How Welfare Hurts Us All

You've heard it before, and maybe you even agree: we can't pay for all kinds of welfare programs anymore. The money's just not there and we're being overtaxed as it is now, so please stop with these Utopian dreams about healthcare and quality education for everyone. And besides; the free market is much better equipped to tackle these problems, much better than the failing government anyway...

_{source: Picpedia}

Yep, we've heard this same song for years now from the political right, the conservatives. First thing to know, if you insist on thinking along lines of the classical left-right divide in political ideologies, is that "conservative" is the opposite of "progressive"; classical "leftism" is being progressive. Conservatives want to "conserve," keep things as they are, and are averse to change; this fundamental understanding of just the words used should give us an insight as to why the political right is, traditionally, the side that fights to keep the much maligned "status quo" intact. A synonym for "conservative" in political context is "establishmentarian." Enough said.

But how progressive is "the left?" Well, that's a sad story I'm afraid; they're not progressive at all. Sure, they've kept alive their progressiveness as a means of distraction and on non essential topics like gay marriage or minority representation, and subsequently play their part in feeding the tribal (mostly online) wars over SJW's and "fake outrage," but where it really matters, the economy that rules us all, they've become one with the establishment; there is no real choice anymore in this regard. Well, other than the choice between "Capitalism In You Face" from the right, and "Capitalism With A Human Face" on the left; ultimately though, it's all capitalism.

That's why, even on the so called left, the question is always asked: "how do you plan to pay for that," whenever a plan, idea or program is proposed that could benefit either the poor, the middle class, or even all of us including the rich. No one in their right mind would be against quality education for ALL children, as this is the pool of potentials from which one day will rise the shapers of the nation, of the world; it's good old capitalist thinking to maximize chances for real profits, is it not? But it's capitalism itself that prevents this from happening as it begs the question "how and who will pay?" You often hear, from both political wings, remarks like "that sounds like a great idea, but I'm afraid the economy doesn't agree," when, for example, a program for dealing with climate change or pollution is proposed. Is it then unfair from me to assert that we've become slaves, complete and utter slaves to a human made construct? Is it unfair to say the capitalist economy has become our new God? We seemingly all bow our heads to it, and portions of our society have even concluded this construct to be all knowing and all powerful, as every problem can be solved by saying "just leave it to the market." Followed by "the government is the problem," when in reality "the government" is us, you and me and all other people. "But democracy is mob-rule," and "people are too dumb to know what's good for them" soon follow...

Left and right have sold their souls to a non existing "invisible hand" in the sky, so both rally against all sorts of welfare programs and both have plans to privatize everything we once called "the commons." But both are not against welfare (and tax cuts) for rich people and large corporations; corporate welfare is the welfare that hurts us all and has to stop. Watch the video at the end of this post if you don't know or understand why we (not just in America) need to stop this ridiculous practice of handing out billions of dollars each year to the most profitable industry giants. As a general rule we need to work towards a separation of money and politics for democracy to ever have a realistic chance; right now there is no democracy in the world, there's only capitalism, we're ruled by, and shape our lifes after a human made construct that asks from all of us to behave as self centered as possible or acceptable. This goes for Joe Schmo, the corporations and, yes, the politicians too. See where this is going? No one would question why the rich accept the welfare they're offered, as no one, even the rich, is stupid enough to refuse free income. Right..? Capitalism at it's heart functions when all individual agents act in a rational and self centered manner. The market forces generated by the interaction between producers and consumers, demand and supply, will then produce an equilibrium in which we all get what we deserve. Really, if you believe this, I don't know what to say. And if you believe that corporations and politicians will suddenly act in a selfless or altruistic manner by finally making true the "trickle down economy," you're beyond saving. The plutocracy is not the result of socialism creeping into the upper echelons of society, not caused by politics or democracy in and of itself, but by the very commandments given to us by our new God, capitalism.

Having said all that, most are not ready yet to consider models that lie outside the box that contain capitalism and communism. Most don't believe humanity will ever grow up enough to trust themselves to rule themselves. And that's why "capitalism with a human face" is, for the time being (the next couple of hundreds of years I guesstimate), way preferable over "capitalism in your face." If I were an American citizen, and if I were to vote at all, I would vote for Bernie Sanders, even if he mislabeled himself as a "democratic socialist"; he's much more a "social democrat" as he strives for a free market system with much heavier regulation much like how it works in the Nordic countries. Stop listening to the preachers of the status quo, unless you're a billionaire or realistically plan on becoming one soon. Demand from your leaders that they stop bowing their heads to corporate interests and start bowing their heads to us; we employ them, they work for us, that's how a democracy works (and yes, that's also how a democratic republic's supposed to work). Bernie strikes me as the kind of person who's willing to accept that deal...

To close, I'd like to say that I'm not against gay marriage or equal rights for everyone, as I imagine some will deduce that from me saying that these topics are insignificant. What I meant was that it's relatively insignificant for two reasons. One is that identity politics is not good or bad in itself, but for as far as they're needed, they are being abused to divide the people among these subjects. And two is that much of the reasons why identity politics are sometimes needed stem from material, geographical and social divides that are caused by capitalism itself; by taming the wild beast that is the free market economy, many of these problems will resolve themselves. That's it, another rant comes to an end... Thanks so much for enduring all of it :-)

_{Robert Reich: How Corporate Welfare Hurts You}

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