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Nolan Chart

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The Nolan Chart in its traditional form

The Nolan Chart is a political spectrum diagram created by American libertarian activist David Nolan in 1969, charting political views along two axes, representing economic freedom and personal freedom. It expands political view analysis beyond the traditional one-dimensional left–right/progressive-conservative divide, positioning libertarianism outside the traditional spectrum.

Development

David Nolan

The claim that political positions can be located on a chart with two axes: left-right (economics) and tough-tender (authoritarian-libertarian) was put forward by the British psychologist Hans Eysenck in his 1954 book The Psychology of Politics with statistical evidence based on survey data.[1] This leads to a loose classification of political positions into four quadrants, with further detail based on exact position within the quadrant.[2]

A similar two-dimensional chart appeared in 1970 in the publication The Floodgates of Anarchy by Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, but that work distinguished between the axes collectivism–capitalism on the one hand, individualism–totalitarianism on the other, with anarchism, fascism, "state communism" and "capitalist individualism" in the corners.[3] In Radicals for Capitalism (p. 321), Brian Doherty attributes the idea for the chart to an article by Maurice Bryson and William McDill in The Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought (Summer 1968) entitled "The Political Spectrum: A Bi-Dimensional Approach".[4]

Steve Mariotti, a teenage colleague of Carl Oglesby's in the leftist student organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), credits Oglesby with describing a form of the two-axis Nolan Chart during a delivery of Oglesby's "Let Us Shape the Future" speech[5] in 1965.[6] Oglesby's political outlook was more eclectic than that of many leftists in SDS; he was heavily influenced by libertarian economist Murray Rothbard and he dismissed socialism as "a way to bury social problems under a federal bureaucracy."[7] Oglesby even (unsuccessfully) proposed cooperation between SDS and the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom on some projects,[8] and argued that "in a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate."[9] Nolan was a member of Young Americans for Freedom at the time.[10]

David Nolan first published his version of the chart in an article named "Classifying and Analyzing Politico-Economic Systems" in the January 1971 issue of The Individualist, the monthly magazine of the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL). In December 1971, he helped to start the group that would become the Libertarian Party.[11]

Frustrated by the "left-right" line analysis that leaves no room for other ideologies, Nolan devised a chart with two axes which would come to be known as the Nolan Chart, and later became the centerpiece of the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Nolan's argument was that the major difference between various political philosophies, the real defining element in what a person believes politically, is the amount of government control over human action that is advocated.[12] Nolan further reasoned that virtually all human political action can be divided into two broad categories: economic and personal. The "economic" category includes what people do as producers and consumers – what they can buy, sell and produce, where they work, who they hire and what they do with their money. Examples of economic activity include starting or operating a business, buying a home, constructing a building and working in an office. The "personal" category includes what people do in relationships, in self-expression and what they do with their own bodies and minds. Examples of personal activities include whom they marry; choosing what books they read and movies they watch; what foods, medicines and drugs they choose to consume; recreational activities; religious choices; organizations they join; and with whom they choose to associate.

David Nolan in 1996 with a version of the Nolan Chart distributed by Advocates for Self-Government

According to Nolan, since most government activity (or government control) occurs in these two major areas, political positions can be defined by how much government control a person or political party favors in these two areas. The extremes are no government at all in either area (anarchism) or total or near-total government control of everything (various forms of totalitarianism). Most political philosophies fall somewhere in between. In broad terms:

  • Those on the right, including American conservatives, tend to favor more freedom in economic matters (example: a free market), but more government intervention in personal matters (example: drug laws).
  • Those on the left, including American liberals, tend to favor more freedom in personal matters (example: no military draft), but more government activism or control in economics (example: a government-mandated minimum wage).
  • Libertarians favor both personal and economic freedom and oppose most (or all) government intervention in both areas. Like conservatives, libertarians believe in free markets. Like liberals, libertarians believe in personal freedom.
  • Authoritarians favor a lot of government control in both the personal and economic areas. Different versions of the chart as well as Nolan's original chart use terms such as "totalitarian", "statist", "communitarian" or "populist" to label this corner of the chart.
  • Centrists favor a balance or mix of both freedom and government involvement in both personal and economic matters.

In order to visually express this argument, Nolan came up with a two-axis graph. One axis was for economic freedom and the other was for personal freedom, with the scale on each of the two axes ranging from zero (total state control) to 100% (no state control). 100% freedom in economics would mean an entirely free market (laissez-faire); 100% freedom in personal issues would mean no government control of private, personal life. By using the scale on each of the two axes, it was possible to graph the intersection of the amount of personal liberty and economic liberty a person, political organization, or political philosophy advocates. Therefore, instead of classifying all political opinion on a one-dimensional range from left to right, Nolan's chart allowed two-dimensional measurement: how much (or little) government control a person favored in personal and economic matters.

