Major Scale #1: Internal/External

“If we are to pick one of the three axes that has most often and consistently been identified with the Left/Right axis, it is the internalist/externalist one. Virtually all schools of the Left—including new Left and old Left and everything in between— believe in some form of external causation of human suffering. Whatever happens to you, it is not your fault! It is society’s fault. How to cure that is another thing. But the cause is clear to the Left: it is bad nurture, not bad nature, that causes human suffering. Likewise, both old and new Right both believe in the fundamentally interior cause of human suffering, from family values to the work ethic, or lack thereof. Thus, if we have to pick only one, we say that the Left is externalist and the Right is internalist.” —Ken Wilber

Major Scale #2: Individual/Collective

“[An Integral approach to politics] therefore suggests that neither individual nor collective is primary; there is simply an occasion, and that occasion has both individual and social dimensions, both of which are equiprimordial, neither of which can be reduced to the other or elevated above the other. Therefore, any political theory that wishes to accord with the actual architecture of reality—or simply the nature of present experience— needs to harmoniously balance both individual and collective, private autonomy and public autonomy, subjective and intersubjective, and not ignore either of those, or try to reduce it to the other or use it to trump the other.” —Ken Wilber

Major scale #3: Transformation/Translation (progressive/conservative)

“A healthy holon is faced with two basic choices: upward transformation, driven by Eros, or healthy translation, driven by Agape. Hence, the transformation/translation axis in healthy practice is essentially the same as the progressive/conservative axis, and, when used in that sense, we call both of them the third major axis.” —Ken Wilber

Major Scale #4: Altitude (levels and lines)

“Each holon possesses those three major axes (internalist/externalist, individualist/collectivist, progressive/conservative), but, as always, all of those exist only at a particular altitude, so it is necessary to specify the altitude of any political idea or movement, in both its theoria and its praxis. What level does it spring from? What level does it serve? This is the levels scale (#4, or the fourth and last major scale we use). This scale is very important, because the most basic values of a political movement (not its only values, just its most fundamental values) will be set by its altitude—after all, one can be amber progressive, orange progressive, green progressive, turquoise progressive, etc. Or one can be amber conservative, orange conservative, green conservative, etc. Likewise, one can be amber collectivist, orange collectivist, green collectivist, etc. Or amber externalist, orange externalist, green externalist, and so on. Being a collectivist or a conservative or a progressive, and so forth, usually pales in significance to its altitude, although all of them are important and necessary for an Integral indexing.” —Ken Wilber

Minor Scale #1: Lines (e.g. “walk” and “talk”)

“For a finer analysis of altitude, we look not just at the general level of a political theory or movement, but what developmental levels in what developmental lines? In particular, what level does it talk (the cognitive line)? And what level does it walk (the self line, or the center of gravity, COG)? And in both of those lines, what level does it come from, and what level of constituency does it actually address—i.e., what is not only the theorist’s but the masses’ center of gravity?” —Ken Wilber

Minor Scale #2: Agency/Communion

“Translation (i.e. the third major scale) itself can emphasize agency or communion, both of which fall under the Agape drive at any given level, which is the drive to conserve and preserve that level (and its lower-level constituents) using healthy translation, or agency-and-communion at that level.” —Ken Wilber

Minor Scale #3: Progression/Regression

“If a holon actually changes levels (and doesn’t just reach up or reach down—but moves up or moves down), that transformative change can be either progressive or regressive in character. Normal progression, or upward transformation, is driven by healthy Eros (unhealthy Eros is repression, or Phobos, i.e., driven essentially by fear), while regression, or downward movement, is driven by unhealthy Agape, or Thanatos (i.e., the dissolution/death drive), so the Eros/Thanatos opposition gives us the minor scale known as the progression/regression scale).” —Ken Wilber

Minor Scale #4: Stage/Stations

“How many levels of consciousness does a political theory authentically address? It does no good to say that I am taking the whole Spectrum into account if I cannot tell you exactly how to let red be red and amber be amber and orange be orange and green be green—and still govern from turquoise. Without cracking that nut, there is no Integral. As noted, adults will stop their development at any number of stages—there will always be red adults and green adults and indigo adults—and that is their right. At any point in history, the political ideal is to let each stage be itself, and govern from the highest reasonably available at any given time.” —Ken Wilber

Minor Scale #5: Regulator (governing system)

“Another minor scale that is sometimes important and can be included is the role of the Governor or Regulator, which every social holon possesses (this scale runs from nonexistent anarchist to minimalist Guardian to maximalist State; this is the Regulator scale, and we usually present it as minimalist/maximalist Regulator). This scale often overlaps, but is nonetheless distinct from, the (#2) individualist/collectivist axis (i.e., while it is true that many collectivists are State interventionists, some collectivists wish to achieve collectivism via means other than State intervention, such as naturalism or local communitarianism). Although minimalist/maximalist is often enfolded in the individualist/collectivist axis because of their frequent overlap, this is nonetheless an independent variable.” —Ken Wilber

BONUS: Ken’s Utopia