Economic Political Spectrum Part 3: Not the parties, it is matter of civilisations

My spectrum, based on both civilisation and economic policy:





Finally, I would like to conclude the critique of Nolan's spectrum in this chapter. As a matter of fact, I would like to highly respect Prof. Nolan's work on his spectrum which clearly analysed the identities of conflicting ideologies among political parties, social classes, and various individuals throughout history. Also, his work successfully denoted and clarified the difference between economic liberalism and social liberalism, between traditional conservativism and business conservativism, between Marx-Leninism and Neo-Marxism, and between totalitarian socialism and social democracy by rejecting politics by the traditional one dimensional measure. Without a doubt, Prof. Nolan's work is simply splendid.

However, his analysis is entirely based on the outcomes that conflicting ideologies "wish" to bring. Although Nolan's spectrum enables to distinguish a domestic political conflict among various parties in the western society, it is less likely to indicate the average political slant in nations and the different cultural backgrounds. I was recently more convinced by "Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World" which more precisely denotes the outcomes all nations have achieved and the average of political slants and cultural values of politics in nations. The reason is because at least this spectrum shows the cultrual difference among civilisations. However, this spectrum abandons the perspective on each different economic policy and its priority. Furthermore, I insist that different perspectives on "the relationship between democratisation and its economic cost" and "macroeconomic aspect influencing on political environments" should be clarified as well by having mentioned in the previous chapter. Therefore, I interwove Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World with my own analysis my own new political spectrum.


Focusing on the political distinction among civilisations, in terms of the western value democracy based on the secular education system, which guarantees pluralism in self-expression, is the most civilised form of society and nation. However, some countries may be suitable to form a dictatorship, a theocracy, an anarchy or probably any other sort of alternative options. Prof. Nolan defined that more secular and democratised implies more people are liberalised and liberated by means of the social scale. Nonetheless, this aspect varies across each different civilisation and level of economic development. For example, some nations need a strong law enforcement and a huge government expenditure to bring a stable moral consensus and modern progressive secular-education. Also, although some nations become democratic they may face the fear of social unstability and stagnated economic development so that people might not be able to enjoy their liberty in life. Thus, having been analysed in Inglehart-Welzel's spectrum, the distinction in civilisations is far more valuable to take into the consideration.


Nevertheless, Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World has also a particular disadvantage to analyse economic sides of the issue. This spectrum assumes a policy is strictly rigid inside their cultural criterion. Also, this makes complicated to define "systems" these nations operate. For example, there is no doubt that countries within one cultural criterion share similar social and political values but they might have distinctively different systems of economic and social policy. Furthermore, Inglehart-Welzel's spectrum defines that "raionalism" mainly implies trading off between "secularism and traditionalism". Instead, I would like to redefine "rationalism" in terms of macroeconomic policy and pragmatism of national government. Furthermore, my spectrum took the choice between secularism and traditionalism out of the analysis because dictotorship can enforce either secularism or traditionalism and true social democracy should imply admitting the balance between secularism and traditionalism. In my spectrum, self-expression value is more likely to imply social democracy and servival value is more likely to imply dictatorship, however, I would like to also put emphasis on the economic cost to achieve social democracy. On the top of that, economic rationalism, not the cultural rationalism Inglehart-Welzel's spectrum shows, has a huge effect on economic development which is also the key for social maturity and stability.

