The American form of Government

[TGRR]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

He's pointing out what you want to call "left" and "right" have the same result of total government control. Making a new chart from total control on one side and no government control makes more sense to me.

A guy named Jerry Pournelle did that, back in the 60s.

One axis of a cartesian plane was state control. Far left (on the graph) was no control or regulation at all, far right was utter control of every facet of life.

The vertical axis was economic. The lower end was no taxation or public services whatsoever, and the upper end was stifling taxation at every income level.

This allows you to plot yourself on the graph, and allows differentation between Stalin and Jefferson (on the "left"), and between Hitler and William Howard Taft (on the "right").