Polar opposite of SciFi as usual

Ironically, dsister44, you are exactly correct. SciFiBoy is your polar opposite, being within 0.25 points of him.

Nothing exciting, really. There wasn't a big event in my life, or anything like that, just the gradual realisation that the private sector would prove far more efficient at running certain, if not all, services.

As for trade liberalisation, that came with education. I've now realised that protectionism helps the few, but harms absolutely everybody else, and I've also had a change in mindset about people: I've realised that British people aren't entitled to a job, or anything like that, just because they're British.

What I mean by that last statement was that I used to think that trade barriers, and the ilk, were good because they protected British jobs. But, now, I can't see why a Chinese worker, or an Indian worker, shouldn't be entitled to compete for the same job. Why should the piece of land where you are born dictate whether or not you should be able to fairly compete in the global job market?

Economic Left/Right: 0.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.23

I'd say it's pretty spot on... as I'm definitely more Libertarian than Authortarian (altough not by much it seems. ). As for Right or Left, it definitely varies from subject to subject.

This test seems very familiar to me. Oh right I took it before....

Heres mine, almost exactly where it fits me.

Your political compass

 Economic Left/Right: -4.12

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.72

Why is economics being considered as a political ideology? >.

Utimately, it still comes down to economic liberty and economic authoritarianism through government interventions, which can manifest itself in many ways. That would be why its on the chart. The chart was developed to better equate 'right and left' on not just an X axis, but a Y axis as well. It is political because politics heavily influences government regulations, as well as financial freedoms for people. For example, a lefist economy is much more planned, and focuses on the need for government to provide a large group of services for people via nationalization, excessive taxes, command & planned economies of scale, whereas a rightist economy would provide much less restriction for businesses and people. This is the same coin of arguing civil liberties, as governments have a large say in what is acceptable and unacceptable in private practices.

For example, one may say that Pol Pot was a leftist, and Pinochet was fanatical right....In what ways, exactly? In some ways they were indeed two extremes, but in others, they were very similar. That is why there is both an X and Y axis, instead of a simply one-dimensional graph. That way, polarization is more than a simple 'liberal versus conservative' argument.

Economics should be rational, but like any system of ideas, it can be influenced by a person's worldview. Some people prefer the government to have a larger, more controlling aspect of how the market works. Another example would be O-D-C and myself. Socially, we both prefer that the government stay out of most social aspects of life. However, we largely disagree on how the government should handle monetary issues. I would imagine that he is for welfare, social security, more government regulations and restrictions to businesses, and so on, while I favor the exact opposite. That is why economics are there

Economics is treated rationally... it's just your political view effects what you believe the question is.

Right wing economics are about imrpoving GDP.

Left wing economics are about improving income distribution.

Left Wing economists are more concerned with the Gini coeefficent and maitnaining a balance of rich and poor.

Right Wing economists are more concerned with improving the standard of living and driving the economy.

Both "right wing" and "left wing" economists are approaching the question without politcal messages.  It's just... they're approaching different questions.

I found this from the last time we did the test:

It looks like the furthest drifter is by and large SamuelRSmith. He has done a complete economic flip-flop, Mike Gravel style. The other notables include SciFiBoy's slight drift right, my drift lower-right, and Farmland's drift right. All in all, almost every test taker (twice) has drifted to the right. Of course, we're missing a few that took the tests.

*edit*

Also found a....Very...Very...Revealing test of notable political leaders. Who knew America was so libertarian? Very revealing about early 20th century US presidents too.