Political Figures on the 12 Axes

• JL

  John Locke

  English philosopher of natural rights, 1632-1704

  English philosopher who argued that government rests on the consent of the governed and exists to protect life, liberty and property. Defended a right to resist tyranny, grounded property in labor, and argued for religious toleration among Protestants, though not for atheists or Catholics.

  Closest ideology: Classical Liberalism

• AS

  Adam Smith

  Scottish economist and moral philosopher, 1723-1790

  Scottish economist who argued in The Wealth of Nations that the division of labor and free markets create wealth, and attacked mercantilist tariffs and monopolies. Saw a role for the state in defense, justice, public works and education, and wrote on moral sympathy in an earlier book.

  Closest ideology: Classical Liberalism

• EB

  Edmund Burke

  Irish-born British statesman and conservative thinker, 1729-1797

  Irish-born British statesman who criticized the French Revolution for breaking with inherited institutions and religion. Defended gradual reform, tradition and established churches, supported the American colonists' grievances, and led the impeachment of Warren Hastings over abuses in British India.

  Closest ideology: Conservatism

• TJ

  Thomas Jefferson

  US founding father and third president, 1743-1826

  Author of the Declaration of Independence and third US president. Favored limited federal power, states' rights, an agrarian economy and separation of church and state, completed the Louisiana Purchase and imposed the 1807 trade embargo. He enslaved more than 600 people over his lifetime.

  Closest ideology: Classical Liberalism

• NB

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  French general and emperor, 1769-1821

  French general who seized power in 1799 and crowned himself emperor in 1804. Centralized administration, issued the Civil Code, signed a Concordat with the Church, waged wars across Europe, imposed the Continental System against British trade and restored slavery in French colonies in 1802.

  Closest ideology: State Capitalism

• SB

  Simón Bolívar

  South American independence leader, 1783-1830

  Led the independence wars that freed Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia from Spanish rule. Favored a strong central state and a life presidency, called the 1826 Congress of Panama for Latin American union, freed enslaved people who joined his armies and assumed dictatorial powers in Gran Colombia in 1828.

  Closest ideology: Technocracy

• MS

  Max Stirner

  German egoist philosopher, 1806-1856

  German philosopher who argued in The Ego and Its Own that the individual owes nothing to the state, religion, morality or society. Rejected every fixed cause, including liberalism, humanism and communism, as an abstraction, and proposed voluntary unions of egoists in place of institutions.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Egoism

• PP

  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

  French mutualist philosopher, first self-declared anarchist, 1809-1865

  The first thinker to call himself an anarchist, known for the phrase property is theft. Proposed mutualism: workers' cooperatives, free credit through a people's bank and federations of small producers in place of the state. He also held traditional views on the family and opposed women's equality.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Mutualism

• AL

  Abraham Lincoln

  US president during the Civil War, 1809-1865

  Sixteenth US president, who led the Union through the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Supported high protective tariffs, a national banking system, the transcontinental railroad and the Homestead Act, and suspended habeas corpus during the war.

  Closest ideology: Left-Wing Populism

• MB

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Russian revolutionary and collectivist anarchist, 1814-1876

  Argued that every state oppresses and must be abolished rather than captured. Advocated collective ownership of land and workshops by free associations, attacked religion in God and the State, called for insurrection, and split with Marx in the First International over the state and authority.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Communism

• OB

  Otto von Bismarck

  First chancellor of the German Empire, 1815-1898

  Prussian prime minister who unified Germany through three wars and served as the first German chancellor. Created the first national social insurance for sickness, accidents and old age, imposed protective tariffs in 1879, waged the Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church and banned socialist organizations.

  Closest ideology: State Capitalism

• KM

  Karl Marx

  German philosopher and economist, 1818-1883

  Argued that history is driven by class struggle and that capitalism would give way to a classless, stateless society. Called for collective ownership of the means of production, a transitional dictatorship of the proletariat and international workers' unity, and treated religion as a product of social conditions.

  Closest ideology: Marxism

• FE

  Friedrich Engels

  German socialist theorist and industrialist, 1820-1895

  Co-wrote The Communist Manifesto with Marx and edited the later volumes of Capital. Documented industrial working conditions in Manchester, traced the family, private property and the state to common historical origins, and wrote on military strategy and on socialism as a science.

  Closest ideology: Trotskyism

• HG

  Henry George

  American economist of the land tax, 1839-1897

  American economist who argued in Progress and Poverty that the value of land belongs to the community. Proposed a single tax on land values in place of other taxes, defended free trade against tariffs and private enterprise in other goods, and supported restricting Chinese immigration.

