The idea for this text has been floating around in my head for quite a while, because I really dislike it when words lose any semblance of meaning and turn into simple labels, like the Blues and the Greens at the Constantinople Hippodrome. What is the difference between them? Well… uh… some are blue because they root for the Blues, and others are green because they root for the Greens, makes sense, right? Patsaks and chatlans, as is well known, are not nationalities, not professions, not races, and not religions; they are simply patsaks and chatlans. In the same way, over the last hundred years or so, the meaning of the words “politically right” and “politically left” has undergone total and absolute erosion. It’s not even that the radical right and radical left essentially do the same thing (shedding rivers of blood / calling for them to be shed), as the famous horseshoe theory teaches us. It’s not even that anyone at all is called “left,” right down to the insane regime of the ayatollahs who hanged communists and gays with crane trucks, while the entire Western LGBTQA+++ agenda is convulsing in paroxysms of passion for HAMAS, ISIS, and other Islamic cannibals. The point is that these words have literally, completely, and entirely lost their original meaning (and quite some time ago), yet they have failed to acquire a new one.
Back in 1945, the famous “Nazi Pope” Pius XII (theoretically an ultra-right Catholic conservative), together with Juan Perón (theoretically a left-wing progressive reformer), were together saving Nazis (who are generally considered ultra-right by the public for some reason, though in fact they are further left than Stalin) from Stalin (theoretically an ultra-leftist, at least that is how the West sold him in horror stories about the “red menace” to capitalism). Since then, the question has not become clearer; on the contrary, it has only become more confused, because liberation theology appeared (a left-wing Latin American version of essentially right-wing Catholicism), the People’s Mujahideen (a left-wing Iranian version of essentially right-wing Islam, successfully wiped out by the insane Shiites), and there are left-libertarians (which in itself seems like an oxymoron).
Putin is supported by the same left-wing American woke establishment that supports HAMAS (despite the fact that half of this establishment are neither left nor right, but rainbow-colored, and in Russia you get imprisoned for that, but for them Putin is still the Great Left Leader because he is against the damned America), yet their embodied vox populi — the US Democratic Party — for some reason fought Russia far more fiercely than the supposedly right-wing Trump (simultaneously, moreover, championing transgender transitions for children from age five, unlimited migration, and 56 gender pronouns). Again, if old-school right-wingers, including libertarian icons like Cecil Rhodes, Rockefeller, or Carnegie, looked at all this, they would have unleashed their Gatling guns.
In short, using the adjectives “left” and “right” at present is completely, utterly, absolutely meaningless. They convey exactly zero information because they don’t even work as political labels: we hear “right-wing” and don’t understand if he is for Volodya Pu, or for Khamenei, or for Andrew Jackson (the founder of the Democratic Party, by the way), or for Trump, or perhaps for Hitler or Netanyahu. As we can see, the only thing all these characters have in common is their membership in Homo sapiens.
Of course, a devout libertarian will exclaim that we have long been aware of these problems, and we have long had a solution for them! It is our beloved Political Compass by David Nolan, a libertarian himself and therefore possessing typical libertarian cognitive biases. Firstly, he naturally placed himself in the most prestigious square of “right-wing individualists,” tossing everything tasty in there — personal freedom and freedom of entrepreneurship. Secondly, like all libertarians, he is obsessed with economics, because libertarianism was born as an opposition to Marxism, a movement designed to lash capitalism from a scientific and ethical standpoint, relying specifically on economics. Consequently, to lash communism as effectively as Marx hit capitalism, libertarians were forced to concentrate on the exact same thing. Bob Black, I recall, in one of his scandalous essays called this labor fetishism: the very idea that for both capitalists and communists, the message has not changed in 150 years; they are still obsessed with only one thing — who owns the labor.
Accordingly, Nolan could not have excluded the problem of labor from his diagram simply by definition, otherwise he would not have been a capitalist; however, the result turned out to be extremely unsatisfactory. Why is that? Because both extreme idealist an-caps and genuine state sharks of capitalism, whom libertarians pray to, ended up in his favorite corner: all these Rockefellers, Morgans, gold cufflinks with a dollar sign, etc., etc., who not only spat on the personal freedom of their workers (Ford went as far as prying into everything: who they sleep with and how, whether they go to church, play cards, or swear), but also relied on the state, lived in a touching synergy with it, and had no desire at all to abolish it (like Theodore Vail, the father of the AT&T communications monopoly, which was made possible only thanks to the state).
