also incredibly funny that the compass' measure of left vs right is literally just that tweet of (paraphrased) "communism is when the government does stuff and the more stuff the government does the more communister it is"
@danielsmokesmids Sort of, but also not. Generally policing compasses register actions by the state to benefit people wholesale as leftist, which is fairly accurate, but that ignores motivation and when right wingers do similar policies for different reasons. It ignores motivation behind policy, oversimplifying to the policies themselves. Stalin, a leftist revolutionary, leans more towards the center and is hyper authoritarian, even though he would be more accurately found mid left becayse his constitution banned abortions becauss births benefitted the state. That's a very right wing perspective, according to the chart, understandably, but it would be a left wing policy if the state said "comrades in development are comrades, denying their potential autonomy as a general practice is evil." That is different from "women having rights bad."
@@danielsmokesmids Communism is stateless. Some schools of thought emphasize a revolutionary front or party that is authoritarian (this word is kind of useless as it implies a lifestyle like Kings when figures like Lenin or Stalin lived relatively modest lives in terms of their material consumption) in nature to defend against invasion or do Imperialism. The end goal is to dissolve this party and give power to the people however most fail, due to collapse such as in Western Europe which then fell to Neo-Liberal reforms destroying them economically. Other Socialist states have moved to a more democratic model but never to a true democracy of the people. Just for clarification Communism and Socialism are two different things and a Communist state was believed to take centuries to reach and of course has never been reached.
@@legiondarywarrior39 The irony is that communism was the government of Russia for centuries. Boyars forced their feudal serfs onto communal farms where they were put to work and not allowed to leave, and where all their production became the property of their masters.. They just used different names for it.
The first time I took the test, as a non-American in 1st year uni, I thought to myself "this is for Americans trying to decide if they're "liberal/progressive" or "conservative.""
@Wreniffer well the one issue with that is if you're not well educated politically yet, it's very easy to get misled by people who seem knowledgeable but who aren't. Reading widely, with a focus on political theories and history (and history of theory) I think is the best way to go. If you have an inclination about your stance, look to thinkers or political actors clearly linked to what you think your stance might be and investigate. Talking to people in organisations (that aren't really adamant about you joining) about their stances, actions, and organisational work as well--but the key thing here is the affiliation rather than simply someone saying that they are x or y.
@ that’s definitely true, tbh i am still finding it hard to find an acurate label as i would prefer zero top down so im kinda anarchist but also i love centralising stuff and really a bunch of contradictions i have to sort out lol
@Wreniffer my advice would be worry less about finding a label, and just focus on exploring theory and history. I think the different theories and cases of workers' democracy (which inevitably involves a balance between worker decision making and having some sort of central cooperation) would be of interest for you. I'd also recommend anyone really ponder and think through what basic political ideas boil down to: what is freedom? What is governance, or authority? What constitutes top down authority--for instance is expertise different than other forms of authority? It's definitely a lot more life-long work than the compass (which of course the appeal of is its quick answer), but more important than simply finding a label.
As a Marxist-Leninist who is kinda interested in Soviet history, it really does seem like Stalin was a centrist in his own context. I know it sounds really weird but if you went to the Politburo, there were people to the "left" and to the "right" of Stalin, and he was a balancing figure between them many times.
I mean he was, to his left you had the various left-communist factions. To his right you had Bukharins faction. Of course this only covers the time up to the great house cleaning. But overall, Stalin was a mediating figure between the various positions in the CPSU and steered a moderate Marxist-Leninist course.
at least even mbti actually has a basis in jung’s analysis of cognitive functions😂 the political compass is like “tag which friend you are 🤪🤪” for politics😭😭
One of the funniest things about this test is how one of its propositions is literally just a quote from the Communist Manifesto, so that liberals will recognize it and disagree with it simply because of its origin and not because they actually disagree with the quote itself. It's as you said, this quiz is just vibes with no basis in material reality
I believe this kinda over thinking is why the democratic party lost so badly. This is giving elitist and the only people who can answer these questions are those who understand every piece of history rather than listening and understanding what in someone’s material life has made them agree to something vs not.
Hi, I'm a little confused... I personally believe that I'm a liberal (based on the definition that I've always been given) and I definitely don't think like that. Nor do I disagree with it or with communism in general. I'm not tryna be mean I just wanna understand why everyone here and this video describes liberals as pretty pro capitalism even tho I don't really agree with capitalism and I'm a liberal from what I understood my whole life. I just really wanna understand and I apologize for my English it is not my first language. thx a lot❤
@SurelyAnArtist in the US "liberal" means left/close to communism, while in Europe (especially in Eastern Europe) "liberal" means right as opposed to "old" communist governments. It is all very complicated
Liberals historically are more centrists than Leftists. Liberals are often socially progressive whilst fiscally conservative and conservative in all other means. Liberals often align themselves with social movements but still uphold capitalism. Someone who is not necessarily capitalist and socially progressive is often just called a progressive or leftist as opposed to liberal. So basically all democrat politicians currently are liberals to varying degrees.
Political compass is for people who think they “know politics” but actually don’t. I think the main purpose of the political compass is to say “muh both sides bad” without having to do a political analysis of any kind
Lul, people who think the political compass is bad think they "know politics"... and don't realize it is based on other systems of placing political positions that have been around for more than 40 years. Created by teams of political scientists that 100% know politics better than you do.
I think the best thing is being aware that political compasses are arbitrary by nature. It's an oversimplification but that's the motive of its existence. And I doubt the only people using it are centrists or people who likes bothsidism
I saw someone put this in a very fitting and concise way: We'll call twitter whatever it is Elon wants it to be called, when he permanently starts using the correct name for his daughter. And not a single moment before.
In Florida public school, I was taught that left=authoritarian and right=libertarian. So fascists are left wing and anarchists are right wing. The political compass, crappy as it is, was vastly vastly better than my initial understanding.
At least you're school doesn't teach the Wikipedia definition where it labels both anarchists and nazis as both "rightwing" because "they like punk rock and anime titties".
@@aturchomicz821 I made up the quote about punk rock and anime titties, but Wikipedia does claim that both anarchists and nazis are somehow both rightwing because they are both against political correctness.
10:41 I feel like a lot of this test is based on the "political discourse" in middle class America at the time of writing. The whole thing is an exercise in trying to make libertarianism look more popular, but it fails at even that as everyone kinda falls in a cloud of bottom left to top right anyway.
this makes sense. the political compass may come from the naive middle class which has no class consciousness as well as the political scientists whose academic field is useful for only corporate relations and election campaigns and lack any descriptive capability.
The political compass was created by a couple of British Labour members who hate Tony Blair, it's the Nolan Chart that exists to promote right-libertarianism.
I literally just took it in like 15 minutes, all the questions are like “do you believe some races are superior to others” and if you click “no” it puts you in leftlib.
about “labor freedom” according to the heritage foundation - it’s actually not quite what we might think when we say that. It is actually about “freedom” from the perspective of those who purchase labor power. For instance, a high minimum wage means low labor freedom. So yeah, there are no redeeming qualities about the economic freedom index. Great video!!!
Every time I think that the heritage foundation can't disgust me any more, I learn something new about their bs... I know I should really expect it at this point, but sometimes I'm optimistic about people to a fault
Their positioning of historical figures is ridiculously ahistorical, also. Hitler is a "centrist" (shouldn't need explaining why that is laughable) and Gandhi is "extreme left" (supported the caste system)
11:15 Its also not internationaly at all. Germany has a higher tax rate than the US. An US citizen has a whole different number in mind when he hears "more taxes" than a German, swedish etc one
What gets me the most is the fact that we have been thru this capitalism, this hell, and it's admittedly given us great technology; we can take advantage of ALL OF THIS in a shift to communism, we have developed automation that can be used to reduce the work load of all, machines are force multipliers, we are all capable of generating great work life balance for all, we are so close.
We are not friends, comrade. For communism we needs to be friends with each other and to value this way more than the material condition. The material condition, the autonomous technology and all this BS is secondary. And partially we are not friend because we are not working for each other, but also it is a ego/psychological thing that is in our nature and there is no way around it.
Totally agree with your sentiment, but I'm not convinced that we only have the technology we do because of capitalism. All capitalism cares about optimizing for is profit, not at all the quality of goods. I sometimes wonder how many amazing inventions and discoveries have been stifled simply because they threatened someone's profit motive.
This has been the case for over the past 100 years in industrialized societies, and since nearly the beginning of human existence in most indigenous ones.
@@SagaciousCatit definitely helped but its a bit like saying without newton we wouldn’t be where we are, ir like marxism couldn’t be a thing without marx, like the first popular white dude to thing of something doesn’t mean it was necessary
If you live in new york do not be posting anything that might indicate bias on the matter or you might get caught out for perjury. The USA has the strongest survelience in the world and they will look into everyone on the jury who decides he is not guilty to try and get you for setting him free. Keep quiet forever, and just do what you need to.
@@outofideas42 Perjury? Like if someone lied on the questionnaire about bias? With so much news coverage(a lot of which is already pretty biased), idk if finding an unbiased jury is even possible. Juror misconduct is a thing tho. However, it only applies to someone already on the jury, not beforehand.
Jury Nullification is one of the best tools we have within our current, broken system which is why they fight so hard against people knowing about it and won't seat any Jurors who do.
There's a vid on YT called "Stereotypical music across political ideologies", and what it does is uses 4 metrics to describe each ideology: libertarian/authoritarian, capitalist/socialist, nationalist/globalist, traditionalist/progressivist. Imagine a meme music video doing a better job than so-called political experts just by using 4 dimensions instead of 2.
lmao exactly. firstly if you want somebody’s ideology ask for the actual ideology, but you really need to divide on l”at least economics, politics, social, and so many more like
tbh nationalist / globalist i feel is parts of other categories, but yk i also am thinking nationalist like patriotic americans and boy do i have alot to say about nationalism, its so silly it replaces the culture and is manufactured by the state as basically propaganda, dont love the culture, love the country that totally makes sense
1:23:25 anarchists are in fact aware of this and do their best to institute proper protections from these risks. I'm not much an anarchist myself, though I am hugely sympathetic to their critiques of hierarchy, but they are aware of these problems and do their best to address them. I think not enough ML's and the like, acknowledge that.
No they are not aware of it and no they do not protect against it, which is why they rightfully have never had any actual power. When they do have power it's because they cooperated with states/fascists against the communist revolutionary parties. It has happened so god damned many times! People keep giving this fake notion of history, which rests on terrible idealist theory, so much attention in the west. It's not productive.
MLism is just a political cult, the fact that they can't understand the basic concept that state monopoly on violence creates immediate space for opportunists and counter revolutionaries is proof of it. Who's going to stop them, after all, they're the People's Police, they would neeeevver act in a way counter to communism or the working class.
@@drog.ndtrax3023those darned anarchists cooperating with Hitler and giving him massive resources and training to rearm his military - oh what's that? Oh dear. Okay, how about those splitter anarchist blocs that worked with the west to sabotage other anarchist blocs in a famous Split starting in the 60s- oh what's that? Oh no. Oops. I may have gotten the names wrong 🙂
Anarchists failed all their historical attempts. They cant hold power because they don’t understand the Leninist concept of “Imperialism”. However we have new mixed Socialist movements that acquire Anarchist strategies while accepting Lenin’s experience as fundamental.
Her argument against libertarian socialism is: authority will always exist, so the optimal is for the authority to be in the hand of the workers. Libertarian socialism doesn't exist because authority will always exist. Anarchists don't disagree with this, the difference is the disagreement with how this will be achieved and how anarchists perceive "authority". Firstly, Anarchists don't disagree that the workers should hold the power over the bourgeois (anarchism and violence, Malatesta), they only see this organised by workers councils and direct democracy (arguably, Marx also wanted this, read "Marx, theoretician of Anarchism" on libcom) And that's why anarchists don't see socialism as authoritarian, because the lower class it's not alienated from politics and economics. That state shouldn't "work in favour of the workers", the "state" should be controlled by the workers, fuck the bureaucrats. "But perhaps the truth is simply this: our pro-Bolshevik friends take the expression “dictatorship of the proletariat” to mean simply the revolutionary action of the workers in taking possession of the land and the instruments of labor, and trying to build a society and organize a way of life in which there will be no place for a class that exploits and oppresses the producers. Thus construed, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” would be the effective power of all workers trying to bring down capitalist society and would thus turn into Anarchy as soon as resistance from reactionaries would have ceased and no one can any longer seek to compel the masses by violence to obey and work for him. In which case, the discrepancy between us would be nothing more than a question of semantics."
