Any of you try the political compass website?

It's kinda fun to try out and see what you get.

Politicalcompass.org

 

Interesting that some of you might see my views as communist leaning and I might see some of yours as fascist leaning. And yet, not a one of us yet came out on the authoritarian half of the map. So maybe we're all misunderstanding each other a bit.

Anyway, thanks for participating

 

I'm a fascist?

Hitler was located well up in the authoritarian area mildly to the right. I am in the right of the mildly libertarian area. Hitler and Mosisili (probably since he’s not on the chart) were about as far from libertarianism as you could get, as are you.

You position is well into the extreme left, well away from libertarianism.

I don't know how you could be a communist and not an authoritarian unless it’s the final stage of communism that promised that the central government would disappear because it wasn't needed. To me that was just communist propaganda that was met to an opium for intellectuals who were not comfortable with the (temporarily???) authoritarian state.

 

My apologies, no offense meant. But I feel like you should know, my graph is read extreme left, extreme libertarianism. The x axis is left/right and the y axis is authoritarian/libertarian. So actually, even though you still fall on the side of libertarianism, your beliefs are far closer to that of an authoritarian state than mine.

To get more technical, the left/right only represents economic beliefs, while the up down represent authoritarianism and libertarianism on social issues.

But I guess that's what I'm trying to get at. I have "far left" beliefs, but I'm not considered a communist. Probably because I came down so hard on corporations in the questionnaire while also being very for individual people liberties.

 

You can’t be far left and libertarian in my opinion. “Far left” says big time government intervention. Libertarians want as little government as possible.

 

Well, I don't know what to say other than your point is objectively flawed and one dimensional.

I want as little governmental intervention as possible in personal liberties (say abortion, drug policy, criminal justice being focussed more on rehabilitation than punishment, etc.) While simultaneously controlling large corporations heavily.

 

The alternatives to big corporations is big government owned companies, which can be far worse because they have no checks other than other government officials.

When I was young, I thought I was a “liberal - libertarian” which I discovered was a an oxymoron.

 

We can have big corporations, I would just like to see them heavily taxed and regulated (especially environmentally). That way their profits can actually benefit all Americans instead of being hoarded.

 

You would like to see them “heavily taxed.” Do you want to them compete in the world, or do you want to shut down the U.S. economy? If so, that is a way to bring on massive poverty through taxation.

Maybe you should should study how the Swedish economy, which is supposed to be “socialist.” The truth is they have high taxes, and a big safety net, but they are less effected by government regulation than we are. In fact they have made a big deal of saying, “We are not socialist.”

 

I believe they have a great society structure, and of course they're not socialist, they just employ many democratic socialist policies. I would love most of my paycheck to go to taxes if it meant in return we could build a better safety net for everyone, like Sweden does.

 

The first step for that is to back off excessive regulation and taxation, as opposed to what the Obama administration did. You cannot act like a socialist and expect capitalist results.

 

I'm not understanding how the first step to raising taxes on everyone is backing off taxation.

 

Taxes take money away from companies and sole proprietorships which lowers their ability to to hire more people and pay more. I understand your attitude if you got an arts and science degree. You probably have been taught to dislike business owners. The small ones provide 50% of the jobs. You I’ll them, recovery is impossible.

 

They already pay ludicrously low taxes. Is the current state of things supposed to be the prosperity that trickle down theory brings?

 

In California, you can pay over half of income in taxes. Is that not enough? How much of your work and your time should be taken by the government? What makes government so virtuous? When government taxes too much, it's really no different from slavery. They are taking what you have earned.

Do you really want to go back the days during the Great Depression, the 1940s, '50s and early '60 when the marginal Federal Income Tax rates were as high as 90%? Given that is it any wonder the Great Depression lasted as long as it did?

Quite often the people who make the most money are the people who know best how to invest it. Even if they don't do that well, they are the people who spend a lot money which drives the economy.

It seems from the results of this compass test that you are a socialist. If so then you need to study what that involves. Under socialism, the price rationing function does not drive economic activity. Central planning boards do it, and they have to get the right goods in the right place at the right times in the right quantities. That is a huge responsibility, and countries that have had that system have often failed. At the best their citizens live with chronic shortages. At worst civil society breaks down and you have chaos.

