The 8values test: your politics in eight values

The 8values test is an online political quiz that measures eight values arranged in four pairs: Equality and Markets, Nation and Globe, Liberty and Authority, Tradition and Progress. Instead of placing you on one left-right line, the 8values test gives each pair its own percentage. That way someone can score high on Equality and high on Tradition at the same time, which a single line would hide.

The 8values quiz was first published in April 2017 by the 8values project on GitHub. Most of the early code came from the contributor known as TristanBomb, with later fixes from other volunteers. It spread quickly on forums and social media and became the base for many later quizzes, including 9Axes, SapplyValues and 12 Axes.

This page offers the 8values test with the original 70 statements, the original scoring and the original list of 52 ideologies. It is free, needs no sign-up and is available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

The 8values test shows 70 statements one at a time, always in the same order. For each one you choose Strongly agree, Agree, Neutral or unsure, Disagree or Strongly disagree. Most people finish the 8 values test in about 10 minutes, and you can step back to change an answer.

Every statement carries a weight on one or more axes, usually 10 points and sometimes 5. Strongly agree adds the full weight, Agree adds half of it, Neutral adds nothing, and the two disagree options subtract half or all of it. Agreeing that you support single-payer universal healthcare pushes you toward Equality, while agreeing that the freer the markets, the freer the people pushes you toward Markets.

At the end, your total on each axis is compared with the highest total possible. The 8values test uses the formula 100 × (maximum + your total) ÷ (2 × maximum), shown here as a whole percentage, so every axis lands on a 0 to 100 scale. The maximum differs by axis, 195 points on the economic axis, 225 on the diplomatic, 320 on the civil and 292 on the societal, because some statements count toward several axes at once.

Economic axis, Equality against Markets. A high Equality score in the 8values test means you want wealth spread more evenly through progressive taxes, public services and, at the far end, social ownership. A high Markets score means you favour growth led by private enterprise, with lower taxes, privatisation and lighter regulation.

Diplomatic axis, Nation against Globe. Nation stands for sovereignty, patriotism and a strong military. Globe stands for diplomacy, international cooperation and, at its far end, a world government.

Civil axis, Liberty against Authority. Liberty means strong civil liberties and democratic control over the state, while Authority means accepting surveillance, a powerful state and limits on dissent. This axis is about personal and political freedom; economic freedom belongs to the economic axis.

Societal axis, Tradition against Progress. Tradition reflects inherited customs, religion and a settled moral code, and Progress reflects social change, secular reasoning, science and environmental action. The two values on each axis of the 8values test always add up to 100%, so 70% Progress is the same result as 30% Tradition.

Your 8values results show four bars, one for each axis, split between its two values. Each axis also gets a label from a ladder of seven. On the economic axis the ladder runs Communist, Socialist, Social, Centrist, Market, Capitalist and Laissez-Faire; the other axes run from Cosmopolitan to Chauvinist, from Anarchist to Totalitarian and from Revolutionary to Reactionary.

The labels follow fixed cut-offs measured on Equality, Globe, Liberty and Progress. Over 90% gives the first label on the ladder, over 75% the second, over 60% the third, 40% to 60% the middle one, and the same steps mirror down to 0%. So 45% Equality reads as Centrist and 92% Liberty reads as Anarchist.

The 8values test then names your closest match among 52 ideologies, from Anarcho-Communism to Anarcho-Capitalism. Each ideology has reference scores on all four axes, and the quiz picks the one at the smallest distance from yours, with gaps on the economic and civil axes counting a little more than gaps on the other two. The original authors called this match a work in progress, less reliable than the four axis scores.

12 Axes, the main test on this site, comes from the same family. It reworked 9Axes, which was itself built on the 8values test. Both report percentages between two opposing values, but 12 Axes splits politics into twelve axes instead of four and offers 36, 60 or 288 statements on a seven-point answer scale.

The difference matters when your views do not move together. The 8values test folds trade, immigration and the military into its economic and diplomatic axes, and religion and culture into its societal axis, while 12 Axes scores several of these separately. If your 8values results show a middling score on an axis where you hold strong but mixed views, the longer test can show where the mix comes from.

The 8values test is still a good first step. It takes about 10 minutes, its four axes are easy to read, and so many people have taken it that comparing 8values results with friends is simple.

The 8values test is a tool for reflection, not a validated scientific instrument. Its statements and weights were written by volunteers, the scales have not been tested in academic research, and nobody has published how stable a score is from one attempt to the next.

Several statements come from debates in the United States and Europe, such as the European Union, single-payer healthcare and gun ownership, so people elsewhere may find some of them harder to answer. Choosing Neutral on many items pulls every axis toward 50%, which can make a profile look more centrist than it is.

Treat your 8values results as a starting point. Compare them with your own reasons, read about the ideologies near your match, and retake the 8values test later if one axis surprises you.

This is an independent, unofficial version of the 8values test. It is based on the open-source 8values project, released on GitHub under the MIT licence, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by the original authors.

The 70 statements, their weights, the seven labels per axis and the 52 ideology reference points come from the original code without changes, so your scores follow the same formula as the original 8values political test. The Portuguese and Spanish versions were translated for this site, and the short ideology descriptions are our own.

The MIT licence lets anyone reuse and adapt the code as long as the copyright notice is kept, which is why so many quizzes have grown from 8values. Credit for the questions and the scoring belongs to the 8values contributors.