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[primroseburrows]

You are a Social Liberal (86% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (0% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid.com: Free Online Dating Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I'm not sure if this is completely accurate, but I'm definitely not surprised. I've never seriously thought of myself as a socialist, but I'm pretty sure if I had to give myself a label that social democrat wouldn't be too far off. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I define myself politically and I realise I've never really thought beyond 'liberal', which is way too broad a term to really define anyone's political ideology.

Comments

[bjohan57.livejournal.com]

You are a Social Liberal (88% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (5% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Ha! Hi Political ideology buddy.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Hehee! I think I'm more of a Social Democrat (see below comment), but I could be wrong. Kucinich, Douglas, Mandela, Trudeau--I have political beliefs in common with a lot of those guys.

[bjohan57.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure who I share beliefs with (although on the political map above, my spot was on Barack Obama's chin, so to speak) - I find most politicians steer towards the middle ground too much for my liking, which is why I'm finding Obama a disappointing candidate so far. In reality, depending on my mood, I am a couple of steps away from "pinko Communist" - McCarthy would have had a field day with me.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of views in common with socialism and I'm not completely ruling it out as my own philosophy, but social democracy makes a whole lot of sense to me. I've been reading the first volume of
Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (the second volume isn't out yet), and the author goes into depth about Trudeau's social democratic ideas (despite the fact that he was a Liberal PM), and every time he focuses on another one, I'm all, well, yes, that makes SO much sense! Whether this makes me a social democrat or just your run-of-the-mill Trudeau fan is a toss-up at this point (I highly rec the book, btw).

[peacey.livejournal.com]

Let me save you a lot of introspection: You. Are. A. Socialist. That's one of those "duh," the-sky-is-blue statements. (Don't take the sneer personally. You know I wuv you. I just can't say "you are a socialist" without throwing up a little, which brings on the sneer.)

I took the test. Honestly, I think the questions are asked in such a way to promote more liberal/Democratic results, because while I definitely got the result I expected, it should fall waaaaay more economically conservative than it did.




Link: The Politics Test (http://www.okcupid.com/politics) on Ok Cupid (http://www.okcupid.com)
Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test (http://www.okcupid.com/online.dating.persona.test)

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I dunno. The strict definition of socialism is too rigid for me. I definitely believe in public programs, but I don't think I stretch so far as to be for universal public ownership of property.

Britannica's definition of socialism:

[a]social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members.


The Wikipedia definition of social democrat:

In general, contemporary social democrats support:

* A mixed economy consisting mainly of private enterprise, but with government owned or subsidized programs of education, healthcare, child care and related services for all citizens.
* Government bodies that regulate private enterprise in the interests of workers, consumers and fair competition.
* Advocacy of fair trade over free trade.
* An extensive system of social security (although usually not to the extent advocated by democratic socialists or other socialist groups), with the stated goal of counteracting the effects of poverty and insuring the citizens against loss of income following illness, unemployment or retirement.
* Moderate to high levels of taxation (through a value-added and/or progressive taxation system) to fund government expenditure.

Social democrats also tend to support:

* Environmental protection laws (although not always to the extent advocated by Greens), such as combating global warming and increasing alternative energy funding.
* Support for immigration and multiculturalism.
* A secular and progressive social policy, although this varies markedly in degree.
* A foreign policy supporting the promotion of democracy, the protection of human rights and where possible, effective multilateralism.
* As well as human rights, social democrats also support social rights, civil rights and civil liberties.

They also list Nelson Mandela, Tommy Douglas, and Dennis Kucinich as social democrats--all people I've pretty much agreed with politically. And social democrats are all about Thomas Paine (although he lived way before social dems existed and his political ideas spanned more than one philosophy), whom I adore.

Now if "You are an IDEALIST" was one of the results, I'd be all over that.

[peacey.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I bow to your self-knowledge. :)

I did a bit of research and I'd say I'm a radical centrist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_center_(politics)) with definite Libertarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian) leanings. Especially when they say things like this: We should never define Libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals or conservatives – nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are Libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times. You can depend on us to treat government as the problem, not the solution. -Harry Browne

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Hey, I didn't know most of that until I looked it up. ;)

I looked at the Third Way philosophy (which I think is similar to radical centrist--something I didn't know existed, actually) and a lot of it makes sense.

