Right wing vs Left wing? Or just Politics as Usual?
source: YouTube
We should know by now that the people's ability to really influence politics is almost non-existent. In almost all western so called free and open democracies we've seen left and right wing political parties exchange power, without anything really changing in the major social and economic developments. You've heard it all before: "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer" from the left and "but there are less poor people overall" from the right.
Today I don't want to go into the differences between the two too much, but rather try to explain why their policies have been growing ever closer to one another through the decades, to the point where there's no real difference between them today. They talk differently, they make their own promises, but it's all talk and promises aren't kept; they're essentially the same. First, get rid of the distinction between politics and economy in your head. We all, myself included, have a tendency to separate the two, when they are in fact tightly connected. You could say that every economic system needs and has its own accompanying political system. Communism, feudalism, slave-economy, they've all had their own type of politics. For capitalism the politics of choice is a democracy, to make the picture of a supposedly free society complete.
For each of those economical systems, the role of the accompanying political configuration is to get rid of the "sharp edges" of the economical system. The role of politics is, simply speaking and grossly generalizing, to keep society together by aiding those who get left behind by the economical system, occupy the bottom rungs on the economical ladder. If too many people get left behind too far and too long, resentment, anger and jealousy rear their ugly heads, and the poorest might become a threat to the ones that do best in the economy. The rich know all too well who has the least and who has the most to lose when the economy would implode. Politics ensures the continuation of whatever economy it serves by preventing the society from exploding, so to speak.
All economical systems have their own particular versions of winners and losers, so from here on we'll stick to what we know and live by every day: capitalism and its democracy. Free and open markets in a free and open society with free and open elections; this almost sounds too good to be true and seems such a turnaround compared to all economical and political systems that came before! For the first time in history we truly seem to be free, rich, middle class and poor alike. Unfortunately this is just not true. Nothing has essentially changed since days of old, and if something sounds too good to be true, it usually isn't true.
Capitalism as an economical system desperately needs some protection from its sharp edges. Capitalism only produces winners and losers. There's no in-between nor does some magical invisible hand exist to conjure up that market equilibrium. Adam Smith says so himself. Or he says what he means by the "Invisible Hand", and that is that he counted on the empathy of the owners of the means of production to provide for the poorest. That's your invisible hand, not some unseen and complex mechanism of supply and demand on free markets. So capitalism by itself produces two segments in the population: a few rich and many poor.
Such an economy will not survive of course as the few rich would swiftly be dethroned in a revolution of pitchforks against machine-guns (most western democracies do not allow their citizens to carry guns, at least not without heavy scrutiny). This is far too unstable to survive for long. Enter left wing and right wing politics to ensure the continued survival of an intrinsically grossly imbalanced economical order, as well as provide a semblance of choice for the free citizens in the free society. The existence of a middle class in modern capitalism is a purely political invention, one that's being killed off again in our times of course for reasons I'll explain shortly. But for this conversation we'll work with these three segments: the 10% richest, the 45% middle class and 45% poorest, the latter having shitty, insecure and low paying jobs or no jobs at all.
Now what does left wing politics do to keep the poorest in society from rebelling against the status quo? Traditionally the leftist political parties would turn to the to 10% to help pay through taxation, to keep the poorest from rebelling against the system, by giving them access to the most basic things to live a somewhat dignified life. It's reasonable to tax the richest, as it's their position on the socioeconomic ladder that needs protecting in the first place, and they're the ones that take the spoils from the economical system that needs sustaining. Until we find another economical system that doesn't by itself generate such an unequal distribution of material wealth, some re-distribution of capital is of the utmost importance and urgency for the capitalist society to survive.
The left therefore is the party that speaks to and for the poorest segment of society. They're the ones that say "we'll help you" to single mothers, the (partially) disabled, the ones with shitty, low paying jobs, the jobless, children in need of an education, the sick, the elderly and so on and so forth: the ones not taken care of by the economy. Left wing politics have tried for decades to be a substitute for the lacking empathy from the rich that was supposed to be the "invisible Hand" as envisioned by Adam Smith. And it's been fighting a losing battle since modern capitalism conquered the world in the late 1980s.
The job of the right wing politicians is to pay lip-service to the upper middle class by ensuring them that they to can become part of the exclusive club of capitalists with enough material wealth to not have to worry about money anymore on one hand, and to ensure everyone else that "trickle down economics" is an integral part of the capitalist economical system. The latter is of course as much of a fantasy as that Invisible Hand; the only thing that "trickles down" is that which gets pulled down through taxation by leftist politics. And it's the failing of these left wing politicians that hurts us most and could bring an end to capitalism's reign.
Systems that breed income inequality
Image by Democracy Chronicles - source: Flickr
What has happened to taxing the 10% richest to provide the bottom 90% with an illusion of a multi-faceted society by creating a middle class and a lower class within them? Well, the leftist parties don't do their job anymore, that's what's happened. In these times where it costs a lot of money to get elected, something happens when leftist parties come into power. They quickly develop a left- and right wing within the party; the left wing wants to stay the course and tax the richest, but the right wing says "yes, we want to help the poor, but we don't want to tax the 10% because they pay for our very expensive election campaigns and give us generous donations." These two wings within the left then compromise, and decide to tax the middle class to at least have some crumbs for the bottom 45% of the population.
This is the great killing of the middle class we're witnessing now in almost the entire western civilized world; the so called emerging economies will follow in a few decades. This is why there's no real difference anymore between the left and the right; they both refuse to redistribute wealth from the richest to the 90%. The 45% middle class is a manufactured group from the get-go, and is typically the group whose support is traditionally fought over by both leftist and right wing politicians, as they're the "glue" that keeps society from falling apart. But... The middle class is melting away at an alarming rate. And in their resentment about a system that doesn't seem to provide for them anymore, large numbers of them are fooled into blaming the bottom 45% for their economical misfortunes. And no matter where in the world, if you're part of the bottom tier and an ethnic minority, your misfortunes are likely to increase exponentially.
What's strange to me is that the above should be self-evident, or at least the essentials should be; politics, left or right, is only there to ensure the survival of the underlying and overarching economical order and to bring about the illusion of choice. Still I only see debates between left and right get uglier and more polarized. This can only be seen as a sign of the effectiveness of the mainstream propaganda machine in my opinion. I can only hope we collectively come to our senses before this economy violently implodes under the weight of its inner contradictions. We've reached a point in history where all believers in capitalism should vote for a left wing party next elections.
Or, if see that politics and economics are one and the same, and that all politics are essentially there to protect its economical system, you just don't vote. Give neither of the parties a platform to build their corporate-backed power on. Your vote, before going to any of the parties, further legitimizes the corruption pawned by an economy of a few winners versus many losers. But if you want capitalism to survive, do everything you can to redistribute wealth from the top 10% to the bottom 90%. How deliciously paradoxical, isn't it?
Anyway, I'll leave you with some wise words from everyone's favorite comedian, well, at least my favorite comedian, George Carlin. May he rest in peace.
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