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The '''Nolan Chart''' is a political diagram popularized by main Libertarian founder[[David Nolan]]. He created it to illustrate the claim that libertarianism stands for both economic freedom and personal freedom (as he defined the terms), in graphic contrast to left-wing "[[liberalism]]", which, according to Nolan, advocates only personal freedom, and right-wing "[[conservatism]]", which, according to Nolan, advocates only economic freedom.
The '''Nolan Chart''' is a political diagram popularized by [[Libertarian]] [[David Nolan]]. He created it to illustrate the claim that libertarianism stands for both economic freedom and personal freedom (as he defined the terms), in graphic contrast to left-wing "[[liberalism]]", which, according to Nolan, advocates only personal freedom, and right-wing "[[conservatism]]", which, according to Nolan, advocates only economic freedom.


==Development==
==Development==
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The Libertarian Party frequently uses the chart along with the [[World's Smallest Political Quiz]] as a public outreach tool.
The Libertarian Party frequently uses the chart along with the [[World's Smallest Political Quiz]] as a public outreach tool.
==Criticism==
Critics of this diagram (and this kind of chart in general) claim that it represents at best a pseudoscientific illustration of a political point of view. The essential premise of the diagram is for many an oversimplified generalization, one that is no real improvement over the unidimensional left-right or liberal-conservative scales; economic freedom and personal freedom are often inextricable, and both left-wing (Bakunin) and right-wing philosophers draw the same connection, though they have radically different views on the actual ''meaning'' of these types of "freedom". [[Corporate welfare]], for example, is listed as a Leftist stance (since it falls under "low economic freedom"), yet it is often supported by the Right. Many libertarians would claim that this actually indicates that the political Left and Right are, in fact, very similar to each other despite their seemingly highly different positions. Critics argue that the libertarian views on personal and economic freedom may be a useful way of classifying ''libertarianism'' in relation to other ideologies, but they do not apply to the classification of those other ideologies in relation to each other.
The libertarian conception of freedom is perceived by some as tending toward anarchy. Others see it as driven by excessive individualism that actually detracts from social freedom. In essence, they claim the "chart" exists only to distance the term "libertarianism" from the older terms of [[anarchism]] and [[socialism]], the latter of which draws polemic connections to [[communism]], which itself draws polemic connections to [[totalitarianism]].
A similar criticism of the chart is that the terms "authoritarianism" and "liberalism", as used to describe opposing stances on the y-axis of "personal freedom", do not easily apply to some prominent contemporary social issues (although these terms were not originally used by Nolan, they have become popular with followers of his chart system). For example, proponents of strict gun control are generally social liberals, who see fewer guns on the streets as promoting individual safety and thus individual liberty. At the same time, opponents of gun control see restrictions on certain firearms as an infringement on their personal liberties. Similar problems emerge from other social issues such as abortion, where the debate centers on whether the "right" to have an abortion is more or less important than the "rights" of the unborn child. In both of these examples, both sides tend to argue that their stance on the issue maximises total liberty. Thus the division between "liberal" and "authoritarian" is of little use on these issues, and the debate instead often divides people in terms of other exogenous factors such as their religious beliefs. This, some argue, leaves the effectiveness of the chart somewhat compromised.
Other critics argue that the libertarian definition of economic and personal "freedom" is incorrect or flawed, and that non-libertarian ideologies actually give people more freedom than libertarianism does. One such argument is that freedom from government intervention in the economy does not assure individual freedom within the private sector, and that government may preserve individual freedom against non-governmental powers. (This is the case Noam Chomsky makes when he refers to "private tyranny". [http://archives.thedaily.washington.edu/1995/102495/chomsky.html], [http://www.davidcogswell.com/MediaRoulette/NewMediaEnvironment.html]) Nolan's usage of "populism" shows that he rejects this argument.
The x-axis of "economic freedom" assumes a choice between a strongly state-regulated economy ("low economic freedom") and free-market capitalism ("high economic freedom"). This completely ignores the existence of [[libertarian socialism]] and most branches of [[anarchism]], who are opposed both to the state and to capitalism. Anarchists and libertarian socialists do not want any kind of state intervention in the economy, yet they are also vehemently opposed to [[private property]] over the means of production and wish to give the workers direct collective control over the economy. They see themselves as promoting economic freedom, but certainly not in the capitalist sense that is used in the Nolan chart.
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In addition to these ideological objections, the [http://www.self-gov.org/quiz-score/quiz.php "How People Have Scored"] section gives results that do not seem to be representative of most Americans' political beliefs. Currently, 34.76% of test takers have scored [[Libertarian]], compared to 30.26% who have scored [[Centrist]]. This overrepresentation of [[Libertarians]] could be a reflection of the sample of people viewing the website, however there were also more test takers who scored [[Statist]] (8.67%) than [[Conservative]] (7.64%).
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A few of the people who oppose the use of the Nolan Chart are strong libertarians, [[Objectivists]] or other advocates of [[laissez-faire]] capitalism who believe that the political spectrum need be portrayed only through one dimension, but not the traditional Left/Right one. They propose an axis with totalitarianism/authoritarianism ([[statism]]) at one end, and libertarianism at the other end something similar to the first diagonal of the Nolan Chart. They insist that all types of government intervention, in any areas, are the same.


==External Links==
==External Links==
*[http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html World's Smallest Political Quiz] from [[Advocates for Self-Government|The Advocates for Self Government]]
*[http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html World's Smallest Political Quiz] from [[Advocates for Self-Government|The Advocates for Self Government]]
*[http://libertarianwiki.org/Nolan_Survey Wiki version of Nolan Survey]
 
*[http://FreedomKeys.com/nolancharts.htm The Nolan Chart and its variations]
[[Category: Outreach]]
*[http://web.archive.org/web/%2a/http%3a//FreedomKeys.com/nolancharts.htm Archive of past versions of "Nolan Chart and its variations"] (at archive.org)
[[Category: Outreach Publications]]
*[http://www.politopia.com/ Politopia, the Land of Custom-Made Government]
*[http://www.friesian.com/quiz.htm Positive & Negative Liberties in Three Dimensions]
*[http://politicalcompass.org/ Political Compass]
*[http://www.quiz2d.com/ The Enhanced Precision Political Quiz... IN 2D]
*[http://www.republicanliberty.org/libdex/index.htm A voting index of the U.S. Congress] (prepared by Prof. Clifford F. Thies for the [[Republican Liberty Caucus]].)
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