Feb. 2nd, 2012 08:34 pm
Freedom and choice
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textualdevianceThinking further about abortion-related issues tonight ...
IMHO, the difference between progressive and libertarian thought comes down to this:
Libertarians assume that if government/society (and, occasionally, religion) simply gets out of the way, everyone will be free to make whatever choices in life make them happiest.
Progressives know that without a public framework in place to ensure that everyone, no matter where they start in life, has access to every choice available, there is no such thing as true freedom of choice.
We are not born omniscient. The advantages of information, self-sufficiency and social autonomy that many take for granted are NOT universally available to everyone the instant they're born. We are born blank slates, and we learn only that which is made available to us in our immediate environments: family, community, etc. Likewise, we are not all born with access to sufficient money, health care, education and other means that everyone needs to navigate the world.
A fatal flaw I see in a lot of libertarian-leaning folks (and some progressives who don't get this) is that they look at the world from an incredibly entitled position. They're middle class or higher. They're male. They're able-bodied. They're straight. They're white. Etc. They simply don't understand that all of those things have given them huge advantages over others from the moment they're born, and so they assume that if anyone is in a dire situation as an adult, clearly it's because they chose to be that way.
Even something as deceptively simple as getting enough vitamins as a child is something that can have huge repercussions later in life, and it's not something that every child has. Public schools and libraries? Sure, most Americans have access to them. But their quality varies wildly along class lines. Time and bandwidth to study hard? Easy for most middle class kids. Not so easy for a kid who has to work part-time to support the family, or has to take a lot of time to care for siblings or ailing relatives. And once those pillars of childhood success crumble, there's just no way to build anything strong on top of them and have a successful adult life without either a hell of a lot of help or sheer damned luck.
People with privilege feel free to make choices because they've always had a full range of them--and information to help them make a choice--readily available. They don't understand that people without privilege often make "choices" that really aren't choices at all. An educated, middle class woman, for instance, may choose sex work because she enjoys it, and it pays her more than a boring office job. A working class or poor woman may choose it because she has no other way to pay the rent or feed a child, or because she was trained as a child to believe that her sexuality was her greatest value. So can we assume that every sex worker isn't being exploited just because there are some middle class women doing the work by choice?
I think a lot of people with privilege don't want to acknowledge this reality because it's easier to assume that everyone has autonomy. It absolves us of any responsibilty to make our own choices with the well-being of others in mind. If we can pretend that that "welfare mom" down the street just chose to be an indiscriminate slut, instead of acknowledging that the circumstances she grew up in forced her to make the choices she made, we don't have to care about her, and we don't have to do the incredibly hard work necessary to ensure that she truly does have choices.
This does NOT assume that people without privilege are stupid or lack the ability to make decisions. It doesn't mean they're weak, or to be pitied, or are incapable of gaining autonomy. It only acknowledges the reality that none of us is an island, and that control over our lives and the range of choices we have availble for them is not something everyone can determine for themselves. Unless we know for absolutely certain that a given person is fully aware of and has access to every choice possible, we cannot, in any way, insist that the choices they make are truly their own.
It should be no surprise that most libertarians are either people who already have a ton of privilege (straight, rich, white guys, mostly) or people who are so far down the ladder of power that they are incredibly sensitive to any notion of control over their lives, and so are suceptible to the lies told by the other half of that body about how it's only government excess getting in their way. It's incredibly painful to have to admit that you don't actually have a lot of power in our current socioeconomic/political system. The vultures quickly descend on anyone who shows such signs of weakness. So it's far easier/safer to just wave one's fist at this faceless "government" entity, and say that The Man is the only thing keeping you down. Contemplating the reality that no, it's actually Your Fellow Man doing the oppression, is just way too damned depressing. Not surprising people don't want to do it.
And it's for the sake of those lost souls--those people who are so desperate that they've been led down the path of their own destruction by those cynical, objectivist pied pipers--that the rest of us have to stop accepting those lies as just legitimate political philosophy differences, and start working toward a world in which everyone truly is born equal, and what they come to in life is a matter of their own will.
As the bumper sticker says: no one is truly free while others are oppressed. And if we continue to allow this oppression under the idea that overreaching authority is the only thing standing in the way of everyone being free, happy little clams, we are shirking our responsibilities as human beings in a civilized society.
IMHO, the difference between progressive and libertarian thought comes down to this:
Libertarians assume that if government/society (and, occasionally, religion) simply gets out of the way, everyone will be free to make whatever choices in life make them happiest.
