Communism-------------Liberalism---------Conservatism--------------Fascism

I find this left-right spectrum so confusing. There are so many problems with it. For one thing, the opposite ends are very, very similar - both communism and fascism involve beating the people with bludgeons, only under communism they are called "the people's bludgeons." Some people depict the spectrum as a circle, then, with communism and fascism converging, but that still does not cover all of the other problems with this old-fashioned model.

The biggest problem with this spectrum is that it fails to cover all political ideologies. There are many people who cannot be definitely placed at a point on this spectrum. I am admittedly one of these people. I support personal freedoms, so I must be a liberal. I oppose taxes, so I must be a conservative. I support land reform, so I must be a socialist.

Whole ideological categories, such as anarchism and libertarianism, do not exist according to the left-right spectrum.

I can go so far as to say that the very concept of a political spectrum of any sort - even that libertarian diamond floating around these days - is inherently constraining. One-dimensional spectrums force us to think in terms of false dilemmas. Two-dimensional spectrums force us to think inside the box. Political spectrums are used as political tools in two different ways:

1) To force us to think in terms of false dilemmas, theses and antitheses, without considering a synthesis - to glorify one extreme by demonizing the other.

2) To give a certain ideology the holy resonance of "the Aristotellian wisdom of moderation" - to give social democracy the label of "centrism."

So the political spectrum is political fraud.

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How many socialists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer: Why should they have to change it? The government should provide this essential service for free! And anyone opposed to this is opposed to changing light bulbs and advocates that poor people should sit in the dark!

A 1-Dimensional Left-Right spectrum makes sense consistently in only one way I can think of;

Left Wing refers to "overthrowing the existing social order"
Right Wing to "maintaining the existing social order"

Communists are left wing until they take power, at which point they become right wing. Funnily enough the Communists of the old USSR are now called right wing.

The classical liberals, who advocated the "perpetual revolution" of a free market in ideas, lifestyles, and economics, were properly regarded as the extreme left, until the socialists came to sit left of them, given their even more revolutionary views.

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He or she who supports a State organized in a military way – whether directly or indirectly – participates in sin. Each man takes part in the sin by contributing to the maintenance of the State by paying taxes.

~ Gandhi

Then the left-wing encompasses such a wide range of ideologies that it cannot be considered a single point.

Communists want to overthrow the existing social order. So do anarcho-capitalists. But the two are almost opposites. One advocates a totalitairan state, the other advocates no state. One advocates the abolition of property, the other advocates the entrhonement of property.

There is also classical anarchism, mutualism, individualist-anarchism, democratic socialism, and libertarianism which may be described as "left wing" by that standard, but are so different that lumping them all as the left endpoint of a spectrum is tantamount to madness.

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How many socialists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer: Why should they have to change it? The government should provide this essential service for free! And anyone opposed to this is opposed to changing light bulbs and advocates that poor people should sit in the dark!

All the anarchisms would be at the far left, presumably. Except maybe Hoppe's vision of a conservative anarchism.

Sure, it doesn't account for all that much, but a 1-dimensional scale never can. Similarly we can divide up the earth into girls and boys.

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He or she who supports a State organized in a military way – whether directly or indirectly – participates in sin. Each man takes part in the sin by contributing to the maintenance of the State by paying taxes.

~ Gandhi

actually i would revise this to
Liberals seek to "overthrowing the existing social order"
Conservatives seek to "maintaining the existing social order"

i'd say that left reffers to power to the individual, and conceptually communists idealized this, though they perverted themselves to be
right, referring to power to the state/society

rare is an individual who is all in one quadrant

The problem is still the same - the group that wants to "overthrow the existing order" is drastically divided as to what order should replace it.

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How many socialists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer: Why should they have to change it? The government should provide this essential service for free! And anyone opposed to this is opposed to changing light bulbs and advocates that poor people should sit in the dark!

The left-right spectrum serves an important purpuse in parliamentary democracies with more political parties than 2 as it gives voters a quick understanding of co-operation between parties. While it`s miles from "accurate" (whatever that means) it serves a purpose, simple as that...

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Knowledge is power. Hide it well.

It is fraud, though. It is a tool to classify some parties as "extremist" and other parties as "centrist," making people focus more on the party's position on an arbitrary spectrum rather than their actual platforms.

For example, there is an alternate spectrum floating around these days that is clearly bein used as Republican propaganda. It looks like this:

Totalitarian--------Democrat--------Republican--------Libertarian--------Anarchist

Do you see what I mean, now? This spectrum tries to give the Republican Party the holy resonance of the "wisdom of moderation." It is fraud, pure and simple.

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How many socialists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer: Why should they have to change it? The government should provide this essential service for free! And anyone opposed to this is opposed to changing light bulbs and advocates that poor people should sit in the dark!

