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 He emphasises that the reason why Union of Sovient Socialist Republic (USSR) was so oppressive that repealed egalitarianism is because of the authoritarian based political structure.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.