Nolan Chart

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Image:2d political spectrum.png David Nolan first published what is frequently referred to as the Nolan Chart in an article called "The Case for a Libertarian Political Party" in the August 1971 issue of The Individualist, the monthly magazine of the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL). In December of 1971, he helped to start the group that would become the Libertarian Party. [1], [2]

The Nolan Chart is a dual axis diagram used to plot various political viewpoints and their relation to different types of government. In reflecting on his own political views, David Nolan believed that the typical representation of the political spectrum, plotted as a single line with one extreme right/conservativism and the other extreme left/liberalism, poorly illustrated his views and perhaps the views of others who found themselves simultaneously at odds with and in favor of many positions typically advanced by either of the extremes presented on such single axis charts. In identifying the extremes, Nolan concluded that the right/conservative side tended to favor increased economic freedoms and decreased personal freedoms, while the left/liberal side tended to favor increased personal freedoms and decreased economic freedoms. His own views espoused both increased personal freedoms and economic freedoms, thus he concluded that a second axis was needed to more accurately reflect his political views. In defining this second axis, he also concluded that there was a population that espoused both decreased personal freedoms and economic freedoms.

1 Development
2 Positions
3 Variations
4 Uses of the chart
5 Criticism
6 See also
7 External links

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Development

While its exact origins appear to be unclear, the chart and its concept are commonly attributed to David Nolan. A similar chart appeared in Floodgates of Anarchy by Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer (1st Edition published in 1970). Its two axes are: one from individualism to totalitarianism, the other from capitalism to collectivism. Its corners are capitalist individualism, anarchism, state communism and fascism.

Anarchist Review published a version where the economic axis has a subtler meaning: degree of hierarchy in economic decision-making. At the anarchist end, there is no hierarchy, or just one level. At the capitalist end, hierarchies allow some to utilize work of others. This version stretches various sorts of liberals from left (corner of "left" radicalism) to the corner of "free marketeers". Somewhat outside the square lies the anarchist position, next to the corner of left radicalism. State communism and fascism are the two other corners, and conservatism lies towards centrism next to fascism.

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Positions

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 four quadrants with each sample in the population assigned to one of the quadrants.

The upper left quadrant within the chart represents modern liberalism, or the political left—typically favoring broad personal freedoms and limited economic freedoms. This population tends to promote increased regulation in respect to the conduct of trade, commerce, and the accumulation of wealth and property, while advocating little or no regulation in respect to speech, sexuality, religion, and other individual liberties. Economic regulation may take many forms, i.e., trade barriers, control of business practices, environmental laws, wage and benefit laws, and funding of various social and welfare programs through taxation, especially when applied to businesses and individuals with greater wealth or property. Conversely, this population tends to favor the protection of individual liberties, i.e., free speech, the right to privacy, the separation of church and state, etc. Governments implemented by this population will usually be of a democratic nature, but may also adopt limited forms of libertarianism, communism, socialism, communitarianism, or corporatism.

The lower right quadrant within the chart represents conservatism, or the political right—typically favoring broad economic freedoms and limited personal freedoms. This population tends to promote increased regulation in respect to personal conduct, while advocating little or no regulation in respect to conduct of trade, commerce, and accumulation of wealth or property. Regulation of personal freedoms may take many forms, i.e., censorship, blue laws, sexuality, marriage, and morality laws, with increased law enforcement especially in respect to property crimes and moral standards, etc. etc. Conversely, this population tends to favor capitalism and deregulation in respect to most economic issues, i.e., reduced taxation, lower trade barriers, unregulated business practices, etc. Governments implemented by this population will usually be of a democratic or republican nature, but may adopt limited forms of libertarianism, corporatism, fascism, theocracy, oligarchy, or monarchy.

The upper right quadrant within the chart represents libertarianism—typically favoring broader economic and personal freedoms. This population tends to promote government deregulation in nearly all matters, favoring instead personal responsibility and accountability, and Laissez-faire government, to the extent one exists. To the extent that regulation exists, it will ideally be established by consent of the governed, and/or limited to matters whereby the actions of one party would cause actual and tangible harm to another party's life, liberty, or property.

