“either socialism is more interesting than it looks or people in Europe define ‘socialism’ as liberalism”.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
In my country a “liberal” is basically “classical liberal”, some kind of conservative or libertaria, but I’ve grown accustomed to American usage over the past three years.
We need data on what the proportion of Americans is.
This was the question and the options, as detailed in the survey:
“Given that no label can completely describe a person’s political views, with which of these labels do you MOST identify?”
Libertarian, for example like the US Libertarian Party: socially permissive, minimal/no taxes, minimal/no redistribution of wealth
Conservative, for example the US Republican Party and UK Tories: traditional values, low taxes, low redistribution of wealth
Liberal, for example the US Democratic Party or the UK Labour Party: socially permissive, more taxes, more redistribution of wealth
Socialist, for example Scandinavian countries: socially permissive, high taxes, major redistribution of wealth
Communist, for example the old Soviet Union: complete state control of many facets of life
I chose Socialist simply because I prefer what they seem to have in Scandinavia, than what the US Democratic Party or the UK Labour Party seems to have on offer.
I chose Socialist simply because I prefer what they seem to have in Scandinavia, than what the US Democratic Party or the UK Labour Party seems to have on offer.
The US Democratic Party is a lot less coherent entity than the left-er party in most countries. In most OECD countries, the person who says “I wish our government spending : GDP ratio was more like Canada’s” is a right-wing position while “I wish our government spending: GDP ratio was more like Sweden’s” is a left-wing position. In the the US, people espousing either of these views end up in the Democratic coalition, because the entire spectrum is shifted so far to the right, and there is nowhere else to go.
A lot of US Democrat-leaning voters wish the US was a parliamentary system, so that the centrist and center-left wings of the party could split (as they are in Canada between Liberals and New Democrats).
“I wish our government spending : GDP ratio was more like Canada’s” is a right-wing position while “I wish our government spending: GDP ratio was more like Sweden’s”
Yes politics really is this boring over here.
The US Democratic Party is a lot less coherent entity than the left-er party in most countries.
Arguably the Republican party is also a less coherent party than many right-er parties in continental Europe, where you usually have a “libertarian leaning” smaller-goverment party, a social conservative (Christian-ish) party and occasionally also in addition to that a nationalist party.
Consider for a moment that Ron Paul, Patrick Buchanan and George Bush are in the same party. What’s the overlap between these three in terms of something like trade tariffs, immigration, foreign relations, which parts of government spending should be cut, where spending should increase, meddling in social issues, education ect. ?
I’ve heard some of my countrymen complain we have too many parties with little variation among them. But I’m rather glad coalition building is required to be done in a arguably more transparent way. It also makes individual parties a temporary affair, since they break up and recombine all the time. Bad parties also tend to fail to enter parliament when they screw up things too much, which helps cull blind loyalty votes. It also allows some parties like the Greens or the Pirate party that otherwise wouldn’t be heard to get a voice in parliament and I’m glad they do.
I chose Socialist simply because I prefer what they seem to have in Scandinavia, than what the US Democratic Party or the UK Labour Party seems to have on offer.
I generally prefer what they have in Scandinavia compared to British Labour and US Democrats as well. Though I chose conservative so I’m not sure how this maps.
Perhaps “traditional values” (whatever that means) combined with basically a neutral attitude to wealth redistribution and an eye for expected quality of life? Or perhaps growing up in a country where everyone I know considers themselves some kind of “social democrat”, I have an odd idea of what “conservative” stands for.
Actually I’d be quite interested to get more data on the 29 other conservatives here, I wonder if we’re just “secular right” types (like I partially consider myself to be since I’m an atheist) or if some of the crypto and pseudo theists are conservative as well. Also I wonder how many where influenced by Moldbug or any of the other representatives of the internet (new? alternative?) intellectual right. To give one data point on the latter, I never even considered there might be interesting material from right wing thought, until I was exposed to it on-line and began seeing merit in it.
Edit: I counted 7 committed or lukewarm theists among conservative LWers.
