Three Telos Model: Difference between revisions

What is often called [[w:Horseshoe theory|horseshoe theory]] claims that the extreme authoritarian economic left (Communism) is adjacent or close to extreme authoritarian economic right (neo-reactionism/fascism). This would imply a horse shaped political spectrum embedding in a 2D space. This concept has little to no academic traction but it does illustrate the once problem which arises from a simple 1D political spectrum. The Three Telos Model does not encounter such an issue as there can be many types of authoritarianism.

Political philosophers have argued that a good political ideology must also incorporate constraints between different desires. For instance, from the liberal economic position, Milton Friedman advocated for the necessity of putting one of two desired values ahead of the other by stating "A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both". The implication of this being that both Equality and freedom are desirable but they have fundamental incompatibilities. Constraints such as these can be expressed by changing the topology of the ideological space to make having full Equality and Freedom impossible in the model.

It may still be useful to represent political ideologies that violate the constraints and are practically untenable. Even if they are in some way suboptimal or inherently self-contradictory, people may still hold them. It is unclear if the ultimate goal of such political maps is to chart the space of what people claim to believe or what is political viable.