| Number 114 | April 13, 2001 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, It's rare that I publish something in Nygaard Notes that I didn't write myself. But the item on the C.R.E.E. campaign this week was submitted by a Notes reader who is one of the organizers of the campaign, and she said it so well that I thought it would be a waste of time to try to do better. I mentioned the issue a couple of months ago in NN #105; this week is a chance to take action as part of a creative campaign to raise awareness and, hopefully, have an impact on industry giant Xcel. It's also rare to have a single essay run as long as this week's Part 4 of the Left, Right, Center essay. Every week is different in Nygaard Notes, though, and that's just what happened this week. Long as it is, I still found that I didn't have room in that piece to discuss some important themes that called out for comment. Such as, a discussion of the deep roots of the individualist and competitive philosophy in American culture, and how it has weakened the "left" and strengthened the "right" over the years. Well, you can't do everything in one essay, as I like to say. And there I go using those tired old terms again! There continue to be numerous new readers of the Notes, due to the response to my call for names a month or so ago. I am very glad to welcome you all, and hope that you enjoy Nygaard Notes and feel free to send me your responses as they come to you. This week's major essay, for example, was shaped in large part by comments from and conversations with readers who passed on their thoughts. That's how it should be. Please don't be shy. See you next week, Nygaard |
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The Campaign to Respect Energy and the Environment (C.R.E.E.) has been formed to launch a consumer campaign to raise awareness of the consequences of our dependence on hydroelectric power from Manitoba Hydro. The use of this form of electricity has devastated the subsistence communities of five Cree nations, whose territories were exploited without their consent. Xcel Energy, located in 12 states, purchases 4 percent of its energy from Manitoba Hydro. Our goal is to get Xcel Energy not to buy electricity from Manitoba Hydro until it operates sustainably from both an environmental and human rights perspective. In addition, we are working to educate consumers about alternatives to our energy sources that do not destroy the environment and devastate the human rights of others. Please see our website at: http://www.unplugmanitobahydro.org. C.R.E.E. is asking consumers of Xcel Energy to underpay their electric bill each month by $5, a token amount that expresses concern about Xcel's purchase of hydroelectricity from Manitoba Hydro. We will provide stickers that say, "I am deducting $5. The human and environmental costs of power from Manitoba Hydro are too high!" Xcel Energy states on the reverse side of its bill that there is no service charge if the unpaid amount is less than $10. You are never more than $5 behind. To join the campaign, please contact C.R.E.E. at 612-870-3442 (voice), 612-870-4846 (fax), cree@creecampaign.org (e-mail), or 2105 First Avenue So., Minneapolis, MN 55404 (regular mail.) |
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Left, Right, Center, Part 4: Philosophy, Ideology, and Policy |
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In Part 1 of this series on political labels, I argued that the standard labels of "left and right" and "liberal and conservative" are meaningless and even dangerous, since they confuse people and make us less able to act on our beliefs. In Part 2 I used Jesse Ventura to illustrate just how useless these labels are, and suggested that we need to go beyond labels and look at underlying philosophies if we want to understand the struggle that's going on. In Part 3, last week, I suggested that we might imagine that there are two competing philosophies, which I described as "individual and competitive" on the one hand and "social and cooperative" on the other. This week, in the final installment, I want to illustrate how, once you understand "where someone is coming from" – that is, their philosophy – you can then most likely figure out what their values are, and then you can probably predict what they are going to do (or support others in doing). When I'm done, you should also be able to do it the other way around, as well. That is, you should be able to look at the things someone supports and then deduce their ideology and finally, in large part, their philosophy. In other words, ambitious as it sounds, I am going to give an idea of how to connect philosophy, ideology, and policy. People write entire books on this stuff, so forgive me as I skip over huge chunks of interesting territory in my attempt to make my point in a few hundred words. Two Philosophies, Two Ideologies Last week I said that the philosophy of "people like me" is fundamentally social, or collective, and cooperative. Right there in my mission statement it says that the key values upon which Nygaard Notes is based are the values of Solidarity, Justice, Compassion, and Democracy. A set of beliefs or values such as this, taken together, is what is known as an ideology. If you work at it and have a little bit of luck, your ideology should be consistent with your philosophy. I hope mine is. I suggest that an opposing philosophy is one that is fundamentally individualistic and competitive, from which flows an ideology that values a set of things that are so different from mine as to be almost the opposite. As seen through the lens of an individualistic and competitive philosophy, the social value of Solidarity, for example, is seen as an impediment to individual Liberty. Likewise, the social value of Justice will generally be less valued than individual Opportunity for the individualistic and competitive person. Although few would publicly speak against the value of Compassion (how about that "Compassionate Conservatism?"), if you look closely you will see that there is no room for Compassion in a worldview that values Toughness and Survival above all. Finally, what about Democracy? You're not going to find anyone in a position of power who will speak against Democracy, are you? No, of course not. But, as I have argued previously, democracy