Nolan Chart

[2] A similar two-dimensional chart appeared in 1970 in the publication The Floodgates of Anarchy by Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, but that work distinguished between the axes collectivism–capitalism on the one hand, individualism–totalitarianism on the other, with anarchism, fascism, "state communism" and "capitalist individualism" in the corners.

[3] In Radicals for Capitalism (p. 321), Brian Doherty attributes the idea for the chart to an article by Maurice Bryson and William McDill in The Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought (Summer 1968) entitled "The Political Spectrum: A Bi-Dimensional Approach".

"[7] Oglesby even (unsuccessfully) proposed cooperation between SDS and the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom on some projects,[8] and argued that "in a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate.

[10] David Nolan first published his version of the chart in an article named "Classifying and Analyzing Politico-Economic Systems" in the January 1971 issue of The Individualist, the monthly magazine of the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL).

[12] Nolan further reasoned that virtually all human political action can be divided into two broad categories: economic and personal.

Examples of economic activity include starting or operating a business, buying a home, constructing a building and working in an office.

[17] Brian Patrick Mitchell, who uses a different political taxonomy, cites these points of disagreement:[18] Similar criticisms, but from a libertarian perspective, are leveled by Jacob Huebert,[19] who adds that the separation of personal and economic liberty is untenable when one considers the rights to prostitute oneself and to deal drugs, both of which are libertarian causes: adopting either profession is a personal (moral) as well as an economic decision.

The libertarian response to these criticisms is that the issues are presented in a specific frame of reference by the political factions consistent with the chart.

For example, Kelley L. Ross, a libertarian former philosophy professor who ran for California State Assembly in 1996,[24] contends that a third axis of political liberty is required to make the chart more meaningful.