So, I recently came to a conclusion on why I find many mainstream philosophies to be distasteful, and it's because most core political philosophies these days are still, ultimately, based on old books, or old philosophies written a long time before we were even born. To some extent, there's no problem with old books. I mean, we had to get where we are today, right? But imagine using the Bible as a standard of morality in the 21st century. Many christians do it, but as an ex-christian, I find it distasteful. They have outdated cleanliness ethics because they didn't understand how germs worked. They literally had slavery in it and thought that was okay. Human life feels cheapened a lot reading the Bible. It just seems like a horrible book to use for morality today, because it's an old book, and there are better books with different moral theories that exist today. Well, I'm arguing many philosophies, left, right, and center all rely to some extent on "old books", and that we need a new philosophy for the modern age.
The right
The right seems to primarily get its ethics from enlightenment texts, relying heavily on John Locke and founding documents in America that were based on Locke's theory. Even today, Locke's philosophy is still dominant among the right, in which people have views based on so called "natural rights" , the three of which are life, liberty, and property (property being changed to "pursuit of happiness" in the declaration of independence). Most conservative, and right libertarian philosophies still rely on Locke's work. It's a huge reason why we see the right scream "taxation is theft", while they completely ignore sociology. Sociology hasn't been invented yet. And that's the problem with the right in general. Its founding texts are from the freaking 18th century. Society was different back then. We didn't have modern capitalism. Land was abundant and we had a largely agrarian economy, with near limitless land (at the time) to expand and live on. Society was more like, say, Minecraft, at least if you were a property owning white male. And of course, that philosophy only ever worked for property owning white males anyway. Slavery was a thing, women were breeding mares. And the propertyless were still screwed.
These philosophies might have inspired the birth of our nation, but they should not be celebrated today in the 21st century. As my own ideology largely points out, without adequate access to resources, people are enslaved to each other and there are a lot of issues with power relations. These philosophies don't care about this at all. It is a weakness of theirs. And they completely fall apart when looking at issues related to modern employment. Which, in America, led to the rise of modern liberalism in the 1930s, which I will discuss a little later. The point is, because these extreme free market agrarian philosophies failed so hard in the 20th century context, they no longer have any relevance today at all.
The left
The modern far left developed in the mid 19th century, after the rise of capitalism. Unfortunately, their views of society were largely dominated by the zeitgeist of the time. You gotta understand where Europe was around this time. Before 1800, we largely had monarchies with feudalism. This was the established way of life for centuries. But then they did away with slavery, and they often did away with monarchies. A revolutionary tide swept over Europe, inspired by the United States, and this caused societal disruptions on a massive scale, with many people wondering if what replaced the old ways was actually any better.
That said, a lot of leftists wrote books about how evil capitalism was, because it was forcing people to work 16 hour days for peanuts, leading to mass poverty and exploitation, and the solutions the left came up with largely involved, you guessed it, more revolutions. Much like the French revolution of about 60 years prior, leftists thought the way to deal with capitalism was to overthrow it.
For as spot on that these criticisms of capitalism were, even today, the far left has always been light on actual solutions. There's a lot of theories, and a lot of diversity of ideas for what should replace capitalism, but I have yet to find one that actually seems to be better off than what we have NOW, in the 21st century. We tried revolutionary socialism and the results are, quite frankly, horrifying. We end up with dictatorial command economies, and those seem inefficient and tyrannical. There are various forms of anarchism that exist, but most of them seem to rely on regressing in terms of living standards and are not attractive today in my personal opinion. Some moderate forms of socialism could work like democratic socialism and market socialism could be viable, but, I'll get to my issues with these once we get to the "center" section, where I plan to address liberal/social democratic/light socialist solutions to the economy.
The point is, whereas the right is stuck in the 1700s, often times the left is stuck in the zeitgeist of the 1800s, and I don't think that either philosophy really seems viable in terms of 21st century capitalism within an advanced economy. Both seem like horribly regressions in living standards, rights, privileges, and freedoms. Conservatives want to recapture the glory of agrarian 18th century America, and leftists want to recapture the glory of killing off the elites and replacing one system with another. But neither of them really have any decent solutions to how things are now. Which brings me to the center.