And here is where the funniest part comes out: formally, according to Nolan, there is simply nowhere to put them! There is not a single cell for cynical bastards who spat on any ideologies (and the American robber barons were as much libertarians as Stalin was) and simply sought power. Well, Rockefeller, let’s say, considered himself a good WASP, was a Baptist fanatic, went to church every Sunday (and many hyper-capitalists of that era did too), but this is the common legacy of Calvinism: if you are rich, you are blessed, so become rich and disregard everything else. The nightmarish Dutch V.O.C., the first transnational corporation in history, slaughtered more people in Indonesia than Pol Pot did in Cambodia, and its Heren XVII (Seventeen Lords, an omnipotent board of directors that had its own private army and fleet, minted its own currency, and declared war on states) were good Calvinists and people who deeply believed in the righteousness of their actions; nevertheless, they acted quite rationally, selfishly, and cold-bloodedly, suffering from no excess of idealism; their only true god was profit.
Accordingly, I propose to finally send these labels to the dustbin of history and not use them for anything other than what they were historically intended for, i.e., describing the sessions of the National Assembly of the Great French Revolution. Attempts to fix the Nolan scheme by adding extra dimensions can also be considered unsuccessful, as the scheme becomes cluttered, and it doesn’t become any clearer where our left and right are. What can replace it that is closer to reality? Two new, simpler, and more logical axes. Horizontally, we will plot Idealism (faith in dogma, utopia, a higher goal) against Cynicism/Realpolitik/Social Darwinism (pragmatism, cold calculation, survival, profit). Vertically, we will take the Will to Power (control, suppression, hierarchy) against a generalized Drive for Freedom (decentralization and personal autonomy). This is a broad and integral criterion, because a person might, for example, advocate for freedom of religion but oppose the freedom to use drugs; in such a case, we would not recognize them as being high enough on this scale. This thesis was most simply formulated once by the famous anarchist mathematician Verbitsky: “If you want freedom, demand freedom for Nazis, pedophiles, homosexuals, everyone. Because people are divided into supporters of freedom and opponents. Those who do not love freedom do not need freedom anyway. And those who love freedom have earned it.”
This compass finally stitches up the holes in political science that we mentioned above, because it evaluates politicians not by their slogans (“for the workers” or “for capital”), but by their psychotype, motivation, and actual method of action.
Let’s see what this gives us in practice. Into the quadrant of powerful cynics and pragmatists of total control, Joseph Stalin and John Rockefeller will fly in like they belong there and settle side-by-side (as well as all the robber barons, from Armour, Morgan, and Gould to Ford, Carnegie, Vail, and Thomas Watson), along with Cecil Rhodes, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein. All of them wanted only power for power’s sake, stability, and personal triumph. Utopias do not interest them; they use them only as a screen for the masses. The main thing is the efficiency of the system and total control over resources. Benchmarks and regulars of this sector are also the Venetian Signoria, the father of Realpolitik Otto von Bismarck, both ruling parties of the USA, and Latin American dictators almost across the board — from Perón and Batista to Pinochet. Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Nasser, and Marshal Tito also fit here. Many figures of the Third Reich who did not suffer from fanaticism will also end up here, such as the completely honest epicurean, sybarite, corrupt official, cynic, and drug addict Göring (“I decide for myself who is a Jew to me”) and the technocrat Speer (“just let me build something already”), as well as Dönitz, Guderian, and other commanders.
