The Right and the Left
One of the main hindrances to effective political action in this country is the uncivil battle between the Right and the Left. The intolerance, hatred, and vitriol from the two factions often is beyond the pale. The “holier-than-thou” attitudes from each (at times) must change if we as a society ever are going to make significant progress toward genuine sustainability. More than ever, what the world needs now is cooperation rather than divisive competition.
The competitive battle often revolves around perceptions of “capitalism” versus “socialism”. In my opinion, those perceptions too often are shallow, or worse, false. Consider the following. The Left usually lumps the different types of capitalism all into one basket – plutocratic monopolies/egregious mega business/elitist trickle-down economics. The Right does something similar with socialism – it’s all harsh totalitarianism to them. More often than not, it’s considered communism. In both cases, the reality is much different.
Today’s neoliberal capitalism is not Adam Smith’s capitalism. Smith was for small business, not mega monopolies. Democratic socialism is quite different from dictatorial socialism. And here’s the kicker in all of it: most governments (including ours in the USA) today have a Mixed Economy in their countries, part capitalism and part socialism.
When you use a publicly owned road, water system, library, museum, or public school, that’s all due to socialism. The V.A. Health Care System is socialism, so too are Social Security and Medicare. If any two people engage in a private sale of private goods, that’s capitalism. So, if I sell a painting of mine, or if this book results in even one sale, that’s capitalism. When you go to a privately owned grocery store and purchase goods, that’s due to capitalism.
The Right and the Left need to understand it isn’t a matter of one or the other. We have both, and we need both. For example, if all roads were privately owned toll roads, that would be a nightmare. Some people could be refused use of them, or charges for use could go up for little to no reason. If all grocery stores were owned by the State, that too would be a nightmare. There would be no reason to have “sales” (offer bargains), or a wide variety of goods in order to attract more buyers. What for? Stores of any one type (e.g., grocery, hardware, clothing, etc.,) would all be more or less the same.
Bottom line: EVERYTHING being run by capitalists (private owners) simply isn’t best for the good of all people. The same is true for everything being run by the State, i.e., socialism. Economic systems have evolved into a mixture of both. Unfortunately, at present that mixture is unbalanced in favor of mega business elites/plutocrats. Even worse, they are seriously pushing for private ownership of everything.
The political Right here (in the USA) was co-opted decades ago, first by neocons, then by neolibs... and most of the Right on Main Street appear to be completely unaware of the coup. They seem to think they're still in the "Conservative Movement". That movement, started by Russell Kirk in the 1950's, is long dead. The so-called conservatives of today are supporting an ideology which would be anathema to the original modern-day conservatives of the Kirk Era. That ideology they're supporting is corporatist-globalist-neoliberalism, and it doesn't want to conserve much of anything, except for maybe Plutocratic Rule. It's against Small Biz, anything rural, anything natural, and is working to utterly destroy Nature by favoring infinite growth at any cost to our finite habitat. Its goal is to have the entire world run by Big Biz Elites. Forget family farms, the mom-and-pop corner store, and any kind of level playing field in the business-financial-economic-labor arena. In general, neoliberals and the Super-Rich are against all of that. The kicker is this: they finance most national political election campaigns. That's why, in the USA, we've seen little progress toward sustainability over the past few decades.
Political prejudice reigns supreme (in general) among people on the Right & the Left, which means each views "the other side" as ALL (or at least, an overwhelming majority) having the same characteristics as the few who are running the show on each side. As long as that continues, we will not have a civil society. The truth is, no group ever has been as homogeneous as what the Right and Left say the other side is today.
I've seen ranchers on the Right and environmentalists on the Left work together to oppose mega corporate/government projects which would have harmed the commons. They had to overcome deep prejudices about each other, and they did. Unfortunately, such collaboration is extremely rare because of those deep prejudices.
Not only my opinion. Be Well
