sorry, Kerryesque liberals, we knuckle-draggers do nuance, too.)
For a great deal of those questions, the devil will be found luxuriating in the details. I may, and very often do, concur with something in principle, but I know (too) darn well how it would undoubtedly be implemented once power-hungry, smugly arrogant do-gooders get hold of it.
Many of these principles must be demonstrated in our experiences individually, and emphatically not as a result of coercion.
I came out closer to the center, albeit libertarian- and conservative- leaning, than I expected, because I answered based on principle as caveated above — not on probable outcome.
Given my score, the Democrats and media surely consider me a purebred, card-carrying, extremist, racist, terrorist, nazi, cannibal, zombie, teabagger, wingnut.
That said, I’m surprised and somewhat disappointed that I didn’t score “better” on the libertarian scale.
Economic L/R: 7.75
Social L/A: -1.51
Economic Left/Right: 2.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.26
Economic Left/Right: 4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.92
That puts me halfway to the right on the economic scale and just slightly below center on the social scale. I thought I was more libertarian that that. Maybe I’m just getting crotchety in my old age. (“Get off my lawn!”)
I also found that I had problems with the phrasing of a lot of the questions. If there had been a “no opinion/don’t know” option I would have answered about half of them that way.
The constant harping on “corporations” tells me that the authors are on the left side of the economic scale. One can be a free-market advocate without thinking that “corporations” should dominate society. Indeed, the interests of large corporations often coincide with those of the government more than with those of small businesses. “Corporatism” is pretty much a synonym for “fascism” and both belong on the left side of the economic scale.
Yow, I must be the nutjob here.
Economic Left/Right: 8.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.10
As noted above, a number of the questions are ill-posed, and depending on further ancillary information, could elicit a change in response from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree, or vice versa.
Still, interesting.
I like “The World’s Smallest Political Quiz”better – seems less loaded, and is easier to take!
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz
I came inside purple quadrant: economic: + 2.75; social: -0.51. I found some of the questions vague, and on only a few matters felt inclined to vote “Strongly agree” or “Strongly disagree.”
Took the test…
When I finished the program told me that I must be the last remaining Neanderthal.
*sigh*
I agree, Lulu. I first took that quiz about 15 years ago. I just took it again now and scored 80% Personal and 100% Economic.
The questions are simple and direct, with no beating around the bush. And there’s a “maybe” option.
I also didn’t care too much for the questions. This time I scored “Economic Left/Right:” 2.88 and “Social Libertarian/Authoritarian:” -1.44. That puts me somewhat right of center and slightly more libertarian than center. In truth, though, I could imagine answering many of the questions in different ways. I’d also seriously question their mapping of different social and political figures. As others have pointed out, the test’s premises are quite loaded.
Economic Left/Right: 4.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.46
Somewhere between Thatcher and Friedman. Could be in worse company.
Economic Left/Right: 4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.69
Right libertarian? Sure. Accuracy to two decimal places? BS!
Interesting to me how close I am to your score Neo, and also how after nearly 2 years reading this blog and reading all the books you and your readers recommend I am still a lefty (by a hair’s breadth):
Economic Left/Right: -0.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.13
And yes, the questions were silly, but once you accept their limited purview, it is fun to answer.
Maturation takes time.
Im such an extremist that I welcome Hoffa’s union thugs to come wipe me out. (Or to at least come and make an attempt!)
L/R: 2.25
L/A: -0.62
I’d like to take the test, but I can’t get over the fact that it was last updated on April 01, 2011.
The test is designed to produce a result. Here is a better test as it is short and to the point:
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz
Art is right – many of these questions came straight from the Adorno F-Scale (which I’ve taken – and it said I was a liberal!). For example, the question about the child needing discipline above all; the question about astrology; the question about the need for mature respect for authority; etc.
I didn’t think I would object too much to the phrasing, but it was pretty bad. Too many of the questions I could not give an honest answer to (I just had to make up an interpretation, pettifog a word, and go tepid whatever I chose).
So basically switch a point between neo’s score and that’s me:
Economic: 2.62
Social: -1.08
I generally find these kinds of surveys to be complete bullsh*t, and I dedicate a lot of my academic work to tearing them down, since much of the edifice of political science is built up around them.
So they found the Dalai Lama to be freakishly libertarian, for example, which he most assuredly is not (Buddhist asceticism is no joke). Kevin Rudd is supposedly on the “right,” as is Gordon Brown. Pope Benedict XVI is apparently a leftist.
How is it even possible to be as far toward communism as, say, Mandela is depicted as being, and yet to be more libertarian than anyone else save the Dalai Lama himself? George W. Bush is more of a “fascist” than Mahmoud Abbas (Robert Mugabe barely inches out Bush on that one). And why is Thatcher’s “dot” so close to Hitler’s? And how is Gandhi more libertarian than Milton Friedman?
