The Economic Axis (Left ↔ Right)

Measures how far you think government should intervene in markets and redistribute wealth.

What this axis measures

The economic axis asks a single question in many forms: how much of what the market produces should be left as it is? At one end sits the view that the gaps markets leave behind should be actively adjusted through taxation and public provision. At the other sits the view that intervention distorts the way resources find their uses, and that leaving the market alone produces better outcomes over time. Both ends want a society that works. They disagree about what is stopping it from working.

Questions this axis asks

How high taxes should be, particularly on high earners and corporations
Whether health care, education, and pensions should be publicly provided or left to the market
How far minimum wages, dismissal rules, and union bargaining power should reach
Whether regulating large firms and controlling utility prices helps competition or hinders it

The two poles

Economic Left

Holds that gaps left by the market are hard to close through individual effort alone, so government should adjust them through taxes and public provision.

Economic Left

Economic Right

Holds that intervention distorts how resources are allocated and weakens incentives, so the market's own adjustments generally do better.

Economic Right

Reading your score

Where you land on the economic axis is independent of the other three. Plenty of people are economically left and socially traditional, and the reverse combination is just as common. This axis is also relative: a policy that reads as centrist in one country reads as clearly partisan in another.

Curious where you land?

Take the 16-question version (about five minutes) or the 40-question detailed version to see your position on all four axes. Nothing is stored — answers are calculated in your browser and never leave it.

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This page neither endorses nor opposes any position. Each position is described the way its own supporters would describe it, and criticisms are given equal weight across all of them. Political disagreement is often less about who is right than about what each side weighs most heavily.