You say the political compass is bad, my uncle says it’s good. Those ideals are both extreme and therefore the same and evil so i will take the morally right position in the center: I’m neutral towards the political compass
@@Vadim-p1d What do you even mean by that? All concepts could be construed as a "class concept" if they're utilized in a class society, because in that context no deployment of any idea is completely class-neutral. Deconstructing morality in particular as something meaningless beyond its class-character seems like a short-sighted way to declare any and all behaviors, personal internalizations, and policies as inscrutable by any metric other than how it can be perceived as interfacing with the construct of class.
@@beansworth5694 Taking away surplus value is a moral act for capitalists, but immoral for workers. Raising the retirement age is a moral action for capitalists, but it is immoral for workers and employees. Corrupt love is normal for capitalists, but immoral for workers and employees. Acquiring knowledge for money is normal for capitalists, but immoral for workers and employees... Continue?
When I first learnt of Dialectical Materialism I started suspecting that the Political Compass was bullshit. Then I looked for what other people thought of it, and found a video about it which I'm not able to find anymore. Anyway, that person, to say that the Authority-Axis was bullshit, gave the example that "Every principled communist falls into the bottom-left quadrant.". That has stuck with me. Great video, comrade.
The question on class and nationality also kinda ignores current anti imperialist struggles where, currently and more openly at least, the national struggle is still more important. Some countries that come to mind are Palestine, Cuba with the blockade and Ireland being partitioned. Ofc they all have class struggles but the national one is more current
Thank you so much. I used to have a copypasta I made critiquing the political compass, it's inherent acceptance of liberal ideology and the fractally flawed notion of what I call the"ideology buffet" that's poison to actually understanding material reality. My laptop with that's hard drive died, had no backup, and Microsoft, unknown to me, decided to design it to be unsalvageable even by data recovery experts. That's probably the least valuable thing I lost but you have given me an even more thorough thing to lazily post and spread about. I used to not bother combatting it on memes but honestly I think even then it should be opposed unless the meme is itself attacking the test.
So I work for myself, I'm what is called a sole trader in Australia. I mow lawns and do gardening, I own all my gear (lawn mowers line, trimmers, vehicle etc) Do I own my own means to production?
@@kikotanto2980 Thanks, I just read the Wikipedia page on this and can relate to what James C. Scott was quoted to have written. Cheers for pointing me in the right direction.
Under dictator Stalin, small entrepreneurs were united in Unions: Collective farms (rural areas) and in consumer cooperation, artels. The state provided them with services in the form of equipment and specialists. Some of these unions have developed into powerful industries. And only the Menshevik Khrushchev (after the coup) liquidated these Unions, taking everything into state ownership.
is it like run through another name or entirely owned by you? if its just you that does mean you own your means of production and you are petit bourgeoisie as people have already said. definitely a subclass alot of leftist disagree about, i would say you are not a worker but you would also have the same interests as the workers most of the time
The category of petit bourgeois is primarily differentiated from workers when their interests are different , ie, they are likely to benefit from lower wages and poorer working conditions through hiring other people and receiving the benefit of their surplus production, or receiving corporate tax benefits. Classical class analysts didn't really consider sole traders, sub-co tractors or people working on platforms like uber. I think this was deliberate, a strategy to confuse people like sole traders who actually have a lot more in common with workers than the capitalist class. Yanis Veroufakis has an interesting theory on those who own the tech platforms, and the role they play in role of production. He argues that we are living in a post capitalist society where elements of feudalism have combined with capitalism to make something worse. I'm not 100% convinced, but it's a good start in updating Marxist analysis for contemporary conditions.
Also, as someone who has engaged international politics in the Arab world: the left right dichotomy doesn't even really make sense outside of the west and nobody uses it in that context. Not to mention that different countries are in different places culturally, so often in the context of Eastern Europe (like the communist party of greece or the communist party of the russian federation) it is normal for the left to be socially conservative and for the centrist anticommunists to be the ones that would be socially "left" in the US.
holy sh*t, that is scary af. This is going to give me nightmares for years. It sounds inhumane and terrifying to live in such an unspeakably evil part of the world as eastern Europe. To me, it's always made sense for Marxists (including Marxist-Leninists) to be woke.
yeah that's true. I read something about how red army faction members training in Palestinian camps back in the 60s were frustrated because Palestinian communists didn't allow the German men and women to sleep with each other. But this is not applicable to all Arab countries. My home country was very much influenced by French communists so they're both socially and economically leftist mostly.
14:45 in regards to religion either being right-wing or authoritarian, I really don't get it. Religious faith and spirituality are really such individual things that so many people of all backgrounds go on complex journeys all over the place regarding, religion makes some people, look at Desmond Tutu or MLK jr fight for justice, for others, like Mike Johnson or Mitch Mcconnell, it's used to justify oppression
Jesus Christ was the furthest left figure of his time. If he knew what atrocities people would commit in his name, he would have killed himself before he could be martyred.
My best guess is that it's based on religious authority within government. That doesn't have to mean that the government officially endorses a religion. In the US, it's more of a "soft power" thing
@@msjkramey For the positioning of countries as a whole I see that, state religion is very often associated with authoritarianism, but as a question for individual ideologies then I don't think it makes much sense
yeah i think religion often can become oppressive as its such an easy thing to happen but like that only applies to very structured religions, like random chill pagans are not going to money launder and kill people like
My thinking is that there is a differentiation between formal religious social structures, ie, the high control religions like Mormonism, and cults, and spirituality, which reflects an individual person's beliefs. Religion as an individual belief system outside of social and government structures is a very new phenomenon.
the things you said about North Korea made me realise how I'm not at all immune to propaganda. I never questioned why everyone says it's fully evil, because "duh, North Korea bad". can somebody recommend any good videos or literature on DPRK?
These two videos by Hakim are about North Korea and provide several sources for further research: ruclips.net/video/TbHSQSRG5FE/видео.htmlsi=KIMKogXYX34-ozUn ruclips.net/video/EzDhqXuELjo/видео.htmlsi=lIvJEZJk2acSiriL
You'd think that the political compass fandom would realise everything wrong with the political compass when a government bails out a private bank or a private airport.
The Algorhythm lead me here and the algorhythm was right. I never liked the PC but never could put into words why... and now I got a whole new catalogue of reasons. Neat! Also, your make-up absolutely slays, girl.
This video was so eye opening. It was clear the political compass was terrible, but the fact that many of its ideas come from the awful heritage foundation actually makes so much sense.
Well done. One thing, though: CIA's promotion of abstract expressionism does not render it less free thinking (or more or less anything else) but merely indicates CIA's belief it would be received as an indication of a freer society to the targets of its propaganda. Of course the US actions on the matter was anything but freedom loving.
I don't usually do this, but I'm going to refrain from offering any commentary on the subject of the video until I've finished it. This one is for the algorithm.
Could you recommend or make a video that explains why North Corea isn’t so bad? I find it hard to believe, but don’t want to jump to conclusions based only on my previous information
I'm gonna jump in here and point out that her point about not being able to travel there means we can't know what it's really like misses that it has been proven that when you do travel to North Korea the DPRK government deliberately hides it's poverty and authoritarianism from visitors. The reality is that North Korea, in its modern form, is remarkably poor due to isolation and economic mismanagement. That isn't evil per se, but what the brutal repression of those who speak up against the government is. There is no free speech or organization against the government, which has been accepted to be evil in the west, and rightfully so. The regime is brutal to its citizens, and it should be shunned, regardless of political affiliation.
@@taylorphillips7030 Bro gets his news from Radio Free Asia. Everything you've said has come from anonymous sources that Radio Free Asia mysteriously knows. Such a shame North Korea is so remarkably poor that they can mass produce phones for their population. So remarkably poor they can create entire fake cities where fake citizens can live inside of fakely in shelter and warmth, all so they can brainwash tourists from the other side of the world that Kim Jong UN is actually Jesus' second coming. Even though there is literally no material reason for them to think the citizens of foreign countries are in any way important to their conditions. For the love of God, stop being a monkey. You said it yourself, we can't know whats in Real-Korea, is that why you unironically follow Liberal news outlets that claim North Korea has human pulled trains, that Kim Jong un banned copying his haircuts in 2014, only to force every man to wear his haircut in 2016. Have you heard??? Kim claims to have landed a rocket on the Sun!!! Have you heard? Kim Jong Un executed the same military officer TWICE in 6 years? Unbelievable, Insane Juche Necromancy. You liberals are a joke. You believed America when they claimed there were Nukes in Iraq, how did that go? Found no Nukes after eliminating 500k people and established a loyal "democracy" in the region that lasts to this day, sucking the oil out of their soil for decades to come. It is because of people like you, why slave-owners have power.
These two videos by Hakim are about North Korea and provide several sources for further research: ruclips.net/video/TbHSQSRG5FE/видео.htmlsi=KIMKogXYX34-ozUn ruclips.net/video/EzDhqXuELjo/видео.htmlsi=lIvJEZJk2acSiriL
If the political compass tries to put Orwell SOMEWHERE,they would have a hard time with it. Orwell is described as a socialist or anarchist but he goes after them. He doesn't have a problem with the British Empire and couldn't bring himself to hate Hitler. He was also an agent for the British Empire and worked as a colony cop in the British Raj. Orwell just doesn't make any sense.
Honestly, Orwell and his actions start making much more sense when you find out that he was a Trotskyist (I'm just joking Trotskyist friends, we still love you
Libertarian left, libertarian right, authoritarian left and authoritarian right are not terms based solely on this model. I know you didn't say they were, but just wanted to clear that out. I was a bit sceptical about this video, but it seems really valid. I have never done the official test before and was genuinely shocked. It was insanely 2024/2025 Trumpist.
You can criticize American imperialism and South Korea without carrying water for North Korea. Plus, is don't think it's a dirty little secret that South Korean democratization is a fairly recent development. Koreans themselves are very well aware that they had been living under a right-wing dictatorial regime up until the 90s. Yoon's attempted self-coup is significant in that it is an extraordinary throwback to how things had been 40 years ago and the Korean people are pushing back against it.
what’s carrying water, gamer? Saying that these people shouldn’t be grinded to dust? That maybe we shouldn’t sanction them to oblivion? What makes you think the countries who criticize north korea have the best interests of its inhabitants in mind?
@@Magnesium-BasedLifeform-i9e You asked a couple questions and I'll try to answer them in order: 1) Engaging in whataboutism that paradoxically portrays North Korea as no more authoritarian than South Korea and that it is only extremely authoritarian because it's other people's fault. 2) No. 3) No. 4) I never said they did, but it is also irrelevant to the question as to whether North Korea is authoritarian.
What crime has North Korea done besides building a society to prevent getting invaded and mass murdered again? You Americans are extremely unreasonable to gaslight a country you still have under military occupation
That county is posed as the most authoritarian and the most non-liberal. The video makes the case by contrasting to in particular us allies to explain how these 'objective' measurement is biased with the imperialist lens. You can indeed understand all things: demonization of the dprk, manufactured bias based on western interest, and that south Korea is also a repressive corporatist patriarchal state that is heavily played by us interests. And also how all this situations only end up benefiting elites. If anything, solidarity should go to peoples in all of Korea.
11:13 I think the most important thing about this question is, it depends on how taxed they are at the moment, for the answerer! Even if you have the same stance, you might give a different answer based on whether your country had just raised/lowered taxes for the rich, but obviously that doesn't necessarily mean your ideology has changed
This is an amazing video. Even as a self-proclaimed socialist myself, this taught me things about foreign nations I had no idea about. I hope you continue to make videos and grow. You got a new subscriber in me.