Progressives know that without a public framework in place to ensure that everyone, no matter where they start in life, has access to every choice available, there is no such thing as true freedom of choice.
We are not born omniscient. The advantages of information, self-sufficiency and social autonomy that many take for granted are NOT universally available to everyone the instant they're born. We are born blank slates, and we learn only that which is made available to us in our immediate environments: family, community, etc. Likewise, we are not all born with access to sufficient money, health care, education and other means that everyone needs to navigate the world.
A fatal flaw I see in a lot of libertarian-leaning folks (and some progressives who don't get this) is that they look at the world from an incredibly entitled position. They're middle class or higher. They're male. They're able-bodied. They're straight. They're white. Etc. They simply don't understand that all of those things have given them huge advantages over others from the moment they're born, and so they assume that if anyone is in a dire situation as an adult, clearly it's because they chose to be that way.
Even something as deceptively simple as getting enough vitamins as a child is something that can have huge repercussions later in life, and it's not something that every child has. Public schools and libraries? Sure, most Americans have access to them. But their quality varies wildly along class lines. Time and bandwidth to study hard? Easy for most middle class kids. Not so easy for a kid who has to work part-time to support the family, or has to take a lot of time to care for siblings or ailing relatives. And once those pillars of childhood success crumble, there's just no way to build anything strong on top of them and have a successful adult life without either a hell of a lot of help or sheer damned luck.
People with privilege feel free to make choices because they've always had a full range of them--and information to help them make a choice--readily available. They don't understand that people without privilege often make "choices" that really aren't choices at all. An educated, middle class woman, for instance, may choose sex work because she enjoys it, and it pays her more than a boring office job. A working class or poor woman may choose it because she has no other way to pay the rent or feed a child, or because she was trained as a child to believe that her sexuality was her greatest value. So can we assume that every sex worker isn't being exploited just because there are some middle class women doing the work by choice?
I think a lot of people with privilege don't want to acknowledge this reality because it's easier to assume that everyone has autonomy. It absolves us of any responsibilty to make our own choices with the well-being of others in mind. If we can pretend that that "welfare mom" down the street just chose to be an indiscriminate slut, instead of acknowledging that the circumstances she grew up in forced her to make the choices she made, we don't have to care about her, and we don't have to do the incredibly hard work necessary to ensure that she truly does have choices.
This does NOT assume that people without privilege are stupid or lack the ability to make decisions. It doesn't mean they're weak, or to be pitied, or are incapable of gaining autonomy. It only acknowledges the reality that none of us is an island, and that control over our lives and the range of choices we have availble for them is not something everyone can determine for themselves. Unless we know for absolutely certain that a given person is fully aware of and has access to every choice possible, we cannot, in any way, insist that the choices they make are truly their own.
It should be no surprise that most libertarians are either people who already have a ton of privilege (straight, rich, white guys, mostly) or people who are so far down the ladder of power that they are incredibly sensitive to any notion of control over their lives, and so are suceptible to the lies told by the other half of that body about how it's only government excess getting in their way. It's incredibly painful to have to admit that you don't actually have a lot of power in our current socioeconomic/political system. The vultures quickly descend on anyone who shows such signs of weakness. So it's far easier/safer to just wave one's fist at this faceless "government" entity, and say that The Man is the only thing keeping you down. Contemplating the reality that no, it's actually Your Fellow Man doing the oppression, is just way too damned depressing. Not surprising people don't want to do it.
And it's for the sake of those lost souls--those people who are so desperate that they've been led down the path of their own destruction by those cynical, objectivist pied pipers--that the rest of us have to stop accepting those lies as just legitimate political philosophy differences, and start working toward a world in which everyone truly is born equal, and what they come to in life is a matter of their own will.
As the bumper sticker says: no one is truly free while others are oppressed. And if we continue to allow this oppression under the idea that overreaching authority is the only thing standing in the way of everyone being free, happy little clams, we are shirking our responsibilities as human beings in a civilized society.
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no subject
There certainly are a minority of people who are evil. Our constitution was originally developed in an attempt to keep such evil people from coming to power. However, it isn't just the occasional rich person who is evil. It's generally those who seek power who can be labeled as true sociopaths. You know, people like politicians.
I know plenty of rich people, people who are part of your so-called 1%. These people aren't evil, nor are they blinded by greed. They just happen to be quite good at what they do. In all, most of the so-called "evil" rich are just hard working Americans like the rest of us. They just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right connections.