Economic Political Spectrum Part 2: Rationality and Proactivism

Many politicians and political phylosophers tend to mention issues frequently in size of government, big or small, but rarely in rationality and proactivism. This fatal misunderstanding of economic policy is based on the fact they just tend to generalise economic policy down to microeconomics as majority of them lack of macroeconomic understandings. Some of them even categolise Kenyesian economics into the new deal liberalism or social democratic economics. However, this is entirely based on the historical fact that Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to the advice from Professor John Maynard Keynes in order to overwhelm great economic recession in 1929. However, Keynesian economic principle was not precisely about size of government and socialism because this is about the positive planning. The positive planning implies neither collective economics nor welfare state; this implises responsibility on "the macroeconomic climate" of both government and private economic agents. Prof. Nolan notoriously lacks of knowledge and sense of distinction between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Prof. Nolan should be critised about the aspect he categolised Keynesian as the economic leftist who supports "big government". However we must know big government merely implies microeconomic political issues such as wealth distribution through income tax, priority on efficiency to equity, which means subsidying public goods, high responsibility on individuals' living standard and habits, etc. Macroeconomic political issues, by contrast, imply the attitude toward price inflation rate and the form of "fiscal planning" which does not matter how the size of government is. Therefore, I have decided to create another dimension of scale in order to measure priority on possitive planning and economic rationality.


Focusing on the graph, the vertical axis denotes the level of rational attitude toward macroeconomic climate; the upper implies more proactive response to the economic cycle meanwhile the downer implies stubborn attitudes toward any situations regardless of both social-democratic interests and priority on productivity. The level of proactivism and rationalism varies across different perspectives on macroeconomic theories, and across different levels of economic development as well. More proactive government and private economic agents are keen on more flexible fiscal policy which implies fluctuant direct tax burdens (direct tax includes, income tax, corporation tax, property tax, etc). More stubborn government and private economic agents prefer keeping fixed fiscal policy which implies fixed direct tax burdens. Modern and developed countries with relatively more stubborn policy are more likely to respond on macroeconomic climate by the monetary policy rather than the fiscal policy, which is called the monetalist economy. Prof. Nolan categolised all these monetalist economy into the right wing economy, which means small government preference. However, this contradicts the fact althuogh Germany, for example, is one of typical monetalist economy driven countries, German microeconomy is operated under social-democratic interest. Even Sweden, one of the most typical welfare states, shows less stronger proacvtivity than France used to do; althuogh nowadays, in terms of the relative term, Sweden keeps a higher proactive economic policy than majority of European Union (EU) member nations.


Speaking of German stubborness, German economy has been able to be stablised without either an intensive fiscal stimulus, and German keeps the conservative (in terms of macroeconomic criteria) monetary policy which only concerns lowering inflation and does not have any accountability on economic climate. The reason is because German economy contains a strong productivity per person and per capital and society is highly stable and well-civilised so that it does not particularly require either stability based on dictatorship nor the proactive fiscal policy. People say that the main reason why Germany puts priority on keeping the inflation rate the lowest possible is because of the histrical factor that higher inflation encouraged Nazis coming into power. However, the fundamental reason is that West German economy has been exceptionally stable without interference of the fiscal policy. Furthermore, West German society was able to guarantee its harmony among citizens based on moral consensus and its high secular education level. Therefore, due to the stable economic surplus and social stability Germany has been possible to sustain its social democracy, which promotes an egalitarian wealth distribution and a high self-expression value.



The most intensive proactive and rational economic policy takes place in majority of emerging countries, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and European countries following Anglo-French model of macroeconomic model. The reason why emerging countries could achieve their rapid economic development and social stability is they have been so pragmatic about their policy making that stimulated a high and stable growth. These emerging countries combined the strength of dictatorship's high productivity and political and social stability which secures stable growth and peaceful environment. Government and private economic agents in OPEC are highly in charge of preventing economic cycle becomes fluctuant, which disturbs entire economic and social stability. As OPEC extremely rely on international trade and do not have any specific traditional industries unlike majority of developed or emerging countries except their oil reserves, the macroeconomic situation tends to be very fluctuant and uncontrollable by the spontaneous stabilisation so that they are inevitably required to hold a strong attention to the macroeconomic situation.


By the way, we must focus on the reason why distitute countries were hopeless to develop their countries. This is because they do not have any sense of economic rationale. Unless they are sure about economic rationale, both social stability and freedon cannot not be accomplished because their expenditure from both public and private sectors to social needs causes unexpected deficit. The flexible and rational fiscal planning is key to aboid unnecessary deficit. Expectation of economic growth is valuable in order to increase potential surplus and reduce deficit. Therefore, the pragmatic incentive to stimulate economic growth is more valuable than idealist social planning at the first stage.