Actually I’d be quite interested to get more data on the 29 other conservatives here, I wonder if we’re just “secular right” types (like I partially consider myself to be since I’m an atheist) or if some of the crypto and pseudo theists are conservative as well.
It should be right there in the spreadsheet, under ReligiousViews.
Where I come from, liberals are mostly right-wing too, but it’s hard to disentangle whether that’s because the whole spectrum is to the left or whether the definitions are just different. The survey did explain that “liberal” meant US liberal. (ETA: as per the sibling comment, it’s a little more complicated than that)
This is the case in Australia too. The “Liberal” party is the major right-wing political party (and thus are more similar to the Republicans than the Democrats (in the US)), so there is a distinction between “big-L” and “little-L” liberals.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
In my country a “liberal” is basically “classical liberal”, some kind of conservative or libertaria, but I’ve grown accustomed to American usage over the past three years.
We need data on what the proportion of Americans is.
This was the question and the options, as detailed in the survey:
I chose Socialist simply because I prefer what they seem to have in Scandinavia, than what the US Democratic Party or the UK Labour Party seems to have on offer.
The US Democratic Party is a lot less coherent entity than the left-er party in most countries. In most OECD countries, the person who says “I wish our government spending : GDP ratio was more like Canada’s” is a right-wing position while “I wish our government spending: GDP ratio was more like Sweden’s” is a left-wing position. In the the US, people espousing either of these views end up in the Democratic coalition, because the entire spectrum is shifted so far to the right, and there is nowhere else to go.
A lot of US Democrat-leaning voters wish the US was a parliamentary system, so that the centrist and center-left wings of the party could split (as they are in Canada between Liberals and New Democrats).
Yes politics really is this boring over here.
Arguably the Republican party is also a less coherent party than many right-er parties in continental Europe, where you usually have a “libertarian leaning” smaller-goverment party, a social conservative (Christian-ish) party and occasionally also in addition to that a nationalist party.
Consider for a moment that Ron Paul, Patrick Buchanan and George Bush are in the same party. What’s the overlap between these three in terms of something like trade tariffs, immigration, foreign relations, which parts of government spending should be cut, where spending should increase, meddling in social issues, education ect. ?
I’ve heard some of my countrymen complain we have too many parties with little variation among them. But I’m rather glad coalition building is required to be done in a arguably more transparent way. It also makes individual parties a temporary affair, since they break up and recombine all the time. Bad parties also tend to fail to enter parliament when they screw up things too much, which helps cull blind loyalty votes. It also allows some parties like the Greens or the Pirate party that otherwise wouldn’t be heard to get a voice in parliament and I’m glad they do.
I generally prefer what they have in Scandinavia compared to British Labour and US Democrats as well. Though I chose conservative so I’m not sure how this maps.
Perhaps “traditional values” (whatever that means) combined with basically a neutral attitude to wealth redistribution and an eye for expected quality of life? Or perhaps growing up in a country where everyone I know considers themselves some kind of “social democrat”, I have an odd idea of what “conservative” stands for.
Actually I’d be quite interested to get more data on the 29 other conservatives here, I wonder if we’re just “secular right” types (like I partially consider myself to be since I’m an atheist) or if some of the crypto and pseudo theists are conservative as well. Also I wonder how many where influenced by Moldbug or any of the other representatives of the internet (new? alternative?) intellectual right. To give one data point on the latter, I never even considered there might be interesting material from right wing thought, until I was exposed to it on-line and began seeing merit in it.
Edit: I counted 7 committed or lukewarm theists among conservative LWers.
It should be right there in the spreadsheet, under ReligiousViews.
I must have missed it, where was it linked to?
At the bottom.
Thanks!
Thanks it’s been some time since I took the survey and I forgot how that question was formulated.
Where I come from, liberals are mostly right-wing too, but it’s hard to disentangle whether that’s because the whole spectrum is to the left or whether the definitions are just different. The survey did explain that “liberal” meant US liberal. (ETA: as per the sibling comment, it’s a little more complicated than that)
This is the case in Australia too. The “Liberal” party is the major right-wing political party (and thus are more similar to the Republicans than the Democrats (in the US)), so there is a distinction between “big-L” and “little-L” liberals.