The Right is Right - About Some Things

The Future of the Left

TallahasseeJoe

The Left is going through an identity crisis right now.

This is nothing new. The Left (like the Right) has gone through several stages. The original Left was actually a bunch of capitalists who wanted to be free from the power of monarchs and feudal lords (the original Right). Then these capitalists became the Right.

The next phase of the Left was old fashioned socialism - the idea that "the people" or "the proletariat" should control all or at least most of society's productive resources - thus eliminating "exploitation" by capitalists.

The problem with this is that "the people" translates into "government" (often, ironically, a dictatorship) and governments are terribly inefficient at allocating resources compared to the market. So socialists pretty much faded into history. (The "democratic socialists" of Europe are completely different and don't usually advocate state ownership of productive resources.)

The next phase of the Left was left liberalism. This is where the American Left is now, and where it has been since the New Deal. The basic idea of left liberalism is a free market with some major exceptions.

You get to do what you want with your land until - oops, there's an endangered species on it. You just lost your property rights.

You get to sell whatever kind of guns you want until - oops, somebody got killed by one. You just became liable after the fact.

You get to charge whatever you want for medical services until - oops, somebody shows up with an emergency and can't pay - you have to take care of them for free.

My point is that left liberalism addresses real problems - but it does so without enough respect for individual rights and incentive structures.


WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE LEFT?

The next phase of the Left (I hope) will be a Left that continues to acknowledge a proper role for government in funding education, in guaranteeing basic health care, and in protecting the environment, among other areas. However, this Left will respect individual rights (including property rights), free markets, and incentive structures.

If private property is to be used for a public purpose (such as environmental protection), the owners will have to agree and receive compensation.

If certain basic services (such as medical care) are to be universally available, this will be explicitly paid for with tax dollars rather than implicitly imposed through unfunded mandates.

If private firms are to be held responsible for the consequences of their products, this will be made explicit in advance through legislation, not determined after the fact by the whim of a jury.

The Right has correctly pointed out major problems in left liberal philosophy. For too long, the Left has had deaf ears to these legitimate criticisms. However, I do not believe the Right has offered a viable alternative so far.

The Left has a lot of work to do to offer its own compelling and unifying vision of American society. It's not good enough for Democratic leaders to appeal to their traditional constituencies. Democratic leaders must reach out to new constituencies - not by compromising the party's principles but by finding more effective and persuasive ways of implementing those principles.

With all these changes, it might seem that "Right" and "Left" are merely arbitrary labels without common themes to define each of them. I do not think that is quite correct.

The Left has always been concerned with ameliorating the evils of arbitrary or over-concentrated power, whether in the form of hereditary elites, racial hierarchy, or class stratification. The Right, on the other hand, has always been concerned with preserving tradition and resisting excessive change.

The Left and the Right each has a valuable role to play - though in a sense, it is the Left that must always lead society into the future.