Why Authentic Liberalism Is Right-Wing

Why Authentic Liberalism Is Right-Wing

I am a political science denier. The sole reason for this attitude is public education, the institution tasked with brainwashing quasi-intellectuals who, in turn, brainwash the masses. As it stands today, there is a dearth of science in social science­–a trend carried over from the 20th century. In order to elaborate on this tragic truth, we shall examine the political compass.

The political compass matters

This is not a personal preference or some silly, attention-seeking assertion. Attempting to examine and understand past and present politics is impossible without the political compass–the most important tool at our disposal when trying to make sense of ourselves and our politicians. There is many a compass, too many confused people trying to come up with their own metrics, and many more trying to make sense of it all. I am here to tell you that we have a perfectly adequate political compass; there is no need to look for alternatives. If you are one who thinks for himself irrespective of the brainwashing you have endured in school, one who can withstand the media swamping you with clickbait every five minutes, I reckon you will make good use of the information in this article. But most of all, the political compass matters because it tells us who we are and potentially urges us to supplement our current principles.

By far the most logical, if mislabeled, political compass at our disposal is found on politicalcompass.org, for it has a perfectly formatted, chessboard-like field of ideologies. We do not know much about the people behind it apart from Wayne Brittenden, a political journalist who is associated with an organization named Pace News Limited. Despite the mislabeling, let us give these folks credit for giving us something to build on.

If you know anything about politics, the mistakes are glaring. In France, where political leftism and rightism originated with the establishment of the Third Republic in 1871, the parliament was populated by political parties such as: the Republican Left, the Centre Right and the Centre Left (1871), the Extreme Left (1876), and the Radical Left (1881).[1] Evidently, the Left was settled by all sorts of Socialists early on, and not much has changed over the past 150 years. This is to say that the opposite of the Left must be opposed to Socialism. What is the opposite of Socialism? What is the opposite of positive liberty? Free markets, negative liberty and property rights, clearly. Now it is much easier to recognize the mistakes, is it not? No? Let us continue.

For the State or any community of people to install and uphold Socialism, some citizens will be obliged to surrender parts of their property­–mostly money–in order for others to receive it. See, in the world we occupy, wages tend to correspond with IQ scores. It is, therefore, a given that some will have more than others. Socialism claims to fix this problem by advocating for political altruism. This idea can materialize one of two ways: coercion or cooperation. I have known no Socialist who remained a Socialist after being asked to share his rightfully earned money with strangers on a monthly basis. Do these people exist? They do: Jack Dorsey is one of them. Rich folks, understandably, can withstand some socialist policies, while most of us cannot; it bears noting that the same could simply volunteer their resources­­; so why don’t they? The champions of socialism are free to live communally; they needn’t take your private property to do so, yet they continue ever more insistent on taking from you for the benefit of some elusive other. I think it is safe to assume Socialism will always be a coercive enterprise. Under threat of imprisonment we will all become Socialists, indeed. This begs the question: why is authoritarianism on the Right? It cannot be that both Left and Right espouse authoritarianism. If the coercive redistribution of wealth, under any presupposition, is a leftwing staple, then the natural and capitalistic distribution of wealth is liberal by default. That is, nothing on the Right can be labeled as authoritarian.

Now, things should start to clear up. This begs the following question: why was the political compass mislabeled? Was it on purpose? I believe so, indeed. For Socialism to continue evolving and become "social democracy" after World War II, Hitler and Mussolini had to be separated from the Left. How else does one sell Socialism to the masses after such catastrophic failures? In the same sense critical theory is sold today; the welfare state is defended; taxes are not questioned at all; social democracy simply slid in as an alternative to the "authoritarian Right" but also the rightfully authoritarian Left. This is not merely to say all taxation and consequent coercion is on the Left, it is also to say there's no such thing as left-libertarians.

The logical divisions and distinctions of the political compass

Let us proceed to reassess the political compass using common sense. The X axis only deals with economics, while the Y axis denotes cultural (social) preferences. There can exist no authoritarianism without it being underwritten by the State. The only way the State can finance much of anything is extortion of its citizenry. Therefore, all authoritarianism is on the Left. Being a nationalist or social conservative does not automatically place one on the Right. Slobodan Milosevic, Putin, Hitler, Stalin, Marine Le Pen, Richard Spencer and Orban are all social conservatives, but none of them are liberals, that is, freedom-minded. A life of freedom is a life without coercion, and when the State expropriates your money, you do not exist in a state of liberty. Liberals are on the Right, and statists reside on the Left. Both groups can be socially conservative or socially liberal. Just as there are socially conservative liberals, there are also socially liberal statists. Being a social liberal does not imply one is an actual liberal. Biden, Obama, Clinton, Trudeau, and Merkel all belong in the former group. Their political goal is to coerce society into social liberalism by employing draconian taxation and regulations. To clear up some stubborn confusion, we can examine the following ideologies by separating liberals and statists into four distinct groups: socially liberal statists; socially conservative statists; socially conservative liberals; and, socially liberal liberals.

Here is what that would look like on a properly labeled political compass:

Yes, you understood correctly: the X and Y axes operate completely independently of one another. The major mistake of our current political compass is the separation of authoritarianism from taxation. Authoritarian governments cannot function without economic control. Police, army and judiciary agents need to be paid in order to uphold authoritarian laws. Since the State is the producer of precisely nothing, amassing resources almost exclusively by way of extortion, what I am here saying should make sense by now.

Conservative-Liberal dichotomy

There is one last matter we must discuss: the silly idea of conservatism and liberalism in the Anglosphere. Conservatism refers to conserving old-school Whiggism, that is, a small government (free market capitalism) and socially conservative principles and institutions such as family and church. Liberalism, on its own, aims to bring about freedom. Herein lies the first contradiction. Conservatism, as defined, is freedom. Old Whigs were as freedom-seeking as one can be short of transitioning to anarcho-capitalism. Our Founding Fathers espoused many Whig principles. So, what are the liberals liberating? At whom is their love of freedom aimed? Following logic, liberals are flirting with anarchy, no? Of course not; no liberal of today is a liberal. Every self-styled liberal worships statism and some even live parasitically off of it, which is to say, they rely on taxpayer dollars. Why either of these groups refers to themselves as conservative or liberal is bewildering. “Conservatives” are social democrats in comparison to Whigs, and “liberals” are outright Socialists and Communists. Labels mean nothing if their established characteristics are not observable. Do not pay attention to words, rather, actions. Words are unreliable; actions will tell you everything you need to know about any given person.

I hope this article has cleared up the dizzyingly illogical methods our contemporary political ”scientists” have employed in the purported service of increasing our understanding.

[1] Marc Crapez, "De quand date le clivage gauche/droite en France?", Revue française de science politique, 48 (1), février 1998, pp. 70–72.