So, in most political parlance, there’s “to the left of” and “Left”. “Left” generally refers to some general socialist, pro worker, anti established capital party where the exact specifics vary from region to region and don’t matter for this conversation.
The Democrats are definitely to-the-left-of the Republican party, and they’re definitely viable.
They are not Left though, because they favor policies typically associated with other political descriptors in other regions (I will use Liberal with no specific connotations), like a preference for things like tax rebates instead of entitlement programs. A Leftist solution to rising housing prices might be a government program to build more houses in urban areas, price caps, and government subsidies. A Liberal policy might give tax breaks to housing developers to use market forces to encourage them to increase supply, and tax rebates to certain groups to increase their effective purchasing power for housing.
That’s why people say the US lacks a viable Left party. We have a viable party to-the-left-of the other viable party, but they are not “Left”.
There is crossover, and these lines are not sharp.
A good example, and particular to this context, is how a leading Democratic proposal for instituting universal healthcare was to create a health insurance marketplace that the government would then put a public option into and subsidize for people in certain demographics, with a legal mandate for everyone to purchase or be provided with healthcare through said marketplace. The hope being that competition would increase efficiency and people would still have choice for their insurance if they wanted.
A Leftist solution would be to assert that everyone is now covered by government insurance and you can go to the doctor and the doctor can bill the government, who will handle various price negotiations as the defacto monopoly on paying for medicine. This would gut the medical insurance industry.
People who are unemployed should:
Be given a living wage from the government.
Be given subsidized food and housing as long as they can show they’re looking for work.
So, in most political parlance, there’s “to the left of” and “Left”. “Left” generally refers to some general socialist, pro worker, anti established capital party where the exact specifics vary from region to region and don’t matter for this conversation.
The Democrats are definitely to-the-left-of the Republican party, and they’re definitely viable.
They are not Left though, because they favor policies typically associated with other political descriptors in other regions (I will use Liberal with no specific connotations), like a preference for things like tax rebates instead of entitlement programs. A Leftist solution to rising housing prices might be a government program to build more houses in urban areas, price caps, and government subsidies. A Liberal policy might give tax breaks to housing developers to use market forces to encourage them to increase supply, and tax rebates to certain groups to increase their effective purchasing power for housing.
That’s why people say the US lacks a viable Left party. We have a viable party to-the-left-of the other viable party, but they are not “Left”.
There is crossover, and these lines are not sharp.
A good example, and particular to this context, is how a leading Democratic proposal for instituting universal healthcare was to create a health insurance marketplace that the government would then put a public option into and subsidize for people in certain demographics, with a legal mandate for everyone to purchase or be provided with healthcare through said marketplace. The hope being that competition would increase efficiency and people would still have choice for their insurance if they wanted.
A Leftist solution would be to assert that everyone is now covered by government insurance and you can go to the doctor and the doctor can bill the government, who will handle various price negotiations as the defacto monopoly on paying for medicine. This would gut the medical insurance industry.
People who are unemployed should:
Left, Liberal, Right.