Quote:
Originally Posted by White Fox
I am aware of the 4 way chart but I think that it is focused mostly on political issues instead of principles. My objective in redefining the left/right spectrum is to place these principles on a linear chart, which I think they work into nicely.
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But that in itself creates a problem. As stated before the thing that makes communism and fascism incongruent and contradictory to one another is the principles. But on your chart they show up in around the same area, as your chart only focuses on a certain definition of principles.
This is kind of a necessity to any typology, that it will give up full descriptive accuracy for the trade off of a simplified and communicable vocabulary.
But when it comes to political philosophy, I think the differences in sets of principles go in so many directions as to render just about any chart useless... including the 4-way chart.
The problem is that principles are neither static, nor are they always grouped together in a predictable fashion other than by the conditioning we have in politics. Most ideologies will have competing principles within them that do not always mesh and most will have some allowance for other principles that will occasionally clash with the core principles of the larger group.
The parties themselves are actually rather mish-mashed... and attempting to make them meaningful is an exercise in futility. Socialists and liberals are allies of convenience, not ideological similars. Same with the right-wing libertarians and social conservatives. Any connecting principles that occur are rationalized to support the alliances.
When it comes down to it, principles are mostly fudged... whether they are rationalized after the fact or supposedly derived first (which I'm usually skeptical of). The only meaningful way I've seen to classify politics is by the interest groups that make it up. And whether it's principle or interest that guides them tends to be largely irrelevant.