Response to right-wing criticism of the blueprint for a better society

A reactionary wrote an enormous response to my blueprint for a better society. To honour his labour and expose the pathologies of the Right I will respond to it here, in full.

My observation about whining was that you have not proposed any workable solutions because your ideas are superficial, and your “solutions” are impractical.

This is not so much a criticism of you, personally, since everyone has this problem. It is far, far easier to complain about how the world “should be” a better place, and monumentally difficult to come up with a solution. After all, if it were easy, the solution would have already been implemented. You seem to assume people are just philosophically against making things better. This is not the case

While there are ideological disagreements that would cause some individual people not to put too much effort into fixing things, this does not explain why so many people whine and yet nobody (not even the whiners) has implemented solutions.

I definitely think people are philosophically against making things better. And part of the reason I think this is because the various political philosophies in society prioritize different things. Let’s look at the main topics this big right-wing outlet feels are worthy of display on their front page.

They are:

- technocratic fix for cancel culture
- cops stealing people’s shit
- dysfunctional government
- politics are pervasive
- gun stuff
- less government
- political correctness
- more gun stuff
- Polish free speech
- police transparency
- Biden inaction on ending war on drugs
- schools reopening in a silly way

Now if you were an alien and you wanted an update on the human species and all you had was the front page of Reason, you’d figure that things are going fine. Most of the issues discussed are small potatoes. Clearly there’s nothing major to worry about on earth.

Now we know the species is in deep shit. There’s the enormous threat of climate change and the excruciating political reality of the mankind being unable to get its act together to address it. There’s massive widespread material suffering because of how many societies are dealing with the pandemic. People are freezing to death in Texas. Poverty is rampant, and growing. There’s so much death and suffering. Societies have catastrophically failed to take care of their populations across the globe.

The reason that the right-wing is largely silent on these things is because these outcomes have all been created by societal structures that they have pushed for. They wanted more capitalism, less welfare, less government expenditure, lower taxes. They wanted maximum freedom for the rich to do as they like. Well, the Reagan consensus got them what they wanted, and this is the result.

Solutions aren’t implemented because these problems aren’t recognized, prioritized, and/or their fixes would not match ideologically with what the Right wants.

Lastly, fixes aren’t implemented because the people with the necessary ideas are not in power. Almost all governments on earth are run by people who have fought for our current systems to come into being, and want them to stay as they are.

So here is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to showing that “simple” solutions are a very long way from detailing a workable solution. I am only making a few points for each, but there are far, far more problems that you (or someone) will need to solve before you’ve accomplished 0.01% of what you’re attempting. Don’t be fooled into thinking that there are simple solutions. Things are always simple for those that don’t have to do the work.

Climate Change

You’ll need to demonstrate that planting a trillion trees is feasible and effective.

This is because “seeming” intuitive and obvious doesn’t mean it’s actually going to be effective. Without removing the cause of carbon emissions, a trillion trees (even if it was practical) won’t make a dent in the problem. Do the math.

You’ll need to solve the problem which is causing the trees to be cut down in the first place.

If people still cut down trees because they want heat or housing, or any of the other things humans crave, you can plant as many as you want and not accomplish anything. The parts of the world where they care about such things, there are already rules in place to protect forests. In parts of the world where they don’t care about such things, what big stick or carrot do you suggest?

I am not a scientist. They’re the ones who have to demonstrate that the trillion tree thing is effective. Here’s a published paper that suggests cutting the fossil fuel sector by 10%, in combination with planting a trillion trees, is sufficient to keep temperature under 1,5°C.

As for deforestation, it mainly happens in the tropics, for stuff like palm oil. Capitalist impulses make this shit happen. There’s a variety of ways you can tackle this as a society: you can ban these goods, tax them to shit, levy import fees, penalize the capitalists involved in the trade, use diplomatic pressure (carrot/stick) on countries that allow mass deforestation, etc.

