Opinions On Government Involvement
Notes:
- This was a new question for this survey and will probably be revised for the next survey. The results, however, do provide an interesting first pass at understanding the political makeup of the web community. For this question, respondents were asked to state whether they agreed with, disagreed with or weren't sure for 10 statements. Five of them dealt with personal issues and five with economic issues. Each answer was given a certain number of points. Each respondent was then given a score for personal and economic issues and plotted on the two-dimensional graph below. The sizes of the dots in the graph indicate how many respondents fell into that category.
- The definitions of the various terms are as follows:
- Left-Liberals prefer self-government in personal matters and central decision-making on economics. They want the government to serve the disadvantaged in the name of fairness. Leftists tolerate social diversity, but work for economic equality.
- Libertarians are self-governors in both personal and economic
issues. They believe the government's only purpose is to protect people from coe
rcion and violence. They value individual responsibility, and tolerate economic
and social diversity.
- Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize practical solutions to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on new issues. Many centrists feel that the government serves as a check on excessive liberty.
- Right-Conservatives prefer self-government on economic issues, but want official standards in personal matters. They want the government to defend the community from threats to its moral fiber.
- Authoritarians want government to advance society and individuals through expert central planning. They often doubt whether self-government is practical. Left-authoritarians are also called socialists, while fascists are right-authoritarians.
These definitions and the questions used are Copyright 1995-6 by Advocates for Self-Government who are otherwise unaffiliated with this survey.
- The largest group of web users fell in the the Centrist category (38.4%) followed by Left-liberal (27.3%) and Libertarian (25.1%). Most puzzling is the large dot at 100% in both categories. We are still looking into why this particular point is so large and out of proportion with the ones around it.
Table of Data for All Categories
| Opinions on Government Involvement |
All |
| Left Liberal |
2192 27.31% |
| Libertarian |
2020 25.17% |
| Right Conservative |
348 4.33% |
| Authoritarian |
375 4.67% |
| Centrist |
3090 38.50% |
For more information or to submit comments:
send e-mail to www-survey@cc.gatech.ed
u.
GVU's WWW Surveyin
g Team
Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Cen
ter
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280