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Old 12-12-2004, 09:48 PM   #19 (permalink)
MSD
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The simplest you can get with the political spectrum is left=neo-liberal (referred to as "liberal") and right=conservative/classic liberal (referred to as "conservative.") A good step up is to leave that axis to deal with economics, and an up/down axis, up=authoritarian and down=libertarian, to deal with social issues.

-liberalism will be defined as the philosophy that the state should look out for individuals, and that high taxes, government control of industry and means of production, and redistribution of wealth are an appropriate way to accomplish this.
-conservatism is the opposite of Liberalism, preferring to leave the means of production to private entities, and to tax as little as possible, leaving charity to private organizations.
-authoritarianism is the belief that the state is more important than the individual, and therefore restriction or removal of rights and liberties is an appropriate way to accomplish this. This philosophy is often coupled with the belief that people are inherently bad and incapable of self-government.
-libertaranism (lowwercase "l") is the belief that the individual is the most important unit, and that the state should respect this, regulating behavior only to the extent that is necessary to disallow harming another individual

The two-axis system places Communism in the upper left (authoritarian, liberal); Socialism in the lower left (libertarian, liberal); Libertarianism (uppercase "L,") in the lower right (libertarian, conservative); and fascism (lowercase "f") in the upper right (authoritarian, conservative)

Another axis that can be added is Isolationist/Globalizationalist (I think I just invented a word.) To respond to Jizz-Fritter's post, Ideal Communism would most likely be authoritarian/liberal/isolationist.
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