A Truth Table: Conservative, Capitalist, Liberal, Progressive

Elections profile voter motivations. Elections also birth consequences. There are consequences for voters, and for those who are voted into office. And, those consequences in turn change the ranking of local motivations. What motivations might shape Whatcom County life in months and years ahead?

I would like to examine and whimsically profile two commonly associated public policy categories, social and fiscal values. Social values may include both caring for the weak and denying or indulging passions. Fiscal values may include work, wage, capitalization and taxation elements. Both social and fiscal public policies are determined by governments, which are formed by the leader “worthships” (elections in America) of its citizens.

Both social and fiscal policy have a nexus in work. I would say that fiscal policy enables social policy, and social policy redeems fiscal policy. This is one reason why Whatcom Works =).

Here is my analysis.

		Social	Fiscal
Conservative		x	x	single family capitalized Reformation Protestant / Catholic
				[Classical Music Home/Public School Family]
Conservative		x		bank capitalized Ref. Protestant/Enlightenment Catholic
Capitalist			x	[Age 50+ Lynden Business/Farm Family]
Liberal		x		bank capitalized Enlightenment Protestant / Pragmatist
Capitalist			x	[Country Republican/Tea Party/Young Lynden Business Family]
Liberal		x		mixed bank/tax base capitalized Post Modern Pragmatist
Capitalist			x	[Bellingham Businessman/NGO/Gov’t Agency Sector]
Liberal		x		tax base/bank capitalized Post Modern Evangelical
Capitalist			x	[CCM / Russian immigrant / Home or Public Schooled Family]
Progressive		x	x	tax base capitalized age 18-45 Modern/Post Modern Utopian
				[Huxley-WWU, Bellingham lawyer/medical/educator class]
				[global multi-national high tech business circle e.g. Bill Gates]
Progressive		x		single family capitalized Post Modern Communitarian
Conservative			x	[Grow Local, Food Coop, Under-employed Wage Worker]
Conservative		x	x	single family capitalized Post Modern Catholic, Mormon, Hispanic, Muslim…
				[Union Wage Worker, Corporate Wage Worker]

 
As a service and remodel electrician, I work in many homes. I enjoy conversations with many sectors of people. As I stated above, this is a whimsical, anecdotally driven analysis. But I think it is fairly accurate.

Conservatives generally minimize risk and value continuity. They value traditional community, family and God relationships as their mile posts in life.

Liberals are the end product of the incipient globalism of the 1500’s, the colonizations of the 1600’s, the industrialization and enlightenment of the 1700’s and 1800’s. Liberals take a pragmatic, largely live and let live approach to life. Liberals absorb and discard social mores throughout their lives, and largely disdain the social and faith based strictures of conservatives. Liberals see no reason why broken people can’t be fixed with money. Aging liberal grandparents decry the rot from socialist fiscal policies in their grandchildren, yet advocate for youthful flaming sexual passions. They then continually bemoan the revolving bedroom door of living partners of their offspring. Liberals fixate on the surface social elements of aboriginal cultures and spiritist religion, then destroy those same people by transferring boat loads of money from local taxpayers into aboriginal circles.

Many current Progressives are rebranded liberals who are hyper dogmatized like many conservatives. They harshly impose their social values, only, without God and with an enlarged, somewhat dysfunctional definition of community. In reality, progressives are their own mini-gods, and spend an inordinate amount of time propping up their sagging self-image. Go progressive left far enough and you meet the utopian instincts of the religious right. Most grass roots progressives give an amazing amount of their time to their neighbors. Maybe too much for the good of either party. At elite levels, progressives are usually closet capitalists, and could care less for social needs.

Capitalists struggle to fulfill social responsibilities. The burden of corporate upsizing exiles its inhabitants to a moonscape of cash flows, collections, markets, and materialistic fulfillments. Capitalists who are elected into public office may promise tax reductions, but unless they are rooted in a conservative religious element, have a very small relational resource base to drive solutions for community social problems. After the election, they rather quickly capitulate to the system of transfers of tax revenue to non-religious NGOs and government agencies. They find themselves unable to counter NGO and government financial bloat and relational inefficiencies.

Many evangelicals consider themselves social conservatives because they donate money to faith based charities and advocate heterosexual marriage for life. However, there is little difference between them and most liberals. The common ground is closing the home’s door to larger families, (“two children is more than enough”) which also blunts skill and vision for later social service contributions.  Hypocritical evangelical birth control usage is glossed over, yet abortion is unconscionable. The end result in both groups is fewer children and more materialistic freedoms. And, abortionists laugh all the way to the bank. Small time family capitalization gives a “lower” standard of living, but the long term benefits for children are much greater with limited family capital than with big time bank or tax base corporate capitalization. Most evangelicals seek loans and reject children.

In the chart above, there is a sequence. At the top is a Reformation era/type of person. Most early European Americans came from German, Anglo and French Reformation stock. As material prosperity was enabled by global exploration, colonization and industrialization, a corporate mindset replaced family and clan capitalization and culture. Capitalization became a driving and increasingly resented marker in the enlightenment era. God became a distant or non existent reality for elites flush with world capital.

European continental social passions were openly indulged in increasing measure in the 1700’s and later. The ravages of early industrialization were tempered by confrontations with corporations in the late 1900’s, but the social equity of capitalism remains very low. Working for a corporation has more value than not working at all, but corporate “family job wages” do not compensate for reduced formative time with one’s children. The public school is also a poor nanny. Many young families are having to rediscover nuclear family life.

The chart lists several concurrent groups.

Progressive wage workers grapple with falling standards of living, either living in welfare or seeking some elusive tryst with nature and aboriginal cultures.

Older capitalists and wage workers struggle to maintain retirement prospects by shifting their investments through a dizzying range of unstable stock portfolios.

Progressive grant tycoons compensate market job losses by enlarging local grant driven agencies. As government (and progressive millionaire) resources dry up, grant based agencies will shrink and scale down their grand progressive agendas. Many welfare supported families will get very upset. There is a reason to base income on work initiative, not need.

Younger capitalists eat their own health, carrying family killing loans and pleasures.

My harshest words are reserved for my own kind. Christians. Fundamentalists. Evangelicals. Conservatives. We have lost touch with the transcendent power of a God who waits to show his power in meeting the material needs of his bond servants. We have become unaccountable, materialistic wraiths, slipping through life, grasping for college degrees, houses, late model cars, cosmetic beauty, athletic honors, with a modicum of theological correctness after Sunday dinner.

We spend an inordinate amount of time in church buildings and with church friends.

Conservative Christian, take my challenge. Do what your Master says. Lift up your eyes and look about you.  Engage in the public square. Enable the worthy leader, elected or appointed, as he moves resources to meet needs. Take the transcendence and power of your God into the public square. Sharing CCM worship music in a mall is tripe in the public square. Christian athletes and models suck when compared to Christian businessmen who know and address local social needs.

Evangelical father, develop financial discipline. There is a time for elegance and academics, but how much of that is needed, and when? Now is the time to get down and dirty, to earn and share your capital. Teach your children to major on work, not on loans for college and homes, not on football and beer parties. Also, put your time and children in the public square, not just your money.

Finally, expect to go it alone. Your Christian friends will likely not follow you, at first. It is the uncommon ground that counts, but uncommon ground has risks, and does not have a “predictable” financial return. But then, who came to the uncommon ground as a baby 2000 years ago? Go figure!                       -- JK