Politically, I am of a social anarchist or social ecological perspective in that this belief opposes all private ownership of the means of production, instead advocating that ownership be collectivized. I'm not talking communism here, which is a state-controlled hierarchy and I'm not talking Marxism which has, at its core, the dictates of the proletariate interests. This perspective is a simple, collectivist one - one without hierarchy, in that 'anarchy' relates to the notion of mutual aid. by mutual aid, I refer to the notion that the focus of each indiviudal is on the care of every other individual rather than a focus on him- or herself first. A rough parallel is in the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." The focus of the village is on the child's interest rather than the self-interest of each inhabitant. Capitalism is all about hierarchies, ownership of wealth and a me-first mentality. Capitalism becomes doubly performed in spectacular fashion when we see the Conservative Government in action. There are hierarchies of interests that get played out and are, at times, in tension with one another: there are MPs' own self interests (career, status, wealth, etc.), the government's self interests (policy, status, wealth, power, etc.) and the sponsors of the government (wealthy individuals, corporations, foreign government allies, etc.). What we see missing are key interests: ordinary citizenes, marginalized groups, workers, unions, and so on. Inevitably, those who fall outside the sphere of interests of the Conservative Canadian government will experience greater inequity and disadvantage at the expense of those groups already taking for granted great privilege and advantage. My key philosophy with regard to government and government policy is that any society will be evaluated by how it deals with its most marginalized, disenfranchized and oppressed individuals and groups. Every policy should have at its core, the betterment of life for those living on the social edges. Too often, expecially with regard to Conservative government policy, the most privileged are the ones who win out. The richer get richer while the poor get poorer - through Conservative Government of Canada policy.
I know Canada, being a member of "the West" IS a capitalist society. And with that comes all sorts of disparity. I'm sad to see the NDP exploring whether or not to drop "socialism" from its philosophy all in a bid to become "more mainstream." Tommy Douglas included socialism in the CCF because of his philosophy of collective care and support - to bring everyone forward as equitably as possible. My fear is that with dropping of the word "socialist" will eventually come the shift toward wanting to be all things to everyone in the mainstream and losing sight of this collectivist impulse.
I'm suggesting that we, collectively, need to move to ward a more social ecological or social anarchist way of life where we actually look after one another with great care and compassion - not to get or expect something in return for that care, but instead knowing that as we look after others, others are looking after us. It's about operating in a collective where authority is no longer needed - and without authority, there is no need for status or disparity. This is a gentler form of anarchism in that there is no espousal of violence or overthrowing, but changing through evolution and though change in thinking and perspective.
CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
This government has as its philosophy Neo-liberalism, in that that stresses the efficiency of private enterprise, free/unencumbered trade and relatively open markets; therefore seeking to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state: business drives government policy. Further, neo-liberalism is an ideological paradigm that leads to social, cultural, and political practices and policies that use the language of markets, efficiency, consumer choice, transactional thinking and individual autonomy to shift risk from governments and corporations onto individuals and the volunteer sector. In addition, there is a subtle hegemonic push to extend this kind of market logic and language into the realm of taken for granted individual belief systems and how social relationships unquestioningly operate. The legacy of the Conservative form of neoliberalism, continuing with Stephen Harper, includes: reducing taxes (under the myth that consumers will spend more and drive the economy foward - to what we are never told.), reduce welfare spending (in an attempt to force cheap labour into the workplace to benefit wealthy production owners), minimizing of government (goes hand in hand with low taxes) and reform of public healthcare and education (meaning offload government responsibility to the volunteer sector or if money can be made, to corporations in the form of for-profit healthcare), reduction in workers' rights in order to allow owners maximum freedom to maximize profits and a conservative social policy that narrows the diversity of its citizens making them easier and cheaper to manage (lower taxes required again). The Conservatives are a "borrow and spend" government, which they say is better than a "tax and spend" government because more money is kept in the pockets of taxpayers; however, borrowing is simply a mortgaging of the future away from upcoming generations - but who cares? The Conservatives are not likely to be in government over the long term; that's someone else's headache. We saw that with the Mulroney years. It was the Liberal government that dug Canada out of the huge debt created by Mulroney. I suspect the same will eventually be true after Harper has left government. Personally, the tax and spend approach puts the income and costs in alignment with one another. Further, taxes should be going up, not down. If there was more tax revenue there would be more money for senior citizens, people with disabilities, First Nations, poverty and so on. The erroneous assumption Conservatives make is that if there were fewer taxes, people would spend more - corporations would spend more on jobs - and that has just never been the case. Money is used to generate more money, not more jobs. Profits, after all, is what business want more of. Jobs are created if there is a need. And we have had jobless economic recoveries in the past and will likely in the future.
Just like a household - it's better to spend what one can afford rather than pile debt on debt to pay for things now. But this is capitalism at play - citizens are looking out for themselves and what they can buy - not on the collective good.....
Just as a reminder, I am posting the Conservative Party Platform from the 2011 Election, below. There are five points which Harper suggests are the guiding princples for Conservativism ruling Canada:
The “Here for Canada” plan focuses on five key priorities:
- Creating jobs through training, trade and low taxes.
- Supporting families through our Family Tax Cut and more support for seniors and caregivers.
- Eliminating the deficit by 2014-2015 by controlling spending and cutting waste.
- Making our streets safe through new laws to protect children and the elderly.
- Standing on guard for Canada by investing in the development of Canada’s North, cracking down on human smuggling and strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces.
My next posting will start to look at the past two months of the Conservatives in power and then, moving forward, I'll look at the issues as they arise. I know it will be a surprising mixture of neoliberalism in action and the hypocrisy of it through some federal government policies and action.http://www.conservative.ca/policy/platform_2011/
No comments:
Post a Comment