A lens through which to view politics: who benefits? (6/20/16)

A big secret of my political views is that it’s actually quite simple in how I view issues compared to most people. Yes, I have ideals and ideologies, but when looking at whether political views are good or bad, I look at one single metric: who benefits? This is actually more important than one things. Often times in American politics, a lot of really bad proposals are backed up with some really good sounding rhetoric. For example, we have ‘right to work” proposals that are really about undermining unions. By saying that people should have the freedom to work on their own terms without a union getting in the way, what is really going on is the elite class is undermining unions from being able to collectively bargain for better pay, they say this and seed it with flowery rhetoric involving “freedom” in order to sell out the working class. We see this again with labor laws, and minimum wages. Conservatives and libertarians will say, hey, if I want to work 7 days a week I shouldn’t have some big brother government telling me I can’t, or if I want to work for $3 an hour the government shouldn’t stop me! These statements will sound nice on paper, but who benefits? Well, not the worker, on the whole. He’s getting undermined via the market system in a race to the bottom, who benefits is actually the rich. We see this with taxes too. I had people arguing with me today about how they (relatively well off middle class folks) should be able to opt out of social security. But if everyone could opt out of paying for programs that don’t immediately benefit from them and claim they can better fund their own stuff, who benefits? I guess the person, but then society loses. If no one with the ability to do so pays into social programs like social security when they don’t want to, then guess what, the poor get screwed. The program can’t work, and safety nets become government charities. Which is exactly what the elites want. They don’t want a society in which people have reliable safety nets they have to pay for, no, they want people to be poor, impoverished, and dependent on them for their survival.

So the next time someone with a conservative or libertarian bend talks about right to work laws, or cutting welfare or other social services, or getting rid of regulations, ask yourself, who benefits from these changes? Because in a lot of cases it’s certain people being selfish and not wanting to pay to make society better, because they’re well off enough to not need government help. They’re well off where they’re a winner in the capitalist system, and dont want their advantage threatened. It’s human nature to want to maximize your individual earnings, I guess, but at the same time, it’s good to be mindful of the big picture. A lot of these conservative and libertarian ideas are trojan horses made up by the rich to get you to agree to making your life crappier. And even if you are not personally affected by cuts, maybe someone else is. It’s good to understand how privileged you are in the economic system before advocating for cuts that affect others. Because if we eliminate all of these safety nets because you happen to not benefit at the moment, that is society’s loss.

So yeah, always ask yourself in evaluating government policy, particularly economic policy, who benefits? It’s a very useful tool to understand the world as it really is and the actors acting to make the system serve their interests. But the state shouldn’t serve any particular group’s interests, it should serve to maximize everyone’s well being. Even if the most well off pay a bit more in taxes and have a few more regulations tying their hands, in my opinion, it’s worth it to ensure everyone is better off.