Into the most terrifying quadrant — the powerful idealists and butchers of utopia — will go Pol Pot, Ayatollah Khomeini, Robespierre, Savonarola, the leadership of ISIS, Calvin, and similar figures. These are people obsessed with a great idea (building communism, a Caliphate, the Kingdom of God), for the sake of which they are ready to burn millions of people. Power for them is a tool for reshaping humanity. Many traditionally left-wingers also fall here, from Karl Marx to Castro, Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara. With some stretching, Napoleon Bonaparte will settle here too (though closer to the border with cynicism). He sincerely believed in Reason, Progress, and the Code, and believed he was building an orderly, secular, advanced world, rid of medieval chaos. For the sake of this beautiful legal empire, he put millions of people in the ground and subordinated all of Europe. Mao is the true titan of this quadrant. Unlike Stalin, who was a pragmatic manager, Mao was a fanatical ideologue. He was not concerned with the stability of the state or the economy; he believed in the utopia of the new communist man until the very end. Enver Hoxha and Ceausescu are of a much smaller caliber, but they also reside here. On the border with the Free Idealists, the Fabians and utopian socialists like Bernard Shaw, Herbert Wells, and other Saint-Simonians will settle. Almost all of them believed that society should be rigidly and totally controlled by the state, and managed by an expert elite of scientist-officials. Many of them (including Shaw) openly admired Stalin and Mussolini for their abilities as “efficient managers.” We will also find Hitler here, although his utopia was pure madness (like many other utopias), along with his main priests — Himmler and Goebbels.
Into the quadrant of Free Idealists and romantics of autonomy will go people such as Diogenes of Sinope, early Christians before they became a state church, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, the hippies of the 1960s. They believe in a beautiful, just future or in absolute morality, but categorically reject the apparatus of violence, the state, and coercion, and want people to come to freedom voluntarily. Many sincere libertarians with their NAP also fall here. They all idealize human nature and believe that if oppression (state, taxes, army) is removed, people will organize themselves into beautiful, peaceful communities. Due to the lack of will to power, this quadrant is historically defenseless — its representatives are usually the first to be put to the knife by Powerful Idealists or subordinated by Powerful Cynics. Mikhail Bakunin fiercely hated the state in any form and fell out with Marx, brilliantly predicting that if the Marxists came to power, they would build the most terrible tyranny in history. But Bakunin was an idealist: he believed that one only needs to light the fuse of a general revolt for people to unite on their own into free federations without any coercion, so he also falls here. Nestled next to him are Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the anarchist prince Peter Kropotkin, perhaps the most noble and pure free idealist. He sincerely believed that without a state, people would live in absolute harmony, sharing everything necessary according to the principle of anarcho-communism.
The most adequate, from my point of view, is the last quadrant, the Free Cynics and pragmatists of freedom. They passionately want freedom for themselves and their group, but they have no illusions about humanity. They do not believe in the brotherhood of man or a bright future. They understand that the world is cruel and selfish, and they build freedom on the basis of pure pragmatism. This includes the more militant wing of libertarians, cypherpunks and crypto-anarchists, Father Makhno, the pirates of the 17th-century Caribbean, and the authors of the US Constitution. They do not try to build a utopia, but try to carve out a piece of freedom for themselves in this bleak world. This also includes outstanding practitioners of anarchy, such as Ross Ulbricht and even, in part, Ayn Rand. She is often mistakenly placed with the conservatives, but she despised them. Rand is a free cynic in the purest sense. No “brotherhood of man,” no altruism and self-sacrifice (in this, she saw the very root of fascism and communism). Society, according to Rand, should consist of tough, independent egoists who interact exclusively through a free market and capitalist exchange, where no one owes anyone anything.
As usual, for a theory to be working, it must explain the shortcomings of the previous one, and the new compass well covers all the shortcomings of the old one. It instantly explains why modern woke activists find a common language so easily with ISIS and Iran, when on the traditional compass they are at opposite poles. Simply because both have a sacred dogma and a colossal will to power; psychologically, they are blood brothers. Stalin and Rockefeller are completely identical here — they are simply two managers managing human cattle, while Pol Pot and Khomeini are two mad prophets who decided that they have the right to remake this cattle. Marx and Bakunin were comrades in the First International, but Marx moved into the upper quadrant of Powerful Idealists, while Bakunin, conversely, moved into the lower one — Free Idealists, and they became mortal enemies. Rockefeller and Ayn Rand are considered icons of capitalism. But Rockefeller (a Powerful Cynic) destroyed the free market, creating a monopoly with the help of state regulation and bribes, while Rand (a Free Cynic) considered such monopolists to be traitors to capitalism and parasites on the body of free creators.