I agree that there are no ‘libertarian’ countries; all states are authoritarian by definition. But there’s still a difference between being allowed to, for instance, distribute media that challenges the government, or any form of media or art at all that the ruling party doesn’t agree with, or form a political organization or party, or run for political office even if the party in power doesn’t want you to, etc, and not being allowed to do those things. And I think these freedoms are all important for ensuring that the government actually stays committed to improving the lives of the working classes. Also, thanks for the recommendation of the Szymanski book, I need to read more about this.
ml's aren't actually 'authoritarian' or 'tankies' or whatever the internet zeitgeist McCarthyism comes up with and ideologically more similar in it's views to libertarian communism as compared to non-Marxist (or authoritarian) ideologies
@ yeah honestly. But it puts Stalin so far authoritarian.. he was a Leninist too.. so like what’s going on with this quiz lmao. It’s like a glorified MySpace quiz xD
This is informative and rationally proposed. Humorous where it needs to be and pseudo dramatic where it is relevant. I have taken this poll/questionaire a few times since it was published and deemed it as an amusing time waster that has some underlying ugliness's that were hidden well in the blogosphere like accompanying texts. Your breakdown is spot on. so thanks you.
Materialist fundamentalism leads to some very strange assertions, like that ideology is somehow not based in ideas, but in "material reality". Material reality is one factor that informs beliefs, it does not determine them. Believing that your political views go beyond the realm of opinion is a deeply unhealthy mindset to be in. There is no "objectively good society", there are axioms and there is evidence.
Ideology is based in both ideas and material reality; the latter is an important ingredient in the former- you said it yourself. However, their point wasn't to claim that the two are completely independent of each other, but that the website they are criticizing fails to join the ideas by only focusing on the former. I would also argue that one's political beliefs are not just a matter of opinion- the logical evidence and personal circumstances that led to the formation of those beliefs are often factual. Now, the conclusions drawn from these facts are almost exclusively opinion, but it is ultimately both the opinions, e.g. ideas, and the facts that form them, e.g. material reality, that form ideology.
@@PlatinumAltaria Not necessarily. While people like you and I would seem to have a common desire to implement more socialist systems, the majority of people don't have faith in the system- not because the material reality dissuades the desire for change, but because the material reality is that systems like the American public education system (and presumably many other western countries) incentivise the continuation of the status quo by teaching that socialism is inherently dangerous.
32:40 realizing how an "overqualified" population actually might be adequately qualified for electing their bosses & collectively expressing their financial priorities at their workplaces, or what new fields they should enter. They are only overqualified because they are only hired by bosses & HR to be disempowered.
@@dodec8449 Yeah, I probably should have seen that coming with her opinions on the USSR in the videos about its cartoons and depictions in western media.
North Korea is undeniably terrible when it comes personal freedoms like LGBT rights, abortion, access to information, leaving the country, etc. But is there are world of difference between them and Saudi Arabia or many other counties the west doesn’t fear monger about? And when it come to human rights, what NK did to Otto Warmbier was psychotic, but even in the US, we have recent cases like Lason Butler or John Castillo, where prison inmates were subjected to inhumane conditions and died. Im not condoning the way Revolutionary Thot was framing it, but there is something to the idea that we treat them like this arch enemy Hollywood villain when, in reality, they’re only unusually bad in a select few areas like the travel and internet restrictions. The rest is run of the mill conservative authoritarian crap that is way too common in Asia and Africa.
@gluehfunke1547 Overall, that's a fair point. I might be the only one hearing a little whataboutism, but even if not, it is quite odd yet also touching to hear such words from someone who isn't a literal sympathiser like her :/
58:02 the fun thing is that this map makes no sense at all. Why Paraguay and Uruguay are more free than Brazil? Or why Nicaragua (because of the whole schtick with Daniel Ortega) is more free than India? And that blue space to the side of Jordan, I hope it is because Palestine will be free.
i took the test over 3 times over a decade. I started off just barely one tick north-right and center, second time around i was massively left and down-left multiple ticks to right above gandhi just a few years later, by the last time i was almost off the chart in the bottom left corner. I stopped taking it seriously at that point. something like political alignment should be a 3 dimensional graph with another 3 dimensional graph to go along with it detailing where you fall along morality lines.
"soaking" was never a thing, it's literally just made up. I'm an anarchosocialist mormon living in utah, no one has ever heard of, or talked about, something called soaking.
It conflates cultural/social ideas with governance. I should be the prototypical tankie extreme top-left type but it will always put me in the bottom-left bc I don’t think the government should regulate ppls gender expression or whatever
Congrats on finally getting the video out!!! I promised on the Patreon to post the recommended readings on the DPRK in the comment section. Hopefully it doesn't get buried lol. Anyway for further reading on the DPRK: A.B Abrams has written a plethora of books on geopolitics and East Asia, and he's particularly knowledgable on the two Koreas since he's actually been to both countries and learned the language. Best part is that he doesn't resort to the usual cliches when writing about the country. He treats them like human beings. To start there's his 2020 book "Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power". This year he also came out with "Surviving The Unipolar Era: North Korea’s 35 Year Standoff with the United States". I should stress that while I have heard amazing things about both of those books I have not read them myself so I cannot elaborate further on their content!!! I have read his book "Atrocity Fabrication And Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order" though. While it focuses on a bunch of different conflicts and countries: from Cuba, Vietnam, China, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. There are two chapters devoted to the DPRK. One chapter focusing on the Korean War, and the other focusing on the modern conflict with the DPRK and the United States (mostly on events from 2000 to the late 2010s). I have to stress that this book is extremely graphic!!!!!!!! The descriptions of the violence inflicted on people all over the world by the United States and allied western militaries are brutal and disturbing. This is not an easy book to simply sit down and read all the way through. However, this history is extremely important to know and be aware of. Here is the internet archive pdf link for it: ia600302.us.archive.org/1/items/abrams-atrocity-fabrications/Abrams_AtrocityFab.pdf Definitely buy it if you can though!!! For something on the lighter side. Ronald Boer's "Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance" devotes a chapter to details on the governance of the DPRK. The book is more on the theoretical side of things rather than painting a vivid picture of everyday life, but it's a very rich text with a ton of information on the country! There are also chapters on both the USSR and the People's Republic of China as well. But I found the chapter on the DPRK to be very educational in particular considering how little I knew about the country.
In a funny way, the compass does effectively display political ideology. It just doesn't do it in the way it was intended to. It embodies the ideology of western liberalism very nicely, all the self-contradictions, the biases, the pretentions of being objective and non-partisan, and a deep incuriousness towards material conditions. Also I love that you criticized the questions themselves. I have seen so many perfectly fine leftist critiques of the political compass, but none really talk about the idiocy of the questions and how reflective they are of the liberal conception of history as windowless monads
I'm not sure what's particularly wrong about determining political leaning based on vibes. You're making the same mistake economists used to make: thinking people are perfectly rational actors. The fact is, most people act on their political beliefs based on things that aren't rationally ideological. For example: 1. What's socially accepted / popular in their social circles. i.e. the default 2. What's personally most convenient or beneficial 3. Vibe check on the political actors that they know / see
I'm more than willing to acknowledge that the information I've received about NK is deeply seeped in propaganda, but personally I still wouldn't take the risk. FWIW, I'm pretty against the South Korean government too, but I also don't tend to trust isolationist, hyper nationalist governments of any stripe.
The video was so good, but then it had to devolve into NK apologia. You know... the communist themed monarchy. Yes there is universal sufferage, but what does it matter if you can only vote for the ruling party and nothing else. Yes the state is secular, because religion demands loyalty to things other than the Great Leader. If you disagree with the way the things work you can't even leave. Also they don't even claim to be marxist anymore, but juche so I don't get why anyone would defend them. ...but I guess westerners know everything better and the next thing you will say that the 1956 hungarian revolution was actually a CIA-backed fascist coup. You MUST know better than my own grandparents, they were just parroting american propaganda after all.
"Also they don't even claim to be marxist anymore, but juche so I don't get why anyone would defend them." - factually wrong and ignorant regarding anti-imperialism "but I guess westerners know everything better and the next thing you will say that the 1956 hungarian revolution was actually a CIA-backed fascist coup." - it factually was, the west never made any secret out of it. Your grandparents were fascists and deserved it, get fucked.
This video is excellent. How subversive it seems to have an accurate, material, historical view of the other states on Earth. I never realized how the compass stands for, and helps maintain, a fundamentally skewed western perspective. It's not just goofy, it's a tool of the bourgeoisie.
While I agree with most of your points, the USSR and Soviet block apologism is unbearable. I am polish and my country was given away to the USSR by the west after WWII. What ultimately led to our country being free (yes, the state was insanely oppressive) was people getting organized and forming trade unions. Later the solidarity movement spread to other Soviet countries. I cannot deny that during Soviet rule a lot of good changes happened - elimination of illiteracy, rebuilding of the capital from literal ruins and removing most inequalities in society. Also, many great things stayed after establishing democracy- free education, including university and one of the best healthcare systems in Europe. However, the regime was oppressive and brutal to any form of opposition, especially in the earlier years. In 1981 martial law was established for two years, during which people regularly got beaten up by militia for even carrying printer parts, and all opposition leaders were thrown into prison. I just cannot stand some of the US leftists who assume that if the states hadn't meddled in USSR, then we'd have true socialism by now, while ignoring all the nuances of history and forgetting that the self-interested ruling class can develop everywhere. The demonization goes too far imo, but worship isn't the answer.
Getting more annoyed at the comment section for this one than most videos. But I found this really informative. I've seen videos about flaws of the political compass but this is the first one that I've come out of feeling like I've gained a substantial amount of knowledge.
"What actually matters is the material conditions and not ideas" "Uhhhhhhh ackshually DPRK is good because they have a piece of paper saying the economy belongs to the people, please ignore the material conditions."
Does the word “sanctions” mean anything to you? How about the phrase “killed 20% of their population?” Or the fact the norks had a better standard than the south until very recently?
@@Magnesium-BasedLifeform-i9e”very recently” is bollocks. If North Korea became a democracy like South Korea their country would be in a much better place.
DPRK is good because they prevented America from invading and slaughtering them again. Their material conditions would improve more if you LEFT THEIR COUNTRY from the MILITARY OCCUPATION the west has on it.
@@MorningStxr-js7fw not to mention a big gripe she had about the compass was that there was no basis for anything yet goes on to cite a website that has the same problems (Numbeo) when talking about crime
ye, that bit of the vid made me pause and go, "wait... wtf?" I don't know if I'm going to watch the rest. Probably? (My criticism of that bit of the vid): And yes, North Korea is basically a fascist dictatorship run by state capitalists. Very, VERY far from being even remotely left-wing as far as governance goes. Also, going off on how the "US" makes stuff up about North Korea sounds very conspiracy-brained. Yes, there is heavy censorship and manufacturing of consent in the US, but at the very least, we have access to independent journalism. If you don't trust the US, trust the many independent journalists that have heavily documented the oppression of the people of North Korea by state capitalists.
North Korea is well known to be authoritarian, not because "common sense", but because of lots of evidence to it. NK requires people to bow to images, not crinkle images of etc. their king. Visitors are kept under constant monitor of a "minder" and are forbidden any contact with any NK except for select people approved. NK has a agency where they "recruit" people to do jobs overseas. But the NK government gets most of this money and conditions and pay of the work are terrible, they might also say be required to do bad stuff. Each person has to have a family so that threat to the family keeps them from running away. There is other proof as welll. And while yes SK has had exaggerated to even fabricated horror stories for NK for show ratings, enough people escaping from NK not involved in such shows have given a pretty stark image of a brutally authoritarian government. Also other BS about the abortion stuff etc doesn't change what we do know. As far as SK goes. Yeah, because of extreme capitalism SK is also pretty authoritative. Both things are true. "Oops talking about SK again" bit got old very quickly because, while what you're saying is true, one doesn't change the other. BTW "martial law" doesn't even apply when NK is ruled by a king with absolute authority. I agree with much of what you said in this video except the BS about NK where you pretend that it's only false western propaganda that anyone thinks anything bad about NK's government.
