So, this is something that's annoying me on the left in recent years. As we divide into our own little camps with our own little philosophies, we end up with radically different ideas of who we should help, why, and how. It's said the left is like herding cats, as they end up dividing into various groups, and I have to admit, I'm also guilty in participating in this. However, this is something that annoys me among "progressives" as of late. It seems like whenever someone has a good idea, some other group starts attacking it and starts going on about how because it helps people they don't deem worthy of help, it isn't worth pursuing and isn't "progressive." This is especially common among centrist democrats, or people who are more mildly progressive such as those in the Warren camp, but I've also seen this behavior among hardline Bernie supporters on occasion too.
Basically, part of the misunderstanding comes down to the word "progressive". Progressive is a term that, much like liberal in recent years, has been watered down to uselessness where no one knows what the heck it means when it is used in a conversation. I've seen people in the Biden administration referred to as "progressive" when that's a no from me, whereas I consider myself "progressive", and many people who support various center left to left policies consider them "progressive." That said it might be best to compare and contrast definitions.
When I use the term progressive, I mean it to mean attaining progress toward a certain goal or end point. The purpose of progressivism is to evolve society to help people more. To solve social problems and lead to a more just and more fulfilled existence. I see politics through the public policy model. I define problems, and then I solve them. Solving them is "progress." It moves society forward toward the end goal of being, well, better. Having fewer problems plaguing peoples' lives. Moving society forward is progressive, moving it backwards is regressive, and I'd argue keeping it the same is conservative. That said, I'd describe the left as largely progressive, the moderate left as conservative, and the right as regressive. The left is drive, the center is neutral, the right is reverse. Sound simple enough?
The problem is when people on the left or more accurately "center left" use the term "progressive", they mean it in a different light. They mean it more in the terms of decreasing inequality and helping the poor. While helping the poor and eliminating poverty are progressive goals in my definition, they seem to use the term more relatively, rather than absolutely. I am for an absolute shift in the well being of people in society, center left "progressives" are for only a relative shift among some groups, but not other groups.
I'll explain, and this gets to the heart of what I mean. Bernie had a proposal in 2016 and 2020 to forgive all student loan debt and make college free. Centrist democrats opposed this. They initially didn't want to budge at all, but political pressure from the left moved them to adopt some proposals. So they adopted a free college plan for those making under $125,000 a year, and student debt forgiveness is all over the place. Warren had a plan for $50,000 student loan forgiveness, Biden had a plan for $10,000 plus forgiveness for those who went to certain schools, like public colleges or HBCUs.
Here's the question: why not just forgive all the debt? To me, student debt is a problem that plagues millennials and gen Z. It also plagues older people too in some cases. It has stopped an entire generation from getting ahead, and has been a massive money sink for young people, stopping them from moving out of their homes and into ones they bought, having kids, and generally speaking having a life. I mean the entire student debt problem is an artificial one created by bad policies, and resolving it would be, by my very definition, progressive. Problem, student debt exists and is a burden on people. Solution, cancel it! Problem solved!
Sadly, for most progressives, it can't be that easily. The thing is, they don't want everyone to get loans forgiven. A common talking point among the center left is that only upper class people have student debt and people who go to school are statistically better off than those who don't, so therefore it isn't progressive to forgive it. Progressive to them means only helping the destitute, which is part of the reason they have such broken piecemeal plans. Forgiving $10,000 or $50,000 of student debt for example would forgive people who had undergrad loans, but if you went to grad school, or law school or med school? You're on your own. I'm sure you have a great six figures job and can pay it off, right? Right? That might be true in a lot of cases, but people do fall between the cracks. But to these people, this mediocre policy that does less good is more "progressive" because it only helps the right people. If everyone gets it it ain't fair. As Hillary said in 2016, "I don't want to pay for Donald Trump's kids!" in reference to free college. Um, I actually do want to pay for Trump's kids' college. Because college should be free like K-12 is, and that is a progressive stance. All these centrist democrats want is to throw a band aid on a broken system and call it "progressive" because it helps those they deem worthy of it while ignoring those who don't. It irks me, as a former conservative who describes myself as a progressive now.
It's the same thing with HBCUs. Biden's student debt plan would forgive people who went to historically black colleges and universities. But not if you went to a regular private college. What is the point in this? I'll tell you what, identity politics. In these faux-progressives' eyes, only those they deem poor enough to require help deserve it. African Americans have been historically crapped on and struggle to get ahead. That said it is progressive to forgive their debt. However, it's not progressive to forgive the debt of people they deem "privileged", ie, white people like myself. Even though the plan is less progressive by my definition, because it helps fewer people, these guys see it as more progressive, because it helps underprivileged people but not people they deem worthy of help.
Now, don't get me wrong, I definitely wanna forgive black peoples' college loans. Don't mistake my intent. But, I also wanna forgive everyone else's and solve a large scale societal problem, not just play favorites which lead to bitterness and division. I'd argue that this mentality among democrats is actually why we are such a far right country. Because all those white working class people look at policies like this and see it as race baiting. And it creates bitterness and falls into the trap of the dog whistle politics of the 1970s and 80s. That whole mentality is based on "well they get help but I don't, why is that fair and why should I pay for their college? I bust my butt working 40+ hours a week and no one ever helped me." It actually drives the people excluded from these policies to the right, where they end up embracing race baiting demagogues like Trump. All this divisive crap does is hold society back from getting real progress. Yes yes yes you helped a few people with a few milquetoast policies, but you didn't solve the problem. Even worse you turned public opinion against solving it. That's the problem with these fake "progressives". Their framing of issues and policy goals is so divisive it makes the right gain strength instead.
