Portrait of Ai Weiwei
Left · Activist · Active today

Ai Weiwei

Chinese artist and dissident

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An internationally known artist who criticized the Chinese government’s corruption and censorship, was detained in 2011 and now lives abroad.

Ai Weiwei sits in the left-libertarian part of the Caucus economy and liberty compass: slightly state-led and strongly libertarian. The clearest positions are strongly libertarian on liberty and authority, strongly anti-establishment on institutions and strongly progressive on culture.

Read more about Ai Weiwei on Wikipedia →

Where Ai Weiwei sits on ten dimensions

Each scale runs from one pole to the other, and the dot shows the overall tendency of this person's record and public life. These are simplified estimates and open to debate.

💰EconomySlightly state-led
State-ledFree market
⚖️Liberty and authorityStrongly libertarian
LibertarianAuthoritarian
🎭CultureStrongly progressive
ProgressiveTraditional
🌍NationLeaning globalist
GlobalistNationalist
🌱EnvironmentSlightly nature-first
Growth-firstNature-first
🤖TechnologySlightly tech-optimist
Tech-cautiousTech-optimist
🕊️War and peaceLeaning peace-first
Peace-firstStrength-first
🏛️InstitutionsStrongly anti-establishment
Anti-establishmentInstitutional
🙏ReligionLeaning secular
SecularReligious
🛡️InterventionismSlightly non-interventionist
Non-interventionistInterventionist

People most like Ai Weiwei

Julian Assange Australian publisher and WikiLeaks founder98%Colin Kaepernick American football player and activist98%Olympe de Gouges French playwright and feminist, 1748 to 179398%Michel Foucault French philosopher, 1926 to 198498%Edward Said Palestinian-American scholar, 1935 to 200398%Glenn Greenwald American journalist and lawyer97%Edward Snowden American whistleblower and former intelligence contractor97%Bob Dylan American singer-songwriter97%

People furthest from Ai Weiwei

Louis XIV King of France, 1643 to 17153%Mojtaba Khamenei Supreme Leader of Iran, 2026 to present3%Joseph de Maistre Savoyard counter-revolutionary thinker, 1753 to 18214%Vladimir Putin President of Russia, 2000 to present (with a term as prime minister)5%

Political views closest to Ai Weiwei

Radical democracyWants more direct participation in decisions, through assemblies, referendums and…99%MutualismA market-based anarchism in which workers and small producers trade fairly through…99%Left-libertarianismCombines strong personal freedom with the view that natural resources and wealth should…98%Pirate politicsChampions digital rights, transparency, privacy and copyright reform.98%

Read more about Ai Weiwei

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Biographies of Ai WeiweiBooks on radical democracy

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Percentages show how close two profiles are across all ten dimensions. Including a person here is for study and comparison, not approval. Portrait: Jindřich Nosek (NoJin), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; see all photo credits.