Now, we must recall the aspect that there is a big government but not planned. The previous chapter explained "The big difference between USSR and other totalitarian states aiming a development dictatorship is whether or not government interaction into economy is rationally and positively planned." The rationally and positive planned interaction means government can plan its fiscal policy based on cyclicality of the business cycle, not on irrational political ideology. The Key to achieve economic and social development is to adapt to control economic climate such as gross domestic production level (GDP), price inflation rate, and average wage inflation rate, etc, which strongly affect on prospective further economic situation. As a matter of fact, the reason why many emergency countries are succeeding in their high and stable economic growth is their fiscal and monetary planning is harmonised with their business cycle. Under the situation that economy is underdevelopment and society is not stabilised, more dictatorship usually creates stronger progress because of the fact dictatorship can prevent unstable decisiton under democratic procedure. This also reasons the aspect, some developed countries remain indirect democracy, such as "First Past The Post (FPTP)" adopted in major Anglo-Saxon nations, and even transient democracy. In order to secure stability in both economy and society, it is generally inevitable to enforce either weaker democracy or dictatorship to bring stable decision and efficiency in industrial productivity.

Most of distitute countries's fiscal and monetary policy is not planned at all. These non-emerging countries tend to spend excess government expenditure on corraption, defence, unnecessary public expenditure for ideology, etc. This "unplanned but big" expenditure collapses both economy and social stability. Having mentioned in the previous chapter collective economy does not implies egalitarian income distribution, and self-expression value does not matter of egalitarian income distribution because it is simply a matter of maturity of economic maturity, and social stability. Prof. Nolan affirmed that stronger self-expression value induces the more egalitarian outcome of wealth distribution and social values, and therefore in the long-run this attempt induces healthy economic growth and social stability under an "ethically" good cause. However, stronger self-expression value can only produce this egalitarian outcome under the situation majority of individuals have a certain level of moral consensus and satisfaction in their average standard of living. By referring to United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), Vladmir Lenin and his followers provoked the world first communist revolution with Marxist cause of creating egalitarian economy and liberal and secular society. Nonetheless, USSR fell into secular but highly oppressive and anti-egalitarian nation. Prof. Nolan denoted in his political compass spectrum that this fact is because the system was originally created as authoritarian and people had not exactly been convinced of "fales-consciousness". His assumption has been highly contradicted because in fact USSR "inevitably" had to install the authoritarian regime because the original Marxist cause was not achievable through their collective economic plan to plot egalitarian wealth distribution and enforcement of secularism to secure moral consensus among individuals. It has been admitted that USSR in fact attempted to equalised wage level , keep everyone enjoying average living standard, and treat every proletariat individual as same citizen of USSR society. Despite this attempt, the required expenditure expanded infinitely relative to its fiscal surplus, the average income level dropped down dramatically because the entire economy became poor, and had to excessively spend for defence and law enforcement to stick to secure the original Marxist ideology. If USSR fiscal planning were more pragmatical and harmonised with natural business cycle, USSR would have achieved their goal without turning to be an irrational oppressive nation.


In conclusion, Prof. Nolan's political spectrum totally neglect that the possitively planned economy which Keynesian economists most notably put emphasis on does not imply the collectively planned economy. Having previously mentioned, neither size of government nor egalitarian wealth distribution is not correlated to the economic proactivism. The economic proactivism simply denotes the rational attitude toward economic cycle. As a matter of fact, many capitalist nations with small government policy, for example Singapore and OPEC, operate an intensive proactive economic policy. Stubborn economic policy, opposing to the proactivism, can be reasonable to operate if either economy or society does not particularly require interventions into. Furthermore, in late 20th century and early 21st century the world economy has enjoyed an exceptionally stable inflation rate so that majority of nations have not had to consider about a proactive and rationally planned economic policy with a flexible fiscal policy. So then, these nations have trusted on the monetarist theory which regards only the flexible macroeconomic policy about economic cycle is the monetary policy. Nonetheless, after the economic cycle ends the stable and the lowest inflationary period the whole world will not be able to be stubborn about the economic situation so that it will inevitably be required to reconsider the proactivism and rational planning in the fiscal policy.

