Maybe one of the biggest and most lasting parts of Reagan's legacy is that he made many Americans believe that government is evil—though this idea may in fact be deeply rooted in the American consciousness; one only has to look at the Declaration of Independence.
He persuaded us to make him head of that which he despised, namely the government. Evidently it didn't occur to anyone—least of all Reagan himself—that there was an irony there.
He tried to gut, undermine, and render powerless regulatory agencies such as the EPA and the FDA by cutting funding and causing staff cuts. Some of these agencies are still not restored to the funding or staffing that they need: thus Reagan's legacy lives on.
(These regulatory agencies protect consumers. Republicans--Reagan and more recent ones--argue that anything that impedes business is bad for all of us. So the argument comes down to this: Who do you trust to be on your side--"you" meaning the average Joe--corporations or the government? People mistrust the government but, to my mind, we've had plenty of cases of greedy, even evil and corrupt corporations. And, think of this: We don't elect corporations, so how do you expect them to be accountable, if they are free of all restrictions?)
It may well be due to Reagan that many people today feel that the government takes away their money—which they have earned and are thus entitled to keep—to give to people who don't want to work. (There is more than a hint of racism in this idea; I remember well Reagan's campaign speeches, which to me at least clearly included an appeal to racism. But you only have to look at photos or video clips--such as have appeared over and over—of job fairs that have been accessible to minorities, to see that there have been enormous, incredible, numbers of people willing to expend great amounts of time standing in long lines in hopes of getting a job.)
Further, to this type of thinking, this "redistribution of wealth"—that is, taxing their incomes--is outright socialism. Never mind that we have had an income tax for 150 years now, and the government's power to levy such a tax was confirmed by the Sixteenth Amendment 100 years ago.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Sunday, October 24, 2010
What Do "Left Wing" and "Right Wing" Mean?
In some countries such as those in Latin America, "Left Wing" has meant favoring the rights, the voice, and the wages of workers and peasants, and maybe redistribution of land. "Right Wing," on the other hand, has meant favoring or preserving the power of those who've got money and influence—the wealthy, the traditional landowners.
These Latin American countries are agrarian countries with a very pronounced wealthy, landowning class, and a very definite, very poor class at the bottom (usually the indigenous peoples, who have faced egregious racial discrimination since Colonial times). And, in many counties elsewhere in the world, movements on the Left have struggled to further the rights and power of the poor, the masses—in opposition to entrenched monetary and political interests.
But obviously the United States is a different sort of animal altogether.
Well, maybe not. In the 1930s, Socialism was not a dirty word in the U.S., and you had a genuine socialist and even communist movement in the U.S. This was closely allied with the labor movement, which was still fighting for decent wages and working conditions for workers in mines and factories (and, by the way, often being resisted with clubs and occasionally bullets by the factory owners and their allies, the police).
And of course we have had our racial discrimination (and maybe gender discrimination), which has had the effect of causing one group to make less money than others.
And the United States has actually been moving in the direction of greater social inequality. Wealth is becoming more concentrated in the hands of the few at the top of the pecking order. This trend has been going on for a while, favored by tax policies which let the rich keep more of their money than they were able to when the scale of rates of our progressive income tax was steeper. (In other words, the "Bush tax cuts" that favored the rich, and no one has been able to argue that that was not the case.)
Here is a link to an article with some statistics on how wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few in the U.S.:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/disturbing-statistics-on-the-decline-of-americas-middle-class/19676292/?icid=main%7Cmain%7Cdl1%7Csec4_lnk2%7C178480&icid=sphere_copyright
In the U.S., for a long time the principal political party on the Right has been the Republican Party. They are devoted to keeping taxes on corporations and on wealthy individuals low. Despite their attempts to include a wider following, such as by appealing in religious conservatives, and their attempts to have people believe otherwise, they are still the party of a rich minority.
Yet, in terms of who identifies as Republican or who votes Republican, it's not that simple. Many people support the Republican Party who are not in that wealthy upper few percent. Not wanting to oversimplify—I grant it's not that simple—I think that many times these people fail to perceive where their interests lie.
In previous blog postings I've gone into how I think the moneyed interests manage to evoke the sympathy and support of a wider base. They fund the Republican Party and now the Tea Party. And, with their money, they support candidates, lobby Congress, and do a lot of what is essentially propaganda, though nowadays we call it "public service messages" on TV.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
These Latin American countries are agrarian countries with a very pronounced wealthy, landowning class, and a very definite, very poor class at the bottom (usually the indigenous peoples, who have faced egregious racial discrimination since Colonial times). And, in many counties elsewhere in the world, movements on the Left have struggled to further the rights and power of the poor, the masses—in opposition to entrenched monetary and political interests.
But obviously the United States is a different sort of animal altogether.
Well, maybe not. In the 1930s, Socialism was not a dirty word in the U.S., and you had a genuine socialist and even communist movement in the U.S. This was closely allied with the labor movement, which was still fighting for decent wages and working conditions for workers in mines and factories (and, by the way, often being resisted with clubs and occasionally bullets by the factory owners and their allies, the police).
And of course we have had our racial discrimination (and maybe gender discrimination), which has had the effect of causing one group to make less money than others.
And the United States has actually been moving in the direction of greater social inequality. Wealth is becoming more concentrated in the hands of the few at the top of the pecking order. This trend has been going on for a while, favored by tax policies which let the rich keep more of their money than they were able to when the scale of rates of our progressive income tax was steeper. (In other words, the "Bush tax cuts" that favored the rich, and no one has been able to argue that that was not the case.)
Here is a link to an article with some statistics on how wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few in the U.S.:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/disturbing-statistics-on-the-decline-of-americas-middle-class/19676292/?icid=main%7Cmain%7Cdl1%7Csec4_lnk2%7C178480&icid=sphere_copyright
In the U.S., for a long time the principal political party on the Right has been the Republican Party. They are devoted to keeping taxes on corporations and on wealthy individuals low. Despite their attempts to include a wider following, such as by appealing in religious conservatives, and their attempts to have people believe otherwise, they are still the party of a rich minority.
Yet, in terms of who identifies as Republican or who votes Republican, it's not that simple. Many people support the Republican Party who are not in that wealthy upper few percent. Not wanting to oversimplify—I grant it's not that simple—I think that many times these people fail to perceive where their interests lie.
In previous blog postings I've gone into how I think the moneyed interests manage to evoke the sympathy and support of a wider base. They fund the Republican Party and now the Tea Party. And, with their money, they support candidates, lobby Congress, and do a lot of what is essentially propaganda, though nowadays we call it "public service messages" on TV.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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