The lower left quadrant within the chart represents what Nolan described as populism, but might be better described as statism—typically favoring restricted economic and personal freedom. This population tends to promote regulation in nearly all matters, favoring strict government control of individuals and the economy. Governments of this nature can take many forms, i.e., autocratic, theocratic, fascist, communist, socialist, communitarian, or unchecked democracies wherein the government is not adequately restrained by Constitution or the electorate. Governments of this type can take extreme forms and implement severe policies, i.e., nationalized industries and property, planned economies, repression of political speech, repression or extermination of ethnic or religious minorities, travel restrictions, intense surveillance, media and individual censorship, etc.

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Variations

Many variations of the Nolan Chart have been developed with some rotating the chart area 45 degrees in a rhomboid form to allow representation of left/liberal and right/conservative along a single axis in the manner they are typically charted. Many use different labels to describe the various types of government that would be placed in the quadrants.

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Uses of the chart

Image:Nolan chart-quiz.jpgThe chart is inspiration for many political self-quizzes available on the Internet. (See [3].)

Typically, the respondent will be presented a series of questions concerning an issue, where each question relates to an issue that is deemed to be primarily concerned with either personal freedom or economic freedom. The respondent will be asked to indicate whether they are in favor, opposed, or undecided/neutral. The responses will then be plotted on the Nolan Chart to aid in identifying the respondent's preferences in respect to political parties and types of government.

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Criticism

Critics of this diagram (and this kind of chart in general) claim that it represents at best a pseudoscientific illustration of a political point of view. The essential premise of the diagram is for many an oversimplified generalization, although admittedly not as much as the unidimensional left-right or liberal-conservative scales; economic freedom and personal freedom are often inextricable, and both left-wing (Bakunin) and right-wing philosophers draw the same connection, though they have radically different views on the actual meaning of these types of "freedom". Corporate welfare, for example, is listed as a Leftist stance (since it falls under "low economic freedom"), yet it is often supported by the Right. Critics argue that the libertarian views on personal and economic freedom may be a useful way of classifying libertarianism in relation to other ideologies, but they do not apply to the classification of those other ideologies in relation to each other.

The libertarian conception of freedom is perceived by some as tending toward anarchy. Others see it as driven by excessive individualism that actually detracts from social freedom. In essence, they claim the "chart" exists only to distance the term "libertarianism" from the older terms of anarchism and socialism, the latter of which draws polemic connections to communism, which itself draws polemic connections to totalitarianism.

A similar criticism of the chart is that the terms "authoritarianism" and "liberalism", as used to describe opposing stances on the y-axis of "personal freedom", do not easily apply to some prominent contemporary social issues (although these terms were not originally used by Nolan, they have become popular with followers of his chart system). For example, proponents of strict gun control are generally social liberals, who see fewer guns on the streets as promoting individual safety and thus individual liberty. At the same time, opponents of gun control see restrictions on certain firearms as an infringement on their personal liberties. Similar problems emerge from other social issues such as abortion, where the debate centers on whether the "right" to have an abortion is more or less important than the "rights" of the unborn child. In both of these examples, both sides tend to argue that their stance on the issue maximises total liberty. Thus the division between "liberal" and "authoritarian" is of little use on these issues, and the debate instead often divides people in terms of other exogenous factors such as their religious beliefs. This, some argue, leaves the effectiveness of the chart somewhat compromised.

Other critics argue that the libertarian definition of economic and personal "freedom" is incorrect or flawed, and that non-libertarian ideologies actually give people more freedom than libertarianism does. One such argument is that freedom from government intervention in the economy does not assure individual freedom within the private sector, and that government may preserve individual freedom against non-governmental powers. (This is the case Noam Chomsky makes when he refers to "private tyranny". [4], [5]) Nolan's usage of "populism" shows that he rejects this argument.

The x-axis of "economic freedom" assumes a choice between a strongly state-regulated economy ("low economic freedom") and free-market capitalism ("high economic freedom"). This completely ignores the existence of libertarian socialism and most branches of anarchism, who are opposed both to the state and to capitalism. Anarchists and libertarian socialists do not want any kind of state intervention in the economy, yet they are also vehemently opposed to private property over the means of production and wish to give the workers direct collective control over the economy. They see themselves as promoting economic freedom, but certainly not in the capitalist sense that is used in the Nolan chart.

A few of the people who oppose the use of the Nolan Chart are strong libertarians, Objectivists or other advocates of laissez-faire capitalism who believe that the political spectrum need be portrayed only through one dimension, but not the traditional Left/Right one. They propose an axis with totalitarianism/authoritarianism (statism) at one end, and libertarianism at the other end—something similar to the first diagonal of the Nolan Chart. They insist that all types of government intervention, in any areas, are the same.

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