Most discussions of our economic problems today eventually get around to the idea that, in some way, something needs to be redistributed. Those on the right see govt as needing to redistribute something to the private sector. Usually that means taking less of their income via taxes, taking less of their choices via regulation or taking less of their buying power by devaluing the currency via central bank activities. They never admit though that their policies involve a zero sum game within the non government sector. They are fond of saying to those who talk about taxation of the rich, that this is just a redistributionist policy, taking from one hard working group to give to another, slothful group. They claim to be above this rhetoric, this class warfare, and simply want all to prosper. Their policy prescriptions however tell a different story. They show them to in fact be very intrenched zero sum thinkers. believing that when one person gets something it must come at the expense of another. They just like it when the ones paying the expenses are the other 90% of Americans or the rest of the world.
Either you believe we live in a zero sum world or you dont, it cant be both ways.
I happen to think that we live in a world of abundance. A world where there is mostly contrived scarcity. A scarcity that benefits a small number of entrenched interests. For the most part there is plenty of what everyone needs to survive available on this planet.
Its interesting to note that we could take the entire worlds population, place them within the borders of Texas and each unit of four would have over 4000 square feet of living space (Do the math..... take the number of sq ft in Texas and divide it by the number of people in the world... it works out to 1000 sq ft per person). That leaves the entire rest of the planet to grow food and extract necessary resources. We lack political will and empathy, not space and resources.
Our austerity insistent friends are telling us another, conflicting story. There isnt enough to go around. We need to sacrifice now so we have some for later. Save save save! Thats the only way we'll have a prosperous future. Our "austerian" friends are the true redistributionists. They are the ones who can only see someone giving something up in order for another to have more. They chortle when presented with stories that suggest it is our economic policies which are responsible for much of the state of third world nations. Stories which suggest that 5% of the worlds population consuming 25% of oil and other fossil fuels is unsustainable and unfair to the rest of the developing world (fossil fuels ARE a scarce resource, but energy is not) are scoffed at and the authors are derided as communist, collectivist thinkers, trapped in a class warfare paradigm.
Taking a close look at their policy suggestions, exposes their zero sum redistributionist mindset. Its just the direction of the redistribution that changes;
1) Monetary policy- Most discussions on the right are about "sound money" or "hard money"... backing our currency with gold even. At the very least its about balancing budgets, making taxes equal to spending at the federal level. These are all zero sum ideas that insist someone has to give up something now for there to be something in the future.
2) Fiscal policy- All state spending is essentially confiscatory in their minds. The state is taking something from the private sector. No value is added in their world.
3) Employment policy- No jobs within the government sector are real jobs. Only private sector jobs, which are created when someone determines that someone elses input can be profitable, are real jobs. Private sector = productive Public sector = confiscatory. You see this thinking highlighted when conservatives talk about our recovery from the great depression. Conservative scholars dismiss the CCC and the WPA programs which provided incomes for many Americans, incomes which kept them paying bills, as officially unemployed. Amity Shlaes is permitted to make the claim that unemployment remained much higher throughout the great depression than is generally taught, by dismissing the participants in those programs as still unemployed.
So if you arent making money for some rich guy, you're taking his money by collecting unemployment benefits.
4) Trade policy- Running continuous trade deficits is seen as robbing our country of its money and then needing to borrow it back. This is how we get the ridiculous notion that China, by selling us goods that we want and dont produce ourselves and taking dollars in return, is "lending" us money when they take those dollars and put them in a savings account at the Fed. These continual trade deficits, instead of being seen as giving us opportunities to employ our people in other jobs besides making trinkets to sell at WalMart, are seen as depleting our capital, making us poorer and unable to afford things like Social Security and Medicare. Its all an affordability question regarding those programs. The conservatives always say that it would be nice to give everyone everything they want and need but that the "real" world doesnt work that way. In fact its not an affordability question at all its a simple lack of empathy and political will.
So which way is it gonna be austerians? Are we playing a zero sum game? If so than any increases in the wealth of the lower 90% MUST come at the expense of the upper 10%. This also means that all the increases in the wealth of the upper 10% the last few decades did in fact come from the losses of the bottom 90%. If we are playing a zero sum game than we (the have nots) are going to have to take from you (the haves) because there is no other place for it to come from.
If we arent playing a zero sum game then stop talking about paying for unemployment benefits by cutting elsewhere, stop insisting that taxes must equal expenditures, stop insisting that raising the debt limit must come with serious expenditure cuts.
Pick a side.