Economic Political Spectrum Part 1: Big/Small Government no longer matters

Some people have found the result of the Political Compass Test (Prof. Nolan) tends not to be plausible to denote their actual political ideology. Some Conservatists tend to be judged as libertarian, majority of economists do not approve the questions about economic theory, people from outside Europe have found questions about social policy seem quite stereotypical, etc. The foudamental reason is that Prof. Nolan composed the spectrum by European liberal socialists' point of view. Furthermore, Nolan's spectrum contains little knowledge about economics. All in all, Nolan's spectrum ignores the fact sometimes individual liberty and egalitarianism need to be restricted for social and economic development, and the fact government responsibility on economic cycle is highly important measure to distinguish the scale of social and economic development. The most important aspect concerning critic of the political compass is the world is NOT homogeneous unlike Prof. Nolan inferred.



Having tried the Political Compass Test, I have realised Prof. Noral the author of this spectrum has little knowledge about "economics". The economic side of political compass test explains only classical philosophy of "economic ideology" and does not clearly indicate about "economic policy". This contradicts the fact that size of government, Big/Small government, does not in fact imply the level of egalitarianism provided by the government interaction. Then, Prof. Nolan interprets that the difference between two big governments, egalitarian one and oppressive one, is the matter of the "Social Scale" of spectrum, which means whether this government is authoritarian or liberal one. He emphasises that the reason why Union of Sovient Socialist Republic (USSR) was so oppressive that repealed egalitarianism is because of the authoritarian based political structure. Therefore, he insists if a communist state had more permissive social policy it would provide highly egalitarian society. However, this idea can be only accomplished only if social and economic structure is mature, peaceful, and stable. Some government and people in fact may need an oppressive authoritarianism with a strong law enforcement and a highly structured political system in order to provide stability and economic development although people inevitably need to abandon egalitarianism. Also, majority of people may not be well educated to bear responsibility on their political system.


In addition, Prof. Nolan does not mention about "development dictatorship" at all. Prof. Nolan might include "development dictatorship" in the economic right-wing scheme as same as western capitalist nations due to the strong aim to achieve capital development. However, this contradicts the factor some countries provide a huge public sector, strong government intervention into market, and a marginal level of protesctionism on foreign trade in order to accomplish an economic development. As a matter of fact, even USSR attempted the "economic development" to compete with capitalist nations and acheived quite notably high capital development even though it regarded of a communist ideology. The big difference between USSR and other totalitarian states aiming a development dictatorship is whether or not government interaction into economy is rationally and positively planned. According to an article on cyclicality of fiscal policy in "The Fiscal Study", rationality and positive planning are the fundamental key to distinguish emerging countries and undeveloped countries. The article affirmed that more sophisticated fiscal planning provides higher growth. In terms of Nolan's political compass spectrum, these two different kinds of totalitarian countries tend to represent the same position in the political spectrum. However, Nolan's spectrum does not account rationality of fiscal planning. Rationality of fiscal planning is beyond the size of government. I am going to explain further about rationality in the next chapter.