I’m convinced the mass of humanity can plant these things faster than capitalism can clear them, if we organize society around undertaking this task.

Stealing money from all people to solve a problem that a large percentage of the world’s population doesn’t care much about is going to be difficult. Labor is easy: many people have no jobs. Getting people to agree not buy that new car or forego food in order to pay for your project needs to be tackled with its own solution. This, as planting trees in countries that don’t care about climate change, will need an entire detailed plan of its own. You can’t just assume people will give you money. (This is the job of those telemarketers that you said were worthless earlier. You see, you can’t just call someone’s job “worthless” just because you don’t have the imagination or need for their services.)

“Turn to the state”: You say this a lot. What you mean is turn to the people and take their money against their will. If they wanted to give money to plant trees, they would have already done it. It’s not like nobody has over come up with the idea that “just throw a lot of money at the problem” can sold a multitude of issues. The kicker is, if people care more about putting food on the table than planting trees, they you’re only recourse is to steal it from them by force. You’ve said this is not your intention, but you’ve also not presented any plan, at even a high level, as to how you’d go about it. The state is not a money printing machine. Just ask Argentina what happens when you try to make it one. And, although you’ve said you don’t want to steal money from everyone, you also say things like invoking the War Powers Act, which is exactly that: theft at gunpoint. Sorry, in a democracy, nobody is going to vote for that. You’ll need another, less naive, plan.

Retool the transportation industry? Another naive notion. As in the earlier paragraph, you’ll need a plan to generate the money because if you just pass laws, then it’s basically a tax on everyone as prices skyrocket to pay for your pet projects. Eat, or pay triple your taxes to retool an industry? Hmm. I think almost everyone will vote to put food on the table.

Every time a reactionary refers to public money as theft, their sociopathy is on display. To quote Chomsky:

In a democracy the day when you pay your taxes, April 15, would be a day of celebration, because you’re getting together to provide resources for the programs you decided on.

In the United States, the day when you pay your taxes is a day of mourning because this alien force — the government — is coming to rob you of your hard-earned money. That’s the general attitude, and it’s a tremendous victory for the opponents of democracy, and, of course, any privileged sector is going to hate democracy. You can see it in the healthcare debate.

Society is meant to protect us from harm. That’s its raison d’être. In order for the community to protects itself, it requires the contributions of its members. Climate change is a genocidal threat to the species. Marshalling and using our collective resources to protect us from that threat is not theft.

The comment about telemarketers is profoundly weird. The job of these people is to sell unnecessary stuff to old people who are too polite for their own good, not to fundraise for societal programs.

As for pushing people into destitution to pay for this: that’s clearly not needed. A project this big needs issuing bonds, printing money, a wealth tax, a Wall Street transaction tax and raising income taxes on incomes $100K and up.

One thing that the reactionary cannot fathom is the urgent necessity for action. They can complain about funding schemes and political viability, but it doesn’t occur to them that we either pull this off or we’re dead. I bet if scientists demanded $20 trillion for a project to save the earth from a comet of death hurtling towards us, all their objections would melt away immediately. The reason the right-wing resists a large scale response to climate change is because they’re fundamentally not serious about addressing it. Whether this is because the needed solutions don’t fit their ideological mold, because they cannot grasp the size and urgency of the threat, because they believe they can escape its effects or because they can’t think of any viable solutions of their own, I don’t know. Whatever reason it may be, the rest of us are on our own with this one. The Right will in the worst case frustrate and block our efforts, and in the best case not lift a finger to help.

“Notably the right wing”: Cut the political crap. It’s not helping and it’s not the root problem. Left wingers, Centrists, Progressives and even Bernie don’t have a plan either. The problem is one of practicality and a lack of good, implementable, plans to fix these issues. If the non-right-wing isn’t doing anything (except whining), then this is not a problem of ideology. When you come up with a workable plan, then you can mouth off about other’s that also don’t have a plan.

