Young Mr Brown at
Marmalade Sandwich points to this
quiz on libertarianism. Unfortunately it is somewhat Americo-centric. This meant I had to hedge my decision and go down the centre for several answers. And as typical for these things, does not allow for nuanced views. Questions I may answer one way for a certain reason are likely to be interpreted another way suggesting to the examiner I think differently than I do. And hypotheticals as to what I think
will happen as opposed to what I think is
desirable may be incorrectly conflated. Further, agreeing with concepts does not indicate their relative importance (
here is a quiz that takes your priority for your opinion into account (I scored libertarian on foreign policy)).
Some examples
The market is the only meaningful means to combat the state.
Pro-market people would be expected to agree, socialists would be expected to disagree. I am pro-market, but I don't agree as it is not the
only means nor the only
meaningful means. There are other meaningful means, and Christians think there are bigger battles at play in national and international politics. Slavery abolition did not come about thru the market. Though freer markets may have made employed labour relatively cheaper than slave labour and helped the abolitionist cause.
And I mean, what sort of question is?
State intervention tends to enable big buisiness [sic] and capital at the expense of labor and consumers.
State intervention tends to favour special interest groups, whether they be unions, or big corporations, or friends of the politician. It is not about big business versus labourers and consumers, it is about special favours for anyone at the expense of others.
How does one answer?
The outcome of a truly free market would essentially entail the elimination of large bureaucratic corporations.
It may or may not. But one's opinion on the likely outcome may say nothing about whether he approves of that outcome.
And
I consider myself an environmentalist.
Well, yes; but not a greenie or a watermelon.
Nevertheless, it is just a silly online quiz you say. These are my results. Because of similar top scores I was faced with a tiebreaker. My top 2 scores are accurate.
You Scored as Minarchist
Minarchists are libertarians who advocate a strictly limited government and usually a more decentralized form of it. Minarchists may vary in the degree to which they think that government should be limited, although the bare bones position is essentially nothing more than police, courts and the military. Minarchists tend to think that some minimum level of government is a necessary evil, or at least an inevitability. The contemporary libertarian movement in America is dominantly minarchist, although it has had a long history of dialogue and debate between minarchist and anarchist libertarians.
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