Nolan said that one of the impacts of his chart is that when someone views it, it causes an irreversible change as viewers henceforth view the included orientations in two dimensions instead of one.[13]

In 1987, Marshall Fritz, founder of Advocates for Self-Government, tweaked the chart and added ten questions – which he called the World's Smallest Political Quiz – which enabled people to plot their political beliefs on the chart.[14]

Positions

Simplified Nolan Chart

Differing from the traditional left–right distinction and other political taxonomies, the Nolan Chart in its original form has two dimensions, with a horizontal x-axis labeled "economic freedom" and a vertical y-axis labeled "personal freedom". It resembles a square divided into five sections, with a label assigned to each of the following sections:

  • Bottom left – Statism. The opposite of libertarianism, corresponding with those supporting low economic and personal freedom.[15][16]
  • Top left – Left-wing political philosophies. Those supporting low economic freedom and high personal freedom.
  • Bottom right – Right-wing political philosophies. Those supporting high economic freedom and low personal freedom.
  • Top right – Libertarians. David Nolan's own philosophy, corresponding with those supporting high economic and personal freedom.
  • Center – Centrism. The center area defines the political middle, for those who favor a mixed system balancing both economic and personal freedom with the need for some market regulation and personal sacrifice.

Polling

In August 2011, the libertarian Reason magazine worked with the Rupe organization to survey 1,200 Americans by telephone and place their views within the Nolan chart categories. The Reason-Rupe poll found that "Americans cannot easily be bundled into either the 'liberal' or 'conservative' groups". Specifically, 28% expressed conservative views, 24% expressed libertarian views, 20% expressed communitarian views and 28% expressed liberal views. The margin of error was ±3.[17]

Criticism

Brian Patrick Mitchell, who uses a different political taxonomy, cites three points of disagreement:[18]

  • The strict separation of social and economic policy that the chart is based on, is untenable in general. In migration policy, for example, both sociocultural and economic issues are at play.
  • The view that the Right can be defined by its acceptance of state intervention into the domestic sphere (little 'personal freedom') and the Left by its rejection, is false. In the U.S., the Right generally opposed gun control, while the Left argues for it. (Of course, this actually isn't a criticism of the Nolan Chart's conception, since "human error in perspective" is what separates "economic freedom" from "personal freedom," and the Nolan Chart doesn't say that what concentrates a person into the Left quadrant is "by its rejection of government in the domestic sphere." That claim is never made anywhere by Nolan, or by his chart. Right and Left-error does, in fact, exist. The pro-gun-but-anti-drug incoherence of "the Right" is what moves them "further to the Right than the middle"; being anti-gun simply moves the erring Left downward on the personal freedom score. Indeed, one cannot call opposing gun rights by any other name than "opposing personal freedom." When most (but not all) people who self-identify as "Right-wing" favor gun rights, they take one step "upward and left" on the Nolan Chart, closer to libertarianism. Nolan never suggested that the Left wasn't inconsistent on personal liberties. He suggested that they are united, overall, in their error at separating personal liberties from economic liberties, and then committing a secondary error IF they deprecate economic liberties in importance, once so separated. The incorrect view that economic liberties are separable from personal liberties is what unites the Left and Right in error, with each one, overall, favoring different liberties above others. Ergo, the focus on one liberty in one domain misses the point, unless the claim is that it's being categorized incorrectly --a claim which isn't being made by Mitchell. Gun rights are "personal liberty." One is free to avoid this error by favoring both personal and economic liberty ...something that slightly moves someone from the left "up and toward the right." By being consistent, however, they don't "wind up on the right." They simply wind up "further from totalitarian" and "closer to a consistent view," right in the middle of the Nolan Chart. Neither Nolan nor any other advocate of the Nolan Chart ever said that the Left or Right was consistent. Indeed, they are not consistent and Nolan and his chart both correctly expose this fact. Some of the Left's disavowal of personal freedom w/r/t gun rights is inconsistent with their claims of valuing personal freedom in other areas. The Right's favoring of personal freedom is inconsistent with their disavowal of personal freedom as far as other property rights are concerned. The more consistent both groups get, the more libertarian they are. Neither group "makes it all the way to the other error-defined wing" when they become more consistent with their own stated view. That's the entire point of the chart: To show that one does not need to choose between "personal freedom"(improperly divorced from economic freedom) and "economic freedom"(improperly divorced from personal freedom) simply because one has the psychological tendency to prioritize, and the political parties encourage division along such prioritization. This "criticism," therefore, doesn't really even deserve to be called a criticism. It literally maps to no claim Nolan is making, nor any claim implied by his chart.)
  • The libertarian definition of freedom as negative liberty is not generally accepted, making the chart biased. Especially the Left tends to emphasize notions of positive liberty (e.g., the freedom from want) as essential to the definition of freedom. This is incorrect, and also, "not a logical criticism." Indeed, the entirety of classical liberalism does, indeed, agree with freedom being entirely based on negative liberty. Once America allowed the government to educate its citizenry, the government stopped properly-educating the citizenry. Specifically, the government stopped educating the citizenry about things that might allow that citizenry to stop paying the government to do things the government under its historical negative liberty perspective was never supposed to do. So, now that the citizenry is no longer educated, you can say that any intelligent and logically-consistent view is "not generally accepted," but if that's the standard, then "most people are now too stupid to understand this, therefore it's not correct" is "criticism" of every valid argument. Further, arguing that any idea "is biased" is "not an argument." All legitimate political tools, definitions, arguments, etc. "are biased." An argument "aligned with" or "consistent with" proper morality "is biased." So what? This page is discussing an assessment tool. Clearly, any value in any range can be placed on the chart. Ergo, if one doesn't think that a question used to define the chart is valid, or maps to the right place, one can claim that that question or its mapping is "improperly biased." Further, no intelligent person claims that "totalitarian" does not map to "zero negative liberty." The criticisms of the Nolan Chart are totally illegitimate and laughable. They stem from "a guy who is anti-freedom wanting to be labeled pro-freedom, but without changing his opinions to be pro-freedom opinions."

