LeftValues Test: what kind of leftist are you?

The LeftValues test is a political values quiz written for people who already consider themselves left-wing. Instead of asking whether you are on the left or the right, it starts from the left and asks what kind of leftist you are: revolutionary or reformist, Marxist or utopian, party builder or trade unionist.

LeftValues began as an open-source project on GitHub in August 2019, with most of the code written by the user sparkz9502 and translations added by volunteers. It is built on 8values, a 2017 quiz that places people on four axes across the whole spectrum. The LeftValues quiz keeps the 8values mechanics but replaces the questions, axes and ideologies with ones drawn from debates inside the left.

This page offers the LeftValues test with the original 72 statements, the original weights and the original 13 ideologies, in English, Portuguese and Spanish. The LeftValues test is free, there is no account, and your results appear as soon as you answer the last statement.

The LeftValues test shows 72 statements one at a time, such as "Revolution is the best way of achieving a socialist society" or "Climate change is a major global threat that all socialists must fiercely combat." For each one you pick one of five answers: strongly agree, agree, neutral or unsure, disagree, or strongly disagree.

Every statement carries a weight of 5 or 10 points on one axis, and ten statements count on two axes at once. Strongly agree adds the full weight to your total, agree adds half, neutral adds nothing, and disagree or strongly disagree subtract half or all of it. Statements are written for both sides of each axis, so agreeing does not always push you the same way.

At the end, the LeftValues test compares your total on each axis with the largest total possible, which ranges from 65 points on the Party–Union axis to 90 on the Production–Nature axis. The formula is 100 × (maximum + total) ÷ (2 × maximum), so a perfectly balanced set of answers gives exactly 50%. Most people finish the left values test in about 11 minutes.

Each axis in the LeftValues test is a pair of opposing values, and your score is the share of the first one, so 70% Revolution also means 30% Reform. Revolution vs. Reform asks how capitalism should end: through a rapid mass uprising, or through gradual change inside institutions such as elections and parliaments. Scientific vs. Utopian measures how far you accept the Marxist method of explaining history through material conditions and class conflict, as opposed to a more idealistic, ethical case for socialism.

Central vs. Decentral is about economic planning, from a single national plan to local, self-managed planning. International vs. National asks whether socialism should be built as a worldwide movement that looks past borders, or mainly within existing nations.

Party vs. Union compares two ways of organizing: a political party leading the movement, or trade unions, workers' councils and other mass bodies at its base. Production vs. Nature weighs industrial output and living standards against strict environmental protection.

Conservative vs. Progressive covers social questions such as gender roles, LGBTQ+ rights, religion, abortion, immigration and prisons. The LeftValues test spreads its statements fairly evenly, with 10 to 13 of them counting toward each axis.

Your LeftValues test result shows seven bars, one per axis, each with both percentages and a short label. Above 90% you are Extremely on the first side, above 75% Very, above 60% plain, from 40% to 60% Neutral, and the same steps apply in mirror image toward the second side. So 82% on Revolution reads as Very Revolutionary, and 35% on Central reads as Decentralist.

The quiz then compares your seven scores with the positions of 13 left-wing ideologies. It adds up the squared gap between your score and the ideology's score on every axis, and the ideology with the smallest total becomes your closest match.

Below the closest match, the other 12 ideologies are listed with a percentage. Your closest match counts as 100% and the farthest as 0%, so these numbers show how close each option is compared with the others in the LeftValues test, not how much you agree with it in absolute terms.

The Marxist side of the list holds Marxism-Leninism, Orthodox Marxism, Eco-Marxism, Centrist Marxism, Council Communism and Left Communism. They differ mainly on party versus councils, on how revolutionary the path should be and on how much weight ecology gets.

The anarchist side holds Anarcho-Communism, Eco-Anarchism and Market Anarchism, all of which score low on central planning. The reformist and national end of the LeftValues quiz holds Utopian Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Social Democracy and Left-Wing Nationalism.

Each ideology is a fixed point on the seven axes, chosen by the LeftValues authors. Social Democracy, for example, sits at 10% Revolution, while Council Communism sits at 100% Revolution and Left Communism at 90% International. In the LeftValues test, the list of next-closest matches often tells you more than the single top result.

12 Axes, the main test on this site, covers the whole political spectrum with twelve axes and lets you choose 36, 60 or 288 statements. The LeftValues test covers only the left, with seven axes and 72 statements, and assumes from the start that you favour some form of socialism.

The scales differ as well. 12 Axes uses seven answer options and compares you with 38 ideologies from anarcho-communism to anarcho-capitalism, while LeftValues uses five options and 13 ideologies that are all on the left. Questions that barely register on a full-spectrum test, such as party versus trade union, get a whole axis here.

If you are not sure where you stand overall, take 12 Axes first. If you already know you are on the left and want finer distinctions within it, LeftValues is the better fit, and taking both gives a fuller picture.

The LeftValues test is a tool for reflection, not a scientific measurement. Its statements and weights were written by volunteers, and no one has checked them with the kind of testing used for validated psychological scales.

Some limits follow from the design. Each axis rests on 10 to 13 statements, so one or two answers can move a score by several points. The ideology positions are the authors' estimates, and some statements assume a familiarity with Marxist theory that not every reader has.

The quiz is also built only for the left. Someone on the right will still be matched to one of the 13 left-wing ideologies, which says little about their actual views. Treat your LeftValues result as a starting point for reading and discussion, not as a label.

This is an independent, unofficial version of the LeftValues test based on the open-source LeftValues project, which is published under the MIT licence. It is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the authors of LeftValues or 8values.

The statements, their weights, the result labels and the ideology positions come from the LeftValues repository on GitHub. The Portuguese and Spanish statements reuse the project's own community translations with small corrections, and the descriptions of axes and ideologies on this page are our own.

The MIT licence allows the quiz to be reused and adapted as long as the copyright and permission notice are kept. The original notice, Copyright (c) 2017 8values, applies to this version of the leftvalues quiz as well.