Progressives are Too Conservative
Posted by Bill McGonigle Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:11:00 GMT
I stumbled upon an essay today making the case that progressives are really ultra-conservatives in disguise, with a sprinkling of elitism thrown in for good measure:
"Progressives want comfort and certainty. They want to lock things down the way they are. They want to know that such and such job will be there tomorrow and next decade, and will always pay at least X amount. That is why, in the end, progressives are all statists, because, to paraphrase Hayek, only a government with totalitarian powers can bring the order and certainty and control of individual decision-making that they crave."
While this gets pretty close to the mark, there's one important additional point to make: trying to design a society effectively requires perfect information, which doesn't exist. Without it, the law of unintended consequences always applies. Would-be builders of the social utopia would be better off working on limitless energy and non-slave workers rather than trying to cement the status quo through totalitarianism.
Also found on that site was a link to a link to a link of a DVD ISO explaining the philosophy of individual liberty you can burn for your friends.
Altho there may be a lot of ties that bind an ultra-conservative to a prog (fiscal, enviro, religious,etc..) there is very little of substance they have in common related to the big picture; which is the evolution of capitalism into hyper-consumerism and the toll over-production has taken on the labor force.
I suggest you check out “A really inconvenient truth” by Joel Kovel. He lectured at Bard, ran against Nader in 2000, and is (loosely) associated to Peter Schuman of Bread-n-Puppet fame. Now, you may assert that Marxism has nothing to do with Progs or Conservatives; but i’d assert that political labels are trumped by the pressing issues they address.
I believe there is a bridge that can link these two groups, but the cons have to re-examine their unbridled support of the Establishment before the can meet half way.