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flaja · Joined: 25 Jul 2007 Posts: 2

For quite a while now I have been researching the political spectrum in hope that I can someday set up a web forum that will be based on having participants take a test to determine their political views and then limiting membership so no part of the political spectrum can dominate the discussion.

However, establishing a political spectrum is easier said than done because so many positions overlap. It is difficult to use the linear spectrum that I was taught in AP European history (communist, socialist, liberal, conservative, reactionary, Fascist)- if you include the libertarians. This is because the libertarians and communists have several common positions.

Note: by communist I mean what Karl Marx said he wanted; I am not talking about things like the Soviet Union because they are not communists in the Marxian sense; they never achieved true Marxism.

Libertarians and communists share at least 5 common positions on the left of the spectrum:

1. Traditional societal institutions (marriage, family, church etc): they both see such institutions as limitations on the personal freedom of individuals and would either deny them the protection of law or abolish them altogether;

2. Economic markets: Neither libertarians or communists support any kind of regulation (communists actually reject the idea of economic markets, but the net effect on the economy is the same- no one can insure product safety and effectiveness or insure safe working conditions);

3. Economic planning: in practice libertarians favor centralized planning by corporations (just consider Wal-Mart’s power to decide what products you can buy), while communists don’t directly address this issue in their seminal documents, in practice centralized planning would be conducted by the proletariat;

4. Human nature: Both libertarians and communists have the least understanding of human nature. Libertarians believe people will fairly compete with each other to maximize their individual self-interests and communists believe that humans will freely cooperate with each other in order to maximize their collective self-interests.

5. Nation state: Both libertarians and communists see the nation state as unnecessary.

Libertarians and communists share 1 common position on the right: government. They both see government as a tool for restricting personal freedom of individuals. This is to the right of the political spectrum in that conservatives see government as necessary but should be minimal and socialists want to give government the greatest amount of power possible.

There are only 4 issues (as far as my existing research can tell) for which the communists and libertarians have positions that are polar opposites:

1. Property ownership: Libertarians see no need for public property (in their hypothetical state of nature) while communists see no need for private property (in their hypothetical society that is under the dictatorship of the proletariat);

2. Individual’s obligation to society: Libertarians see no obligation that society can impose on an individual (in terms of things like health and welfare), while communists believe each individual is under total obligation to society in that he has no right to retain his labor or his intellect for his own personal use;

3. Society’s obligation to the individual: Libertarians see no societal obligation to any individual in terms on of things like health and welfare, while the communists believe all of society is obligated to insure the health and welfare of every individual;

4. Material gain for the individual: Libertarians want to maximize each individual’s material gain to the extent unregulated market forces will allow (meaning wide gulfs between poverty and wealth), while the communists want to nullify individual material gain by making that gain equal for all individuals.

So any libertarians that wishes to call himself a conservative, should consider what he has in common with the communists.