  Closest ideology: Georgism

• PK

  Peter Kropotkin

  Russian anarcho-communist and geographer, 1842-1921

  Russian geographer and anarchist who argued that mutual aid, not only competition, drives evolution. Proposed a stateless society of free communes sharing goods according to need, with farming and industry combined in local production. Unlike most anarchists, he supported the Allies in the First World War.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Communism

• EG

  Emma Goldman

  Anarchist writer and activist, 1869-1940

  Anarchist writer and speaker in the United States who campaigned for free speech, birth control and women's independence. Opposed military conscription during the First World War, was imprisoned and deported to Russia in 1919, and later criticized the Bolshevik state for suppressing dissent.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Communism

• MG

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Leader of Indian independence, 1869-1948

  Leader of India's independence movement who developed satyagraha, mass nonviolent resistance. Promoted swadeshi, homespun cloth and village self-reliance over industrialization and imported goods, campaigned against untouchability and for Hindu-Muslim unity, and grounded his politics in religious ethics.

  Closest ideology: Religious Anarchism

• VL

  Vladimir Lenin

  Bolshevik leader, founder of Soviet Russia, 1870-1924

  Led the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and founded the Soviet state. Organized a vanguard party, banned rival parties, created the Cheka secret police and nationalized industry, then allowed limited private trade under the New Economic Policy in 1921.

  Closest ideology: Leninism

• RL

  Rosa Luxemburg

  Polish-German Marxist theorist, 1871-1919

  Marxist theorist of the German and Polish left who opposed the First World War and nationalist politics in favor of international working-class unity. Defended mass strikes and revolution but criticized Bolshevik limits on democracy and free expression. She was killed during the 1919 Spartacist uprising in Berlin.

  Closest ideology: De Leonism

• WC

  Winston Churchill

  British wartime prime minister, 1874-1965

  British prime minister during the Second World War and again from 1951 to 1955. Led resistance to Nazi Germany, defended the British Empire and opposed Indian self-rule, began his career as a free-trade Liberal and later called for a united Europe.

  Closest ideology: Neoconservatism

• JS

  Joseph Stalin

  Soviet leader from the 1920s to 1953, 1878-1953

  Ruled the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until 1953. Imposed forced collectivization of agriculture and five-year plans for heavy industry, ran the Gulag labor camp system and the Great Purge, deported entire nationalities, and led the country through the Second World War.

  Closest ideology: Stalinism

• LT

  Leon Trotsky

  Russian revolutionary and Red Army founder, 1879-1940

  Organized the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and argued for permanent revolution spreading beyond Russia. Called for rapid industrialization and central planning, opposed Stalin's socialism in one country and bureaucratic rule, and was exiled in 1929 and killed in Mexico in 1940.

  Closest ideology: Trotskyism

• FD

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  US president during the New Deal, 1882-1945

  US president from 1933 to 1945. Expanded federal power through the New Deal, Social Security, public works and financial regulation, led the United States in the Second World War and helped design the United Nations. His administration also interned Japanese Americans.

  Closest ideology: Moderate Conservatism

• GV

  Getúlio Vargas

  Brazilian leader of the Estado Novo, 1882-1954

  Brazilian leader who took power in 1930, ruled as dictator under the Estado Novo from 1937 to 1945 and returned as elected president in 1951. Created the labor code and a minimum wage, founded Petrobras and the national steel company, centralized power over the states and banned foreign-language schools.

  Closest ideology: State Capitalism

• JM

  John Maynard Keynes

  British economist of demand management, 1883-1946

  British economist who argued that governments should raise spending and run deficits to fight unemployment when private demand falls. Helped design the Bretton Woods system, the IMF and the World Bank, and favored managed capitalism over both laissez-faire and socialism.

  Closest ideology: Progressivism

• BM

  Benito Mussolini

  Founder of Italian Fascism, 1883-1945

  Founder of Italian Fascism who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. Built a one-party police state, replaced free unions with corporatist bodies, signed the Lateran Pacts with the Church, invaded Ethiopia, passed antisemitic racial laws in 1938 and allied with Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

  Closest ideology: Fascism

• CG

  Charles de Gaulle

  French general and Fifth Republic founder, 1890-1970

  Led the Free French in the Second World War and founded the Fifth Republic in 1958 with a strong presidency. Pursued national independence through a French nuclear force, withdrew France from NATO's integrated command, used state planning in industry, and accepted Algerian independence in 1962.