It's silly to think that "the rich" have disproportionate power. There are more, about 99% more, of non-rich people than rich people. A strong federal government is not necessary to keep "the rich" at bay. There is simply no conspiracy here, other than in your own head.
You speak of collectivism, which does not require government intervention. In the US, like most capitalistic (I won't say capitalist, because the US is not) societies of the past and present, the strongest form of law is contract law. There is nothing to prevent people from entering agreements that protect their rights. There is noting to prevent people from bargaining collectively when one voice is not enough, or when only a few can't afford to fight. There is nothing to prevent people from banding together without government intervention and solving problems. Hell, there's nothing to prevent a group of people from banding together and starting a class action lawsuit to let a judge decide which is most fair. A true Libertarian believes that the people should hold the power, not some corrupt proxy like the federal government. They certainly are not worshipers of the rich as you have implied.
The problem with relying on the government to solve market problems is that the market evolves at a much faster rate than laws can be updated. Every attempt at regulating the market changes the market to the point of rendering said regulation moot. The result is a minefield of outdated regulations and loopholes that real sociopaths take advantage of. To make matters worse, it gets to the point where the only way to make money is to corrupt the federal government to do so. Hence, where we are today with Democrat led efforts like ACTA and bipartisan efforts like SOPA.
In the early nineties, Microsoft had one lobbyist in DC. Now, because of crony capitalism -- the result of people like you entrusting so much power to the federal government -- they have an army of thirty thousand lobbyists. Our political parties -- both Democrats and Republicans -- are now funded by corporations and do the bidding of said corporations. They pass laws meant to benefit these corporations and harm us.
So, instead of releasing bears in a room full of children -- your flawed analogy -- we have allowed the bears to march into city hall, and hold the town hostage. A strong federal government is only two steps from becoming an oligarchy or a plutocracy. If you don't believe me, crack open a history book. There are hundreds of examples. The true sociopaths -- the people you claim to be protecting us from -- don't mind paying a little extra in taxes as long as they can use the might of the federal government to shape the markets and society itself in their favor. They want control of what we eat, what we do in our bedrooms, how we conduct our business, and how we spend our money.
Libertarians don't propose preventing the small kids from organizing. They simply want the government to stop fiddling with the market. In fact, Libertarians count among their heroes people like Benjamin Franklin, who used local government to benefit communities by installing fire departments, libraries, and even subsidized schools. Instead of taxing everyone, he went to local community leaders -- the 1% -- and asked them to help out for the benefit of not only themselves, but of the entire town. True capitalism is partnership, not the dog-eat-dog straw man you have painted.
(frozen) no subject
I will, however, say this:
Yes, I know there are nice rich folks. I happen to know a few 1%ers, and an absolute ton of 5%ers. Pretty darn close to that mark myself (nationally, if not locally. Also: my husband and several of our good friends work for Microsoft; you're not going to get me on board with anything arguing that they're evil, because I know better.)
I'm not arguing that wealth alone is a sign that someone's a sociopath. Hell, I don't even argue that corporations are inherently evil. Some are, some aren't. Depends on who's running them. But refusing to pay proportionate taxes on one's wealth under the idea that one is somehow above having to pay the dues to live in a civilized society? Or trying to convince people that giving more freedom to entities that already have incredible power to do harm is somehow in their best interests? That's sociopathic. You, my poor, dear friend, have been suckered into arguing that the one power you have--your vote--is actually the means by which you're enslaved, and that just ain't so. Caveat emptor, especially when the people selling you this line of nonsense are the ones who stand to gain the most from robbing you of your true power.
One parting shot: Did it ever occur to you that a government voted in by the people is PART of a free-market economy? It's collective action by consumers to protect their interests. If you trust the people to make good decisions about the economy in the absence of government, then why don't you trust the people who installed our form of government as part of their decision making?
Yes, I get that government as it is is overrun by lobbyists. But the solution to that is to gut the lobbyists--not the government. You're convinced that the reason the bathwater is dirty is because the baby itself is inherently so. And that's just not the case.
The only way individual people get back greater control over government is by increasing regulation on those powerful entities who want to make it their glove puppet. Gutting existing government protection for consumers and workers is pretty much the opposite of that.
And now: welcome to my ban bucket. I ain't got the bandwidth to waste trying to make Porky Pig into Pavarotti.