My Political Compass
Inspired by Sirdar's last post, I figured I would try to determine my own political compass using the online test. This is what I got:
Supposedly that places me in the same quadrant as Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. Note that George W. comes in far top right, and that is the same quadrant as our beloved Paul Martin.I think that financially I'm personally quite conservative, and in office I would definitely be conservative from the "financially responsible" perspective. You can't spend beyond your means, and you have to prod some people to really contribute to society. It's funny that "socialism" is often thought of as a dirty word.
I think the media reinforces incorrect interpretations of the meanings of the various socio-polititcal terminology. For example, China is definitately not communist. It is an oligarchy where the divide between rich and poor rivals that of the United States.
Personally I would like the disparity between classes to be minimal. As a human being, what entitles one person to consume thousands of times (if not greater than that) more natural resources than another person?
Oh and I thought this comic I found was comedy gold:
posted by Blight @ 12:50 AM
12 Comments:
yeah, I'm for class equalization, but it's not so workable in our age. Look at Canada, where the working class have unions and benefits. It's great, sure, but it means that multinational companies can't justify using the Canadian workforce for manufacturing. Then what?
"Personally I would like the disparity between classes to be minimal. As a human being, what entitles one person to consume thousands of times (if not greater than that) more natural resources than another person?"
How do you make the so-called classes be close? Communism? I hope not. I don't think brining down someone so they can't be far ahead from someone who hasn't taken initiative to do better for themselves is right. I had a nowhere job once, figured out I wasn't going anywhere, took initiative and went to NAIT at 29. We did what we had to for survival at that time. We decided we didn't want to rent so we bought a house in Edmonton before I quit my job. My wife worked but she didn't make very much. We had one of my wife's sisters live with us and we took in kids through the Boys and Girls club to live with us through the Independent Living Program. Had our first kid about a month after I graduated. We now have 4 kids. I will be making $80G+ this year. I am not bragging, just stating a fact as I know many people who make more and many who make less. And I am supposed to 'lower' myself so someone else who hasn't/doesn't taken initiative to get ahead can be given my money so they can be financially equal? I don't think so. I give to the United Way through payroll deductions, we sponsor a child in NYC. With the mortgage, kids activities, expenses we've incurred (our fault for that) I have trouble making it. And I think you will find a lot of people in the same boat.
I always shudder when I hear people say 'we should tax the rich' because they make too much money. Socialism to me retards initiative in people. Why work hard when it will just be taken away?
If you want to educate me about what 'you' mean by socialism, please do so.
Sirdar, you got me wrong, I think that socialism is good. True communism never works out, it just doesn't suit the true nature of most people (as you said, people need incentives to take initiative).
By socialism I mean public support incase people fall down through no fault of their own, and enough of a push for those that start at the bottom (help with education for example).
I think that economically we need capitalism, not communism - it has proven itself superior in many ways. But I also think that a completely free market with no restrictions doesn't work either. Companies do not have their own moral compass, their express purpose is to make money for their shareholders. So far I think that Canada has been doing a great job.
The excess that bothers me is that 10% of the Canadian population owns 90% of the wealth in Canada. I guess I don't see how much more someone can be motivated to work to get $5million a year instead of $4million a year.
So don't get too excited :P I didn't mean that I want everyone to have an equal plot of land etc, I just think that if you look at the current disparity between the middle class and the "RICH" is too high. Maybe I've just seen too many mansions with 6 car garages on my way to work.
Hope you didn't see my mansion :-) Trust me, I don't have one of those 6 car garages...or a mansion sized house. In fact my house is actually too small for our family but we get by.. Families were brought up in smaller houses with more people in them. My dads family had 13 kids, I only have 4 and they were brought up in a tiny house.
But I digress. I wasn't getting excited. Sometimes I come across that way when typing(and sometime talking). I was really making a point and hoping for a discussion. I actually find I learn about how other people think about things and try to learn from it. So if is sounds like I'm challenging you, I do it more for discussion purposes.
I now see what you are talking about when you talk about the disparity. That is definitely a byproduct of capitalism. For me, my goal is to be debt free. I always joke that my Freedom 85 Plan is right on target...and it is :-)
I've commented on my blog about what you said only to get feedback on what others think when they talk about socialism. Please feel free to add to that discussion.
Sincerely,
Lorne
No problems here :)
I almost wanted to say that perhaps it would work better to discuss this realtime rather than typing back and forth since it is easy to have miscommunications, especially when loaded words like "communism", "capitalism" and "socialism" are being used.
My grandfather lived in a one room house when he was a child, and his bed was a rocking chair. Obviously through the hard work of his father, himself, and my father, my family is much further ahead than it was. I'm all for people working hard to attain their goals.
And yes I think talking about this stuff is great because normally Canadians in general are just so apathetic about politics that they don't bother to think about the system we have and its weak and strong points.
I mean, its hard to think about it when you have a job and a life to live. But meanwhile, some richie rich is getting millions of dollars of taxpayers money because we're too busy in our own lives to notice polticians squandering our money!
What you should keep in mind is, in Canada, there is income disparity, but it's nowhere close to other countries. Countries like China, Japan, India, the Middle Eastern Countries, even the US.
When I was in China, there was such a gross violation of equality - rich Chinese families are richer than you could imagine, buying $1500 bottles of cognac and drinking it with coke, sending their kids to Switzerland, buying mining operations, staffing them with prisoners and laundering the money out of the country.
In Canada, things are pretty damn good. Even if you don't have a great job, you can go to the hospital.
I think Canada's socialism works perfectly - the government should pay for education and health care.
I also think the role of our military should be stepped down a notch, but maybe that's too hard to do, given the committments we have to other countries.
I totally agree that things are "pretty damn good". Maybe I'm just being a perfectionist, but I see a lot of ways that we could be just that much better.
Things are good enough that many people are blissfully apathetic. That's a good thing and a bad thing. I recall hearing this Iraqi professor interviewed on the CBC. They were talking about the upcoming (at that time) Iraqi election and how interested people were in it.
He said that he looks forward to the day that Iraqi people have it good enough that they can be apathetic enough to have low voter turnout, just like in Canada.
Interesting, apathy is a sign of prosperity I suppose.
yeah, that's a good point. I also think our media and government are good at diverting our attention.
You remember a couple of years back? The government gave themselves stupendous raises, while other civil servants were given no raises (in the face of inflation). When questioned, the govt said that the Canadian politians make less than their American counterparts, I believe. There are so many things wrong with that statement. Someone needs to be kicked in the nuts for it.
...and I think it's now due time to blow shit up.
This Super Cobra won't fly itself!!
Indesin, aren't you engaged? I think it's time that you rid yourself of these violent tendancies and concentrated on starting a family.
Pitter patter...
Incidentally, I landed exactly on the same place on that chart.
I think that socialism manages a pretty good balance between creating opportunities for a wide variety of people, keeping unfortunates out of the gutter, and still allowing for people to exceed at what they want to do.
I think that a purely capitalistic society is somewhat unfair, since the haves can maintain their status and get richer, while the have nots have no opportunities. Sure, high taxes for the rich might be a bit of a disuassion for becoming rich, but unless you give some breaks to the poor, they have no opportunities to advance.
I read an interesting article (in Vice, granted, which always kind of puts it in question) by a guy who argued that there is no longer so much of a race issue but a class issue in North America, and that the race issue has been confused for what is really just a class issue. The guy was white, though, and called his book something like "The Red Neck Manifesto", so you can see where his politics come from.
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