and capitalism are fundamentally in opposition to each other, and the promotion of one necessarily means the erosion of the other. This is a strong statement to make, but I don't make it lightly. (I will say a little more on this below; a fuller discussion can be found in NN #24 of April 9, 1999, in "Democracy and the Free Market.") To summarize, I have said that my social and cooperative philosophy leads to an ideology based on Solidarity, Justice, Compassion, and Democracy. The ideology that flows from the individualist and competitive philosophy, on the other hand, elevates the values of Liberty, Opportunity, Toughness/Survival, and Free Markets. Two Ideologies, Two Types of Policy Once we understand the two philosophies and how they translate into their respective ideologies, we begin to be able to understand and predict the sorts of policies that different people will promote, and why they will promote them. This has great practical usefulness, both in clarifying our own strategies and tactics as well as in countering the strategies and tactics of those whom we oppose. Liberty vs Solidarity For example, an Individualist who values Liberty over Solidarity will argue for privatizing Social Security. Why? Because this philosophy says the most important thing is to maximize the individual Liberty of each person to do what he or she wants with "their" money. The cooperative value of Solidarity does not argue against Liberty. Rather, it ranks the two values and says that FIRST we must guarantee the welfare and security of all. If there is money left over after we do that, THEN people can do whatever they want with their money. In other words, the freedom of an individual TO spend their money is balanced against the freedom FROM poverty that is guaranteed to all. Justice vs Opportunity Ronald Reagan once famously said, "The great thing about America is that anyone can be a millionaire." These are the words of one who values Opportunity over Justice. It's very difficult to argue that it is fair to have some people live in incredible wealth while others have too little to meet their basic needs. So, unless you believe that our system can allow for everyone to be a millionaire, which it cannot and will not, how could you see some people's opportunity as more important than other people's security? Only if you value Opportunity itself more than you value Justice. Compassion vs Toughness and Survival Back in December I took a look at a Wall Street Journal editorial which argued that our welfare system is bad because it is too "feminine-maternalistic." Author Irving Kristol went on to say that "Men can (and do) sympathize with those who are down on their luck, but it needs a woman to feel a deep compassion..." (See NN #96, "Henpecked Sissies and Welfare Reform.") Kristol was making a more-obvious-than-usual argument in favor of the Individualist values of Toughness and Survival (typically equating these with some fantasy ideas about "masculinity"). In this case, he argued overtly against Compassion, favoring instead what he calls "sympathy." This is the premise underlying the policies being promoted in various ways by "President" Bush. Individualists will always argue for private sympathy, or charity – what Bush calls "faith-based initiatives" – over public social welfare programs such as Social Security, national health care, workers' compensation, and so forth. Democracy vs Capitalism Finally, we come to the final and defining conflict between the two ideologies, that between Democracy and Capitalism. While no politician in their right mind will ever admit to promoting a policy that undermines Democracy, in fact this is what the current battles about Free Trade, Fair Trade, and Globalization (for example) are all about. Do citizens have the right to decide in a democratic fashion how we are going to allocate our resources? Or is it more important that private individuals have the unfettered right to do what they want with "their" capital? In more general terms, it is undeniably true that we have a society in which some people have extreme wealth while some people have very little. It is also true that many important decisions are made only by people with extreme wealth, such as the leadership of the giant corporations which decide what gets made and sold, whose resources are used to do so, who gets to work and under what conditions, and what prices we will pay for the things we need. Even major decisions outside of the realm of corporate leadership – that is, decisions made by elected government officials – are increasingly dictated by those with extreme wealth, as the current debates about "campaign finance reform" remind us on a daily basis. While one may be able to argue that there are some merits in a system which excludes large segments of the population from input into decisions that affect their life, one cannot say that this is democracy. The key point is that capitalism is, at its root, based on a conception of the world as composed of individuals. Furthermore, those individuals are buyers and sellers competing against one another in the marketplace. At high prices, sellers "win." At low prices, buyers "win." This is unacceptable from the perspective of the social and cooperative philosophy, in which no one can "win" if somebody loses. All economic transactions, to people like me, must be geared toward creating a "win/win" situation to fit our vision of the world. On almost any major issue, the stances of any given "leader" can be predicted once you understand their philosophy. If more people with progressive impulses were willing to do the work to discover and understand those philosophies – and, how about our own!? – it would remove enormous amounts of fog from our discussions. No self-respecting progressive should allow themselves to throw up their hands and say, "Those people are crazy; I give up." They're not crazy. If we do our homework to understand their philosophies and ideologies, this becomes clear. When I say, as I often do, that the values around which Nygaard Notes is organized are Solidarity, Compassion, Justice, and Democracy, that doesn't really tell you that I am "right-wing" or "left-wing," does it? But I hope it gives you some idea of where I stand, and to what I am accountable. Those are important things. |