THE COUNT libertarianism.com

The definition this site uses

Libertarians would rather persuade you than force you, and would rather be persuaded than forced.

Ask ten plain questions about how much the government should run your life and your livelihood, and a libertarian mostly answers less. Most people who answer that way have never used the word. That is the whole definition. You do not have to join anything, read anything, or agree with anyone else who uses it.

The gold region is the definition drawn. Every cell in it is a place where someone answered "less" more often than not, in both parts of life. Each dot is thirty people who did.

Why it is a big tent

The quiz measures two things separately: how much freedom you want in your personal life, and how much in how you earn and spend. Answer mostly "less government" on both and you are in the gold. You can be strong on one and middling on the other and still be there. You can disagree with every other person in the region about a hundred things. The region is not a party, a reading list or a purity test. It is a direction.

That is why it holds 29% of the people who take the quiz. Nobody told them what to think. Asked plainly, that is what they think.

Among 71,691 people who completed the quiz, July 1 to September 8, 2026. They chose to take it; they are not a sample of the country. The national survey beside them is on the report.

Same train, different stops

Libertarians have an old image for this. Everyone who wants less government is on the same train, headed the same way, and the stations along the line are degrees of smaller government. Some passengers get off early, at lower taxes and fewer rules. Some ride to constitutional limits, strictly kept. Some stay on to the end of the line. The argument about where each person plans to get off does not matter while the train is barely out of the station; every stop it passes is progress for everyone aboard.

David Bergland put it to a room of high school students in 1987, with Marshall Fritz, who founded Advocates for Self-Government, in the room: he placed himself at 100 on both scales, then said plenty of good people who call themselves libertarian would not ride all the way. The quiz measures direction, not distance. The gold region is the train, and each cell in it is a stop.

The image has one weakness: a train that never leaves the station carries no one anywhere. That is why this site keeps a ledger of what moved.

The line runs up the middle of the gold, from the first stop past the moderate border to the end of the line at 100 and 100. Every dot along it is a passenger who got on.

Three ways people meet the word

Before the quiz shows a result, it asks what you call yourself. Put that answer next to where you land and everyone falls into one of three groups.

3.9%Use the word, and hold the positionsThey call themselves libertarian and the quiz agrees. Among 51,238 people who answered, 2,015. Rarer than the word's reputation suggests. 25.2%Hold the positions, never used the wordThe largest group by far: 12,892 people who answered "less" on both counts and call themselves something else, or nothing. This is who this site is for. If you have felt politically homeless, this is probably you. 1.8%Use the word, land somewhere else947 people call themselves libertarian and score in another region. The word means different things to different people, which is part of why the count uses the questions and not the label.

Of everyone who holds the positions, 14% use the word. Put another way, for every person who calls themselves libertarian there are 5 who answer like one.

What the questions are

Ten statements. Agree, maybe or disagree. Two minutes.

Your life

  1. Adults should be free to use recreational drugs without criminal penalties.
  2. Government should not regulate private sexual conduct between consenting adults.
  3. Government should not ban books from libraries or schools because of the ideas they contain.
  4. People should be free to move across borders to live and work.
  5. Citizens should be free to burn their own country's flag in protest.

Your livelihood

  1. Taxes and government spending should both be cut significantly.
  2. People should be able to start a business without government licenses or permits.
  3. Prices and wages should be set by the market, not the government.
  4. Businesses should face far fewer government regulations.
  5. Parents should control their children's education, with tax money following the child.

Agree always means less government, so there is nothing to decode. Each answer is worth 20, 10 or 0, each set of five adds up to a score from 0 to 100, and the pair of scores lands on one of 121 cells. The method page has the matrix.

Which group are you in?Answer the ten questions

Where this definition comes from

Advocates for Self-Government has used the two-axis chart since 1985, the quiz since 1987, and the online quiz on its website since 1994. The Philosophy of Human Respect starts from a universal observation about humanity: people flourish less when they are coerced, robbed, or defrauded, and more when they are persuaded and left to cooperate freely. The commitment that follows is a method, not a platform. Solve problems by persuasion and voluntary cooperation. The ten questions are that method, applied to the ordinary business of a government.

The fuller explanation lives at theadvocates.org.