This is false. There are tons of proposals, and planting one trillion trees is just one of them. Bernie’s plan is here. And the political crap is key: the reason the species cannot get itself to adequately address the problem is because it is hamstrung by capitalist and neoliberal logic. Every budget must be balanced, the freedom of every enterprise must be safeguarded, every market control must be rejected, and so on. Dogmatic right-wing pieties are poised to end organized human life.

Land of the Free

Nobody is forced to work at any job they don’t want to. Nobody is forced to work for anyone. In the Land of the Free, you’re free to do anything. If what you want is not to learn a skill society needs more than the skills you already have, then you will be paid what society says your efforts are worth. Some jobs are more valuable to society than others. In the Land of the Free, you can start any business you want and be your own boss.

Then there’s the problem of workers agreeing to do a job for a set amount of pay, then whining they don’t make enough. You also brought up the problem of people not thinking their jobs are worthwhile. In either case, the solution is in the previous paragraph.

Yes, in the Land of the Free, you are free to sit on your butt, learn nothing, and starve. Should hard working taxpayers foot the bill for those that choose not to contribute to society? As with Climate change, you will need to come up with a plan, because stealing money from the taxpayers isn’t going to pass in a democratic society. Maybe you don’t like democracy, but then you might have an even larger problem: figure out how to overthrow a government and take control. Sure, this can be done in baby steps but raising money is probably an easier task.

“15% engaged at their work”: Okay, see paragraph one in this section. Create your own engaging work.

“Right wing have nothing” Cut the crap. Left wing, Centrists, Progressives, and even Bernie don’t have a workable plan either. There is plenty of arm-waving and platitudes, though.

“Comprise 40% of the board of directors” This already exists: start you own business and appoint whatever directors you want. But, of course, if you want to oust the person who started a company, take away their control, and let the workers run this business into the ground against the will of the founder, then you’re back to just letting someone do all the hard work, take all the financial risks, then and just stealing it from them. Theft is not okay, in my opinion. (Yeah, this is very Ayn Rand-esque, but the point if a valid one.)

As I said, and you seem to be agreeing here: Right wing, left wing, centrists, progressives, and even Bernie haven’t a clue how to fix this problem you see. I’ll add that you don’t have a clue, either, as your last paragraph on the subject just expects someone else to solve the problem for you.

This section gets to the core of the right-wing pathology: the inability to think beyond the individual. The blame, and responsibility for fixing, for every collective problem is laid at the feet of the individual.

A thought experiment: currently, 70% of US employees report that they are not engaged at their work. In other words, they’re alienated. They’re not having the best of times. His prescription is that literally each and every one of these people ‘becomes their own boss’.

Now the US currently has 32.5 million businesses and 156 million employees. His suggestion is for that to become 141,7 million businesses and 46,8 million employees.

Do we have a working society at the end of this exercise? Is it an efficient society? Are we now enjoying the best outcomes?

It doesn’t really matter which societal problem you bring up, the right-winger will always reduce any proposed action down to the actions individuals ought to take.

Consider this quote:

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Now consider the dismissive words of the reactionary you’ve just read. The problem with labour isn’t merely that a majority of employees are disgruntled because their work isn’t fulfilling. It’s that their wages are too low, their lives are routinely ruined, they experience stress and depression, they work too many hours to make ends meet. In some cases their bodies are broken, they lose digits and limbs, some get terminal diseases from the toxins they’re exposed to, and at the end of the day the boss takes a large chunk of the value of their labour to spend it as they see fit. Millions of people are affected, and all the reactionary can say is “tough shit, vote with your feet”.

Again, they do not think there really is a problem with how labour works in contemporary society, because they’ve been fighting to get it to this point. They’ve been at war with unions and labour legislation. It is not in their interests to undo their own achievements. Even my mild incremental suggestions to democratize workplaces via subsidies, public funds and friendly laws are resisted. For the reactionary, consistent widespread international labour misery is a non-problem.

