Everybody that has ever thought heavily about political issues sees themselves as correct and as closer to the center than they truly are. To truly understand what a centrist is we must define the political spectrum and define each of the political categories.

The most widely used spectrum looks like this:

This is the spectrum I will be using today.

The furthest economic left is pure socialism. There is no free market and the government pays for everything for the citizens through taxes, community projects, etc. The furthest right is pure capitalism. There is no welfare and the government has absolutely no control of the economy.

The furthest up is complete government control of its citizens and the furthest down is complete anarchy. Marxist communists are in the upper left quadrant. Up until lately American politicians fell into the upper right quadrant. In recent years American politicians have begun spreading out. Current democrats tend to fall from slightly to the right of the axis all the way to the left. Current republicans tend to fall from the axis all the way to the right. Both democrats and republicans fall above the x-axis of the spectrum.

Popular libertarians are typically in the bottom right quadrant. Left-libertarians fall in the bottom left. They believe that, while personal property should be privately owned and the government has no control of it, the government should have full control of natural resources.

To help understand these ideas, I believe it is important to see where famous politicians and countries land on the chart.

As you can see, people like hitler aren’t necessarily far right, but they are highly authoritarian. Most people agree that hitler and Stalin are pretty equal when you talk about who the worst leaders in history are. This shows that the level of authority sheds more light on who a person is than their economic beliefs do.