Political discourse requires much more nuance than the current left-right divide that all views are split into. As a construct, the left-right divide is an easy to understand framework for political discussions. But the single dimensional spectrum has become out dated.
1D Spectrum of Political Views
The divide between left-wing and right-wing dates back to the French revolution when supporters of monarchy sat on the right side in the National Assembly and the supporters of the revolution sat on the left side. This naming continued but with different meanings in different countries. Nevertheless there are certain common characteristics that come to mind when one thinks of right wing or left wing. For example, all right wing people are assumed to support economic freedom but are conservative on religious and social fronts. All left wing people are assumed to support social progress, social freedom but suppress free markets (I do not prefer to use the word ‘capitalism’), and aim for wealth distribution. The correlation between economic views (free market etc.) and social views (conservatism) need not always be strong. People can be economically liberal and socially liberal as well. Similarly, people may want to restrict both social and economic freedoms. This is where the 2x2 matrix of political map or the Nolan chart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart) came into existence. Now, in addition to right, left and center there are two new forms of political views: libertarianism and authoritarianism. The views are shown in 2-dimensional map/chart/compass, one dimension being economic freedom and the other being social liberalism. There is a political group at each corner of the map.
2D Spectrum of Political Views
Even this 2-dimensional map is not enough to categorize all political views. For example, it does not take into account views on international relations, environment etc. But most importantly, Social Liberalism can be split into: Social Freedom and Social Justice. Social Freedom consists of freedom of religion, speech, sexual relationships etc. Social Justice on the other had consists of supporting the weak and the poor. Once you add these two dimensions, several political views are accounted for. In addition to the four corners of the 2D map, you have two new categories of views:
People with views of full social justice but limited social and economic freedom. I call this group communists People with views of full social justice and full social and economic freedom. This group is called ‘Bleeding heart libertarians’.
3D Map of Political Views
Bleeding heart liberatariaism is a small but growing movement with a focus on freedom coupled with justice for the poor and the weak. This view has been popularized by a blog by philosophers and economists at https://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/about-us/ (the blog is discontinued but there is lot of archived material there). Bleeding heart liberatariaism is also sometimes called Neoclassical liberalism, to distinguish it from left-liberalism.
Explicit government interventions are eschewed by libertarians. It is not that they do not care about the weak, but libertarians believe free market in fact is helpful to the weak and the poor as well. Bleeding heart libertarians, believe free market to be beneficial in the long run to everyone but there is a need for safetynet for the poor. Specifically they advocate universal basic income (UBI) as a tool to counter poverty at the same time having a completely free market and society otherwise. UBI is not new to libertarians. Even staunch free market proponents like Fredreich von Hayek or Milton Friedman also have supported UBI in some form or the other.
With growing inequality after the crisis of 2008, the economic world is getting polarized between libertarians who argue for lesser and lesser government and left liberals who want more direct intervention to address economic inequality. Bleeding heart libertarianism can provide a third alternative. In a nutshell, the solution to the economic problems could be: Free markets + Individual freedom + Universal basic income. Bleeding heart liberatariaism is at one of the corners of the cube (not the center). It is not a compramise between left liberals and libertarian, its a new dimension of looking at political economics.
There could be more dimensions for example if we add nationalism vs globalism we can have Global Liberatrianism. If we add the dimension of environment, i.e. if we add the view that nature and land belong to the society and not any individual then we can have Geolibertarianism. Geolibertarianism is not a new phenomenon and has been existing for quite sometime starting with Henry George’s book Progress and Poverty in the 19th century. Geolibertarianism is also called Geoism or Georgism.