Modern American Ideologies
A section of the world that has not yet been visited by this essay is the United States of America. The USA has been a force in the modern world in terms of government and ideology. The era that the world is currently in is referred to as “Pax Americana”. The rise of the United States to prominence in the world has carried with it an amount of change in world politics. Politically, the USA trends toward the freedom point on the triangle. The economy operates on a free-market basis, the constitution outlines specific rights that are considered natural and not allotted by government, and there is a general sense of personal property and accountability. However, the nature of the American political system has created a country strongly divided by ideological lines. Here it is worth mentioning the major two, and the distant third, in the current system. Those being modern liberal, modern conservative, and libertarian.
Liberalism, in the modern American sense of the term, holds the values that are inherent in this government, but has a tendency toward equality and order. American liberals still believe in the values of free speech and assembly, though with some, admittedly significant, cultural limitations on those rights. Yet, the modern liberals have some issues with the economic end of the American system.
Much like Marx, they believe that the existence of a lower class is an abhorrence. A common talking point is the disparity between the wealthiest in the country and the poorest. They believe in some aspect of wealth redistribution. They have a strong tendency toward welfare and other policies that are meant to lift up the lower class. They have the desire to tax the wealthiest of the country at higher rates as the amount of wealth progresses. This is indicative of the economic equality that was proposed by Marx. They are not nearly as radical, but they desire some level ground. The purpose is equality of results. This moves them further toward the equality point on the triangle. Their inherent desire for more socio-economic consistency is a somewhat communistic concept. They believe that people will have the freedom to pursue their dreams once their financial troubles have been stabilized by government action. This goes the same for health care and education. The American liberals believe these to be fundamental human rights, and that they are essential to the prosperity of burgeoning generations. This is why they support socialized medicine and state-run education.
However, there is a tendency toward the order section on the triangle. An aspect of the American liberal platform is stricter gun control, and, for some more radical members, advocates for the complete abolition of private firearm ownership. The disarming of the private population carries the sense of establishing order in a society. There is also a strong focus on economic regulation. The government being involved in private business has been a trend in American liberalism. This puts them further toward the order point.
In summary, modern liberalism in America would still be placed near the freedom point. However, it would be nearing the middle of the triangle and angled toward equality due to the proposals of minimum wage and wealth redistribution.
In contrast to the American liberal is the American conservative. The American conservative movement is built on the prospect of small government and limited regulation. This puts the ideology further toward the freedom point on the triangle. The conservative approach to the economy is very hands-off when compared to their colleagues. They strive for free-market ideals that would allow an economy to flourish on its own. They believe that the government is an unnecessary imposition on the flow of the private economy, and that regulations slow the building of business. They take strong positions against minimum wage, since they believe it to be unproductive to the progress of a private business. They have held a platform of simplifying the tax code and bringing the rates for lower income households and higher income households closer together. Conservatives hold the policy that industries flourish when the products are treated as commodities. They advocate for private education and a private health care system. They believe this will encourage advancement, lower costs, and improve quality through the hand of a competitive market.
However, the conservative movement has long held a relationship with religious values, and this has hurt them politically. The conservatives have a particular affinity with the religion of Christianity, as well as orthodox Judaism. This connection to religion has led to the conservatives having a tendency to impose moral beliefs on the people of America. Their opposition to gay marriage is a good example. The second example is the resistance to the theory of evolution and the persistence of creationist beliefs. Furthermore, they oppose open borders due to a belief that illegal immigrants are harmful to the rule of law in a society, and support military funding and capital punishment. This is meant to establish a consistent, and overarching, law in society. This trends American conservatism to the order point on the isosceles triangle a little more so than liberals.
The conservatives have a fairly definite dedication toward freedom, which places them further toward that point than the liberals. However, the religious aspect is more order-oriented than the American liberals. This places the Conservatives closer to the order point.
The final ideology is libertarianism. This is a prime example of the failures of the political spectrum. The libertarians are often placed in the middle of the spectrum, and this is a disservice to the party that preaches for maximum freedom. The libertarian party has been placed in the middle due to its policies regarding issues such as gay marriage and immigration. The typical way of describing them is “fiscally conservative and socially liberal”. That is not the case. The libertarians are the furthest toward the freedom point out of all of the American political parties. In essence, they are fiscally libertarian and socially libertarian.
The economic policy of the libertarians is the near removal of government in the economy. They support the free-market ideals of capitalism. They believe that government has no business being in business. They believe that the economy progresses more under the smallest possible amount of restrictions. They believe that businesses and workers prosper when there are no impositions by the government. They support a lower tax rate, in the belief that this will free up money to galvanize the economy.
Socially, they support, simply, the free will of people to do what they want. They believe that the people have an inherent right to self-governance, as long as it does not impose itself on the rights of others. It comes close to the infallibility of man that Godwin spoke of. Men are allowed their own domain that they may rule over. While the similarities between liberals and libertarians on the social level may look the same, there is a shift in reason. The liberals support these goals for a general equality between all people. The libertarians support these goals for a general freedom for all people.
So the libertarians would be placed further toward the freedom point than any other American political party. It is not reasonable to place them in any direction toward the equality and the order point, because the overarching goal of libertarianism is a government that is minimally involved. Government controlling the society in ways to promote those goals would not be conducive with the libertarian platform.
In the grand scheme of things, the United States has a collective ideology that is very close to the freedom point. This is not entirely surprising. The United States has a constitutional covenant written into the government, and the government itself is based off what is a guarantee to the people. Not many other countries in the world have such a belief. The American organizational method has always been that of a society against the government.
