A Look at the Economic, Social, and Political (ESP) Spectrums Part 1: An Introduction

When examining current events and such, we should look through three lenses, namely the economic, social, and political (ESP). This allows us to gain a greater understanding. Failing to look through all three can lead to an incomplete comprehension of an issue. In this article, I’d like to look at all three and how America fits in. This is an overview article and I intend to explore each in greater detail at a later date.

Let’s start with the social in Figure 1.

Note the barbell approach I’ve taken. In this context, pure freedom is the equilibrium. In theory, I suppose we could say pure freedom is anarchy, but for this column, we’re going to assume a government is in place. As we move to the left of the center, we see a secular government begin to encroach on the pure freedom, leading ultimately to a totalitarian secular government. Likewise, as we move right of center, we see a theocratic, religious-based government encroach on pure freedom.

The point is, as we move further left or right, freedom falls under attack. I deliberately structured the color scheme to show that the attacker of freedom is irrelevant. In this spectrum, I would put the USA in the semi-freedom realm. Whether we are secular or theocratic is outside the scope of this column. Also outside the scope of this column is my belief that the USA is the global champion of freedom, given that we have entities far to the left of us (China, Russia, North Korea, etc.) and far to the right of us (like Iran).

We now move onto the global political spectrum shown in Figure 2.

Again, we assume a government exists, thus no anarchy. The overlap between Figures 1 and 2 is not a coincidence. Our political structures are directly correlated to freedom and the social spectrum.

To narrow it down to what we see in the United States, we have Figure 3, which is the republic portion of Figure 2. Technically, the United States is a republic, not a democracy. The difference is mainly in the voting structure. In a democracy, all eligible voters vote on all matters, but in a republic, eligible voters elect representatives to vote on their behalf on most matters (save the occasional referendum). Both structures allow for a single executive branch to be elected. One can easily see how a true democracy is impractical. In Figure 3, we see darker red/blue as we get further away from the purple center (because red and blue make purple).

I’m not going to go into excruciating detail here. On the left, we would typically expect to see various classes of liberals like democrats, socialists, progressives, and communists. On the right, we would typically expect to see various classes of conservatives like republicans, libertarians, and social conservatives.

We don’t typically see a global economic spectrum, but I’d contend it looks like Figure 4.


Note the lack of partition and higher concentration of more solid colors in Figure 4 versus Figure 3. Also, note the absence of anything to the right of socialism shown in Figure 2. The reason is that these (republic, democracy, monarchy, theocracy, and fundamentalist) are generally considered more to be social and political structures than economic structures, and as such, these structures can, in theory, appear throughout the economic spectrum. So, we have free-market capitalist, socialist, and communist economic structures.

But Figure 4 is flawed. It creates a perception that if one is not a full-on free-market capitalist, one is a socialist or even a communist. This is why I’d like to change the economic spectrum in Figure 4 to look more like Figure 5.


As you can see, there is much less solid color and two new categories have emerged, namely capitalist and neutral. This distinction is necessary because it creates a new category, the capitalist, for people who believe the economy should mostly be left to its own devices, yet sometimes requires the government to act as a referee or a guide. Such people are often and unfairly demonized by free-market capitalists, socialists, and communists alike.

This was meant as an introductory look at the three spectrums. I plan to explore each in greater detail in future columns.