Placing Ikanocracy on the Political Spectrum

While spectrum was originally used to describe the continuum of colours in a rainbow, it has since been applied to many areas. In politics we have the political spectrum, which varies from the conservative right-wing through the moderate middle to the liberal left-wing. Is Ikanocracy a left-wing or right-wing idea? In Planking: Ikanocracy Style, I discussed how, in our complex society, the idea of people's political views fitting into two or three "camps" doesn't really make sense. The idea that one's political views can be described by a single number (your coordinate on a one-dimensional  left-right scale) is similarly problematic. Organizations like The Political Compass have refined the left-right spectrum by making it two-dimensional with separate social and economic components. Even that is overly simplistic for describing the complex positions people take on any number of social, economic, environmental, scientific and religious issues. All that said, Ikanocracy is a social policy, so how should we classify it on a left-right social scale?

In general, the Right is conservative in the sense that it is against social change, while the Left is progressive in the sense that it is in favour of social change. Ikanocracy would certain be a change from our current representative democracy, so by that measure it is a left-wing idea.

In general, the Left is in favour of more government while the Right favours less government. Ikanocracy would result in less government, as most of the apparatus of maintaining Houses of Representatives (whatever they are called) would be eliminated, so by this measure Ikanocracy is a right-wing idea.

In general, the Right is in favour of a hierarchical society (even in governance structures) while the Left is more egalitarian. Ikanocracy is certainly non-hierarchical, with a broadly-based decision making structure and no appeals to authorities inherent to the system, so by this measure Ikanocracy is a left-wing idea.

In general, the Left is more concerned with equality of outcome while the Right is more concerned with equality of opportunity. In Ikanocracy, all voters have equal opportunity, but those who make good decisions have a better outcome (in terms of having their vote share increase), so by that measure Ikanocracy is a right-wing idea.

I could go on, but my point here is not to convince you that Ikanocracy is a left-wing idea or a right-wing idea, but rather that such labels are usually irrelevant. In the highly partisan atmosphere of today's politics, such labels are not used constructively to aid in fitting an ideas into contexts, but pejoratively to dismiss ideas without ever considering their merits.

Let's forget about the labels and put aside our ideological differences and reach across the spectrum to unite in working towards a society based on Ikanocracy.

OK, perhaps that last sentence was a bit over the top, or should I say ...  "Over the Rainbow".