Centralization, control and censorship are on the authoritarian–liberal axis of the standard two-dimensional political compass, not on the left–right axis.
You're right that two axes are not enough. Even within the two-dimensional model, authoritarian leftists regard authoritarianism as a means to an end (Marxism-Leninism endorses the eventual withering away of the state, even if it never got around to practicing it), whereas the authoritarian right regards authoritarianism as good in and of itself (the leadership principle).
IMO boiling down the complexity of politics to a single axis is deceptive. Sure it makes it easy to find yourself on the map, but it really lends itself to a narrative of "ok here's US on the map. Over there is THEM."
IMO authoritarianism is totally orthogonal to right/left. It's clearly the case that members of both espouse changes that would limit our freedoms.
You have no idea what you're talking about, nor do the people that responded to you it seems. Authoritarianism is completely orthogonal to the "left-right" axis of political philosophy.
There is a libertarian left (anarchism) and libertarian right (Ayn Rand style American libertarianism), as well as authoritarian left (marxist-leninist style socialism) and authoritarian right (fascism).
Yes I understand what the political compass purportedly states, but the fact is that the economic axis is not devoid of authoritarianism. If the left axis is about arbitrary allocation of resources (in this case, in accordance with some egalitarian distribution scheme), then it is authoritarian. That doesn't make it bad or good, it's just authoritarian.
Therefore, the best way to reason about the common political compass is that the vertical axis is authoritarianism vs libertarianism, and the horizontal axis is economic authoritarianism vs economic libertarianism.
I agree with you completely, authoritarianism is on a different axis than "left" or "right".
I was commenting on what I am seeing coming from those who described themselves as being ideologically aligned with the "left" today.
I see censorship, speech limiting, "canceling", compelled speech, etc, coming from that area today.
When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s this was very much the kind of thing I saw coming from the "right", limiting expression for political and religious reasons.
Like I mentioned, as a liberal (which I don't belive is inherently left or right) I've been disappointed in the modern "left" which seems to me to be taking a step back from liberalism. I see a lot of authoritarianism coming from that direction right now.
I always viewed it as descriptive and not prescriptive, so I wouldn't say it implies movement across the authoritarian axis just by moving more right or left.
Nowadays, the authoritarian/anti-authoritarian axis is the most important one.
reply