I figured you for Libertarian leanings. It's another philosophy that I agree with in part (I like a lot of the Libertarian attitude towards drug laws, for instance) even though I can't get my head around a bunch of it. But because I agree with some Libertarian stuff, I don't think I could be classified as a socialist (not that I'd be upset if I were, it's a valid category of political thought).

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think I came out as a strong Democrat on this meme.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I need to study me some Poli-sci. The whole subject fascinates me (unfortunately, it bores a lot of my friends so they tend to roll their eyes at me when I start in on politics). The difference between Democrat as a political party and democrat as a philosophy, for instance, could take up whole books. I don't even begin to understand it.

[bjohan57.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I don't think the Democrats know what Democrat means. Their party's philosophy appears to be "Let's be totally inert and just hope that people vote for us when the GOP screw up".

Not that I'm bitter or anything; What an utter waste of a potentially amazing party.

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I don't think the Democrats know what Democrat means. Their party's philosophy appears to be "Let's be totally inert and just hope that people vote for us when the GOP screw up".

I think you're right, and also I agree about the missed potential. The thing about the Democrats is that they'd do well to be democrats. It's not shameful to be one.

One thing I did figure out is that if I were Canadian I'd end up a card-carrying Dipper, despite my trouble getting past Jack Layton looking like the Video Professor Guy, and the fact that I really do LIKE Stephane Dion. AND Elizabeth May. *sigh* Also, SRSLY, the US needs its own version of the NDP.

[luzula]

There's pretty much no point to me taking the test, I know I'd end up in the socialism corner anyway. But I had kind of a WTF? moment when I saw they'd called the upper right corner anarchism. Anarchism, for me, is not pro capitalism. When I think of anarchism, I think of people like Emma Goldman, Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, who were most definitely on the left economically. And yeah, there certainly is a form of capitalist anarchy too, but anyway. I do not like their labels. *grumbles*

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

Anarchism isn't pro-capitalism, but it's anti-government completely, and that's not a lefty viewpoint. I don't know much more than the basics about Anarchism, but IIRC one of its main ideals is the elimination of the state entirely. Which taken on its own is the polar opposite of Socialism, where the people ARE the state. So Marxism = the people control the government, and the government controls most everything, and Anarchism = there's no government like no government. I think. I don't know if being diametrically opposed like that makes Anarchism upper-right, though, hmmm.

Also, Fun Fact: According to Wikipedia, Mikhail Bakunin "opposed the Marxist aim of dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of universal rebellion, and allied himself with the anti-authoritarians in the First International before his expulsion by the Marxists".

I don't like anyone's labels, which is why I don't really know why I'm wondering what political label I wear. Because labels are for clothing, pfft. Maybe it's just because I'm already wearing "Liberal" whether I want to or not and I think it's too broad.

[luzula]

Okay, I think we're talking past each other because we mean different things by the same word.

Anyway, imagine the words "as I understand it" in front of every sentence in the following. : )

Marxism doesn't mean that the people control the government (that would be democracy, wouldn't it? *g*). It means that the workers are in control of the means of production. In capitalism, the means of production (for example, a factory) is owned by a capitalist, who employs workers, sells the products, and gets the profit.

So, there are different ways to let the workers control the means of production. One way is to let the state own everything and the people control the state (though in the USSR I guess it was really Stalin who controlled the state...*g*). People who have this type of society as their goal tend to work through political parties.

Then you have the anarchist left, where the idea is that workers at a workplace own their particular means of production. Concretely, this means that a company is not something that can be bought or sold, but is controlled democratically by the workers at the company (like a co-op). Different companies in a sector go together in a federation, and then the different federations work together in larger matters. And there's no central government. Of course, there are different versions of this (the version I've described above is basically anarcho-syndicalism), depending on whether people think there should still be a market or not, etc etc. People who have this type of society as their goal tend to work through labor unions rather than parties.

So this split is what your quote about Bakunin was talking about.

[eltonroo.livejournal.com]

No wonder I like you. Now if we could only work on your obsession with the Redsox...

[primroseburrows.livejournal.com]

I work on my obsession all the time. I'm getting pretty good at it. ;)