It's really interesting what's happening to the American left right now and I feel compelled to write about it, especially with the upset victory of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, a 28 year old from the Bronx. She beat out a typical corporate Democrat and 10-term congressman. Cortez is all but sure to win in the heavily Democratic district and will be the youngest woman to ever have been elected to Congress. She is a card carrying member of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America.
So I love that she won in a way. She defeated an establishment, career politician that had ten times more money than her. She walked her district and won it person by person, while talking about working class issues. Our ruling class is very out of touch with us, so at least congress will have somebody that just walked her district, listened to her constituents and used to have to work an actual job recently.
My sense is that she's taking advantage of a Democratic Party that has no sense of self and is warring with itself and that now that the party has seen progressive success like this a few times around the country we might be mainstreaming socialism even more than Bernie did.
I've read the Communist Manifesto, the writings of Che, I was hyped on the revolutionary rhetoric of candidate Barack Obama, got on board with the reforms that Bernie Sanders ran on, and was interested in Venezuela when it was taken over by Hugo Chavez with promises of beating back imperial oppression (American corporations) and socializing the economy. I liked Hugo Chavez and his power to the people ideals. I think he really meant it back then. I don't have a knee jerk reaction to collectivism at all. In fact I think it's largely biological for us to want to group together in self-selected tribes that are knit together by cultural reasons. I am very wary of authoritarianism, and I think that the current American left, particular once more millennial leaders emerge, has a real flavor for authoritarianism. We're in a season in our country where political definitions are being redrawn, and I find that fascinating. Being in my late-thirties and having never missed a single vote, primary or otherwise, I think I'm old enough now to have watched how certain ideologies play out in the lives of our society and individuals for the longer term.
Our political beliefs do influence our own lives. If you believe that the racist, white, heteronormative patriarchy has oppressed you your whole life, that can become a convenient excuse for staying at a job you hate because you have convinced yourself that our society is stacked against you and your dreams. That belief can help you feel entitled to welfare too. It can help you believe you're a victim and little to no power. So political philosophy has this ability to inform how you, as an individual, interact with your society. And the current leftist mantras are kind of shitty, even though I agree with certain policy pieces, I would never ever agree with some of these enormous statements about our culture, really because the evidence doesn't support them. The left has been on a feeling bender lately. If you feel threatened at all, you're a victim of micro-aggression or violence, if your ideas are challenged, you feel talked down to by an oppressor. You feel like guns are the cause of indiscriminate killing, so we should ban some of them.
So what about this political philosophy: We are lucky to live in one of the freest countries on earth, with an economy vibrant enough to give us a real chance of living our wildest dreams if we work hard enough. All things are possible, as long as I work for it. The individual is wiser than a government ever will be, so we should empower the individual as much as we can to make sure the government can't be used as an instrument of oppression. The freer people are, the better. Our constitution guarantees equality but not equal outcomes. The outcome of my life is totally in my own hands, for better or worse.
That's a very different mantra, and the people that believe that tend to live really successful lives I've noticed. I don't think people believe in their personal power after they become republicans or libertarians or whatever, I think that they might have personal power and resources because they refuse to see themselves as victims and operate in the culture we have to get all the things they want.
Maybe that's why immigrants start so many of our small businesses and then get rich and employ frustrated millennial socialist-sympathizers at their businesses. An immigrant comes here and says, holy shit look at all this opportunity and freedom and money, I'm going to tap it, and then does. You can wear a turban and get a bank loan. You can be from Africa and open a businesses and be beloved by our communities and culture.
So I'm not enamored with the left right now because of the experiences I've had getting money and freedom in my own life, and also just from reading and watching what happens to socialist governments. And just the stats on being middle class. In America, it's still statistically true that if you graduate high school, don't have children out of wedlock, and just hold a job down, you will enter the middle class eventually. It doesn't matter if you're white, black, male, female, born poor, gay or straight. If anything I bet there are real societal struggles for transgendered people, but most of us are either failing or succeeded for cultural reasons, not skin color or gendered reasons.
Generalizing victimhood is a terrible way forward. It's regressive. The Patriarchy is oppressing me...okay how? Can you not own property or vote or own a business or get rich or work any job you want or write a best selling novel or aren't allowed into graduate or doctorate programs? What is the patriarchy exactly? Are you sure if you left your job and I took it I would be paid higher because I'm a man? Have you seen that happen once in your own life? Does it matter that 97% of workplace deaths are men? What about the Death-At-Work-Gap? At any given time there are millions of women who have tiny children that are totally reliant on their care and nurturing right and then they tend to work less right? Is that a bad thing? Can you name a legal, systemic right that I have as a white man that isn't available to everybody else in America? Have you looked into how they figured that wage gap stat and then how Ivy League economists debunked it?
I acknowledge that victimhood and violence occurs of course. But are other women to blame for my ex-wife cheating on me and working me out of my businesses? Of course not. Am I to blame for a rapey frat boy in Florida? Absolutely not. What about slavery or genocide? No I didn't do that either. Individuals are the source of merit or blame. And I do believe in the absolute rights and empowerment of individuals, whoever they are. That used to be what defined liberalism. That's classical liberalism. But that is way different than socialism.
So back to Alexandria and her platform. She believes in health care as a right. I agree that if we are taxed by a government at all, that that treasure should be used in a way that would help us with the things that we hold in common. Sickness and death is something we will all do so I can get behind that, although I think it would be way better achieved and far more efficient if we collectivized voluntarily into health care cooperatives and every community had independent ownership of a community hospital. I have no doubt that the federal government would make a royal mess out of healthcare because whenever you have centralized systems, powerful people will figure out how to corrupt it because there is so much power in one place. To me collectivism is different than socialism.
She believes that housing is a human right. What does that mean? Government housing? That has gone bad over and over because it totally destroys the free market systems of social and economic uplift. But I think it makes sense for cities to figure that out somehow. College or trade school for everybody? Maybe if we can trust higher education systems to be educating more than indoctrinating, but what if my sons don't want or need to go to college. Should we pay for it for others? I'm not so sure about that one. $15 minimum wage and a federal jobs guarantee? That will only cause inflation and higher taxation, like what always happens when minimum wage goes up. End private prisons? Absolutely, with you. Abolish ICE? Yep I think that's a good idea since it rolls back Patriot Act BS although I definitely see a problem with open borders. I also see the necessity of immigration.
I am a free speech absolutist and I think anytime the political class gets infiltrated by normal people it's going to be mostly a good thing. But socialism itself is not a system I want to live in, because the best way for workers to own and control their own production is by starting a small business. I think that will get harder if socialist reforms creep into our economic system, which already has too much socialism in it, mostly benefitting the rich.