"People bow to images" doesn't the USA require people in schools to do a Pledge to the Flag even if they're not from the USA? sounds like y'all take something from other cultures and make it look bad even tho you do something similar
@@ricardo36You aren’t punished by the government for not saying the pledge of allegiance. Barely anyone at any of my schools said the pledge. This is a false equivalency
Great video! Really presents concrete reasons this compass doesn't work, especially economically. My only issue, AS A SOCIALIST, is the defensiveness of North Korea or the rhetoric that the West's understanding of it is the opposite of the truth. When confronted with the question of whether North Korea is authoritarian you spent a large amount of time arguing countries liberals like such as South Korea were authoritarian. Correct, South Korea is one of the worst countries I know of, but how does that make North Korea not authoritarian? I agree with everything you are saying about other countries, I agree that Korea is a result of anti-communist imperialism, but that doesn't make North Korea not authoritarian. Don't get me wrong, it's important knowledge but it feels like dodging the question in this context. Maybe I've misunderstood the point you were trying to convey, but with the setup of trying to correctly categorize countries in a more truthful way, it came off like you were arguing North Korea was not authoritarian and seemed quite defensive of it, pitting it against the rest of the 'bad' countries. If I'm wrong let me know. There's a lot to like about the DPRK, and asserting that everything said about it is pure propaganda isn't far from the truth, but is not the whole truth. North Korea is *definitely* authoritarian despite the freedom and comfort it offers its citizens economically. The "democratic" aspects of society like voting are quite limited and the ruling party [only party] effectively chooses for its people. A one-party state is not a politically free state. There is an almost religious view of the Un family who are effectively monarchs. Socialism is about freedom, and a monarchy, even with economic harm reduction is not true freedom and likely unstable under future global changes. This isn't to say that its a terrible country, it's just not all butterflies and rainbows and that can still be pointed out on the left. This discussion just further shows how the Wests view of both capitalism and socialism are just off in so many ways. You're absolutely right that there is a hypocritical view of liberals on what "authoritarian" means. They see a country with a single, un-elected, permanently leader and say that's authoritarian but then look at the US where elections are decided by the most powerful rich people on the planet and call it a democracy. Truth is, both the US and North Korea are more or less authoritarian, just in vastly different ways. The assumption that because liberals are wrong, the right answer must be the opposite of what they believe is ridiculous. Socialism in North Korea is not the extent of what socialism means or could be, nor should it be conflated. The difference between a monarchy and a democracy is massive. Unfortunately it seems there is very few truly democratic free countries on this planet, and the reasons why are vast and complicated. I don't think a single country on this planet should be considered ideal as a whole, we should think more about the individual aspects of these countries we reason are effective/right.
yeah it's really bizarre to take this approach, modern north korea is a monarchy in all but name yes south korea is an illegitimate state, yes it cares about as little if not less for its citizens as north korea does, yes it actively aims to destroy north korea's economic ability and social stability... but North Korea is a monarchy, quite the opposite of public ownership of the state.
I find the little graphic you see upon opening the website fascinating, the one with the historical figures. On the left auth you have Mao and Stalin, on lib left Luxemburgand Kropotkin. A strange contrast because 2 of these people were actually in a leading position while the other two only preached. Why not use a actual anarchist leader like Makhno or someone from the CNT, liberals dont knows about them? Understandable.
@@Hekkins The Black Army was the least pogrom-happy out of all of the factions in Russian Civil War and Makhno severely clamped on anti-semitism in his ranks so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
This is probably the most exciting video essay I've seen in a while. There is a large gap in understanding between the people of the U.S. and every other citizen of the globe. That could be because of a multitude of reasons like the war of attrition that neoliberal governments have been playing with the department of education, the Red Scare that has been happening in regards to Palestine and the Red Scare of the 1980s (which has affected the parents of the generation that is in the zeitgeist, Gen-Xers), or the nature of American, suburban culture, which is to be as incurious and self-serving as possible. Whatever it may be, that incuriosity is a plague upon a ton of people in the West and it shrinks things like political ideologies into little quirks or badges that you can affix to yourself to give yourself an identity, probably another symptom of alienation from each other. I'm not very well-read in terms of history or MLM theory, but it's videos like these, those that not only tear into those vehicles for American political identity, but dissect them and point out where they went wrong and a better frame of thinking entirely, that are helpful to people who are genuinely curious and are far more interested in learning about politics beyond memes and infographics. I think RUclips does a phenomenal job at suppressing genuine socialist politics and history while pushing an acceptable image of left-politics dressed up in a palatable, but abstractive, way of thinking. No hate to anarchist channels or the channels dedicated to identity analysis and education, it's all love, but there's a reason why their channels tend to do a lot better than channels like this or Hakim or azurescapegoat or Second Thought, etc. I think a large part of the problem is that a large portion of English-speaking RUclips's audience (especially more left-leaning channels) is based in the middle-class in the first world. A lot of times, those people have been inundated with propaganda since birth and have no dissident teachers or mentors beyond the internet, which, for its vast abundance of knowledge, has very little in terms of genuine guidance or political advice. Even as I'm almost done with my college career, the liberal underpinnings and propaganda were invisible to me as I began school and all too apparent now. A lot of it, I think, is owed toward the idea that you put forward of "ideas as politics" rather than any sort of material analysis. People have ideas and if they're good enough, they change the world. It's really tempting to believe that because it's a framework in which the U.S. as a project can rinse its hands clean of the rivers of blood it has let flow in the name of liberal democracy. Ultimately, it always comes down to reading. I very much enjoyed "If We Burn" and enjoy Bevins as an author as a whole. I think that a good essay and book to add onto "If We Burn" is Jo Freeman's "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" and Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò's "Elite Capture," which mostly talk about the same things. Having hope in contemporary situations is difficult, but studying history makes it a lot easier. I love learning about the Soviet Union and Korea and theory and this video combines a lot of ideas to undo the harm that that stupid axis has done onto people seeking validation for their opinions. Thanks for the vid!!
I love how you completely fail to address the actual reasons why people consider North Korea to be an authoritarian dictatorship, instead deflecting, attacking strawman, and using whataboutisms. Don't think I didn't notice that not once do you bring up any of the actual criticisms against North korea. You could have debunked them directly, but you didn't.
@dev-i3p what about entire families being imprisoned for multiple generations all because of the crimes of one person. Or what about the one party democracy where writing in another candidate can get you declared An enemy of the State. Stop bootlicking.
This compass is what made me not understand how political sides worked. And its not until recently that I've actually even dug into which sides actually believe what and why. And even now i get confused occasionally by some terms.
I don't use the political compass as intended. I do find it useful as a first lesson in the notion that the range of political thought does not lie along a 1 dimensional line from left to right. However, I also note that this picture is also a huge oversimplification and there should be way more than 2 dimensions and much more complexity in how views are measured along those dimensions. But it's a useful introduction into that concept for people who are politically unaware, including children.
You had me in the first half. Pretty good stuff about how the political compass was made and is biased. But you lost me in the second half where you say don't trust anything you hear about North Korea unless you've been there. I've heard first hand reports of humanitarians going there and it's not as glamorous as you make it out to be. Also saying everything you hear is a lie is conspiratorial
@@krausmal37 No one is saying North Korea is glamorous considering it's a third world country under illegal military occupation from the west, so how does this aid worker's anecdotal experience contradict what is *actually* being said?
also incredibly funny that the compass' measure of left vs right is literally just that tweet of (paraphrased) "communism is when the government does stuff and the more stuff the government does the more communister it is"
@danielsmokesmids Sort of, but also not. Generally policing compasses register actions by the state to benefit people wholesale as leftist, which is fairly accurate, but that ignores motivation and when right wingers do similar policies for different reasons. It ignores motivation behind policy, oversimplifying to the policies themselves. Stalin, a leftist revolutionary, leans more towards the center and is hyper authoritarian, even though he would be more accurately found mid left becayse his constitution banned abortions becauss births benefitted the state. That's a very right wing perspective, according to the chart, understandably, but it would be a left wing policy if the state said "comrades in development are comrades, denying their potential autonomy as a general practice is evil." That is different from "women having rights bad."
@@danielsmokesmids Communism is stateless. Some schools of thought emphasize a revolutionary front or party that is authoritarian (this word is kind of useless as it implies a lifestyle like Kings when figures like Lenin or Stalin lived relatively modest lives in terms of their material consumption) in nature to defend against invasion or do Imperialism. The end goal is to dissolve this party and give power to the people however most fail, due to collapse such as in Western Europe which then fell to Neo-Liberal reforms destroying them economically. Other Socialist states have moved to a more democratic model but never to a true democracy of the people. Just for clarification Communism and Socialism are two different things and a Communist state was believed to take centuries to reach and of course has never been reached.
@@legiondarywarrior39 The irony is that communism was the government of Russia for centuries. Boyars forced their feudal serfs onto communal farms where they were put to work and not allowed to leave, and where all their production became the property of their masters.. They just used different names for it.
No, it uses the original left vs right.
Because the left v right divide is about economics.
@@ajohnymous5699 Stills being a right or socially conservative view.
The first time I took the test, as a non-American in 1st year uni, I thought to myself "this is for Americans trying to decide if they're "liberal/progressive" or "conservative.""
exactly, like the best way to figure out what you align with is ask people sho identify as something and have already figured it out
@Wreniffer well the one issue with that is if you're not well educated politically yet, it's very easy to get misled by people who seem knowledgeable but who aren't.
Reading widely, with a focus on political theories and history (and history of theory) I think is the best way to go. If you have an inclination about your stance, look to thinkers or political actors clearly linked to what you think your stance might be and investigate. Talking to people in organisations (that aren't really adamant about you joining) about their stances, actions, and organisational work as well--but the key thing here is the affiliation rather than simply someone saying that they are x or y.
@ that’s definitely true, tbh i am still finding it hard to find an acurate label as i would prefer zero top down so im kinda anarchist but also i love centralising stuff and really a bunch of contradictions i have to sort out lol
@Wreniffer my advice would be worry less about finding a label, and just focus on exploring theory and history. I think the different theories and cases of workers' democracy (which inevitably involves a balance between worker decision making and having some sort of central cooperation) would be of interest for you.
I'd also recommend anyone really ponder and think through what basic political ideas boil down to: what is freedom? What is governance, or authority? What constitutes top down authority--for instance is expertise different than other forms of authority?
It's definitely a lot more life-long work than the compass (which of course the appeal of is its quick answer), but more important than simply finding a label.
@ thats true, ig i just want something that quickly gets the jist of my beliefs across but yeah i love my theory
Stalin gotta be my favorite centrist.
The real radical centrist
As a Marxist-Leninist who is kinda interested in Soviet history, it really does seem like Stalin was a centrist in his own context. I know it sounds really weird but if you went to the Politburo, there were people to the "left" and to the "right" of Stalin, and he was a balancing figure between them many times.
@@egezortYes, I know, that's the joke comrade.
😂
I mean he was, to his left you had the various left-communist factions. To his right you had Bukharins faction. Of course this only covers the time up to the great house cleaning.
But overall, Stalin was a mediating figure between the various positions in the CPSU and steered a moderate Marxist-Leninist course.
This is the Myers-Briggs test of politics.
more like which spongebob character are you quiz of politics
@@paskahaisee420y’know, sometimes you need a “what ninja turtle are you” kind of test.
@@cursedcat6467 "donatello!!" "we can't possibly all be donatello its not mathematically possible someone gotta be that stupid rat"
Don’t diss myers-Briggs test like that smh
at least even mbti actually has a basis in jung’s analysis of cognitive functions😂 the political compass is like “tag which friend you are 🤪🤪” for politics😭😭
One of the funniest things about this test is how one of its propositions is literally just a quote from the Communist Manifesto, so that liberals will recognize it and disagree with it simply because of its origin and not because they actually disagree with the quote itself. It's as you said, this quiz is just vibes with no basis in material reality
I believe this kinda over thinking is why the democratic party lost so badly. This is giving elitist and the only people who can answer these questions are those who understand every piece of history rather than listening and understanding what in someone’s material life has made them agree to something vs not.
