Because I don't think he's coming to #Nostr any time soon, I'm copying a post of Erik Voorhees from X:

"The "left right political spectrum" is a woefully inadequate model to understand political ideology. It leads to a great deal of confusion.

This quadrant model is much better.

"Left" tends to mean "willingness to coerce economically"

"Right" tends to mean "willingness to coerce socially"

The left and right both believe they are relatively pro-freedom, and both are relatively wrong... their moral premises happily permit coercion, so long as it is of their type.

Top left would be someone who would do anything to control economic outcomes.

Top right would be someone who would do anything to control social outcomes.

Hitler/Stalin/Mao all belong top center.

I'd be interested to know of any famous extreme authoritarians who were solely concerned with economic coercion (left-authoritarian) or social coercion (right-authoritarian), but not the other.

Bottom left would be someone who strongly advocates for certain economic outcomes but generally abstains from using coercion (ie the state) for achieving it. (Gandhi?)

Bottom right would be someone who strongly advocates for certain social outcomes but generally abstains from using coercion (ie the state) to achieve it. (Jesus?)

imho - the best humans are found toward the bottom, regardless of ideology. The worst are found toward the top. Toward the bottom one becomes more peaceful and tolerant as a human (though this doesn't mean pacifist necessarily, indeed radical libertarians are always the best armed).

To overgeneralize: The average American used to be in the bottom half—emerging/escaping from a culture of European coercion—but today is in the top half (but not the extreme top). The average European has always been in the top half (again not the extreme top). Obviously exceptions apply.

"Capitalism" exists in the bottom right quadrant

"Socialism" exists in the top left.

Interestingly, those with socialist tendencies (being in the top left) generally see themselves as being in the bottom left, for they lack the self-awareness to recognize their reliance on violence/coercion. Those in the top right quadrant, generally referred to as fascist, aren't as deluded about their embrace of coercive means. I'm not sure what's worse.