Brian Leiter (who has an excellent post on the US Philosophy hierachy) wants more blogistan philosophers to take the political compass test. Like many young philosophers, I do whatever Brian Leiter says I should, so I took the test. My results are:
Economic Left/Right: -0.75
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.64
For some reason negative means left/libertarian. I think this reveals a deep, possibly Freudian, bias on the part of the testmakers.
I’m not very sure about the utility of these markers. This is a point Matthew Yglesias has made several times, but its worth making again. If you thought a 1D graph obscured things, youll probably think the 2D graph isnt much better.
I tend to have fairly extreme economic views, for instance. I tend to favour what are (at least by American standards) extremely pro-union, pro-worker positions. I think the minimum wage should be $8 to $10, for example, and I think it should be much easier to unionise than it currently is. Im happier than most to resort to regulation at the first sign of market failure. So I favour pretty tough labelling laws, smoking bans in workplaces, etc. But Im also strongly free-trade, especially when it comes to being opposed to tariffs. (I’m more willing to go along with political boycotts, e.g. of South Africa during apartheid.) I dont think a tax that discriminates between people who buy goods from other countries and people who dont is morally defensible, whether or not its economically useful. (It isnt, but thats somewhat beside the point if its immoral.)
But do I come out as an extremist here? No, my extreme views balance out by their lights. Its not as if this is a particularly original position – in many respects my views are just those Bertrand Russell had at a similar age – but it doesn’t fit naturally on their graph. So I turn out to be a moderate. Cest la vie.