First of all, I want to say this is an important discussion. The CDZ is the right place for it, too. I won’t try to speak for Democrats or Republicans, since there are lots of different types of both, nor of conservatives vs. liberals either. As
DustyInfinity said, he and Republicans can support a limited safety net. I speak of the idea of, and the need for, a
strong social safety net in modern society.
DustyInfinity says he does not really want to get into questions of equality or even “equal opportunity.” This rules out a great deal of theoretical and political territory. It puts off limits arguments about the stability and survivability of “democracy” and representative systems of government as we normally think of them today. It automatically raises the problem: Where will social solidarity and an educated voting base come from if our nation increasingly divides into haves and have nots? It seems to assume that little or nothing need be done, that modern U.S. capitalism will be able to provide basic job opportunity and income for the public even if we become more and more a society where an oligopoly of billionaires rule and a majority of the population (“working” or lumpenized) is impoverished.
I am not talking about “hating the rich” as “evil” people, but there has not been in recent decades any attempt “to bring the top number down” — quite the contrary. And poverty levels, for
the aged in particular, and for widows and orphans and the cyclically unemployed, certainly
did decrease due to New Deal programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance.
The safety net I want is first of all one for society as a whole, which protects against war, periodic economic collapse, ecological self destruction, epidemic outbreaks. Such a safety net is all too easily torn to shreds by a society where the very wealthy are insulated, collecting their dividends and capital gains behind high walls, and the system oriented toward short-term profit.
On a social and individual level that translates, happily I believe, into a society that encourages
social solidarity, care for the sick — universal free basic medical insurance or some equivalent — protection from unemployment, top notch education for all, scientific research, free art, creative culture, etc. We are talking of modern wealthy capitalist societies here.
The world, and now also the U.S., is filled with highly competitive corporations, groups and individuals where overproduction is not only possible but the norm, excepting that underconsumption by poorly paid workers and increasingly unnecessary surplus human laborers is also a growing reality. Excess “capital” NEEDS to flow into a safety net, or it will go into speculative and useless endeavors like war.
Money is God. It is also the main real “safety net” in existing society. People are next to nothing unless they can produce services or more money for the rich. In the U.S. whole sections of our population have a strong safety net ... in the form of investments, a beautiful home or two or three. Yet we are for the most part extremely insecure, with more than 50% having practically no savings — no “safety net.” And that number will grow another 10% at least in the next period.
