Editing Political spectrum (section)

=== Mitchell: ''Eight Ways to Run the Country'' ===
[[File:Mitchell's Eight Political Americans.png|thumb|Mitchell's Eight Political Americans]]
[[File:Mitchell's Eight Ways.png|thumb|Mitchell's Eight Ways]]In 2006, [[Brian Patrick Mitchell]] identified four main political traditions in Anglo-American history based on their regard for ''kratos'' (defined as the use of force) and ''[[archē]]'' or "archy" (defined as the recognition of rank).<ref>{{cite book |first=Brian Patrick |last=Mitchell |title=Eight ways to run the country: a new and revealing look at left and right |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Hg0epWuFdRcC |year=2007 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |isbn=978-0-275-99358-0}}</ref> Mitchell grounded the distinction of archy and kratos in the West's historical experience of church and state, crediting the collapse of the Christian consensus on church and state with the appearance of four main divergent traditions in Western political thought:
* [[Republicanism|Republican]] [[constitutionalism]] = pro archy, anti kratos
* [[Libertarianism|Libertarian]] [[individualism]] = anti archy, anti kratos
* [[Democracy|Democratic]] [[progressivism]] = anti archy, pro kratos
* [[Plutocratic]] [[nationalism]] = pro archy, pro kratos

Mitchell charts these traditions graphically using a vertical axis as a scale of kratos/[[akrateia]] and a horizontal axis as a scale of archy/[[anarchy]]. He places democratic progressivism in the lower left, plutocratic nationalism in the lower right, republican constitutionalism in the upper right, and libertarian individualism in the upper left. The political left is therefore distinguished by its rejection of archy, while the political right is distinguished by its acceptance of archy. For Mitchell, anarchy is not the absence of government but the rejection of rank. Thus there can be both anti-government [[anarchists]] (Mitchell's "libertarian individualists") and pro-government anarchists (Mitchell's "democratic progressives", who favor the use of government force against social hierarchies such as [[patriarchy]]). Mitchell also distinguishes between [[Left anarchism|left-wing anarchists]] and [[Anarcho-capitalism|right-wing anarchists]], whom Mitchell renames "akratists" for their opposition to the government's use of force.

From the four main political traditions, Mitchell identifies eight distinct political perspectives diverging from a populist center. Four of these perspectives (Progressive, Individualist, Paleoconservative, and Neoconservative) fit squarely within the four traditions; four others (Paleolibertarian, Theoconservative, Communitarian, and Radical) fit between the traditions, being defined by their singular focus on rank or force.