  Closest ideology: State Capitalism

• FF

  Francisco Franco

  Spanish general and dictator, 1892-1975

  Spanish general who led the Nationalist side in the Civil War and ruled Spain as dictator from 1939 to 1975. Made Catholicism the state religion, banned all parties except his own movement, repressed opponents and regional languages, and moved from economic autarky to market reforms in 1959.

  Closest ideology: Fascism

• MZ

  Mao Zedong

  Founder of the People's Republic of China, 1893-1976

  Led the Communist Party to victory in China's civil war and founded the People's Republic in 1949. Collectivized land and launched the Great Leap Forward, which was followed by a famine with tens of millions of deaths, and the Cultural Revolution against traditional culture and party rivals.

  Closest ideology: Maoism

• JP

  Juan Perón

  Argentine president and founder of Peronism, 1895-1974

  Argentine president from 1946 to 1955 and from 1973 to 1974, and founder of Peronism. Called his line a Third Position between capitalism and communism, expanded workers' rights and union power, nationalized railways and utilities, pursued import substitution, and restricted the opposition press.

  Closest ideology: State Capitalism

• FH

  Friedrich Hayek

  Austrian-British economist of the free market, 1899-1992

  Austrian-British economist who argued in The Road to Serfdom that central planning leads toward tyranny. Held that prices coordinate dispersed knowledge no planner can gather, defended the rule of law and limited government, and proposed competing private currencies.

  Closest ideology: Classical Liberalism

• DX

  Deng Xiaoping

  Chinese leader of market reform, 1904-1997

  Led China from 1978 and opened the economy to markets, foreign investment and special economic zones while keeping one-party rule. Promoted the Four Modernizations of agriculture, industry, defense and science, and backed the military crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

  Closest ideology: State Capitalism

• AR

  Ayn Rand

  Russian-American novelist, founder of Objectivism, 1905-1982

  Russian-American novelist and founder of Objectivism, which holds rational self-interest as a moral ideal. Defended laissez-faire capitalism as the only moral system, rejected religion and altruism, celebrated industrial and technological achievement in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and opposed the military draft.

  Closest ideology: Objectivism

• RR

  Ronald Reagan

  US Republican president, 1911-2004

  US president from 1981 to 1989. Cut income taxes, reduced regulation and sought a smaller federal government, expanded military spending during the Cold War, backed anticommunist forces abroad and signed the 1986 immigration law that legalized about three million undocumented immigrants.

  Closest ideology: Neoconservatism

• MF

  Milton Friedman

  American monetarist economist, 1912-2006

  American economist of the Chicago school who argued that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Advocated free markets, floating exchange rates, school vouchers, a negative income tax, an end to military conscription and drug legalization, and influenced economic policy in the US, Britain and Chile.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Capitalism

• NM

  Nelson Mandela

  South African anti-apartheid leader and president, 1918-2013

  South African anti-apartheid leader and the country's first democratically elected president, from 1994 to 1999. Co-founded the ANC's armed wing in 1961, spent 27 years in prison, and in office pursued multiracial reconciliation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a new constitution with a bill of rights.

  Closest ideology: Social Democracy

• LK

  Lee Kuan Yew

  Founding prime minister of Singapore, 1923-2015

  First prime minister of Singapore, from 1959 to 1990. Built an export-led, free-trade economy open to foreign investment, with large-scale public housing and strict law and order, kept tight limits on the press and opposition, and promoted English as a common language alongside multiracial policies.

  Closest ideology: Authoritarian Capitalism

• MT

  Margaret Thatcher

  British Conservative prime minister, 1925-2013

  British prime minister from 1979 to 1990. Privatized state industries, curbed trade union power, cut income taxes and deregulated finance, won the Falklands War and abolished the Greater London Council. Later in office she opposed deeper European political integration.

  Closest ideology: Neoconservatism

• FC

  Fidel Castro

  Leader of the Cuban Revolution, 1926-2016

  Led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and governed Cuba until 2008. Nationalized land and industry, built a single-party socialist state with free public health care and education, restricted the press and political opposition, allied with the Soviet Union and sent troops to Angola.

  Closest ideology: Leninism

• MR

  Murray Rothbard

  American anarcho-capitalist economist, 1926-1995

  American economist who combined Austrian economics with natural rights theory into anarcho-capitalism. Argued that all state functions, including courts and defense, should be provided by private firms, opposed central banking and US foreign wars, and later allied with cultural conservatives in paleolibertarianism.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Capitalism

• CG

  Che Guevara

  Argentine-born guerrilla and revolutionary, 1928-1967

  Guerrilla commander in the Cuban Revolution who then served as Cuba's industry minister and central bank president. Promoted moral over material incentives, central planning and armed revolution across the developing world, oversaw revolutionary tribunal executions in 1959, and was killed in Bolivia in 1967.