I didn’t read the creators’ explanation, but the graph says all that needs to be said. When the results make a mockery of the obvious (Gandhi was not more libertarian than Milton Friedman; Thatcher should be nowhere near a Hitler “dot;” Bush should not be more fascist than Abbas; etc.), as all of these efforts to re-invent the Adorno F-Scale wheel do, well… it’s because their model is a piece of crap that was never designed to be accurate.
Economic Left/Right: 0.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.74
I noticed that none of the contemporary leaders are in the same ideological quadrant as I am. No wonder I’m dissatisfied with all of them, and any plausible alternatives among opposition politicians!
I too found some of the questions poorly framed. Such as “Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory.” They don’t say at what level? Primary school? High school? I think at some point high-school classroom attendance should not be compulsory; the kids have to learn to take responsibility sometime.
My coordinates are:
Economic Left/Right: 6.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 5.38
That is, slightly to the right of Thatcher. And I must agree that school attendance must be compulsory in primary school, but in high school only teacher should be allowed, with consent of parents, to give some pupils the right to skip some classes.
As all other attempts to make social “science” look scientific, this measure is futile. Probably, any other will be futile, too. The very definition of “left” and “right” is questionable and applicable, at best, only to Western tradition. So to look for a place on this axes for Gandhi or any Arab leader is beyond laughable. And to me Hitler is uber-left, not a bit “right”. Again, to confuse nazism with fascism is an obvious fallacy of leftist ideology. Many prominent fascists, like Franco, Mannergeim or Mussolini, were rather decent and sympathetic persons (for me at last), which I can not say about any Nazi.
Lulu, Parker,
That other test looks a lot better. Placed me 20% on the Personal scale, 70% on the Economic, with the verdict of “Conservative.” But it asks too few questions IMO, and suffers from the same problem of having too few dimensions.
And I think Sergey is spot-on in his second comment. Though, as a minor quibble, I see Nazism as neither pure Left nor pure Right, but a hybrid, partaking of some characteristics of that side, some of the other side.
The best measure of a person’s political stance is to ask him where he stands on each political topic. But that’s too hard for our soundbite, fast-food, microwave oven, instant-coffee, get-rich-quick era.
Economic Left/Right: 2.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.95
Looks like I was close to Neo…doesn’t surprise me. We seem to agree on a lot of things.
Economic Left/Right: -5.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.33
I’m on the “Gandhi” side of things. I suppose I should be flattered, but in reality I’ve never been a social justice activist.
Heh:
The second test I got “liberal”. Woohoo!
In reality I favor strong families and usually support the military. If I’m a liberal, I’m a 60’s Bob McNamara type, not a “progressive” identity politics type.
The questions were , indeed, ambiguous. I viewed the “attendance should be mandatory” question as being against the right of homeschooling, and I strongly support home schooling because the public schools are often such a mess. So I “strongly disagreed” there, which doesn’t mean I don’t think all kids should be required to get some schooling (home or public or private) and maybe pass some nationwide qualifying exams.
Ahh, well. Interesting thread.
On Lulu’s and Parker’s shorter test, I scored 50% Personal and 100% Economic.
Economic Left/Right 7.5
Social Libertarian/authoritarian -1.44
Friedman territory as expected.
Wow, I’m surprised. I thought all of you were supposed to be libertarian tea partiers, but it turns out I’ve scored more libertarian than anyone else:
Economic Left/Right: -0.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.15
Possibly because I’m an economist who believes in abortion rights, drug legalization, gay rights, etc…
I’m with gs. Some questions were so ill-posed I can’t place any value in their response, so I stopped.
On the second quiz I got a 90/70, but kind of wish there was a larger scale than agree/maybe/disagree. I put more maybes than I liked, because in some topics there exist specific situations which would be contrary to a blanket agree/disagree.
My scores:
Long quiz: 1/-1.69 Barely right, barely libertarian
Short quiz: 80/80 Center, solidly libertarian
One incredibly stupid waste of time. Is that the best they can do in crafting questions? I have no doubt that some of the supposed answers have nothing whatever to do with my attitudes about the role of govt in the subject matter asked about.
The assumptions underlying a lot of the questions are an indication of a really small mind.
Alex,
I’m surprised that an educated person would find the results of any value.
Usual loaded questions. I ended up with:
Economic Left/Right: 6.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.92
Not surprised by the first result. Thought I’d rank a bit further down the libertarian scale.
I was 2.75 economic right, -1.59 libertarian. Nearly everyone here was in the same quadrant, probably the differences in magnitude were mostly due to how often people used “strongly” agree or disagree. Hopefully everyone sane *strongly* disagreed with “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”.
And yes, it doesn’t really mean squat.
FWIW, I was closest to texexec and kolnai. Will have to give extra weight to their posts now :^).
I don’t remember — or really care, honestly — about my scores but I scored a bulls-eye on Friedman. Even with the hopelessly vague and loaded questions I’ll take it.
And I found it both sad and funny that none of today’s “leaders” even got close to my (purple) quadrant. Must have been all my racist, homophobic, knuckle-dragging responses.
Fascist! I scored -5.08 on the Authoritarian/Libertarian scale. 😉