From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politic...un_the_Country
And Pournell:Mitchell:Eight Ways to Run the Country
In his book Eight Ways to Run the Country: A New and Revealing Look at Left and Right (ISBN 0275993582) Brian Patrick Mitchell identifies four main political traditions (republican constitutionalism, libertarian individualism, progressive democracy, and plutocratic nationalism) that have given rise to eight distinct political perspectives: communitarian, progressive, radical, individualist, paleolibertarian, paleoconservative, theoconservative, and neoconservative. His axis are kratos/akrateia (the degree of coercion) and arche/anarchy (the degree of hierarchical authority), with some of the aformentioned perspectives being ambivalent on one axis but none on both (what might be called centrism).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle
This is what I've been speaking of when I talk of traditionalism vs. reform, conservatism vs. liberalism. Notice these views are relatively new: they were not understood at all until recently, and even now they have scant media attention. Until I read about them on Wikipedia, I had never heard of several of these.Pournelle has popularized a "law", which he calls Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy. This law "...states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself." The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions. His "blog", "The View from Chaos Manor", often references apparent examples of the law.
I believe labcoat had his own opinions regarding four/eight positions, and the union of any two dualistic positions congealing into one "line."