We Americans need to understand the rest of the world better, particularly their election systems, so we can better judge our own.

Last night, I scored -5.9 on the first axis, meaning I am "very rehabilitationist and internationalist" (true). I scored -0.9 on the second axis, meaning I am "slightly socialist and anti-war".

But today, I've gotten dramatically more lefty: -6.6 on social issues, meaning I am even more "very rehabilitationist and internationalist", and -1.6 on economic issues, meaning I have gone from "slightly socialist and anti-war" to "fairly socialist and anti-war".

Geez, it must be that damn liberal media! Tomorrow I'll probably be dressing in only red and telling my friends that the Soviet Union wasn't so bad after all.

Moderate SNARK....

Britain's railways should remain in private ownership

Britain's railways are the most expensive in Europe but vastly better than Amtrack.  So I'd like them to stay the same as they are compared to us, but less expensive like the rest of Europe.  The American in me would tend to agree with this.

Rich people already pay enough tax

This quaestion is way too obvious.  Here in America the rich don't pay enough and it's getting worse with this administration, obviously.  I don't know what it's like Britain.

I am comfortable with the way that genetic engineering is being used in the food industry

This is a difference between Europe liberals and US liberals.  We're fine with genetic engineering and actually would like to see more of it if it can feed the world.  Maybe we can agree to label it as modified, but we're all for science here.  Probably because we're fighting creationists and Europe doesn't have that problem.

The UK was right to go to war in Iraq

This isn't the same as whether the US was right to go to war in Iraq, but I'd still disagree.  A better question would generalize about preemptive war.

Most people should take responsibility for saving enough for their retirement, rather than relying on the Government to pay a big enough pension to live on.

I read this differently than you.  I think people should save for retirement AND have a safety net which will enable them to live comfortably if things don't work out.  This question is loaded- people should take responsibility and they shouldn't rely on anything.  But that's in an individual sense.  The government should absolutely be in business to provide comfortable retirements for everyone.  The government should be in business making sure no one goes hungry or homeless, elderly included.

This country should try to become more like the United States of America than like France or Germany

This is another poor question.  I don't know the answer at all to this.  Should the UK have a government like the Bush administration? No.  Was Clinton's America better than France or Germany. Yes.  My advice to the UK is to try to be better than the US, France and Germany.

One example- consider the stereotypical liberal bugbear on the right.  Quick- how do you describe them?  Right.  They're the volvo-driving, latte-drinking, college educated, urban liberals.  People wealthy enough to drive expensive foreign/european cars (instead of chevys and fords, like "real Americans"), drink expensive coffee (instead of Folgers drip, like "real Americans"), live in somewhat more expensive neighborhoods, pay tens of thousands of dollars for college educations, and otherwise be better off economically than "real Americans".  If this isn't economic (and social!) class conciousness, I don't know what is.

There are multiple problems here.  But the biggest problem is that the distance between the middle classes and the truely rich is just so extreme that the top of the pyramid is literally out of sight.  Imagine winning the lottery.  Got that?  OK- now imagine winning the lottery every year, for decades.  Now imagine all of your friends also win the lottery every year, and have been for decades.  Imagine your parents won the lottery every year, for their entire lives- and all of your friends parents did the same.  For most Americans, winning the lottery once would be a life changing event (for better or worse)- the concept of regularly and repeatedly (and predictably) winning the lottery is simply not on the mental radar.  But this is exactly the life being lead by American's Neoaristocracy- the CEOs and captains of the industry who pull down tens of millions (or more) a year, every year, for decades or lifetimes.  Those people literally don't live on the same planet socially as the rest of us.

Now that they've gotten over the horizon to most of us, this opens the way up for some clever social manipulation.  Read the book "What's the Matter with Kansas?"  What the Republicans have done is that they took the leftist populism of the 1920's and 1930's and turned it around.  Instead of focusing the anger at the plutocrats and neoaristocracy (where, IMHO, it belongs), they instead focused it on the people a couple of economic rungs down- the moderate-liberal upper middle class.  The latte liberals.  They also changed the focus from economic and labor reforms to social issues- god, guns, and gays.

So that's the Republican party currently- it's the party of the neoaristocracy, which is harnessing the power and votes of the lower class populists by the world's largest con job.

The Democrats, by comparison, aren't so much a party as a loose coalition.  Although even that's too strong- it's the junk drawer of politics.  It's currently lead by a group who explicitly want to turn it into a mirror of the Republicans- the party of the neoaristocracy harnesing populism for votes, but with a slightly different patter.  These are the DLC types.  They keep claiming that that want to "move the party to the center", but when you look at what they actually do, it's a legislative agenda to help the  plutocrats, or at least the wannabe-plutocrats.  And, instead of a reasonably coherent collection of foot soldiers, they have a mishmash of the burnt-out remains of the labor unions, environmental movements, civil rights movements, true fiscal conservatives, and everyone else who isn't a plutocrat or theocrat.

Needless to say, since this ecological niche in the political sphere has already been filled by the Republicans, this strategy has not been very successfull for the Democrats.

The true heirs of New Deal Populism still exist (hint: we call ourselves "anti-corporatists" these days).  The problem is that there really isn't a lower class or middle class party in America today- both have been usurped by Corporatists/Plutocratic/Neoaristocratic tendancies.  We're working on it, however.

Geez!

I guess you just can't take the heat, eh?

Well, I've never been a fan of "going through all these things twice," so I'll just point out that the best way to understand British politics is to put both British and US politics into a larger framework, so that you can understand them both.

A good place to start on that is The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism by Gøsta Esping-Anderson.  His three worlds are conservative, social democratic and liberal (in the European, 19th-century sense), each predominantly motivated by a different orientation, and falling into a distinct cluster as identified by a number of important statistical measures.

Conservative welfare states are motivated by solidifying the social order.  Bismark's institution of universal health care in order to undermine the growing power of the Social Democrats was a classic example of this. But it was a strategic move. Esping-Anderson is talking about something deeper--the way the very structure of the welfare state reflects such an agenda. Such state tend, for example, to have a strong component for state workers. Social democratic welfare states are motivated by empowering the working class.  They tend to have the most universal programs with the highest benefit levels. Liberal welfare states are motivated by preserving the free market--i.e. taking care of market failures.  The US is actually an outlier of the liberal type, most of which are Britain and it's former colonies.

While Ben is stressing the differences between British and US politics, it should be realized that they are far more similar to each other than they are different, at least in comparison to the broad range of alternatives in the industrial world as a whole.