It’s all about context
Free-market capitalism can exist, even thrive, alongside reasonable safety, labor and environmental protection laws. And a country with strong civil liberties can also exist in an environment of strict criminal and civil justice.
Those nations with the highest levels of social spending can also have high levels of economic freedom and prosperity. Japan, the Scandinavian and the northern European countries immediately come to mind as prime examples.
I would readily agree that too much social spending can serve as a disincentive to work. But this idea can quickly descend into the unreasonable dogma espoused to by the American ultra-right wing claiming that any amount of social spending is too much.
But countries that combine freemarket capitalism with higher regulation, taxation and social spending than the United States such as Canada, New Zealand and Western Europe, also score higher than the U.S. on international studies measuring overall quality of life. This includes medical care, educational attainment and the happiness/contentment scale.
Interestingly, no fully-developed country today with high living standards operates on right-wing or libertarian principles. None.
Sadly, many Americans’ political opinions are too shallow and superficial to fit into any of the standard ideological categories. But the percentage whose opinions and loyalties are all-out liberal or down-the-line conservative has more than doubled since the mid-1990s, from 10 to more than 20 percent.
If this trend continues, we could easily become a nation of political extremists. And most of the people today with extremist leanings report that most of their close friends also share their views.
Today liberals are becoming more liberal and conservatives more conservative, not a healthy picture for the future. We are fast becoming a nation of ideologues who are more and more resistant to compromise. But things haven’t always been this way.
I recall my college days (the late 1950s) at the University of Chattanooga where I took the standard sophomore two-semester Principles of Economics course. The first semester was taught by Dr. Wesson, a Democrat and the second semester by Dr. Vieth, a Republican who served on the Hamilton County council after retirement.
Though both were politically partisan beyond doubt, it was impossible to tell by the content of their lectures where either professor stood politically. I understand it’s a different world in today’s academia. Schools, departments and professors are fiercely political and do not shrink from trying to influence and convert their students.
The liberal bias in academia, journalism and intellectual life in general is an altogether natural and understandable thing. Disciplined inquiry, almost by definition, challenges the status quo, the traditional realm of conservatives. Liberalism has led most progressive movements in history such as democracy, religious tolerance and freedom, the abolition of slavery and torture, the decline of warfare and the expansion of human and civil rights. In fact, early on capitalism was considered a liberal movement.
And this brings up another question: context.
A person should only be judged liberal or conservative in the context of the times in which he or she lived. With this in mind, considering the times in which He lived and ministered, what was Jesus of Nazareth, liberal or conservative? Love your enemies? Turn the other cheek? Sell your goods and give the proceeds to the poor? Hardly a right-wing outlook.
George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@ bellsouth.net.