Conservatives score higher on economic freedom but lower on personal freedom. For example, conservatives generally support honest entrepreneurship and free enterprise but think that too much personal freedom breeds widespread immorality. Conservatives thus worry that excesses in personal freedom can lead to cultural or civilizational decline.

Progressives (sometimes referred to as “liberals”) score lower on economic freedom but higher on personal freedom. That means progressives are quicker to embrace values of personal choice but place a comparatively lower value on private property rights or investment, production, and exchange. Many progressives think capitalism is a system that allows the strong to prey upon the vulnerable.

Most progressives are committed to the administrative ordering of society along economic lines. Because progressives view themselves as advocates for those they consider dispossessed or disenfranchised, progressives favor wealth redistribution. Such redistributive policies include high taxes and revenues to fund centralized social programs or welfare schemes.

In recent decades, many progressives have moved away from supporting civil liberties such as free speech, and legal doctrines such as equal treatment under the law. Instead, more progressives think that social justice requires abandoning civil rights in favor of “equity,” which means equality of outcome. More contemporary progressives are willing to curtail the freedoms of certain groups — such as the wealthy — whom they view as oppressors operating in an unfair system.