It's the same with basic income. And I see criticisms of this both among the fake progressive center left, and the Bernie camp. As you guys know, I support basic income. I believe it both fundamentally solves the problem of poverty within capitalism, and the coercion that poverty causes. It's one of the most radical non far left ideas you could implement to fundamentally transform the economy in a progressive way. It doesn't solve every issue, and I believe that policies like medicare for all and free college are needed to supplement it. But basic income faces challenges from these regressive fake leftists who only want to help some people. Once again, basic income is perceived as not helping the poor poor. Because they have welfare and UBI ideally replaces welfare. It's seen as a giveaway to the middle and upper classes, and the taxes are deemed "regressive" to pay for it.
Now, I feel like I've discussed UBI enough to have made my point previously, but for a refresher. First of all, the taxes to fund UBI may be regressive if they're flat. By this, I mean the rich pay a lower overall rate than the poor. This is because the rich are adept at dodging taxes. If you have a VAT, the rich don't spend their money but invest it so they don't get taxes as much for it. if you have an income tax they could still invest it and pay a lower rate as a high rate on investment taxes discourages investment and has a negative impact on the economy. It's true, the upper class would pay less. However, these people ignore that everyone would be getting $12,000 a year. If you make $0, you get $12,000. If you make $30,000, you'd pay, say, $3-6,000 depending on tax rate and plan but get $12,000 back. If you make $120,000 a year, you'd pay $12-24,000 and get $12,000 back. if you make $1 million, you'd pay $100-200,000 and get $12,000 back. UBI is progressive as fudge for most people actually. But this is ignored because apparently it doesn't punish the rich enough. Gotta stick it to them or this entire scheme which raises millions out of poverty without preconditions is bad.
On the welfare thing, I get it. Welfare is, in some cases more generous. my own UBI plan tries to account for that and only eliminate small programs. Yang would have people choose between the schemes they want, with most people gravitating toward UBI mostly due to lower restrictions and the fact that welfare doesn't help people as much as they think in the first place. Edge cases who make more could stay on their more generous plans, but those generous plans often have downsides. That guy making $1,500 a month on disability is punished if he works for example. Someone on welfare might have someone breathing down their neck constantly to make sure they aren't smoking weed and they're looking for a job. Section 8 has a waiting list that can take years to get on. Millions of homeless don't even get help. All of these welfare programs have cliffs that keep people in poverty, where if they try to better themselves the rug is pulled out from under them. These are all downsides of welfare. Welfare is trash. UBI would give people dignity and freedom, as well as a paycheck. It would allow people to take control of their lives. That's all these schemes do. Give people more choices, more flexibility. But because UBI replaces welfare to some extent rather than operating on top of it, it's bad. And because it benefits people they don't deem worthy, such as lower middle class and working class people not on welfare because they surpass some arbitrary earnings number, it's suddenly bad. Despite all of those guys voting Trump because they feel an economic pinch and they aren't being helped. The same applies with the ACA vs say, medicare for all. The medicaid expansion in ACA helps people below a certain percentage of the poverty line, but people above that still can't afford health insurance or care. They're bitter, pissed off, and oppose the ACA on the basis of insurance mandates. We could solve the problem for everyone but because some people who aren't deserving get help, that's bad apparently.
To go back to UBI though, it's baffling to see progressives fight UBI because they want to defend welfare. I can understand defending welfare against the right wanting to repeal it and have literally nothing. Same with the ACA and whatever other broken half measures that come out of the democratic party. These solutions suck. We shouldn't be afraid to say they suck. They suck. But they're better than nothing, which is a low bar. But why defend them against what I deem actual progressive ideas? We could be solving these problems and transforming society to be more fair and just and free. Why settle for broken half measures? To some extent it isn't just pragmatism. Something is seriously broken in these guys ideology where they seem to adopt the same old watered down moderate conservative philosophy I discussed last night, where they ultimately believe the system as is is just, they just want to solve problems in incremental ways with band aids. It sickens me.
Sadly the socialists sometimes aren't much better. The Bernie crowd is the one I see constantly attacking UBI. They see UBI as a neoliberal or right libertarian plot to destroy welfare. Which to me is part of the point. They also add in all of these crazy inflation boogeymen and when I ask them about what policies they want, they either have insane unrealistic standards ($3k a month UBI along side welfare and all the other stuff they propose, or literal socialism where the government runs the entire economy). And yeah, debating those guys turns into a crapshow too. As I said last night, I might be far more progressive than the fauxgressives in ideology, but at the same time, I'm not some flaming revolutionary socialist with unrealistic ideas. I support ideas I believe work. Canada has medicare for all. Many countries have free college and no student loan debt. UBI hasn't been tried in full but has a lot of academic data suggesting it would. Even then I can see how it would work and I believe it would be a great boon to society. These ideas are grounded, and down to earth. I'm not trying to completely reinvent the wheel, just replace the old beat up tire with holes in it with a good one that works. There needs to be a demand for change between patching up holes in old tires and wanting to replace an entire car with some new tech that hasn't even been road tested and could explode when you try to drive it.
I just get frustrated. As I said, I see problems, I try to solve them. I don't go with more incremental solutions because it might help someone I don't deem worthy of help. And I don't propose unrealistic crap that will never work either. I try to balance my ideals with pragmatism, aiming for the stars, and trying to get what I think will work. I look at large portions of the left these days and feel like they have very foreign epistemologies I struggle to wrap my head around. It just seems irrational to me. I mean, shouldn't you want a society that solves problems without having complex labyrinths of bureaucracy to deem who deserves help, causing the problems not to really be solved in the first place but for there to only be a few band aids masking the extent of the problem? To me, that's what progressivism is. Solving problems. Not simply taking the edge off for certain groups I deem worthy of help.
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