Hi, I'm a little confused... I personally believe that I'm a liberal (based on the definition that I've always been given) and I definitely don't think like that. Nor do I disagree with it or with communism in general.
I'm not tryna be mean I just wanna understand why everyone here and this video describes liberals as pretty pro capitalism even tho I don't really agree with capitalism and I'm a liberal from what I understood my whole life.
I just really wanna understand and I apologize for my English it is not my first language.
thx a lot❤
@SurelyAnArtist in the US "liberal" means left/close to communism, while in Europe (especially in Eastern Europe) "liberal" means right as opposed to "old" communist governments.
It is all very complicated
@SurelyAnArtist I tend to refer myself as progressive rather than liberal to avoid confusion.
Liberals historically are more centrists than Leftists. Liberals are often socially progressive whilst fiscally conservative and conservative in all other means. Liberals often align themselves with social movements but still uphold capitalism. Someone who is not necessarily capitalist and socially progressive is often just called a progressive or leftist as opposed to liberal. So basically all democrat politicians currently are liberals to varying degrees.
The political compass is Redditor astrology
Political compass is for people who think they “know politics” but actually don’t. I think the main purpose of the political compass is to say “muh both sides bad” without having to do a political analysis of any kind
I had a stroke reading this.
Lul, people who think the political compass is bad think they "know politics"...
and don't realize it is based on other systems of placing political positions that have been around for more than 40 years. Created by teams of political scientists that 100% know politics better than you do.
I think the best thing is being aware that political compasses are arbitrary by nature. It's an oversimplification but that's the motive of its existence.
And I doubt the only people using it are centrists or people who likes bothsidism
Lots of butthurt political compass glazers in the replies
the peak of centrism
I saw someone put this in a very fitting and concise way: We'll call twitter whatever it is Elon wants it to be called, when he permanently starts using the correct name for his daughter. And not a single moment before.
Oh good reasoning
I'll also start using his preferred name at that time. Til then, he's Immigration Conman Leon Busk.
In Florida public school, I was taught that left=authoritarian and right=libertarian. So fascists are left wing and anarchists are right wing. The political compass, crappy as it is, was vastly vastly better than my initial understanding.
At least you're school doesn't teach the Wikipedia definition where it labels both anarchists and nazis as both "rightwing" because "they like punk rock and anime titties".
@@aaendi6661 Thats not what wikipedia says🤡🤡
@@aturchomicz821 I made up the quote about punk rock and anime titties, but Wikipedia does claim that both anarchists and nazis are somehow both rightwing because they are both against political correctness.
@aaendi6661 i love how you had to clarify Wikipedia indeed dosent say "punk rock and anime titties"
@@aaendi6661 Why did you make that up?
Hope the Algorithm picks up this video, I hate the political compass
+1
same
Well, it appeared on my algorithm despite me not knowing the existence of this channel so your hope is working 🥳🥳
@@Sariel_reuploading I had exactly this same experience; I do, however, watch a lot of political / communist content.
@@JackDraakcommie smh 🤦♀️
10:41 I feel like a lot of this test is based on the "political discourse" in middle class America at the time of writing. The whole thing is an exercise in trying to make libertarianism look more popular, but it fails at even that as everyone kinda falls in a cloud of bottom left to top right anyway.
BTW, playing Tropico while listening/watching this. I thought it was appropriate.
this makes sense. the political compass may come from the naive middle class which has no class consciousness as well as the political scientists whose academic field is useful for only corporate relations and election campaigns and lack any descriptive capability.
The first one was created by a team of Germans in the 1920's...
The political compass was created by a couple of British Labour members who hate Tony Blair, it's the Nolan Chart that exists to promote right-libertarianism.
It’s designed to make libertarian left viable when in reality it’s a super niche with very little historical relevance
poltical compass tests feel like a buzzfeed quiz for liberals
I now need to make the political compass quadrants hogwarts houses
And buzzfeed wasn't a "quiz for (performative white) liberals" before?
I literally just took it in like 15 minutes, all the questions are like “do you believe some races are superior to others” and if you click “no” it puts you in leftlib.
about “labor freedom” according to the heritage foundation - it’s actually not quite what we might think when we say that. It is actually about “freedom” from the perspective of those who purchase labor power. For instance, a high minimum wage means low labor freedom. So yeah, there are no redeeming qualities about the economic freedom index. Great video!!!
Time to make the capitalist class "violence free" I guess
Every time I think that the heritage foundation can't disgust me any more, I learn something new about their bs... I know I should really expect it at this point, but sometimes I'm optimistic about people to a fault
ah yes the heritage foundation
a foundation that has no political bias or motive to want a low minimum wage/s
Oh. So freedom for the bourgeoise and not us. Okay, then.
Their positioning of historical figures is ridiculously ahistorical, also. Hitler is a "centrist" (shouldn't need explaining why that is laughable) and Gandhi is "extreme left" (supported the caste system)
Placing Hitler as a "centist" should be enough to discredit this test as absolute bollocks.
Scratch a centrist and a fascist bleeds?
11:15 Its also not internationaly at all. Germany has a higher tax rate than the US. An US citizen has a whole different number in mind when he hears "more taxes" than a German, swedish etc one
You were absolutely cooking here, one of the best videos I've ever seen.
What gets me the most is the fact that we have been thru this capitalism, this hell, and it's admittedly given us great technology; we can take advantage of ALL OF THIS in a shift to communism, we have developed automation that can be used to reduce the work load of all, machines are force multipliers, we are all capable of generating great work life balance for all, we are so close.
We are not friends, comrade. For communism we needs to be friends with each other and to value this way more than the material condition. The material condition, the autonomous technology and all this BS is secondary. And partially we are not friend because we are not working for each other, but also it is a ego/psychological thing that is in our nature and there is no way around it.
@LyubomirIko how is there no way around it?
Totally agree with your sentiment, but I'm not convinced that we only have the technology we do because of capitalism. All capitalism cares about optimizing for is profit, not at all the quality of goods. I sometimes wonder how many amazing inventions and discoveries have been stifled simply because they threatened someone's profit motive.
This has been the case for over the past 100 years in industrialized societies, and since nearly the beginning of human existence in most indigenous ones.
@@SagaciousCatit definitely helped but its a bit like saying without newton we wouldn’t be where we are, ir like marxism couldn’t be a thing without marx, like the first popular white dude to thing of something doesn’t mean it was necessary
If you're on Luigi's jury,
Whoever you may be,
Remember to vote _NOT GUILTY!_
you are allowed to vote with your conscience. jury instructions are not binding, the human heart is
@BarackLesnar well said
If you live in new york do not be posting anything that might indicate bias on the matter or you might get caught out for perjury. The USA has the strongest survelience in the world and they will look into everyone on the jury who decides he is not guilty to try and get you for setting him free. Keep quiet forever, and just do what you need to.
@@outofideas42 Perjury? Like if someone lied on the questionnaire about bias? With so much news coverage(a lot of which is already pretty biased), idk if finding an unbiased jury is even possible.
Juror misconduct is a thing tho. However, it only applies to someone already on the jury, not beforehand.
Jury Nullification is one of the best tools we have within our current, broken system which is why they fight so hard against people knowing about it and won't seat any Jurors who do.
I bring my political compass with me on every hike, just in case I get lost.
The harder someone claims to have no biases, the more biased they definitely are.
There's a vid on YT called "Stereotypical music across political ideologies", and what it does is uses 4 metrics to describe each ideology: libertarian/authoritarian, capitalist/socialist, nationalist/globalist, traditionalist/progressivist. Imagine a meme music video doing a better job than so-called political experts just by using 4 dimensions instead of 2.
put me in the polital cube baybee
@aria8928 it's more of a hypercube though ;^)
lmao exactly. firstly if you want somebody’s ideology ask for the actual ideology, but you really need to divide on l”at least economics, politics, social, and so many more like
tbh nationalist / globalist i feel is parts of other categories, but yk i also am thinking nationalist like patriotic americans and boy do i have alot to say about nationalism, its so silly it replaces the culture and is manufactured by the state as basically propaganda, dont love the culture, love the country that totally makes sense
This just makes me think of Ellie Rasmussen's "Player Type Alignment Tesseract" video, lol
Половина вопросов (утверждений) в тесте так по-дурацки сформулирована, что даже не понятно, что выбрать 🤦🏼♀️
1:23:25 anarchists are in fact aware of this and do their best to institute proper protections from these risks. I'm not much an anarchist myself, though I am hugely sympathetic to their critiques of hierarchy, but they are aware of these problems and do their best to address them. I think not enough ML's and the like, acknowledge that.
No they are not aware of it and no they do not protect against it, which is why they rightfully have never had any actual power. When they do have power it's because they cooperated with states/fascists against the communist revolutionary parties. It has happened so god damned many times! People keep giving this fake notion of history, which rests on terrible idealist theory, so much attention in the west. It's not productive.
MLism is just a political cult, the fact that they can't understand the basic concept that state monopoly on violence creates immediate space for opportunists and counter revolutionaries is proof of it. Who's going to stop them, after all, they're the People's Police, they would neeeevver act in a way counter to communism or the working class.
@@drog.ndtrax3023those darned anarchists cooperating with Hitler and giving him massive resources and training to rearm his military - oh what's that? Oh dear.
Okay, how about those splitter anarchist blocs that worked with the west to sabotage other anarchist blocs in a famous Split starting in the 60s- oh what's that? Oh no. Oops. I may have gotten the names wrong 🙂
Anarchists failed all their historical attempts. They cant hold power because they don’t understand the Leninist concept of “Imperialism”. However we have new mixed Socialist movements that acquire Anarchist strategies while accepting Lenin’s experience as fundamental.
Her argument against libertarian socialism is: authority will always exist, so the optimal is for the authority to be in the hand of the workers. Libertarian socialism doesn't exist because authority will always exist.
Anarchists don't disagree with this, the difference is the disagreement with how this will be achieved and how anarchists perceive "authority".
Firstly, Anarchists don't disagree that the workers should hold the power over the bourgeois (anarchism and violence, Malatesta), they only see this organised by workers councils and direct democracy (arguably, Marx also wanted this, read "Marx, theoretician of Anarchism" on libcom)
And that's why anarchists don't see socialism as authoritarian, because the lower class it's not alienated from politics and economics. That state shouldn't "work in favour of the workers", the "state" should be controlled by the workers, fuck the bureaucrats.
"But perhaps the truth is simply this: our pro-Bolshevik friends take the expression “dictatorship of the proletariat” to mean simply the revolutionary action of the workers in taking possession of the land and the instruments of labor, and trying to build a society and organize a way of life in which there will be no place for a class that exploits and oppresses the producers.
Thus construed, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” would be the effective power of all workers trying to bring down capitalist society and would thus turn into Anarchy as soon as resistance from reactionaries would have ceased and no one can any longer seek to compel the masses by violence to obey and work for him. In which case, the discrepancy between us would be nothing more than a question of semantics."
This is like astrology for politics
You say the political compass is bad, my uncle says it’s good. Those ideals are both extreme and therefore the same and evil so i will take the morally right position in the center: I’m neutral towards the political compass
kek
Any time someone asks you to not think in terms of morality, they are about to justify something extremely immoral.
Morality is a class concept.
@@Vadim-p1d
Thank you for proving my point.
@@noxteryn Don't you agree?
@@Vadim-p1d What do you even mean by that? All concepts could be construed as a "class concept" if they're utilized in a class society, because in that context no deployment of any idea is completely class-neutral. Deconstructing morality in particular as something meaningless beyond its class-character seems like a short-sighted way to declare any and all behaviors, personal internalizations, and policies as inscrutable by any metric other than how it can be perceived as interfacing with the construct of class.
