The Real Political Spectrum

The Real Political Spectrum
by Matt Schnackenberg


There have been a lot of discussion around the internet as of late about the political spectrum and how everything falls within it. Unfortunately, there are many people who does not understand how the real left to right spectrum works and fall for the fictional one that the media spews.


The media only ever displays one massive falsity. The show a left to right graph where communism is at the left, moderates in the center, and Nazism/Fascism is on the right. This is not at all correct in any means. Libertarianism, Constitutionalism, Individualism, and Volunteerism are not “moderate” ideologies and therefore do not fall in between. Also, the section of graph they are taking and adding lies to is just a tiny part of the overall spectrum.


Leftists also argue an “incorrect” graph. I put incorrect in quotes because their graph is actually the European variation to the real graph, but reversed therefore it displays our left is Europe’s right. The only thing thing that is wrong with that is that they basically hail socialism as the road to freedom rather than communism’s younger less fascist brother. 


Realistically, the graph starts with 100% governmental/totalitarian ideologies on the left; ie Communism, Socialism, and Nazism which are fascist ideologies.  As the graph goes farther right the more freedom there is. French citizens are celebrating more freedom due to the political shift of moving back to a Socialist political system because Socialism is more right than Communism.

All the way to the right is anarchism, but is it the correct anarchism that people expect? Frankly no, the anarchism on the right is Individualism and Volunteerism. The founders of anarchism as its original root belongs is a variant of communism so therefore should be considered a more leftist ideology then they would wish to actually be considered.


Libertartianism and Federalism are basically the same ideology, but Libertarianism is a bit more right because it wants to restrain government farther than what the constitution should. Anarcho-Libertarianism, the belief Libertarianism is a bridge to the freer variants of Anarchism is of course farther right than either as it wants the death of government to happen when society is mature enough to handle it. 


Republicans and Democrats are closer together than one would think. Why is this? Simply put the Democrat Party was co-opted by Lincoln during the “Civil War” aka The War Against the Union. Yes, there are people in BOTH parties that believe in limited government, state rights, and the constitution, but they are the extreme minority. At the end of the day, until either are co-opted or die, they are virtually the same party down to the base platform.

Now here is where I will probably turn some heads, because the following paragraph might sound absurd at first. I want you, the reader, to actually take time to evaluate this in your head before even considering flipping out. 


The general belief is moderates are in between democrats and republicans in the spectrum. I disagree, highly. If I was to place them, it would be a bit farther right than Republicans. The reason I state this is very simple. They believe in a bit more individual freedoms than Republicans and way less restrictions than modern democrats. Most importantly, they do not believe in massive taxation and tend not to want massive expansions of government. That is not to say they do not want government. They are not libertarians in the push for limited or constitutional government. They just don’t want government the size the left wants, or the corporate controlled government the republicans do. They also tend to be against war. 


The true list is as followed starting with the far left or 100% authoritarianism to the far right where we find true individual liberty: Communism, Anarchism,  Socialism, Mercantilist, Green, Modern Liberalism, Republicanism, Moderates, Federalism (Classical Liberalism), Libertarianism, Anacho-Libertarianism, Anarcho-Capitalism, Volunteerism and Individualism all the way to the right being interchangeable for the most freedom. Please note, I did not list feudalism, monarchies, etc, because they are old ideas that are dying or just have remnants of them floating around the third world nations. 

Why Anarchists and Libertarians Need to Work Together.

In today’s media circus, It is a common that pundits call the Libertarian philosophy of limited government an “anarchist message,” because they cannot wrap their heads around the differences in philosophy. Unbeknownst to mainstream pundits, there is a difference between the libertarian philosophy and anarchist philosophy.

Those knowledgeable in political philosophies know that there it is a difference between the two philosophies. The Anarchist philosophy is the belief in no government; with believers want to see the state eliminated completely as soon as possible. The libertarian philosophy is to limit the size and power government has over the individual, without eliminating it completely.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a rift between Libertarians and Anarchists because of the differences in philosophy. Both sides believe in the non-aggression principle so arguments rarely escalate to violence, but even so both groups need to come together more in order to scale government down to the point where both sides can determine if or when to kill it off completely.

One argument I have heard from anarchists is that if enough people stop paying taxes, while stating their sovereignty, they will somehow be safe from the current state of world affairs.

Logically they are far from correct course of action. With the United States growing its totalitarian power anyone refusing to pay for the growing police state is bound to be thrown in prison for the rest of their lives without question. The private prison system would love to have a few more residents in their cells.

I understand that Anarchists believe government is evil, which it is, and hate doing anything involving government including voting. Here’s the thing, if you avoid all government interaction at this stage of the game, your fight to reduce and eliminate it is pointless. We need to scale government down at all levels; local; state; and federal. The only way to do this is if we run for election, and/or vote candidates that at minimum believe in limited government. The more libertarian and anarchist candidates scale government back the sooner the option to keep or eliminate government will come up.

Of course, educating the populace to understand the benefits of limited or stateless societies needs to happen while we scale government back. We need to educate as many people as we can so society matures to the point where it can manage on its own and survive when/if the thin wire of governance is snipped.

Let us work together, Libertarian and Anarchist, to tame the beast of government. Let us temporarily forget our differences, and bring liberty and prosperity back to this land once again.