Both The Left & The Right Are Wrong About The Role Of Government
The Far Left Thinks The Gov’t’s Job Is To Equalize Wealth & The Far Right Thinks The Gov’t Has Almost No Job At All
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Different Ideas About The Role Of Government
If you boil down the arguments between the left and the right about what government should and should not do, it all comes down to how you answer the question:
“What is the role of government?”
The Far Left, Communist Answer
The communists’ answer is:
“To own everything, run everything, and do everything in order to, as much as possible, equalize the wealth.”
The Far Right, Libertarian Philosophy
The far right/libertarians’ answer is:
“Only to deliver military/police services, courts, and infrastructure as necessary to maintain an unregulated, violence-free marketplace where the buyers and sellers are free to do whatever they want.”
For The Far Right The Purpose Of A Government Is Only To Facilitate Unregulated Business Activities
The far right sees all of society — individuals, companies and the government itself — as merely parties to unregulated transactions where goods and services are exchanged at prices and on terms solely based on the unrestrained bargaining power of the buyers and sellers.
Except for the police/military and the courts, in the view of the far right, the government should do nothing beyond protecting the existence of this marketplace and possibly selling some useful for-fee services.
To them, a national park is merely another service to be funded by admission fees, except that the seller is the government instead of a private company.
Interstate highways and bridges? Government-provided services to be funded by tolls.
Safety and financial infrastructure agencies like the FAA or the SEC? Government-provided services to be funded by fees levied on the airlines, stock issuers and the like.
The Role Of The Government Is Not To Improve People’s Lives
The far right doesn’t see government as a tool to be used to improve the lives of human beings.
A far-right government only cares that the buyer-seller marketplace is not interrupted or restricted. It doesn’t care about the quality or safety of the products or services sold, how rich or poor one side or the other becomes, or any of the consequences of an unregulated marketplace for the bulk of the humans living in that country.
Their article of faith is that whatever happens to humans living in a country with an unregulated marketplace and a hands-off government is what should happen to them.
Their view of the importance of the quality of life of human beings living in such a country mirrors the line from the song, Que Será, Será, “Whatever will be, will be.”
The Gov’t’s Job Is Like That Of The Referees In A Game
The far right views the purpose of government as similar to the role of the officials in a game with almost no rules like that in the movie Rollerball.
Those officials’ only role is to enforce the minimum amount of rules necessary for the game to keep on going, and in the far-right’s game, teams can be any size from a single person to thousands.
The Refs Don’t Care About Anything Except Enforcing The Rules
The consequences to the participants of playing the game under those minimum rules are unimportant to the refs.
As long as a specific rule is not violated the refs don’t care
- Who wins or loses or by how much
- If many or most of the players end up very rich or desperately poor
- If certain tactics are dangerous or even fatal to the players.
- If the lives of 90% of the players are total crap.
The refs’ only goal is keeping the players on the field no matter how terrible the consequences of that competition may be for many or even most of them.
It’s The Same For A Far-Right Government
In the same way that the refs have no interest in making the teams’ or players’ lives better, safer, or more prosperous, a far-right government has no interest in making its human citizens’ lives better, safer, or more prosperous.
As the refs are only there to enforce the minimum level of rules necessary to keep the game going no matter how much damage the game may do to many if not most of the players, a far-right government is only there to enforce the minimum level of rules necessary to keep the unregulated marketplace going no matter how much damage the unregulated marketplace may do to many if not most of the human beings living in that country.
A far-right government doesn’t care
- If defective, shoddy or toxic products or services are sold
- If the population is unhealthy, uneducated and desperately poor,
- If there’s little social mobility
- If there is widespread racism and discrimination
- If the lives of 90% of the citizens’ are total crap.
- If most of the citizens have little personal freedom
The Assumption That The Best Teams Will Win
The assumption of the far right is that smart, strong, hard-working people and groups deserve to and will prosper and that dumb, weak, indolent people and groups deserve to and will fail.
“Best” & “Most Powerful” Are Two Different Things
It ignores the fact that if a team of twenty men competes with a single woman, it’s victory and her loss has nothing to do with talent, intelligence or diligence. The victory of twenty over one is purely a product of the overwhelming power of twenty against one.
Though the far-right’s fantasy is that unrestrained competition rewards the good people and punishes the bad ones, the reality is that it is primarily a proof of the principle of Might-Makes-Right.
The System Itself Guarantees That Yesterday’s Winners Will Almost Always Win Tomorrow
In the real world, the rewards of the game itself and the unbalanced makeup of the teams, as much or more than the talents and character of the individual players, affect who will win and who will lose.
The NFL long ago realized that without intervention, the advantages of winning and the disadvantages of losing would result in the same winners continuing to win and the same losers continuing to lose.
To break that “rich-get-richer” cycle and provide opportunities for losers to become winners, the league created salary caps and loser-benefiting draft schemes.
The far right bars any governmental systems that would break their societal rich-get-richer system.
The far right doesn’t care if their fantasy that the game always elevates the strong and punishes the weak rather than elevating the existing winners and extremely wealthy groups and punishing the current losers and very poor individuals is actually true.
The negative consequences from an unregulated contest between individual buyers and huge corporate sellers are unimportant to the far right in the same way that the terrible consequences from a communist system are unimportant to dedicated communists.
Again, their attitude about the society their system creates and the harm it does to human beings mirrors the line from the song, Que Será, Será, “Whatever will be, will be.”
Nothing To Do With Freedom
The far right likes to say they are on the side of “freedom.” The freedom they’re talking about is the freedom of
- Multi-billion-dollar banks to charge minimum-wage customers unlimited late fees
- Multi-billion-dollar insurance companies to delay and deny sick people’s and disaster victims’ claims
- Multi-billion-dollar energy companies to pollute the air and water
- Multi-billion-dollar employers to refuse to pay overtime or provide medical care for on-the-job injuries
The far right’s philosophy is based on the theory that a pack of wolves and a single deer should be free to compete however they want and if the deer is too weak to compete effectively against the pack of wolves then the wolves should be free to eat it.
It’s the idea that freedom means that
- The air should be clean only to the extent that people voluntarily choose not to pollute it.
- There should be no discrimination only to the extent that people voluntarily choose not to discriminate.
- Products should be safe and non-toxic only to the extent that manufacturers voluntarily choose to make safe, non-toxic goods.
It’s the freedom of rich and powerful corporations to control and exploit poor and weak individuals. It’s the codification of the principle of “Might Makes Right.”
The Haves & Have-Nots Have Each Created A Philosophy That Is Good For Them
The far left’s “The government is there to average out wealth and opportunity such that, as much as possible, everybody has an equally good life no matter how low their level of intelligence, diligence, talent, determination or strength” is a philosophy for the benefit of people who think that they are or will be losers.
The far right’s “Society is a battlefield and the government is only here to enforce a very narrow set of rules that preserve the ability of vastly mismatched teams to compete and where, short of physical violence, everybody can do whatever they want” is a philosophy created by and for the benefit of people who think they are or will be the winners.
The Government’s Proper Role Is To Improve The Lives Of The Bulk Of The Human Beings In The Middle Of The Normal Curve
I’ve followed up on this column with The Basic Things A Government Should Do which argues that the role of government is to create a society that benefits the bulk of the human beings in the middle of the normal curve instead of the individuals and corporations on the extreme winner end or the extreme loser end of the population.
Such a government does this by
- Ameliorating major instances of vastly unbalanced bargaining power, and
- Restraining conduct that unreasonably damages the health or property of other people living in the community
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