@@beansworth5694 Taking away surplus value is a moral act for capitalists, but immoral for workers. Raising the retirement age is a moral action for capitalists, but it is immoral for workers and employees. Corrupt love is normal for capitalists, but immoral for workers and employees. Acquiring knowledge for money is normal for capitalists, but immoral for workers and employees... Continue?
When I first learnt of Dialectical Materialism I started suspecting that the Political Compass was bullshit. Then I looked for what other people thought of it, and found a video about it which I'm not able to find anymore. Anyway, that person, to say that the Authority-Axis was bullshit, gave the example that "Every principled communist falls into the bottom-left quadrant.". That has stuck with me.
Great video, comrade.
The question on class and nationality also kinda ignores current anti imperialist struggles where, currently and more openly at least, the national struggle is still more important. Some countries that come to mind are Palestine, Cuba with the blockade and Ireland being partitioned. Ofc they all have class struggles but the national one is more current
congrats on being the 69th comment
I love this vid! Revolutionaryth0t you're good! Really good! I'll be sharing this vid with my wife and my family!
Keep up the good work Comrade!
Thank you so much. I used to have a copypasta I made critiquing the political compass, it's inherent acceptance of liberal ideology and the fractally flawed notion of what I call the"ideology buffet" that's poison to actually understanding material reality. My laptop with that's hard drive died, had no backup, and Microsoft, unknown to me, decided to design it to be unsalvageable even by data recovery experts. That's probably the least valuable thing I lost but you have given me an even more thorough thing to lazily post and spread about. I used to not bother combatting it on memes but honestly I think even then it should be opposed unless the meme is itself attacking the test.
you should do a collab with the deprogram boys because this is fire
So I work for myself, I'm what is called a sole trader in Australia. I mow lawns and do gardening, I own all my gear (lawn mowers line, trimmers, vehicle etc)
Do I own my own means to production?
yup, think its called being petit bourgeois
@@kikotanto2980
Thanks, I just read the Wikipedia page on this and can relate to what James C. Scott was quoted to have written.
Cheers for pointing me in the right direction.
Under dictator Stalin, small entrepreneurs were united in Unions: Collective farms (rural areas) and in consumer cooperation, artels. The state provided them with services in the form of equipment and specialists. Some of these unions have developed into powerful industries. And only the Menshevik Khrushchev (after the coup) liquidated these Unions, taking everything into state ownership.
is it like run through another name or entirely owned by you? if its just you that does mean you own your means of production and you are petit bourgeoisie as people have already said. definitely a subclass alot of leftist disagree about, i would say you are not a worker but you would also have the same interests as the workers most of the time
The category of petit bourgeois is primarily differentiated from workers when their interests are different , ie, they are likely to benefit from lower wages and poorer working conditions through hiring other people and receiving the benefit of their surplus production, or receiving corporate tax benefits. Classical class analysts didn't really consider sole traders, sub-co tractors or people working on platforms like uber. I think this was deliberate, a strategy to confuse people like sole traders who actually have a lot more in common with workers than the capitalist class. Yanis Veroufakis has an interesting theory on those who own the tech platforms, and the role they play in role of production. He argues that we are living in a post capitalist society where elements of feudalism have combined with capitalism to make something worse. I'm not 100% convinced, but it's a good start in updating Marxist analysis for contemporary conditions.
Also, as someone who has engaged international politics in the Arab world: the left right dichotomy doesn't even really make sense outside of the west and nobody uses it in that context. Not to mention that different countries are in different places culturally, so often in the context of Eastern Europe (like the communist party of greece or the communist party of the russian federation) it is normal for the left to be socially conservative and for the centrist anticommunists to be the ones that would be socially "left" in the US.
holy sh*t, that is scary af. This is going to give me nightmares for years. It sounds inhumane and terrifying to live in such an unspeakably evil part of the world as eastern Europe. To me, it's always made sense for Marxists (including Marxist-Leninists) to be woke.
agreed that tbh most of europe even is HARD LEFT if we use American politics as the standard. big part of why the compass is goofy.
yeah that's true. I read something about how red army faction members training in Palestinian camps back in the 60s were frustrated because Palestinian communists didn't allow the German men and women to sleep with each other.
But this is not applicable to all Arab countries. My home country was very much influenced by French communists so they're both socially and economically leftist mostly.
You're not internationalist
the thought of socially conservative Communism/social democracy haunts me.
14:45 in regards to religion either being right-wing or authoritarian, I really don't get it. Religious faith and spirituality are really such individual things that so many people of all backgrounds go on complex journeys all over the place regarding, religion makes some people, look at Desmond Tutu or MLK jr fight for justice, for others, like Mike Johnson or Mitch Mcconnell, it's used to justify oppression
Jesus Christ was the furthest left figure of his time. If he knew what atrocities people would commit in his name, he would have killed himself before he could be martyred.
My best guess is that it's based on religious authority within government. That doesn't have to mean that the government officially endorses a religion. In the US, it's more of a "soft power" thing
@@msjkramey For the positioning of countries as a whole I see that, state religion is very often associated with authoritarianism, but as a question for individual ideologies then I don't think it makes much sense
yeah i think religion often can become oppressive as its such an easy thing to happen but like that only applies to very structured religions, like random chill pagans are not going to money launder and kill people like
My thinking is that there is a differentiation between formal religious social structures, ie, the high control religions like Mormonism, and cults, and spirituality, which reflects an individual person's beliefs. Religion as an individual belief system outside of social and government structures is a very new phenomenon.
the things you said about North Korea made me realise how I'm not at all immune to propaganda. I never questioned why everyone says it's fully evil, because "duh, North Korea bad". can somebody recommend any good videos or literature on DPRK?
Daily life in North Korea - “My Brothers and Sisters in the North” (Full awarded documentary) and Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul
These two videos by Hakim are about North Korea and provide several sources for further research: ruclips.net/video/TbHSQSRG5FE/видео.htmlsi=KIMKogXYX34-ozUn
ruclips.net/video/EzDhqXuELjo/видео.htmlsi=lIvJEZJk2acSiriL
Hakim has several good videos on North Korea. Great channel in general.
This video is genuinely amazing thank you
My anarcho-communism after watching this video:
+5% communism
-5% anarchism
You'd think that the political compass fandom would realise everything wrong with the political compass when a government bails out a private bank or a private airport.
I think you are doing pretty great work. Probably the best new channel I picked up in the last few months.
the austrian painter is a centrist according to their model
The Algorhythm lead me here and the algorhythm was right.
I never liked the PC but never could put into words why... and now I got a whole new catalogue of reasons. Neat!
Also, your make-up absolutely slays, girl.
This video was so eye opening. It was clear the political compass was terrible, but the fact that many of its ideas come from the awful heritage foundation actually makes so much sense.
Well done. One thing, though: CIA's promotion of abstract expressionism does not render it less free thinking (or more or less anything else) but merely indicates CIA's belief it would be received as an indication of a freer society to the targets of its propaganda. Of course the US actions on the matter was anything but freedom loving.
This channel is so underrated you explain things in a way that’s easy to understand without dumbing down the content. 10/10
I don't usually do this, but I'm going to refrain from offering any commentary on the subject of the video until I've finished it. This one is for the algorithm.
Thanks for the video. It's one of the best things I've ever seen. Greetings from a marxist-leninist from Brazil.
Could you recommend or make a video that explains why North Corea isn’t so bad? I find it hard to believe, but don’t want to jump to conclusions based only on my previous information
I'm gonna jump in here and point out that her point about not being able to travel there means we can't know what it's really like misses that it has been proven that when you do travel to North Korea the DPRK government deliberately hides it's poverty and authoritarianism from visitors. The reality is that North Korea, in its modern form, is remarkably poor due to isolation and economic mismanagement. That isn't evil per se, but what the brutal repression of those who speak up against the government is. There is no free speech or organization against the government, which has been accepted to be evil in the west, and rightfully so. The regime is brutal to its citizens, and it should be shunned, regardless of political affiliation.
@@taylorphillips7030 Bro gets his news from Radio Free Asia. Everything you've said has come from anonymous sources that Radio Free Asia mysteriously knows. Such a shame North Korea is so remarkably poor that they can mass produce phones for their population. So remarkably poor they can create entire fake cities where fake citizens can live inside of fakely in shelter and warmth, all so they can brainwash tourists from the other side of the world that Kim Jong UN is actually Jesus' second coming. Even though there is literally no material reason for them to think the citizens of foreign countries are in any way important to their conditions.
For the love of God, stop being a monkey. You said it yourself, we can't know whats in Real-Korea, is that why you unironically follow Liberal news outlets that claim North Korea has human pulled trains, that Kim Jong un banned copying his haircuts in 2014, only to force every man to wear his haircut in 2016. Have you heard??? Kim claims to have landed a rocket on the Sun!!! Have you heard? Kim Jong Un executed the same military officer TWICE in 6 years? Unbelievable, Insane Juche Necromancy.
You liberals are a joke. You believed America when they claimed there were Nukes in Iraq, how did that go? Found no Nukes after eliminating 500k people and established a loyal "democracy" in the region that lasts to this day, sucking the oil out of their soil for decades to come. It is because of people like you, why slave-owners have power.
Daily life in North Korea - “My Brothers and Sisters in the North” (Full awarded documentary) and Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul
These two videos by Hakim are about North Korea and provide several sources for further research: ruclips.net/video/TbHSQSRG5FE/видео.htmlsi=KIMKogXYX34-ozUn
ruclips.net/video/EzDhqXuELjo/видео.htmlsi=lIvJEZJk2acSiriL
Hakim has some good explanations about it, also a great channel generally
If the political compass tries to put Orwell SOMEWHERE,they would have a hard time with it. Orwell is described as a socialist or anarchist but he goes after them. He doesn't have a problem with the British Empire and couldn't bring himself to hate Hitler. He was also an agent for the British Empire and worked as a colony cop in the British Raj. Orwell just doesn't make any sense.
He was the median voter
Honestly, Orwell and his actions start making much more sense when you find out that he was a Trotskyist (I'm just joking Trotskyist friends, we still love you
@Jordan67145 I guess that kind of makes sense.
He worked for the IRD. He was a fed. Pure and simple.
*He was a socialist Leftist. Simple as that.*
Good to know that astrology is libertarian, and that luck and religion are authoritarian according to the political compass
Libertarian left, libertarian right, authoritarian left and authoritarian right are not terms based solely on this model. I know you didn't say they were, but just wanted to clear that out.
I was a bit sceptical about this video, but it seems really valid. I have never done the official test before and was genuinely shocked. It was insanely 2024/2025 Trumpist.
You can criticize American imperialism and South Korea without carrying water for North Korea. Plus, is don't think it's a dirty little secret that South Korean democratization is a fairly recent development. Koreans themselves are very well aware that they had been living under a right-wing dictatorial regime up until the 90s. Yoon's attempted self-coup is significant in that it is an extraordinary throwback to how things had been 40 years ago and the Korean people are pushing back against it.
what’s carrying water, gamer? Saying that these people shouldn’t be grinded to dust? That maybe we shouldn’t sanction them to oblivion?
What makes you think the countries who criticize north korea have the best interests of its inhabitants in mind?
@@Magnesium-BasedLifeform-i9e You asked a couple questions and I'll try to answer them in order: 1) Engaging in whataboutism that paradoxically portrays North Korea as no more authoritarian than South Korea and that it is only extremely authoritarian because it's other people's fault. 2) No. 3) No. 4) I never said they did, but it is also irrelevant to the question as to whether North Korea is authoritarian.
What crime has North Korea done besides building a society to prevent getting invaded and mass murdered again? You Americans are extremely unreasonable to gaslight a country you still have under military occupation
That county is posed as the most authoritarian and the most non-liberal. The video makes the case by contrasting to in particular us allies to explain how these 'objective' measurement is biased with the imperialist lens.
You can indeed understand all things: demonization of the dprk, manufactured bias based on western interest, and that south Korea is also a repressive corporatist patriarchal state that is heavily played by us interests.
