Unemployment

[kandrathe]

"Elitist egalitarianism" is a naked contradiction - "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." Most of the progressives I find appealing are profoundly anti-elitist, practical egalitarians, who see civil liberties and fundamental equality as compliments rather than contradictions. Expressed in political economy terms, they (and I) believe in the creation of a society where all people, regardless of the randomness of their birth situation, or the randomness of life's accidents, are given the ability to improve themselves as best they can. The broad context is freedom, both in economic and social terms. But this is balanced against the practical reality that freedom needs to be nurtured. Nature provides us with a profoundly unfree, unequal world, and society is our tool to fix that as best we can. This is a profoundly non-elitist philosophy - nobody is "better," and everyone should be enabled to develop their potential, whatever that may be.

Good, we can agree on the egalitarian part. Elitist is in choosing who gets to determine "what is best". When the Congress, and the President defy the will of the people, they are elitist. When the Congress passes laws on which TV's or light bulbs you can buy, or demanding that you must own health insurance policy, then that is elitist. They know better than the individual what is best for the individual. And, in many cases, I'm sure they are correct. But, the nature of individual liberty is that we can choose to do smart things, or dumb ones. So when I say elitist, I mean the practitioners, and egalitarian in expressed philosophy.