Home / Personalities / Voltaire
A French Enlightenment writer and philosopher, he attacked religious fanaticism and the Church ("crush the infamous thing"), championed free speech and tolerance in the Calas affair, but favored enlightened monarchy over popular democracy. Deist, author of Candide.
Political axes
Voltaire leans further toward autocracy than 77% of the 416 personalities in the catalog.
Of all the axes, Representation is where Voltaire stands furthest from the rest.
On Technology, Voltaire sits close to the catalog median.
Here they share common ground with most personalities.
Ideological proximity
The closest among the 243 ideologies
Liberalism before mass democracy: it guarantees civil liberty, property, a free press and a lean state, but restricts the vote to educated property owners, fearing that unlimited popular sovereignty would destroy the very liberties it protects.
Dynastic microstate model that trades political sovereignty for prosperity: a hereditary prince with real power, minimal taxation, secrecy and financial services as the revenue base, openness to foreign capital and residents, and no standing army.
Kant's political philosophy, grounding the state's legitimacy in the autonomy of reason and the rule of law, defending a moderate representative republicanism and a federation of free states as the path to perpetual peace.
The most distant ideology
Christian SocialismRadical Left36%
Franco-Swiss theorist of liberalism, Constant distinguished the liberty of the ancients from that of the moderns, denounced unlimited popular sovereignty as the origin of the Terror, and defended individual rights, a free press and constitutional monarchy with a property-based franchise.
Also close, by dimension
Other similar profiles
Furthest from Voltaire
A small Mediterranean principality, Monaco combines constitutional monarchy, low taxation, strong dependence on financial services and luxury tourism, maintaining a conservative social order and great economic openness.
Also close, by dimension
Furthest from Voltaire
Under Alberto Fujimori, Peru combined a self-coup and the closing of Congress with neoliberal shock reforms, privatisations and trade liberalisation, alongside a dirty war against the Shining Path marked by massacres and forced sterilisations.
Also close, by dimension
Furthest from Voltaire