Different Political Ideologies “Today's understanding of socialism varies largely from country to country.” Core idea State Socialism (Communism) Deterioration of social classes Social Democracy Liberalism Conservatism A free and socially Freedom of the just society individual Preservation of the traditional societal order and values Core values Equality; solidarity Freedom; equality/justice; solidarity Freedom; justice before the law Tradition; religion; family; security; identity Against Private ownership of Social inequality means of production; and injustice privileges Restrictions; paternalism Revolution; change of traditional values Behavioral motivation Communal interest Self- and Self-interest as self-interest communal interest Self-interest; interest to preserve the order Conception of humanity Oriented towards a future selfless‘New Man‘ Oriented towards Rationally Hierarchically rapprochement calculating egoist organized by a ‘higher order’ Economic system Common ownership Market economy of the means of supervised by the production; state state controlled Market economy Market economy supervised by the state Table 1: Simplified distinction of different political ideologies Political Spectrum In most western democracies it is common to describe the political spectrum along a left-right line. Surely, this simple model is not sufficient to represent the complexity of political ideas. However, a graphical representation of such an abstract notion helps to understand, categorize and distinguish different concepts. 38