And also how all this situations only end up benefiting elites. If anything, solidarity should go to peoples in all of Korea.
11:13 I think the most important thing about this question is, it depends on how taxed they are at the moment, for the answerer!
Even if you have the same stance, you might give a different answer based on whether your country had just raised/lowered taxes for the rich, but obviously that doesn't necessarily mean your ideology has changed
not me getting constantly distracted by the cheburashka on the background
This is an amazing video. Even as a self-proclaimed socialist myself, this taught me things about foreign nations I had no idea about. I hope you continue to make videos and grow. You got a new subscriber in me.
Political compass: astrology for politics.
22:00 Literally "You are not immune to propaganda." That's what people have to remember here.
I agree that there are no ‘libertarian’ countries; all states are authoritarian by definition. But there’s still a difference between being allowed to, for instance, distribute media that challenges the government, or any form of media or art at all that the ruling party doesn’t agree with, or form a political organization or party, or run for political office even if the party in power doesn’t want you to, etc, and not being allowed to do those things. And I think these freedoms are all important for ensuring that the government actually stays committed to improving the lives of the working classes.
Also, thanks for the recommendation of the Szymanski book, I need to read more about this.
I've been saying this for years. Why am I just now finding you? Also your eye makeup is goals teach me pls
I'm a marxist leninist, yet I score -8.5/-3.79 lmao. i thought we're supposed to be authoritarian? xD
also an hour into your content and you're already my new girlcrush :3
ml's aren't actually 'authoritarian' or 'tankies' or whatever the internet zeitgeist McCarthyism comes up with and ideologically more similar in it's views to libertarian communism as compared to non-Marxist (or authoritarian) ideologies
@ yeah honestly. But it puts Stalin so far authoritarian.. he was a Leninist too.. so like what’s going on with this quiz lmao. It’s like a glorified MySpace quiz xD
This is informative and rationally proposed. Humorous where it needs to be and pseudo dramatic where it is relevant. I have taken this poll/questionaire a few times since it was published and deemed it as an amusing time waster that has some underlying ugliness's that were hidden well in the blogosphere like accompanying texts. Your breakdown is spot on. so thanks you.
Excellent job with this video. Keep up the good work!
Materialist fundamentalism leads to some very strange assertions, like that ideology is somehow not based in ideas, but in "material reality". Material reality is one factor that informs beliefs, it does not determine them. Believing that your political views go beyond the realm of opinion is a deeply unhealthy mindset to be in. There is no "objectively good society", there are axioms and there is evidence.
Can't tell what point you are making.
Ideology is based in both ideas and material reality; the latter is an important ingredient in the former- you said it yourself. However, their point wasn't to claim that the two are completely independent of each other, but that the website they are criticizing fails to join the ideas by only focusing on the former. I would also argue that one's political beliefs are not just a matter of opinion- the logical evidence and personal circumstances that led to the formation of those beliefs are often factual. Now, the conclusions drawn from these facts are almost exclusively opinion, but it is ultimately both the opinions, e.g. ideas, and the facts that form them, e.g. material reality, that form ideology.
@@everythingpizzaandknuckles6268 If material conditions were the prime mover in ideology then we would already have socialism.
@@PlatinumAltaria Yeah, this is why I made my comment. You are misunderstanding materialism entirely, which is why your original comment was so vague.
@@PlatinumAltaria Not necessarily. While people like you and I would seem to have a common desire to implement more socialist systems, the majority of people don't have faith in the system- not because the material reality dissuades the desire for change, but because the material reality is that systems like the American public education system (and presumably many other western countries) incentivise the continuation of the status quo by teaching that socialism is inherently dangerous.
32:40 realizing how an "overqualified" population actually might be adequately qualified for electing their bosses & collectively expressing their financial priorities at their workplaces, or what new fields they should enter.
They are only overqualified because they are only hired by bosses & HR to be disempowered.
Both Koreas seem pretty authoritarian from what I can tell?
@@AylinIsAwesome yeah that's the whelp-this-is-a-tankie part of the video. Wasted more than 30 minutes.
@@dodec8449
Yeah, I probably should have seen that coming with her opinions on the USSR in the videos about its cartoons and depictions in western media.
North Korea is undeniably terrible when it comes personal freedoms like LGBT rights, abortion, access to information, leaving the country, etc. But is there are world of difference between them and Saudi Arabia or many other counties the west doesn’t fear monger about? And when it come to human rights, what NK did to Otto Warmbier was psychotic, but even in the US, we have recent cases like Lason Butler or John Castillo, where prison inmates were subjected to inhumane conditions and died.
Im not condoning the way Revolutionary Thot was framing it, but there is something to the idea that we treat them like this arch enemy Hollywood villain when, in reality, they’re only unusually bad in a select few areas like the travel and internet restrictions. The rest is run of the mill conservative authoritarian crap that is way too common in Asia and Africa.
@gluehfunke1547 Yeah, I agree
@gluehfunke1547
Overall, that's a fair point. I might be the only one hearing a little whataboutism, but even if not, it is quite odd yet also touching to hear such words from someone who isn't a literal sympathiser like her :/
58:02 the fun thing is that this map makes no sense at all. Why Paraguay and Uruguay are more free than Brazil? Or why Nicaragua (because of the whole schtick with Daniel Ortega) is more free than India? And that blue space to the side of Jordan, I hope it is because Palestine will be free.
"Please president Xi send the PLA, my people yearn for freedom." Isnt on the polcom.
A testament to how invalid it really is.
i took the test over 3 times over a decade. I started off just barely one tick north-right and center, second time around i was massively left and down-left multiple ticks to right above gandhi just a few years later, by the last time i was almost off the chart in the bottom left corner. I stopped taking it seriously at that point.
something like political alignment should be a 3 dimensional graph with another 3 dimensional graph to go along with it detailing where you fall along morality lines.
"soaking" was never a thing, it's literally just made up. I'm an anarchosocialist mormon living in utah, no one has ever heard of, or talked about, something called soaking.
I was hoping for you to put out a new video! Thank you!
It conflates cultural/social ideas with governance. I should be the prototypical tankie extreme top-left type but it will always put me in the bottom-left bc I don’t think the government should regulate ppls gender expression or whatever
14:21 - that's because the vertical axis is taken verbatim from the f-scale (authoritarian personality) test.
Congrats on finally getting the video out!!! I promised on the Patreon to post the recommended readings on the DPRK in the comment section. Hopefully it doesn't get buried lol.
Anyway for further reading on the DPRK:
A.B Abrams has written a plethora of books on geopolitics and East Asia, and he's particularly knowledgable on the two Koreas since he's actually been to both countries and learned the language. Best part is that he doesn't resort to the usual cliches when writing about the country. He treats them like human beings.
To start there's his 2020 book "Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power". This year he also came out with "Surviving The Unipolar Era: North Korea’s 35 Year Standoff with the United States". I should stress that while I have heard amazing things about both of those books I have not read them myself so I cannot elaborate further on their content!!!
I have read his book "Atrocity Fabrication And Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order" though. While it focuses on a bunch of different conflicts and countries: from Cuba, Vietnam, China, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. There are two chapters devoted to the DPRK. One chapter focusing on the Korean War, and the other focusing on the modern conflict with the DPRK and the United States (mostly on events from 2000 to the late 2010s). I have to stress that this book is extremely graphic!!!!!!!! The descriptions of the violence inflicted on people all over the world by the United States and allied western militaries are brutal and disturbing. This is not an easy book to simply sit down and read all the way through. However, this history is extremely important to know and be aware of.
Here is the internet archive pdf link for it: ia600302.us.archive.org/1/items/abrams-atrocity-fabrications/Abrams_AtrocityFab.pdf
Definitely buy it if you can though!!!
For something on the lighter side. Ronald Boer's "Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance" devotes a chapter to details on the governance of the DPRK. The book is more on the theoretical side of things rather than painting a vivid picture of everyday life, but it's a very rich text with a ton of information on the country! There are also chapters on both the USSR and the People's Republic of China as well. But I found the chapter on the DPRK to be very educational in particular considering how little I knew about the country.
In a funny way, the compass does effectively display political ideology. It just doesn't do it in the way it was intended to. It embodies the ideology of western liberalism very nicely, all the self-contradictions, the biases, the pretentions of being objective and non-partisan, and a deep incuriousness towards material conditions.
Also I love that you criticized the questions themselves. I have seen so many perfectly fine leftist critiques of the political compass, but none really talk about the idiocy of the questions and how reflective they are of the liberal conception of history as windowless monads
Наконец-то не забыл подписаться ✊🏼🚩
Да Здравствует Товарищ Ленин
Fast talking left-wing content creators is my favorite movie genre
So in a nutshell basically they're trying to say good thing is bad but bad thing is good do our good thing not that bad thing?
Brainrot
I'm not sure what's particularly wrong about determining political leaning based on vibes. You're making the same mistake economists used to make: thinking people are perfectly rational actors. The fact is, most people act on their political beliefs based on things that aren't rationally ideological. For example:
1. What's socially accepted / popular in their social circles. i.e. the default
2. What's personally most convenient or beneficial
3. Vibe check on the political actors that they know / see
I vote for a fully funded field trip of revolutionaryth0t and Hasan Piker to North Korea to discover the truth of the DPRK.
Like the American Socialists who went to the Soviet Union in the 1920s??😭😭
I'm more than willing to acknowledge that the information I've received about NK is deeply seeped in propaganda, but personally I still wouldn't take the risk. FWIW, I'm pretty against the South Korean government too, but I also don't tend to trust isolationist, hyper nationalist governments of any stripe.
@@aliceolson7176 Well that means youre just a liberal then! /sarcasm
love your channel! thank you for all you do!
Ticket before this goes viral
👇🏻
If it was a good thirty minutes shorter, it might have been
Exceptional analysis! Subbed. Can’t wait for the next one.
The video was so good, but then it had to devolve into NK apologia. You know... the communist themed monarchy. Yes there is universal sufferage, but what does it matter if you can only vote for the ruling party and nothing else. Yes the state is secular, because religion demands loyalty to things other than the Great Leader. If you disagree with the way the things work you can't even leave.
Also they don't even claim to be marxist anymore, but juche so I don't get why anyone would defend them.
...but I guess westerners know everything better and the next thing you will say that the 1956 hungarian revolution was actually a CIA-backed fascist coup. You MUST know better than my own grandparents, they were just parroting american propaganda after all.
The end of the free Hungarian councils was a tragedy for socialism.
"Also they don't even claim to be marxist anymore, but juche so I don't get why anyone would defend them." - factually wrong and ignorant regarding anti-imperialism
"but I guess westerners know everything better and the next thing you will say that the 1956 hungarian revolution was actually a CIA-backed fascist coup." - it factually was, the west never made any secret out of it. Your grandparents were fascists and deserved it, get fucked.
@@azrael8759 What councils? Those of the fascist arrow cross party? xD
>what does it matter if you can only vote for the ruling party and nothing else
Yeah, modern North Korea truly is as irredeemable as America
You believe all those unsourced claims about NK? Lmao. They have a strict society because YOUR country has them under military occupation.
This video is excellent.
How subversive it seems to have an accurate, material, historical view of the other states on Earth. I never realized how the compass stands for, and helps maintain, a fundamentally skewed western perspective. It's not just goofy, it's a tool of the bourgeoisie.
While I agree with most of your points, the USSR and Soviet block apologism is unbearable. I am polish and my country was given away to the USSR by the west after WWII. What ultimately led to our country being free (yes, the state was insanely oppressive) was people getting organized and forming trade unions. Later the solidarity movement spread to other Soviet countries. I cannot deny that during Soviet rule a lot of good changes happened - elimination of illiteracy, rebuilding of the capital from literal ruins and removing most inequalities in society. Also, many great things stayed after establishing democracy- free education, including university and one of the best healthcare systems in Europe. However, the regime was oppressive and brutal to any form of opposition, especially in the earlier years. In 1981 martial law was established for two years, during which people regularly got beaten up by militia for even carrying printer parts, and all opposition leaders were thrown into prison. I just cannot stand some of the US leftists who assume that if the states hadn't meddled in USSR, then we'd have true socialism by now, while ignoring all the nuances of history and forgetting that the self-interested ruling class can develop everywhere. The demonization goes too far imo, but worship isn't the answer.
