The Real Political Spectrum

            Now, as always, if you listen to most people, the fundamental division in politics is between ‘Left’ and ‘Right’. But, if you ask someone to define what principles these leftists and rightists stand for, you will not receive a clear answer. This is because the meaning of these terms keeps shifting. Being the world’s most important democracy, usually the United States’ political groupings are used as a general frame of reference in defining Left and Right. The Democrats, supporters of the welfare state but more liberal on social issues, are the Left, while the Republicans, moderately more free market-oriented but with a corporatist and warmongering bent, and restrictionist on social issues based on ‘Christian morality’, are the Right. But these are just lists of measures that two political parties, in a particular political climate, tend to support. When it gets down to fundamental political principles, one would be hard pressed to find a clear difference between the two.

            

            The real political spectrum, by contrast, consists of two general principles: freedom on one side, coercion on the other. It is possible to split the goals for employing coercion into two principles: elitism and egalitarianism. The most important political issue is: should individuals be free to pursue their own ends and engage in voluntary exchanges with others, thus generating what is known as the free-market? Or, should individuals be controlled by the government and be subordinate to its ends, thus imposing the social structure which, when taken to its logical conclusion, results in socialism/communism, or total government control of the means of production? To ascertain where someone stands on this linear spectrum is simple: how much government intervention in the economy and the lives of individuals do they advocate? One complication is that, the more government intervention a political commentator advocates, the more he has to specify of what that government intervention will consist. Will the government coercively support Christianity? Islam? Poor People? Established Corporations? The Military? Environmentalists? Farmers? Urban Workers? A combination of two or more of the above? While the combinations are virtually endless the more interventionist a government is, two general motives for interfering can be separated: elitism and egalitarianism.

           

            Elitism is when a coercive intervention is undertaken in order to grant a political/coercive privilege to a particular group, for reasons other than pursuing socio-economic equality. Thus, a subsidy to Christian churches is Christian elitism, a subsidy to established corporations is corporate elitism, the recognition of coercive labour unions is labour union elitism (as labour unions benefit the unionised workers at the expense of other workers in that industry and consumers in general). 

            Egalitarianism is when a coercive intervention is undertaken in order to grant a privilege to a particular group, with the proclaimed goal of making the material conditions of the population under the government’s control more equal. Progressive income taxation in order to support welfare payments is a form of egalitarianism, as are public schooling and public healthcare.

           In reality, most governments and political parties mix elitism and egalitarianism into their arsenal of interventionism. Thus, the Democrats under Barack Obama bailed out corporations, continued the government’s robust support of the inflationary central bank system which benefits the banking system, and subsidized inefficient green energy companies, all forms of elitism. They have also sought to subsidize poorer, uninsured people at the expense of insured people in their healthcare legislation, and have sought to pay the government’s debts mainly through taxing richer people, all forms of egalitarianism. It is easy to see why this is the case: political parties all rely both on high level support from rich, established organizations (for campaign contributions, access to media, etc…) and on grass roots support from the voting public in order to secure the actual popular vote. Crony ‘Intellectuals’ are incentivized by wielders of political power to convince the public that the elitist programs are not just subsidies to established interests, but are necessary, beneficial measures for the public weal, and to sell egalitarian programs as just taking from the undeserving rich to give to the deserving poor, something that every ‘compassionate’ society must do. 

            The Republicans are not very different, appealing to the moralist fanaticism of their Christian base with a sprinkling of rhetoric about freedom, while working to grant vast corporate privileges and expand the military capabilities of the government at the expense of the taxpayer.

            

           The tragedy of the supposed Left-Right divide is that people are led to believe that while one complex of statist measures advocated by the other party is bad, the complex of statist measures advocated by ‘their’ party will be good. Few question the basic principles of both parties, or venture to question the measures that have been agreed upon by both parties. Thus, in the US, the desirability of central banking and inflation, the maintenance of the American empire through vast expenditures, the maintenance of a vast welfare and regulatory apparatus, are rarely questioned, while emotional issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and the relative tax proportions of Warren Buffett and his secretary become polarizing issues. The one who benefits from this is the government establishment, irrespective of party affiliation. The bureaucrats, the generals, and the politicians go on their merry way, without any significant changes being made when one party or the other is in charge. The reality of this can be shown by pointing out that no politician, of either party, except for Ron Paul who is a libertarian, in the post-WWII period, has ever advocated for a return to the relatively laissez-faire policies of the US government throughout the 19^th century, the most economically dynamic century of American history. Debates have been about the desirability of particular statist measures versus other statist measures, never on the desirability of statism itself. Elitism and Egalitarianism, Corporatism/Militarism and Welfarism/Socialism, advanced in the 20^th century under both parties, while freedom was never even considered (including under Reagan, who amassed more debt and increased military spending more than anyone).

            

               Thus, rather than taking a stand on the phony political spectrum of Left versus Right, study up on the merits of freedom versus coercion in all areas of human endeavour, and once you have educated yourself in this manner, take a principled stand on the real political spectrum of libertarianism versus statism in all of its varieties, whether it be elitist or egalitarian.