The center
Modern liberalism came about in the early 20th century as a way to compromise between various reactionary and revolutionary forces in America. The 1920s and 1930s have showed us that we couldn't just keep going in the direction that we were going. And wanting to avoid fascism and communism, FDR implemented a form of liberalism that attempted to "save capitalism." While the far left wanted to abolish capitalism, liberalism sought to improve it. So we started getting a 20th century Keynesian consensus in the US. The non fascist and communist parts of Europe also shifted toward social democracy, with scandinavia being the most prominent examples. Under these paradigms, they formed social programs, regulatory states, and unions to reform the unjust parts of capitalism, ensuring fair working conditions, generous pay, and good working hours.This paradigm is, by far, the best we've ever done, and the better part about it is, it was constantly improving.
However, things have changed since the golden era of capitalism. Starting in the 1970s, things started creeping right. Neoliberalism began taking over, and pushing the consensus right in response to energy crises and stagflation. By the 1980s there was a revolution of thought between Reagan winning the elections in the US, and Thatcher in England, in which the previous Keynesian ideal of, effectively social democracy, and full employment, have withered away. As Thatcher once said, "there is no alternative". And then when the USSR fell, the right further reveled with its "end of history" crap in which capitalism reigned supreme over communism, and is the bestest economic system ever, and how dare you ever say otherwise.
The problem is, this right wing shift was actually a regression and undid a lot of good of the previous Keynesian era. Living standards stagnated, worker rights regressed,economic inequality got more extreme, and every recession, it got worse, until in 2008 the housing market crash and the global recession exposed to many people, including me, that something was seriously wrong with the system.
And that's where I'm looking at this now. In the 21st century, post 2008. I could go on about what happened from 2008-2021, but we all know that and I don't think it fundamentally changes the outlook.
Since then, we've seen America split into three camps. The neoliberal center, the fascist right, and the socialist/social democratic left. The neoliberal center likes to act like there's no problem. They think the economy is good, it's always been good, we recovered from 2008, everything is fine. Sadly, this is the DEMOCRATS acting like this, which is why I rip them so hard. The right recognizes there is a problem, but they are ignorant at addressing it and keep misdiagnosing the problem and pushing harmful solutions because they have no idea what they're doing. So they trend toward fascist demagogues like Trump because at least he appears to wanna do something. And then you have the left.
Now, I originally threw my lot in with the left. While I never thought the old Keynesian solutions were perfect, they were the best we've ever done, and I believed that we needed to bring that back to advance from there. You know, one thing I always appreciated about the Keynesians of old was that they were ultimately utopians. They did not see their changes as the end all, but as a good first step. Keynes wrote that by 2030 we should have 15 hour work weeks and insanely high living standards. He thought we would keep building on those legacies. But when I look at the Sanders movement and the people in it, I'm just not sure if they really seek those kinds of lofty goals. They seem more intent on just going back to the 1940s again. At best, they embody Roosevelt's second bill of rights, which had rights to stuff like healthcare, a job, and a decent wage. That's all well and good by the mid 20th century's standards, but I think even by the end of the original Keynesian consensus, people recognized that we needed to evolve. Being a "UBI guy", in 1969, mere years before the troubles that toppled the entire consensus, a presidential commission came out detailing that the system as it was, systemically led to poverty, and the best way to solve it was basically a UBI with strings attached. Nixon's family assistance plan (or FAP, yes, I know, terrible acronym), was basically a limited UBI intended to fix the problems of the previous Johnson administration's flawed war on poverty. I mean, for all the good the democrats of that day and age did, man did they like inefficient solutions. They always threw money at the problem, adding bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy, and government agency on top of agency to fix problems. This is actually a huge failing that eventually turned public opinion against them. People saw that the government was spending tons of money on complex solutions that didn't solve the core problems, and they decided they wanted lower taxes and small government instead. But before the public was primed for that under Reagan, more moderate conservatives like Nixon were pushing for, essentially, UBI, to fix that.