Communists are brutal to any form of opposition because the west is constantly trying to destroy all the gains you admit they made.
Getting more annoyed at the comment section for this one than most videos. But I found this really informative. I've seen videos about flaws of the political compass but this is the first one that I've come out of feeling like I've gained a substantial amount of knowledge.
Americans are stupid when it comes to North Korea sadly.
"What actually matters is the material conditions and not ideas"
"Uhhhhhhh ackshually DPRK is good because they have a piece of paper saying the economy belongs to the people, please ignore the material conditions."
Does the word “sanctions” mean anything to you? How about the phrase “killed 20% of their population?” Or the fact the norks had a better standard than the south until very recently?
@@Magnesium-BasedLifeform-i9e”very recently” is bollocks. If North Korea became a democracy like South Korea their country would be in a much better place.
@@mr.alfredo4177 ah yes south korea is a democracy, just like how Nigeria defended Patagonia from a zombie invasion in 1356.
@ South Korea quite literally is a democracy. They just stopped an attempted coup through democracy.
North Korea is an autocratic dictatorship.
DPRK is good because they prevented America from invading and slaughtering them again. Their material conditions would improve more if you LEFT THEIR COUNTRY from the MILITARY OCCUPATION the west has on it.
This channel is so damn underrated. Great stuff!
49:20 The constitution of north korea described a state capitalist economy not a socialist one
And you just made a completely irrelevant whataboutism tangent afterwards
and the US government does let you travel to north korea, that is a myth
and the "no opinion at all until you've visited North Korea" completely debunks half of your video since you talked about many different countries
@@MorningStxr-js7fw not to mention a big gripe she had about the compass was that there was no basis for anything yet goes on to cite a website that has the same problems (Numbeo) when talking about crime
ye, that bit of the vid made me pause and go, "wait... wtf?"
I don't know if I'm going to watch the rest. Probably?
(My criticism of that bit of the vid):
And yes, North Korea is basically a fascist dictatorship run by state capitalists. Very, VERY far from being even remotely left-wing as far as governance goes.
Also, going off on how the "US" makes stuff up about North Korea sounds very conspiracy-brained.
Yes, there is heavy censorship and manufacturing of consent in the US, but at the very least, we have access to independent journalism.
If you don't trust the US, trust the many independent journalists that have heavily documented the oppression of the people of North Korea by state capitalists.
This video was actually me learning that Uruguay is actually kinda awesome sounding
North Korea is well known to be authoritarian, not because "common sense", but because of lots of evidence to it. NK requires people to bow to images, not crinkle images of etc. their king. Visitors are kept under constant monitor of a "minder" and are forbidden any contact with any NK except for select people approved. NK has a agency where they "recruit" people to do jobs overseas. But the NK government gets most of this money and conditions and pay of the work are terrible, they might also say be required to do bad stuff. Each person has to have a family so that threat to the family keeps them from running away. There is other proof as welll.
And while yes SK has had exaggerated to even fabricated horror stories for NK for show ratings, enough people escaping from NK not involved in such shows have given a pretty stark image of a brutally authoritarian government. Also other BS about the abortion stuff etc doesn't change what we do know.
As far as SK goes. Yeah, because of extreme capitalism SK is also pretty authoritative. Both things are true. "Oops talking about SK again" bit got old very quickly because, while what you're saying is true, one doesn't change the other. BTW "martial law" doesn't even apply when NK is ruled by a king with absolute authority.
I agree with much of what you said in this video except the BS about NK where you pretend that it's only false western propaganda that anyone thinks anything bad about NK's government.
"People bow to images" doesn't the USA require people in schools to do a Pledge to the Flag even if they're not from the USA? sounds like y'all take something from other cultures and make it look bad even tho you do something similar
@@ricardo36You aren’t punished by the government for not saying the pledge of allegiance. Barely anyone at any of my schools said the pledge. This is a false equivalency
You actually believe all this stuff? You are really gullible. Most of these claims have never been sourced.
@@dev-i3p What claims? You are being too vague.
@@firstlast-cs6eg The claims you make in your first paragraph
Im enjoying your videos, keep up the great work
Great video! Really presents concrete reasons this compass doesn't work, especially economically. My only issue, AS A SOCIALIST, is the defensiveness of North Korea or the rhetoric that the West's understanding of it is the opposite of the truth. When confronted with the question of whether North Korea is authoritarian you spent a large amount of time arguing countries liberals like such as South Korea were authoritarian. Correct, South Korea is one of the worst countries I know of, but how does that make North Korea not authoritarian? I agree with everything you are saying about other countries, I agree that Korea is a result of anti-communist imperialism, but that doesn't make North Korea not authoritarian. Don't get me wrong, it's important knowledge but it feels like dodging the question in this context. Maybe I've misunderstood the point you were trying to convey, but with the setup of trying to correctly categorize countries in a more truthful way, it came off like you were arguing North Korea was not authoritarian and seemed quite defensive of it, pitting it against the rest of the 'bad' countries. If I'm wrong let me know.
There's a lot to like about the DPRK, and asserting that everything said about it is pure propaganda isn't far from the truth, but is not the whole truth. North Korea is *definitely* authoritarian despite the freedom and comfort it offers its citizens economically. The "democratic" aspects of society like voting are quite limited and the ruling party [only party] effectively chooses for its people. A one-party state is not a politically free state. There is an almost religious view of the Un family who are effectively monarchs.
Socialism is about freedom, and a monarchy, even with economic harm reduction is not true freedom and likely unstable under future global changes. This isn't to say that its a terrible country, it's just not all butterflies and rainbows and that can still be pointed out on the left. This discussion just further shows how the Wests view of both capitalism and socialism are just off in so many ways. You're absolutely right that there is a hypocritical view of liberals on what "authoritarian" means. They see a country with a single, un-elected, permanently leader and say that's authoritarian but then look at the US where elections are decided by the most powerful rich people on the planet and call it a democracy. Truth is, both the US and North Korea are more or less authoritarian, just in vastly different ways. The assumption that because liberals are wrong, the right answer must be the opposite of what they believe is ridiculous. Socialism in North Korea is not the extent of what socialism means or could be, nor should it be conflated. The difference between a monarchy and a democracy is massive. Unfortunately it seems there is very few truly democratic free countries on this planet, and the reasons why are vast and complicated. I don't think a single country on this planet should be considered ideal as a whole, we should think more about the individual aspects of these countries we reason are effective/right.
yeah it's really bizarre to take this approach, modern north korea is a monarchy in all but name
yes south korea is an illegitimate state, yes it cares about as little if not less for its citizens as north korea does, yes it actively aims to destroy north korea's economic ability and social stability... but North Korea is a monarchy, quite the opposite of public ownership of the state.
Great video. Thank you so much for your work and good research
I find the little graphic you see upon opening the website fascinating, the one with the historical figures.
On the left auth you have Mao and Stalin, on lib left Luxemburgand Kropotkin. A strange contrast because 2 of these people were actually in a leading position while the other two only preached. Why not use a actual anarchist leader like Makhno or someone from the CNT, liberals dont knows about them? Understandable.
I imagine (hope) the pogroms made Makhno unappealing to them
@@Hekkins The Black Army was the least pogrom-happy out of all of the factions in Russian Civil War and Makhno severely clamped on anti-semitism in his ranks so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
This is probably the most exciting video essay I've seen in a while. There is a large gap in understanding between the people of the U.S. and every other citizen of the globe. That could be because of a multitude of reasons like the war of attrition that neoliberal governments have been playing with the department of education, the Red Scare that has been happening in regards to Palestine and the Red Scare of the 1980s (which has affected the parents of the generation that is in the zeitgeist, Gen-Xers), or the nature of American, suburban culture, which is to be as incurious and self-serving as possible. Whatever it may be, that incuriosity is a plague upon a ton of people in the West and it shrinks things like political ideologies into little quirks or badges that you can affix to yourself to give yourself an identity, probably another symptom of alienation from each other.
I'm not very well-read in terms of history or MLM theory, but it's videos like these, those that not only tear into those vehicles for American political identity, but dissect them and point out where they went wrong and a better frame of thinking entirely, that are helpful to people who are genuinely curious and are far more interested in learning about politics beyond memes and infographics. I think RUclips does a phenomenal job at suppressing genuine socialist politics and history while pushing an acceptable image of left-politics dressed up in a palatable, but abstractive, way of thinking. No hate to anarchist channels or the channels dedicated to identity analysis and education, it's all love, but there's a reason why their channels tend to do a lot better than channels like this or Hakim or azurescapegoat or Second Thought, etc.
I think a large part of the problem is that a large portion of English-speaking RUclips's audience (especially more left-leaning channels) is based in the middle-class in the first world. A lot of times, those people have been inundated with propaganda since birth and have no dissident teachers or mentors beyond the internet, which, for its vast abundance of knowledge, has very little in terms of genuine guidance or political advice. Even as I'm almost done with my college career, the liberal underpinnings and propaganda were invisible to me as I began school and all too apparent now. A lot of it, I think, is owed toward the idea that you put forward of "ideas as politics" rather than any sort of material analysis. People have ideas and if they're good enough, they change the world. It's really tempting to believe that because it's a framework in which the U.S. as a project can rinse its hands clean of the rivers of blood it has let flow in the name of liberal democracy.
Ultimately, it always comes down to reading. I very much enjoyed "If We Burn" and enjoy Bevins as an author as a whole. I think that a good essay and book to add onto "If We Burn" is Jo Freeman's "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" and Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò's "Elite Capture," which mostly talk about the same things. Having hope in contemporary situations is difficult, but studying history makes it a lot easier. I love learning about the Soviet Union and Korea and theory and this video combines a lot of ideas to undo the harm that that stupid axis has done onto people seeking validation for their opinions. Thanks for the vid!!
I love how you completely fail to address the actual reasons why people consider North Korea to be an authoritarian dictatorship, instead deflecting, attacking strawman, and using whataboutisms. Don't think I didn't notice that not once do you bring up any of the actual criticisms against North korea. You could have debunked them directly, but you didn't.
The reason why people think that are because they are ignorant of Korean history and culture. To dispel that ignorance would take a whole video.
@dev-i3p okay, but what about the concentration camps?
@@bored_person I'm sure prison camps in third world countries are no fun but I don't think North Korea is in a position to abolish prisons.
@dev-i3p what about entire families being imprisoned for multiple generations all because of the crimes of one person. Or what about the one party democracy where writing in another candidate can get you declared An enemy of the State. Stop bootlicking.
This compass is what made me not understand how political sides worked. And its not until recently that I've actually even dug into which sides actually believe what and why. And even now i get confused occasionally by some terms.
Thank you for making such quality content, Comrade.
I don't use the political compass as intended. I do find it useful as a first lesson in the notion that the range of political thought does not lie along a 1 dimensional line from left to right. However, I also note that this picture is also a huge oversimplification and there should be way more than 2 dimensions and much more complexity in how views are measured along those dimensions. But it's a useful introduction into that concept for people who are politically unaware, including children.
You had me in the first half. Pretty good stuff about how the political compass was made and is biased. But you lost me in the second half where you say don't trust anything you hear about North Korea unless you've been there. I've heard first hand reports of humanitarians going there and it's not as glamorous as you make it out to be. Also saying everything you hear is a lie is conspiratorial
You probably haven't heard first hand reports of what is going on in North Korea though.
@@dev-i3p i listend to a report from an aidworker who went there
@@krausmal37 No one is saying North Korea is glamorous considering it's a third world country under illegal military occupation from the west, so how does this aid worker's anecdotal experience contradict what is *actually* being said?
I would love to see an updated question set for it. It's not going to be accurate but it could be more fun to do again.