Similar criticisms, but from a libertarian perspective, are leveled by Jacob Huebert,[19] who adds that the separation of personal and economic liberty is untenable when one considers the rights to prostitute oneself and to deal drugs, both of which are libertarian causes: adopting either profession is a personal (moral) as well as an economic decision. Also, Huebert notes that it is unclear where in the Nolan chart libertarian opposition to war belongs. Of course, Huebert's lack of clarity does nothing to defeat the clarity that the only coherent and "unerring" positions are "up" and "down" and that all "Leftward" or "Rightward" motion on the chart is "in error." Indeed, one can map "lack of economic freedom" to features of war, as one can map "lack of social freedom" to features of war, and one can go back and forth doing this, assigning each one any degree of "value weighting" one wishes, until one arrives at a feature that would show a war consisting mostly of economic sanctions offending the sensibilities of traders (who are more likely to be Right-wing), and a war that demonizes a demographic for personal characteristics offending the sensibilities of human rights activists (who are more likely to be Left-wing). In both cases, the failure to comprehend the government's commonplace violation of individual rights as containing a component that's "more likely to offend one type of brain" but "not properly logically-separable into two demographic components" is a feature of the unreason of both Right and Left. To say that "the error of separating personal and economic liberty" is made by the person who identified and addressed this error in its naturally-existing concentrations in society is idiotic. (Especially when 100,100 on the Nolan chart is the solution to the Left/Right "false choice" narrative.) The error pre-dates Nolan, the entire point of the Nolan chart is to respond to that human-psychology-derived error that exists in large and unified demographics in our society. Moreover, to claim that nothing at all unifies Left and Right is also "in error." Leftists will more often say, "I just don't see how right-wingers can't care about people who aren't like themselves." Rightists will more often say, "The economy can't support all this regulation and welfare." Whether either, both, or neither of the prior arguments are true or false, there's cohesion or "clustering" in the demographics that make such statements. The position that does not separate such positions into "personal" or "economic" can easily be represented by clearly asking separate questions regarding the moral and economic component of any issue. Nolan never said his chart had to be divided into twenty questions. Indeed, if one asks more refined questions, one gets a truer and truer position of every person's relative position who answers the questions, the more the values per question are reduced. The error is not Nolan's in the design of the coordinate system. The error is the plotted out degree of philosophical error (inconsistency) of the question respondents. Is this error sometimes misleading? Sure. For example, two different randomly-chosen sets of responses will both plot points near the center of the chart, even though each individual answer is completely different. Bemoaning this is to bemoan "learning a significant amount about psychological data by oversimplifying a problem set in the interest of time." The type of information revealed is only useful when it's clustered together. Indeed, even if this data represents an incoherent worldview near the "indecisive" "centrist" or "incoherent" center of the chart, we can say, "This person isn't strongly aligned with Right, Left, Libertarian, or Authoritarian quadrants."