And as you guys know, my own philosophy seems to more represent the Nixonian approach to new deal politics, than the left's own versions. Sanders seems fine to return to 20th century solutions. And don't get me wrong, 20th century solutions are better than 19th or 18th century solutions of previous ideals I dealt with. But I kind of wish, instead of going full right wing, that perhaps if Nixon succeeded, and things played out differently in the coming decade, that perhaps we would be better off today for it. I feel like UBI really is that missing piece to get to the next stage of our societal evolution, along side universal healthcare. I would always prefer a few good solutions over dozens of mediocre or bad ones.
And that's why I can't support liberalism or social democracy today. I'll work with them against more centrist libs, hardcore marxists, and conservatives/fascists, I mean they're actually close enough to me to vote for them, but they don't really have the vision to carry this country into the future. They just want more of the same. And we need a new 21st century approach to things, that relies on going further than we ever went before. And to me, that future is in less work, not socialism.
If we could pass a UBI, medicare for all, free college, etc., we could achieve a system where we build on the liberal dream. We could finally reduce our work weeks, while respecting personal autonomy. Standard social democracy and keynesian liberalism is nice, but if the 40 hour work week with a $15 minimum wage is as far as they want to go (or thereabouts, I know some want 35 hour work weeks instead), then that's not good enough.
This is also, by the way, why I'm not hardcore on moderate far left philosophies like democratic socialism either. At best they wanna just have more complicated solutions. Instead of UBI they want "decommodification" and "universal basic services". In other words, bureaucratic solutions like seen in liberal and socialist economies. Whereas being more left libertarian, I want to help people but also increase their freedom.
The way I see it, the right still lives in the 1700s. The left still lives in the 1800s. The center still lives in the 1900s. We need a new philosophy for the 2000s. Something like Yang's "human centered capitalism", or my post work economy. Something that builds on the past, and improves it, rather than abolishes it.
It should be noted, for anyone who happens to read this in say, 2152, that my ideas might be horridly dated to you too. Good. Well, take them for what they are, and don't follow them. You might be living in an AI run post scarcity economy, or maybe climate change destroyed modernity and you're reading this on some old smartphone you got working from some makeshift battery. Well, take things in the direction that seems best to where you are. I can't predict that far ahead. I'm only interested in designing a society that will work for the next 50 years or so. Because, as I've kind of implied all throughout this, ideas tend to eventually have an expiration date. You might be relevant for say, 50-100 years before conditions change so much that something better has to come along. I'm not interested in anything beyond 2100 at the very most. Heck, my ideas might seem quaint by as early as 2060-2070, when I expect America to undergo its next major political realignment after the one today. As my generation begins to die out from old age, a new one will have to pick up the torch, and their response to my anti work aspirations might be met with the equivalent of "okay boomer." I mean, I know it's coming, one day or another. But I digress.
The point is, most political ideologies today all have an "old book" problem, and my respect for those ideas seems directly related to their age (minus our lapse into "neoliberalism", that ideology can die in a fire and was never good). Ideas of the past...should remain in the era in which they were written. Locke's natural rights were a huge improvement over the divine right of kings and theocracy. Marx's "Kapital" had valid critiques against capitalism, but also seemed light on actual productive solutions, as it was wrapped up in its post French Revolution revolutionary fervor. Anarchist ideas like those of Kropotkin weren't much better, although in their defense they don't have the body count of 20th century communism. And liberalism did a good job toeing the line between the far left and far right, threading the needle for a viable approach to society for much of the 20th century. And given our neoliberal lapse even that is looking good about now. But still, liberalism and social democracy have an "old book" problem too. I dont think anyone alive in the 1930s who made our current labor standards and social programs still expected them to be in use like they are today. And it's about time we started moving on from them as a society, shifting toward a new model for economic governance in the west.
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