 

Would you rather your leader "slave" master as it were be a government that in principle is for the people by the people, or a corporation who that's for the profits by the shareholders? Because that's the dystopia we currently are ourselves in. Why would corporations be virtuous? Genuine question there.

If the rich people spending money drives the economy so much, why does a pandemic effectively destroy it? I submit that the true drivers of the economy are the laborers, not their ultra rich leaders. It's their work and hours driving the economy at it's core.

As for a return to great depression. It was largely FDRs policies, some of the most socialist policies we've ever passed, that recovered the economy.

As for the compass, try left-libertarianism. I don't agree with everything he said, but Noam Chomsky is probably one of the closest people to my beliefs for example.

 

I don't put blind trust in the corporations or the government. The trouble with government is that it has a monopoly and police power that is hard to oppose. With corporations, you can choose not to buy their products which prompts the smart ones to please the consumer. The losers go bankrupt.

With government you only have the vote and the courts. If the vote is corrupted or the courts end up in the hip pocket of crooked politicians, you are screwed. That's why you have democracy and multiple parties to keep government under control as much as possible.

You accuse me of worshiping corporations, which I don't. How about you and government? You seem to act if it can do no wrong, and you want to give it as much power as possible.

This gets back to the old argument that Marx made that all value comes from labor. It doesn't. It's based on supply and demand forces. A laborer can work his or her butt off, but if what they make is something no one wants, it will have no value.

Marxists give no credit to entrepreneurship when it is one of the most important factors in producing new goods and services for the consumer society. They also give not credit to labor management which is required to get things done. Do you think that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were unimportant? Why do you think that Communist China has to steal so many patents and ideas from the U.S. and other western nations? It’s because their system kills innovation.

The old Soviet Union was the same way. It finally sank under the weight of its inefficient bureaucracy, corruption and lack of freedom that it granted to its people. Stalin created a slave state. Even the Socialist Workers Party made that point. The corrupt leadership that followed him slowly strangled their own system.

No, World War II ended The Great Depression. The best thing FDR gave the people was hope with his "What we have to fear is fear its self" statements. Despite his best efforts, there was another bad dip in 1937. That sent a lot of intellectuals off on a communist - socialist tangent.

They thought "FDR had tried to save capitalism, and he has failed. Now it's time for the centrally planned system where the best minds will avoid the pitfals." The trouble is no one man or even a group of talented men are that good. The economic system is too complex for the central planning boards to manage.

FDR's second term was pretty much of bust. His plans to pack the Supreme Court were rejected, and his economic policies had failed because he raised taxes too much and over regulated the economy. The Supreme Court did him a great favor when it struck down the NRA, but he was too blind to see it.

World War II got everyone back to work by necessity. They were either fighting the war or building goods at home to fight it. When the war was over there was huge pent-up demand and a lot of savings because most consumer goods, including new housing and autombiles were not available during the war. The economy boomed and aside from some hiccops has generall done pretty well.

 

Here's my problem with this, our government is incredibly corrupt and I don't mean just this administration. I mean Republicans and Democrats alike, an overwhelming majority of politicians are bought and paid for by the super wealthy and corporate interests. We already have a system where we let the corporations monopolize the rules to squash small business and maximize profits.

No one is innocent in this either. I may miss some things about Obama, but I abhorred his coziness to corporate executives.

I'm not sure your comments about China are especially fair, they develop plenty of new technologies. In cell phones for instance, there are a few companies like Huawei that develop prototype phones. Want to know what kinds of features will be included in the newest smartphones 5 years from now? Take a look at what Huawei is making today. But I digress.

WWII may have helped solidify America's economic standing, but most economists agree the end of the great depression and start of the recovery phase was in 1938.

I will however concede, that even scholars with advanced degrees in economics are not in agreement over what exactly ended the great depression. Indeed, there's a prominent debate in those circles on if FDRs policies contributed to the extension of the great depression. Given the scholars can't agree on this one, we may need to call it a draw.