The Political Compass
‘Authoritarianism’ vs. ‘Liberalism’; ‘Left’ v. ‘Right’
If news media (and other media forms?) exhibit bias, how can we identify and critically understand it? A good starting point may be to identify our own social-economic-political bias.
ACTIVITY 2: Complete the Political Compass Survey to give you an understanding of left / right . . . authoritarian / libertarian . . . (link to test)
Post up the image of your results from the Political Compass and make some brief notes that show your understanding of left / right politics and authoritarian / libertarian forms of social control.
Libertarian
When it comes to social governance, Libertarians support total freedom of self-expression and the absolute disengagement of ‘unwritten rules’ from what a citizen is officially expected to do in her/his public or private life. People should be free to look, behave and socialize as long as they do not threaten of violate the freedom of others. Culture, sexuality, style, religion, beliefs should be expressed freely. In the political domain, there are elections or some process of switching governing bodies through some type of commonly agreed method.
Authoritarian
Authoritarians propagate the absolute control of morality and personal life by the state. Regulations pertaining to cultural, political, sexual and social expression define all aspects of public and private life. State dictates what is allowed to be said and not. Media, arts and public life are heavily restrained and censored. Those who violate the rules are punished. Power remains stable and concentrated and does not change hands through democratic processes.
Left vs Right Economic Governing
Socialist (left wing) ideologies
Leftwing (Marxist and Socialist approaches) support equal sharing/distribution of wealth and resources through large scale state interventions. Traditional Marxist views propagate that the state should control all means of productions – the factories would belong to ‘the workers’ – or their political representatives.
Socialist parties advocate the partial control of economy by the state. Certain industries and services are publicly owned (eg water, electricity, etc). Welfare state provides health, education, pensions, unemployment benefits and other form of support to vulnerable and less privileged citizens. These services are largely funded by taxes paid by individual citizens and corporations.
Neoliberal (right wing) ideologies
Neoliberal ideologies advocate the total privatization of the economy and the diminishing of the role of the state. Market will regulate itself and will expand without any restrains posed by laws, taxes and state intervention. This ideology highlights individual ‘liberty’ – which means unconstrained freedom but also personal responsibility for the production and the consumption of goods and services. Neoliberal thinkers support for example the privatization of services such as education, health, police, transport etc and the cancelation of the taxation that funds them.
A Word about Neo-cons and Neo-libs
U.S. neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the “free market”, in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion.