Progressives: The True Protectors of Capitalism

Most Democrats and Republicans believe in the same ideals:

• Hard work should be rewarded
• People who take initiative and are motivated deserve to be successful
• The free market should be free
• Government should not interfere with personal lives
• Government should stop wasteful spending
• We should have a strong military.

Yet, somehow, those ideas have been labeled as “republican” when they really are AMERICAN ideas that are shared by both the left and the right. The reason for this is because conservative Think Tanks took ideas that most people agreed with and decided to label them as “republican” to make people think that democrats believed the opposite. This of course is not true. Most conservatives and liberals believe in the same principles, yet disagree on how to apply them and protect them in today’s society.

Here is where the liberals and conservatives disagree:

Conservatives believe that there is a ladder of success located in the middle of the room, and anyone who works hard enough and is disciplined enough can climb up the ladder and reach success.

Liberals believe that there is also a ladder in the middle of the room, however, in today’s society there are many obstacles blocking the ladder, and the steps of the ladder are not currently secure. In order to ensure that we have the best and most competitive free market, there needs to be some changes to ensure the reality that conservatives believe already exists.

In other words, liberals and conservatives believe in the same ideal (hard work leads to deserved success), they just disagree with the current reality of our society.

So how do we make this ladder stronger? How do we create a society where anyone who works hard can ultimately reach success? How do we remove the obstacles that block the ladder from anyone who deserves success? Our society and our economy will fail when the people who take the most initiative and work the hardest are not able to make the money they deserve. Liberals believe that in order to protect the “American dream” of being successful there are important things that need to be done.

First we need a strong foundation. Government only provides the framework and conditions for our economy, but it is individual initiative and people who provide the rest. First off, the health care system needs to be improved. Health care is a right- not a privilege. About 1 in every 5 dollars are spent on health care and we are the only major country with a free market that does not have a health care system that works for everyone. It is government’s responsibility to do the things that we, as individuals, cannot do for ourselves… ensuring health care is one of the things government needs to be involved with. If the money that was spent solely on health care were spent in the free market (businesses, corporations, investments, etc…) our economy would be much stronger. It would be a stimulus package in of itself.

We should also be able to live in a clean and safe environment. Global warming is not something that is arguable. 99% of scientists agree that it is real and that we are directly impacting it. Government needs to take an active role in making sure that we are helping the environment and ensuring a safe world for future generations. This means regulating businesses that overly pollute. This is not something that can be regulated by the free market- it is something that government needs to be involved with and it is crucial for our future.

Education is an area that also cannot be completely trusted to the private sector. For example, if all education was privatized, schools would only be built in wealthy areas and the few schools that would be built in poorer areas would suffer because they cannot bring in any income.

Both democrats and republicans also believe that government needs to stop spending on useless projects. Obama’s stimulus bill was necessary and smart- but the key word is NECESSARY. The truth is both sides spend too much money. The conservatives argue about spending only when the liberals are spending money on things they disagree with and vice versa. If we cut spending significantly, everyone would be able to pay LESS taxes. Government needs to focus intently on a few areas instead of trying to be involved with everything- once again this is something both liberals and conservatives agree about. The main areas that liberals believe government should be actively involved with are :

Foreign and domestic safety (police, fire department, military, etc..),
General Social services (social security, postal service, Medicare, Medicaid, etc…)
Environment (as shown above)
Health Care (as shown above)
Education (as shown above)

The areas above are what government needs to focus on, and the areas government should spend efficiently on. Almost everything else should be left to the free market.

Liberals also believe that the key to a stronger economy is a stronger middle class. I will use the ladder example again to describe our social classes. The bottom of the ladder is the poor, the middle of the ladder (the largest part) will represent the middle class, and the top of the ladder will be the rich or the most successful. The republican philosophy (which usually proposes giving large tax cuts to the top 5% of people) creates a gap between the middle class and the rich and ultimately shrinks the middle class. This of course leads to a ladder that is missing some steps in the middle making it harder for a lower or middle class person to climb up and achieve success. To understand why this is, let’s look at the alternative (or liberal) tax plan:

The wealthy rely on the middle class because they are the majority of consumers who buy products from the larger corporations. In order for the rich to be doing well, the middle class must have more money to spend buying products. In other words… people need jobs.

Most people are employed by small businesses, and almost all small businesses and their owners fall into a middle class tax bracket. If the middle class is given a substantial tax cut, small businesses will have more money to pay their employees and expand their business. Once the employees have more money, they will be able to buy more products from the large corporations, invest more in the stock market, and circulate more money into our economy. In other words, once the majority of Americans are doing better (the middle class), then the entire economy will be doing better. Even though the rich are having their taxes raised, when the middle class gets a tax cut, the rich end up making more money because the economy (stock market, businesses, corporations) are doing better. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Even if you look back historically, it is statistically proven that when the middle class got a larger tax cut even when the rich had more of their taxes raised, the rich still made more money than if they were given a tax cut. This is because giving the wealthy a large tax cut at the expense of the middle class weakens our overall economy. (See "40 More Years" by James Carville to see the independent statistics and research that proves this)

The progressive tax plan grows the middle class, makes the steps of the ladder more secure, and ensures that more people will be able to climb up the ladder to reach success.

Now of course there are those who say that they earned all of their money and they do not owe any of it to the government. This is a flawed statement because there is no such thing as a “self-made man.” Because of the free market system that the government protects, that person was able to make a lot of money. That person therefore owes money to the American system which allowed them to get wealthy in the first place. He also owes it to society who invested in him, bought his product, and helped him grow his business. No one reaches success on their own, they reach success because society and the free market that the government protects helped to create wealth for that hard working person.

In conclusion, the democrats and republicans both believe that people who are motivated and work hard should be successful without government intervention. The difference is the way to create this reality, or rather if this reality currently exists. The democratic ideal is that a foundation and framework secured by government with a larger middle class makes it easier for people who work harder to be successful and leads to more opportunity in the free market.

The conservative alternative weakens the middle class and makes the steps of the ladder unstable. The hypocrisy continues with conservatives who complain about welfare without investing more into education, and believing that anyone who does not achieve success is “lazy” while supporting policies that weaken the middle class and make it harder to achieve wealth in the first place.

Personally, I believe that democrats are the true protectors of the free market. In order for capitalism to work, anyone who works hard and is motivated must have the opportunity to achieve the American dream regardless of race, ethnicity, or social class that they were born into... this is the idea that America was founded on. We are the land of opportunity. Yet, by having policies that favor one class over another, we are making it harder for more people to fulfill their own personal potentials. The republican policies lead to less people from the middle or poor classes being able to reach success and ultimately ends up hurting the idea of capitalism.

To me, it is clear that the progressive movement leads to a stronger ladder and a stronger foundation- hopefully the American people will vote for leaders to make this a reality.