The Pournelle Chart, developed by Jerry Pournelle, is a 2-dimensional coordinate system used to distinguish political ideologies. It is similar to the Nolan Chart in that it is a two dimensional chart, but the X-axis (labeled Liberty) refers to your feelings toward state and centralised government (farthest right being state worship, farthest left being the idea of a state as the "ultimate evil" - the diagonal of the Nolan Chart), and the Y-axis (labeled Rationalism) referring to your belief in that problems in society can or will be solved once your ideology of choice is systematically implemented (top being complete confidence that your political ideology can manage the problems in the world, bottom being mindless adherence to your ideology of choice).

"Leftist" ideologies, such as (American) liberalism, socialism and communism, tend to be placed in the upper right-hand quadrant of low liberty and high rationalism. Conservatism, fascism and Nazism are to be placed in the lower right hand quadrant of low liberty and low rationalism. Classical anarchists are in the lower left hand corner of high liberty and low rationalism. Libertarians and Objectivists are placed in the upper lefthand corner of high liberty and high rationalism.

See also

• Political compass
• Political spectrum

External links

• The Pournelle Political Axes