That`s only if you consider the spectrum to be a sign of extremism-centrism. It does not have to be that way. As an example; Our enviromental whack-jobs are in the centre basicly because they can co-operate with both right- and left winged governments. Ideologicly, they are as extreme as one can get...

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Knowledge is power. Hide it well.

I don't think the political spectrum is political, I think it's an attempt at higher level classifcation of general political "chunks" that are intended to make discussion of politics more efficient, and decisions easier for people who don't have time to know what they want (sheeple). As you say, it's reasonable to suggest it falls short of that goal. Just as the food pyramid does, just as saying skinny is healthy, fat is unhealthy etc.

Do you think the average american would be better served by:

1. No spectrum/generalized classification
2. A more specific and complex spectrum/classification

You're right to suggest that such a generalized spectrum, with such poorly defined terms (liberal, etc.), is woefully inadequate to make intelligent decisions or discussion. Then again, intelligent discussions involving politics don't generally rely on either the spectrum you refer to, or the inadequate terms. Secondly, why would people who do not want to spend time gaining knowledge of politics or make serious decisions about how they want their government to function, care about having a good "spectrum" defined or not?

You can see this on the forums. Anyone bashing liberals is often asked to define liberal, since many of us don't know what they mean when they say it. We then ask "so who are these "liberals", and are can they be liberal on some issues and conservative on others?" It generally takes just a few questions to recognize no intelligent discussion can take place with such a limited toolbox, or worse, with such a limited user of the tool.

-Mach

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"Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat. Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there. Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there and shouting 'I found it!'"

I haven't read all of the other posts yet, so maybe something like this has been discussed

I think maybe your continuum should instead be a circle with communism and fascism meeting.

Edit- Looks like you did mention this.

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Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.
-John Stuart Mill

I think some spectrums may be useful in describing certain parties' general positions as long as the spectrum puts two truly opposite factors at the opposite ends. No false dilemmas, like liberty------equality, but actual mutually exclusive terms, like liberty-------tyranny or equality-------inequality.

Even such spectrums, though, are only useful in distinguishing the extremes. They are useless in distinguishing the "qualifying" positions - that is, the positions in between. For example, take the liberty-tyranny spectrum. Both modern liberals and olde-tyme conservatives would be somewhere in the middle, but they are different in their advocacy of tyranny - the former advocates the tyranny of the mixed economy, while the latter advocates moralism. We can split the liberty axis into a Nolan-style diamond, but then we would also need property axes, democracy axes, and a bunch of other axes to put all consistent ideologies as points.

So ultimately, to effectively reduce politics to spectrums, we will need crazy five or six-dimensional models that cannot be imagined by sane people.

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How many socialists does it take to change a lightbulb?

Answer: Why should they have to change it? The government should provide this essential service for free! And anyone opposed to this is opposed to changing light bulbs and advocates that poor people should sit in the dark!

I disagree. I don't believe that Leftists want to "overthrow" the existing social order, I believe that they only want to tweak it a little to make it work better.

On the other hand, Rightists are opposed to any change, be it good or bad, unless it means a profit in dollars. Rightists are perfectly willing to cut costs, outsource, ignore environmental guidelines in order to ensure that profit, with no ethical concerns about what evils may follow as a result of blindly only seeking pure and simple profit.

Blast! No!

Leftists do not want to "overthrow" the existing order, it's more a matter of tweaking.

Take feminism, not necessarily a leftist philosophy, especially since Communists, extreme leftists, I'd concede that Commies want to overthrow the existing order, were pretty uniformly opposed to feminism because they found it threatening to their own world order of male supremacy.

What has happened as a result of feminism? A tweaking, more female faces in places of power, more laws ensuring the equality of the sexes in regard to economics, sports, healthcare, etc., changes that obviously needed to be made to ensure the health of society as a whole. We have strengthened our culture by making moves to make women more equal to men. There is more to be done, but this will be done in incremental tweaks and everytime that occurs, we, as an entire society, will benefit.

Yes, Leftist close to the centre want to change it less than the extreme ones.

Or do no leftists want to overthrow the order entirely?

Oh please

Here's where the loony left meets the bible-bashing right, both wish to use government to instill morality in the corrupt masses. Maybe you can both have your way, and we can live in a socialist paradise where sex and especially homosexuality are prohibited. Then we can have a "strong" (meaning dictated by law) culture.

Feminism is characteristically leftist, and hey, whaddya know, feminism is about revolutionising the social order, shifting women up, ending millenia of inequality.

Ah yes, more laws "obviously" need to be made - what could be more obvious than the need for more laws. For the health of "society as a whole", my favourite meaningless phrase.

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He or she who supports a State organized in a military way – whether directly or indirectly – participates in sin. Each man takes part in the sin by contributing to the maintenance of the State by paying taxes.

~ Gandhi