I have very often seen assertions from conservatives, fascists, and other people occupying the upper-right corner of the political spectrum, claiming that libertarianism is a left-wing idea, that libertarians are enemies of tradition and therefore leftists, and that judging right-wing status based on economics is nonsense. Could you tell me how to respond to such people?

Alexey Antonov

Any ideology is described in human language, and then the specific premises underlying the ideology are compared. However, for a clear comparison of many different systems of views, it is common to use a geometric metaphor, assigning ideologies numerical values on coordinate axes. Some use the one-dimensional “left-right” metaphor. Others prefer a two-dimensional one, such as the Nolan chart or other variations of the political compass. The 8values test is popular online, where we already have four dichotomies. In any case, these are all nothing more than illustrations.

Arguing about the most correct way to transfer libertarians from a two-dimensional compass to a one-dimensional segment—whether by cutting the economic scale, cutting the conservatism scale, or recalculating the values on both scales into a single figure—is roughly like arguing about which single word to replace the two epithets “brilliant” and “heroic” with in order to fit them into an ode praising a dictator.