As for left-wing plans, of course they exist.

Disparity of Ownership

“The only way to solve this problem is to move capital from the hands of the few to the hands of the many.” Your solution is to steal it. Very insightful.

Rich people got that way by providing valuable services to The People. Services people willingly paid to obtain. Poor people got that way by not providing a service or product anywhere near as valuable. This is simple economics, not politics.

As we’ve discussed ad nauseum, cooperatives sound good on the surface but suffer the exact same problem you claim they solve. In a co-op, as with all other companies, if you want ownership, you pay cash for it. You should not need to gain ownership by taking companies over with the might of the police. Military regimes do exist, and the people are not any more free. There are cases where most people are equally poverty-stricken in these regimes, of course.

Right of first refusal already exists. You can leave this off your list. If employees want to buy a company, just come up the cash (there’s that need to make money problem you need to solve again). Maybe you should spend some time figuring out how to make money, since a lack of money seems to be your main roadblock and causes you to consider theft. Ya, know, there are some Capitalists that are very good at making money by providing valuable goods are services to The People: Maybe you should sit down with one and work out a plan so you don’ t have to steal from people. Earn it, then spend it on any issues you deem worthy … like Gates, Buffett, Musk, etc. At least their doing something about the issues other than whining for other people to do it for them.

On “social fund”, you almost had a good idea, right before you said it should be funded by stealing money from the taxpayers. The US government does have a fund, and it is paid for, willingly, by taxpayers. But, because it’s government run, the return on investment is abysmal.

One thing right-wingers do not understand is how value is created. The answer is blindingly obvious: it is created by work. A bunch of salt, water, yeast and flour is pretty useless to the hungry until someone comes along and puts in the work to create bread.

Rich people are rich because they own things. How they came to own things — whether by inheritance, investments, theft or violence — is not important to the argument. Whatever they own only has value because it is powered by labour. An apartment complex makes money for its owner because workers spend part of their wages on it. A factory makes money for its owner because workers make stuff. No labour supply, no wealth for the rich.

All persons employed in the private sector do not receive a compensation that matches their productive output. The reason for this is structural. If a worker produced $5000 worth of stuff per month and received a $5000 wage, there could not be any profits, or capital maintenance. Labour is always paid less than its worth. The game for capitalists is to make sure they can steal as much value from the workers as they can get away with. That’s why business sectors always fight labour laws and unions: these limit their ability to exploit their workforce and extract profits.

Now, does labour need owners? Clearly not. The very existence of long-lasting and profitable worker co-operatives is irrefutable proof that private ownership is superfluous. They need us, and we don’t need them.

If by magic wand all businesses on the planet became well run worker co-operatives tomorrow, we would not be living in paradise on earth. We would have to contend with different sets of problems. But many of the current problems would either cease to exist, or would be tackled in a democratic, non-capricious way. It would, overall, be a massive improvement to the human condition, just like any other introduction of human freedom has been a boon to the species.

More Problems to Come

My advice would be to pick one topic and really dive into working out a plan. In this paper, you’ve simply reiterated the bad ideas you first brought up in FB. That being hte case, my criticism stands: you have plenty of complaints, and zero solutions. If you really want to make a difference, you need to come up with workable plans. Please don’t think you can just steal the money from hard working taxpayers though. I think you’ll find they don’t like it too much and it will be an uphill battle to keep taking their money.

Outlining the “problem” at a superficially high level, then not generating any useful ideas on how to solve them, isn’t a good use of your time. You care deeply about these issues, so you should put all this energy in finding solutions, not stating the obvious.

I am not a policy designer, journalist or academic. I’m an IT professional who thinks about politics on the side. Anything that’s just 1500 words is necessarily going to be superficial. But the general direction of my proposals is a better and just world. Your proposals for voluntary individual actions lead nowhere and do nothing. You offer no cures for what ails us. The worldview that you cling on to is the source of our ailments.