One libertarian response to these criticisms is that the issues are presented in a specific frame of reference by the political factions consistent with the chart. Free immigration is typically viewed as a personal liberty issue, so it is favored by those on the political left.[20] The gun trade is framed as an economic issue, so it is favored by the right.[21] Drug legalization is framed as a personal rights issue, so it tends to be favored by the left.[22] War is viewed as a destruction of both society[23] and the economy.[24]

Further applications

Some commentators have accepted Nolan's use of two axes of personal and economic freedom, but have argued that he either didn't go far enough or that the Nolan Chart can be used to demonstrate the validity of other ideologies. For example, Kelley L. Ross, a libertarian former philosophy professor who ran for California State Assembly in 1996,[25] contends that a third axis of political liberty is required to make the chart more meaningful.[26] On the other hand, Owen Prell, a founding member of Unite America, formerly The Centrist Project,[27] contends that the Nolan Chart is a definite improvement on the more primitive single-axis left-right political continuum, but that it better serves the cause of political centrism.[28][29]

Several popular online tests, where individuals can self-identify their political values, utilize the same two axes as the Nolan Chart without attribution, including The Political Compass and iSideWith.com.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hans Eysenck. The Psychology of Politics. 1954.
  2. ^ David Claborn & Lindsey Tobias. "If You Can't Join 'Em, Don't : Untangling Attitudes on Social, Economic and Foreign Issues by Graphing Them". Olivet Nazarene University. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
  3. ^ Christie, Stuart, Albert Meltzer. The Floodgates of Anarchy. Kahn & Averill. London. 1970. p. 73. ISBN 978-0-900707-03-2.
  4. ^ Maurice Bryson, William McDill (Summer 1968). "The Political Spectrum: A Bi-Dimensional Approach" (PDF). The Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought.
  5. ^ Students For A Democratic Society (SDS), Document Library, Let Us Shape the Future, By Carl Oglesby, November 27, 1965
  6. ^ Steve Mariotti (23 October 2013). "Economically Conservative Yet Socially Tolerant? Find Yourself on the Nolan Chart". Huffington Post.
  7. ^ Kauffman, Bill (2008-05-19) When the Left Was Right, The American Conservative.
  8. ^ Bill Kauffman, "Writer on the Storm," Reason, April 2008 (September 10, 2008).
  9. ^ McCarthy, Daniel (2010-02-24) Carl Oglesby Was Right, The American Conservative.
  10. ^ Rebecca E. Klatch, A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right, and the 1960s, University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 0-520-21714-4, 215–237.
  11. ^ "David Nolan – Libertarian Celebrity". Advocates for Self Government. Archived from the original on June 16, 2008. Retrieved September 9, 2008.
  12. ^ https://www.theadvocates.org/about-the-quiz/
  13. ^ "Mark Selzer and co-host Martina Slocomb interview David Nolan". The Libertarian Alternative Public Access TV Show. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  14. ^ https://www.theadvocates.org/2014/02/worlds-smallest-political-quiz-taken-21-million-times-online/
  15. ^ "The ORIGINAL and Acclaimed Internet Political Quiz!". Advocates For Self-Government. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  16. ^ "What is a Statist?". Nolan Chart - Online Marketing Guild LLC. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
  17. ^ Emily Ekins (August 29, 2011). "Reason-Rupe Poll Finds 24 Percent of Americans are Economically Conservative and Socially Liberal, 28 Percent Liberal, 28 Percent Conservative, and 20 Percent Communitarian". Reason. Retrieved January 1, 2012.
  18. ^ Brian Patrick Mitchell (2007). Eight Ways to Run the Country: A New and Revealing Look at Left and Right. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-275-99358-0.
  19. ^ H., Huebert, Jacob (2010). Libertarianism today. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger. pp. 22–24. ISBN 9780313377556. OCLC 655885097.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ CONOR FRIEDERSDORF (2014). "How Immigration Can Restrict and Enhance Liberty".
  21. ^ Jason Robinson (2009). "Gun Control: An Economic Analysis".
  22. ^ EMILY DUFTON (2012). "The War on Drugs: Should It Be Your Right to Use Narcotics?".
  23. ^ Madison West (2013). "The Problem Is War".
  24. ^ Tejvan Pettinger (2019). "Economic impact of war".
  25. ^ "Dr. Kelley L. Ross Debates". 26 March 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  26. ^ "Positive and Negative Liberties in Three Dimensions". 3 June 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  27. ^ "Centrist Project, which backed Pressler in 2014, looks ahead". Capital Journal. 3 January 2016.
  28. ^ Sherman, Roger (8 April 2017). "Fixing American Politics — A Reformer's Memo from Kansas City". Medium.
  29. ^ Prell, Owen (25 March 2020). "We Are All Centrists Now". Medium.
  30. ^ LiCalzi O'Connell, Pamela (4 December 2003). "Online Diary". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2017.

Further reading

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