On the other hand, Prof. Nolan separated liberalists into two different categolires, Libertarian-left (Liberal Socialist) and Libertarian-Right (Libertarian). By observing statistics of political surveys, not so many people and politicians categolise themselves as libertarian (Libertarian-right), and many Conservatists tend to be categolised into libertarian or closer by "the Political Compass test". Libertarian and Conservatists (not conservatists) are quite homogeneous, and the difference in political ideology is slight. The reason is that Conservatists in fact consider social liberty is a vital factor to promote market competition based on meritocracy, and moral entrepreneurs are important as institutes to voluntary and spontaneously preserve traditional moral values. Libertarians also consider moral entrepreneurs should exist as parts of pluralist society. At the same time, both modern Conservatists (which does not include traditional cultural conservatists) and libertarians regard highly of rationalism and secularism in government and education policy, where the interaction by moral entrepreneurs takes place by each individuals' voluntary action under democratic society. Some cultrual conservatists in outside Christian society put emphasis on "unity of state and religion" are more likely to support dictatorship government unlike modern Conservatists. Majority of Conservatists tend to consider indirect democracy or even relatively transient form of democracy are sufficient in order to maintain political "stablity". So notable difference between Conservatists and Libertarians is Conservatists can be slightly more simpathetic to dictatorship than libertarian.


On the other hand, if someone puts emphasis on "social-liberty", s/he tends to be more economic leftist than other libertarians simultaneously. The reason is that in order to secure social-liberty a political system inevitably requires a regulation in economic activity through regulations or market insentives. Remember the world President Johnson's word "It is not enough to open the gates of opportunity; all our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates." If we expect to accomplish strong equality in opportunity in society it also eventually requires a higher equality in outcome. This certainly require a responsive government planning to economy. However, the level of government responsibility should be limited in order to avoid people in governmental authority gain too much power and turning to be totalitarian. In order to form an egalitarian economic system and social value, the system naturally requires to remain a certain degree of spontaneousity to enable people in common have the floor. Prof. Nolan seemed to claim stronger government control implies more egalitarian by observing his political compass. However, Scandinavian social democracy can be the most achievable egalitarian system. Communist or traditional socialist ideology will not be able to create a further egalitarian economic distribution and social value because these ideologies may repeal individual liberty, such as property right, to keep the collective distribution system. The bigger government authority may consequence to create a social inequality based on bureaucracy and social value may reactionally becomes authoritarian. The best alternative option for adopting liberal social value is a spontaneous wage collective bargaining through democratic government and stronger trade unions' wage bargaining power.


Nevertheless, this social democracy does not always mean the best economic and social system because democracy, pluralism, and stronger trade unions cause inefficiency in economic development. Social democratic system can be sustainable in stable and peaceful society with well-developed economy. Social democracy is economically highly costly without doubt escpecially for both emerging economies and countries under development. Strong wage bargaining power of employees can be distuptive for market flexiblity which enables economy to create a sufficient amount of profit. I do not criticise the fact employees must have right to obtain sufficient amount of wage in order to not only sustain their daily life but also enjoy a good cultural standard. However, excessively strong trade union power and unstable decision of economic policy under democratic system tend to stagnate stable economic development in countries under development. Under this step of economic development, rise in average wage level should be expected by economic growth, and it should enable entrepreneurs and government to hire employees in flexible conditions. Social democracy also implies society with high self-expression value, which is so-called pluralist society or liberal society. In order to form this kind of society, it requires high level of average modern and secular education level enough to enable individuals in society to be permissive toward different beliefs and moral values. Under a never-ending conflict among moral values and/or in deplomacy with inside and/or outside its governance, it may need a strong enforcement to secure social stability which enables people to develop their living standard through stable economic growth and level of intelligience through education.



All in all, I have decided to use one dimensional spectrum where social democracy is on the far left side and the dictatorship, both development dictatorship and USSR styled communism, on the far right side. On this spectrum, Conservative and libertarian are regarded to be allocated on between center left or center right. The reason I symplified the spectrum into one dimension is that it is matter of the "trade -off" between efficient productivity and egalitarianism. Dictatorship, regardless of the ideology, is more likely to be efficient in productivity as it regards highly of the factor "a significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system (Political Compass)", whereas social-democracy put priority on self-expression value and equality in income distribution rather than social stability and economic growth.