  Closest ideology: Leninism

• NC

  Noam Chomsky

  American linguist and libertarian socialist, b. 1928

  Linguist and political writer who describes himself as a libertarian socialist. Argues for worker self-management and the dismantling of illegitimate hierarchies, has long criticized US foreign policy and military interventions, and analyzed how corporate media shape public opinion in Manufacturing Consent.

  Closest ideology: Anarcho-Communism

• ML

  Martin Luther King Jr.

  US civil rights leader and minister, 1929-1968

  Baptist minister and leader of the US civil rights movement. Led nonviolent campaigns against racial segregation, helped win the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, opposed the Vietnam War and launched the Poor People's Campaign for jobs and income.

  Closest ideology: Libertarian Socialism

• MG

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Last leader of the Soviet Union, 1931-2022

  Last leader of the Soviet Union, from 1985 to 1991. Introduced glasnost, which opened the press and public debate, and perestroika, which loosened central planning. Held contested elections, withdrew troops from Afghanistan, signed nuclear arms reduction treaties and let Eastern European states leave the Soviet bloc in 1989.

  Closest ideology: Democratic Socialism

• BS

  Bernie Sanders

  US senator and democratic socialist, b. 1941

  US senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist. Supports single-payer health care, tuition-free public college, higher taxes on the wealthy and a higher minimum wage, voted against the Iraq War and opposed free trade agreements such as NAFTA and the TPP.

  Closest ideology: Democratic Socialism

• LI

  Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

  Brazilian president and Workers' Party founder, b. 1945

  Brazilian president from 2003 to 2010 and again from 2023, and a founder of the Workers' Party. Expanded cash transfers through Bolsa Família and raised the minimum wage, promoted South-South cooperation and the BRICS, and was jailed in 2018 on corruption convictions that the Supreme Court annulled in 2021.

  Closest ideology: Social Democracy

• DT

  Donald Trump

  US Republican president and businessman, b. 1946

  US president from 2017 to 2021 and again from 2025. Imposed broad tariffs, made immigration restriction and mass deportation central policies, withdrew from the Paris agreement and the World Health Organization, cut taxes and regulations, and appointed Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

  Closest ideology: Right-Wing Populism

• HC

  Hugo Chávez

  Venezuelan president and Bolivarian leader, 1954-2013

  After a failed 1992 coup attempt, won Venezuela's 1998 election and governed until 2013 under the banner of socialism of the 21st century. Nationalized oil, electricity and other industries, funded social missions with oil revenue, rewrote the constitution, ended presidential term limits and led the ALBA regional alliance.

  Closest ideology: State Socialism

• JB

  Jair Bolsonaro

  Brazilian president and former army captain, b. 1955

  Brazilian president from 2019 to 2022 and a former army captain. Defended the 1964 to 1985 military regime, loosened gun laws, promoted conservative Christian values and agribusiness, opposed new indigenous land demarcations, and was convicted by the Supreme Court in 2025 of plotting a coup.

  Closest ideology: Conservatism

• BO

  Barack Obama

  US Democratic president, b. 1961

  US president from 2009 to 2017. Passed the Affordable Care Act and a post-crisis stimulus, joined the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, expanded drone strikes, kept NSA surveillance programs, created the DACA program for young immigrants and came to support same-sex marriage.

  Closest ideology: Social Democracy

• JP

  Jordan Peterson

  Canadian psychologist and author, b. 1962

  Canadian psychologist and author of 12 Rules for Life. Opposed Canada's Bill C-16 on gender identity as compelled speech, stresses personal responsibility and traditional family roles, criticizes what he calls postmodern neo-Marxism and current climate policy, and draws on religious stories as sources of meaning.

  Closest ideology: Conservatism

• JM

  Javier Milei

  Argentine president and libertarian economist, b. 1970

  Argentine economist and president since 2023 who describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist. Cut public spending sharply to end the fiscal deficit, deregulated the economy by decree, closed ministries, campaigned on dollarization and closing the central bank, opposes legal abortion and aligns closely with the US and Israel.

  Closest ideology: Right-Libertarianism

Editorial reference profile: our own scores from public positions and records, not a test they took.