Post by Don on Apr 27, 2017 2:26:09 GMT -5
This thought-provoking analysis of the current state of affairs by Dan Sanchez parallels much of my recent thinking on the left-right divide.
He first discusses "How Occupy got Berned" and "How the Tea Party got Trumped," noting the shifting of both movements from their original concerns by the Pied Piper fluting of Bernie and The Donald. Not a lot new there for those who were following along in real-time, although many may not have noticed the shifting sands over time.
Then he digs into the economic fallacies that are being used by both sides to deepen the divide, while also pointing out the economic realities that both sides are anxious to see suppressed. (Bolding mine)
He also tosses in a bit about why this is the inevitable result of the political process.
Finally, he offers some solutions to the problem, but since this is getting long, I'll let you read the rest for yourselves.
Any chance he's right?
He first discusses "How Occupy got Berned" and "How the Tea Party got Trumped," noting the shifting of both movements from their original concerns by the Pied Piper fluting of Bernie and The Donald. Not a lot new there for those who were following along in real-time, although many may not have noticed the shifting sands over time.
Then he digs into the economic fallacies that are being used by both sides to deepen the divide, while also pointing out the economic realities that both sides are anxious to see suppressed. (Bolding mine)
The socialist left doesn’t understand that the capital accumulated by capitalists redounds to the benefit of labor, because capital investment increases the productivity of labor, and so leads to a continual rise of real wages. Such a capital-enhanced stream of wages is many times more profuse and sustained than any trickle they can hope to wring from the bourgeoisie by force.
In general, the socialist left doesn’t realize all the myriad ways in which taxes, regulation, and the welfare state impoverish and debilitate everybody, including college kids, and especially the poor.
The nationalist right doesn’t understand that free competition in trade and labor, irrespective of birth or nationality, redounds to the benefit of native workers, because it expands the sphere of economic cooperation and allows and incentivizes workers to find their role of greatest comparative advantage in the division of labor. Such a fluid, dynamic market yields an abundance of consumer services and commodities, to be purchased with ever-rising real wages earned through new, more efficient, and less-backbreaking kinds of work.
In general, the nationalist right doesn’t realize all the myriad ways in which protectionism, economic exclusion, and autarky impoverish and debilitate everybody, including and especially the native-born working class.
And the American people in general, thanks to having their initiative and innovation stifled by an entire childhood and young adulthood of regimented schooling, are bereft of the spirit of entrepreneurial individualism that would empower them to defy, escape, and transcend government-imposed economic stagnation. Thanks to the rise of e-commerce, the gig economy, the sharing economy, telecommuting, etc, opportunities to forge a thriving non-traditional career and livelihood abound like never before.
Most are blind to this exciting state of affairs, and so instead of finding entrepreneurial solutions to their economic problems, they waste their time and energy chasing political solutions. Instead of using the internet to make money, they use it to grouse about politicians, inveigh against enemy political tribes, and spew hostility toward enemy classes and demographics. Instead of focusing on improving their own lives, they join mobs on the web and on the streets to demand that government fix their problems for them at the expense of others. Instead of making productive connections, they sow destructive divisions.
In general, the socialist left doesn’t realize all the myriad ways in which taxes, regulation, and the welfare state impoverish and debilitate everybody, including college kids, and especially the poor.
The nationalist right doesn’t understand that free competition in trade and labor, irrespective of birth or nationality, redounds to the benefit of native workers, because it expands the sphere of economic cooperation and allows and incentivizes workers to find their role of greatest comparative advantage in the division of labor. Such a fluid, dynamic market yields an abundance of consumer services and commodities, to be purchased with ever-rising real wages earned through new, more efficient, and less-backbreaking kinds of work.
In general, the nationalist right doesn’t realize all the myriad ways in which protectionism, economic exclusion, and autarky impoverish and debilitate everybody, including and especially the native-born working class.
And the American people in general, thanks to having their initiative and innovation stifled by an entire childhood and young adulthood of regimented schooling, are bereft of the spirit of entrepreneurial individualism that would empower them to defy, escape, and transcend government-imposed economic stagnation. Thanks to the rise of e-commerce, the gig economy, the sharing economy, telecommuting, etc, opportunities to forge a thriving non-traditional career and livelihood abound like never before.
Most are blind to this exciting state of affairs, and so instead of finding entrepreneurial solutions to their economic problems, they waste their time and energy chasing political solutions. Instead of using the internet to make money, they use it to grouse about politicians, inveigh against enemy political tribes, and spew hostility toward enemy classes and demographics. Instead of focusing on improving their own lives, they join mobs on the web and on the streets to demand that government fix their problems for them at the expense of others. Instead of making productive connections, they sow destructive divisions.
The democratic state cultivates warfare sociology by offering all subpopulations corrupting access to its machinery of power, which can be used to perpetrate what Frederic Bastiat called “legal plunder” against other subpopulations, whether through direct expropriation (the Bernie method) or through persecuting economic competitors (the Trump method). This has the effect of dividing its subjects into warring, mutually plundering tribes or “interest groups.”
Any chance he's right?