We commonly talk of politics as a 1-D scale of Left to Right. For a long time I have felt that this is inadequate. It also means different things to different people. So, its older meaning refers to a difference between continuity and change. But since then the more popular meaning has been that of labour versus capital. At any rate they are both deficient. The continuity-change interpretation has the difficulty that actual groups and movements can completely switch on this scale over time depending on who is in the assendency and what is considered to be conformist. The labour-capital interpretation is more useful but still neglects many issues on which other divisions and distinctions emerge.
This is why I was looking for something more complicated.
Of course, politics is too complicated to every represent graphically. Every issue is a separate dimension. But it can be fun to try and surely there are better things than Left-Right.
My proposal then is a 2-D chart composed of an economic scale and a cultural scale. There are other 2-D methods that have been developed and while I am aware of them mine was developed in isolation from them. One is the U.S. Libertarians method of using an individual liberty scale and a collective liberty scale. Another I came across in a textbook once proposes an "Old Politics" scale and a "New Politics" scale (the new politcs having been heralded in by the youth and counter-cultural movements of the affluent 60s). Both these charts bear some similarity to mine, but the specific nature of the scales, and the terminology utilised is quite different.
The economic scale, set as the horizontal, may be approximated to the labour-capital Left-Right. The cultural scale, which attends to non-economic issues, is set at the vertical, and may be refered to as progressive-regressive or Up-Down. Left corresponds to such things as welfare, protectionism, and trade union identification. Right corresponds to charity, free trade, and business identification. Up corresponds to pro-choice, cosmopolitan, and republican. Down corresponds to pro-life, monocultural, and monarchist. While groups and individuals do not always hold to these things consistently, there is some correlation between holding to a given direction on one issue and also to others.
Note that this omits some issues - in particular environmental issues. I feel that is another scale altogether.
However there is another distinction that I feel needs to be drawn: That of moderate versus extreme. The moderate can compromise and coexist with others. The extremist must hold doggedly to something and vehemently oppose any and all kinds of opposition no matter what. Thus I draw a line on the chart (a box within the box) so as to deliniate between moderate and extreme - with moderate as the core and extreme as the periphery. The line gives more space to the moderate. This is based on the assumption that the majority will tend towards the centre. It is also made necessary by the kind of issues I use to locate participants in my political test - issues which generally exist within our pluralist society.
If you like my drawing of this moderate-extreme difference is like bending my 2-D chart into 3-D space (with the centre-point being the tip of a square pyramid).
Finally, I divide the whole chart into three further sections. I draw a line from the centre point to the bottom left hand corner of the chart. Then I draw a line from the centre point fifteen degrees to the left of the top side of the social progressiveness axis, and a line fifteen degrees below the right hand side of the left-right axis. The three areas created correspond to what I feel to be the three major political traditions to have dominated developed nations this century. They transcend but sometimes are indicative of party divisions. The right and up third is liberal if moderate and anarchist if extreme. The left and more-up-than-down third is socialist if moderate and communist if extreme. The down and more-right than left third is conservative if moderate and fascist if extreme. My use of these terms is pretty damn loose and generic.