Saturday, 19 September 2015

A Socio-Economic Contradiction

In keeping with the Liberal leadership spill trend, I want to critique Turnbull and his ideologies in general. The most notable characteristics of our new Prime Minister is his political allignment. Malcolm Turnbull is well known for being economically conservative as a Liberal Party politician, but simultaneously socially left-wing; believing in same sex marriage, easy access to abortion, etc.

Most analyses of Turnbull's government have predicted that less of these social reforms than desired will eventuate, as Turnbull must represent his party regardless of his personal beliefs. (That's how Australian politics works.)

But aside from that, what I want to address is the mechanics of being "economically conservative and socially liberal". It's a pretty common political identity especially in a country as centre as Australia. However once you take into account the social premise provided by intersectional feminism, it seems like this combination just kind of isn't logical. Time for substructure:

What does economically conservative + socially liberal supposedly look like?

This combination would support popular social libertarian reforms, such as same sex marriage and greater rights for LGBT people, the aided emancipation of women in areas such as maternity leave, access to abortion, more comprehensive sex education, and similar projects along those lines. In conjunction with this social egalitarianism are right wing economic policies, such as a freer market, greater capitalist incentives for personal gain, and more free financial movement at the individual's discretion. At surface level, these ideas seem perfectly compatible; more freedom for the individual as participants in both their social and economic lives.

Both the economic right and left have similar end goals in the sense that they aim for a fair, functioning distribution of wealth - as is necessary for a healthy society (in theory). The difference is in the State control of capital, and the mechanics by which that capital is fairly distributed. The economic left (warning: huge generalisations approaching) supports more state control over finances, and greater specific allocation of capital to ensure equality such as higher welfare, paid parental leave, and greater subsidies for education. Meanwhile the economic right usually aims to enrich the market and the general economic landscape so that individuals are able to achieve wealth. Basically: directly investing in the specific institutions to enable access for all citizens regardless of a disparity in wealth versus investing in the free market and wider economy so that all citizens can become wealthy, and hence access said institutions.  Both have similar outcomes - access to all necessities and equal opportunities for wealth. However from where I stand, only one model is plausible in this society. 

Again we revisit the premise that society is inherently unfair. It is intrinsically built upon a system of arbitrary privilege and oppression; benefitting some who did not earn it and detrimenting others who did. For a deeper analysis of this premise, click the blue hyperlinks and also read the first few paragraphs here. 

So while both economic models would work in an ideal society, the conservative approach exacerbates the pre existing disparities in our world whilst the liberal somewhat combats it. If you pump resources and capital into society with minimal restrictions, it is more susceptible to corruption and abuse. And this "corruption" isn't necessarily the cigar-smoking Mafioso type, it's just the everday guy who benefits from an inherently fraught system. If we accept that poverty and lack of education are not choices but a result of systematic disadvantage, we can see how unfair the free-market proposal is. In order for wealth to be evenly distributed in this way, people must have a pre existing knowledge as to how to "work the system" and access the capital supposedly available to them. The reality is that very few people have this knowledge - those who do being already wealthy and privileged. Of course it is possible for people to rise from the bottom and learn the skills, but this isn't very likely considering the disadvantage forcibly imposed upon the poor. How can you be expected to get a *very expensive* education when you have to work hard at minimum wage to put food on the table? How can people benefit from greater rights as a member of the queer community when they cannot afford legal advice? Allowing the individual to control their own finances and achieve their own wealth under this system is likely only to eventuate in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, with very few, extraordinary exceptions. Interestingly,  these "exceptions" of the model-poor-citizen who rises to the top is usually a cis white male... Coincidence? Not at all.

On the other end of the spectrum, by investing in specific institutions with a tight control of capital, the scope of people who can access education, opportunities and wealth widens. Rather than giving money to a system that discriminates against the poor and the disadvantaged in the hope they can harness it (...), it is more effective to provide capital directly to the person or institution who needs it - i.e. welfare - to bypass the inherently oppressive system and provide opportunity from then on in. Of course, it's still not a perfect system and there are many other viable options. 

Basically what this boils down to is that I see economic conservatism and social liberalism as completely incompatible. If you truly believe in the free rights of the individual and equal opportunity for all, supporting a system that effectively exacerbates oppression and denies that opportunity to the already disadvantaged is very contradictory. It's all very nice to support the popular buzz topics like same sex marriage, but economic conservatism is intrinsically linked to creating the system which denies LGBT rights in the first place. 

Of course this doesn't mean eco-right socio-left is an invalid political identity; go ahead if you think it's right. But by understanding the underlying causes and effects of oppression and equality in this society, I think it is impossible to truly support both components and all their nuances simultaneously. 

Comment~~
Hannah

1 comment:

  1. Sup Hannah,

    This is probably the first time I have straight disagreed with one of your posts (it’s very well-written and well argued again though!).

    Alrighty, let’s look first at Turnbull’s brand of economic conservatism. I think it’s unfair to say that he’s pro some of the things that you discussed- cutting education funding and making it dramatically more expensive for poor Australians, for example, isn’t reeeeeally a right-wing policy: it’s evil. Turnbull does, however, support a more market-oriented model of education. He has expressed support in the past for school vouchers (i.e. vouchers for poorer Australians that give them funds to purchase a private education) and charter schools. This is where I disagree with some of your analysis about information asymmetry between the poor and wealthy (what you call knowing how to “work the system”). Something as fundamentally personal as your child’s educational needs absolutely *is* an area where your conception of what’s best for you is more important than the government’s. It’s easy to look at the most justifiable elements of traditional left-wing education policy (e.g. more gov’t funding), but you also have to look at the damaging ones, the ones that don’t give you the freedom to suit your child’s needs best (restrictive zoning laws that force you to send your child to a certain school, terrible teacher unions that keep bad teachers in work and don’t allow principals to effectively run their schools). There are other benefits of extra school choice that don’t really pertain to your post (e.g. extra competition amongst schools which raises standards across the board), but regarind what you’ve said: if it is true that a student from a minority or disadvantaged background should be afforded as great an opportunity as possible to seek out an environment where they feel safe/accepted (and I think we both agree that they should), then greater school choice is absolutely the right way to go. I can’t see Turnbull heavily cutting education funding: not only is it politically toxic, but I just don’t think he believes in it. He’d find savings by encouraging more to use the private sector or semi-private (charter) sector as described above.

    I also think there are large swathes of free-market ideology that invariably improve the lives of society’s most vulnerable, the policy outcomes of which 2015 Labor would be unlikely to support. Things like free trade or cutting subsidies for inefficient industries indisputably benefit Australian citizens in the long term, but because of various special interests (unions) do not have bipartisan support. This speaks to your point about how a free market is open to corruption and abuse. That’s true to an extent, but I think it’s a brave thing to say that the government and the way that it interacts with special interests isn’t equally corrupt. Take regulatory capture, for example, the process whereby the government introduces regulations, seemingly to help consumers have a fair go, which end up raising the barriers to entry for companies in different industries and help big businesses quash competition (because smaller ones can no longer afford to start up, with compliance costs too high). I agree that in a deeply socially unequal society, assuming that people have perfectly equal capacity to be socially mobile is silly. But emancipating them from regulation doesn’t always mean that they get cheated out of a chance to be- on the contrary, it often makes starting your own business, earning a higher wage and improving your circumstances easier.

    I think Turnbull’s focus for next election will be growth. That growth leads to really important outcomes, like higher wages for everybody, more government revenue (which can be spent on the kind of social programs you advocate for) and a broad increase in living standards. The fruits of that growth aren’t always spread equally, that’s absolutely true, but I think if everyone is being raised up along the way (albeit by different amounts) then Turnbull is happy to see a bit of inequality result.

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