A Look at the ESP Spectrums – Economic Part 2

In Part 1, I explored the red side of the economic spectrum, namely communism, socialism, and fascism.  But, what about capitalism and free market capitalism?  Basically, communists seek to destroy the capitalist spirit and socialists/fascists seek to subjugate it.  The capitalists are on the other side. 

The Free Market Capitalists (FMCs) seek to allow the capitalist spirit to run free, while the capitalists would seek to allow the spirit to run free with some slight checks on it.  Neutrals are in the middle by being less accommodative than capitalists and more accommodative than socialists.  Unlike socialism, fascism, and communism, these other three economic models have robust private property rights and are only economic models.  They are not also political structures.  The USA is not referred to as a capitalist regime because capitalism isn’t a structure of government.

I created the capitalist and neutral categories to allow for some space between being an FMC and a socialist/fascist/communist because I’ve seen a lot of people who don’t want to subjugate and control the capitalist spirit in the way the socialists/fascists want to or kill it like the communists want to, but at the same time don’t necessarily want it to run as freely as the FMCs do. 

The key takeaway on my economic spectrum is that, as we move from left to right, the faith in the government’s ability to control the economy and/or degree to which it attempts to do so increases. 

Let’s think of capitalism as a lion (or a pride) and explore how the various entities would interact with it (these can be plural, too).  I think it’s a good metaphor to get the key points across.

We’ve already established that the communists would kill the lion…or at least attempt to.  Whether they succeed is another matter entirely (and if they don’t succeed, survival is in doubt), but let’s assume they do succeed for the sake of argument.  The government would use the lion’s corpse for food, clothing, jewelry, and tools, then throw the scraps to the people.  This would be a tragedy, and we’ve seen it play out before with the collapse of the USSR or Mao’s China (as discussed before, they weren’t fully communist, but they’re about as close as I can think of).  Present-day examples require the same caveat and include North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.

The socialists/fascists would attempt to control/train the lion.  Like above, success (and survival) is not guaranteed, but we’ll once again assume success and survival for the sake of argument.  They’d probably turn it into a circus or work animal, which the humans would enjoy.  The lion would live a miserable life and die an early, pitiful death.  The government would then use the lion’s corpse like the communists.  This also would be tragic.  It is why Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.”

Note that socialist and fascist are interchangeable here because both seek to control the lion.  Nazi Germany is a great example.  Also, during the Mao era, China strived for a communist model, but the China of today is more akin to a fascist or socialist one.  We can also consider portions of the slow-motion trainwreck that is present-day Europe here, too.

The neutrals, capitalists, and FMCs wouldn’t try to kill the lion like the communists would and they wouldn’t try to train/control the lion like the socialists/fascists would.  As opposed to the socialists/fascists trying to make the lion do what they want it to do, the neutrals may actively try to prevent the lion from doing something while the capitalists may take more passive preventative measures and the FMCs would be content to let the lion do its thing.  Once again, survival isn’t guaranteed, but if all else is held equal, they are probably the best in these scenarios than those outlined above because they’re not picking a fight with the lion here like they are above.  This is under the assumption the action the lion wants to take is merely an inconvenient/undesired behavior versus being a present and/or future danger to the people. 

If that assumption isn’t valid and there is a danger, the willingness to take action increases.  Furthermore I contend that, in general, the probability that the lion’s desired action would be perceived as a danger would decrease as one moves from neutral to capitalist to FMC.  Said another way, a neutral would generally be more likely  to view a given action as a danger than the capitalist would be and the capitalist would be more likely than the FMC to view that same action as a danger.  Of course, there are exceptions and whether they’re right or wrong to view the action as a danger is another matter entirely.

Thus, for lions and neutrals/capitalists/FMCs, I see a happy existence for both and no tragedy here.  The two would be able to survive and perhaps even play from time to time.  Dust-ups will happen from time to time, but nothing Earth-shattering.  This stands in stark contrast with the socialists//fascists/communists.  The United States historically presents an excellent example and most Americans tend to fall in the neutral, capitalist, or FMC categories.  I’ll leave aside the question of certain periods presenting better/worse examples than others to keep this post more brief and high-level.

One question I see coming is why I haven’t included Crony Capitalists (CCs) or State Capitalists (SCs) anywhere on the spectrum.  Here, both are entities that find that the best way to profit is not necessarily through conquering their industry with innovation, value, etc., but by using the government to make the economic landscape more favorable to them.  Crony capitalism, though commonly expressed as ‘capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down’ or ‘private profits and public losses’, isn’t its own economic system per se so much as a symptom of an economy that is being dragged away from free market capitalism and toward communism (the direction rather than the start/end points is the key here).  My view is state capitalism is largely interchangeable with fascism and does not warrant an additional category. 

Another question I see coming is why I chose a lion.  I did this because trying to control the economy the way the socialists/fascists would is like trying to herd cats.  We’re not talking about herding small housecats, however.  Rather, we’re looking at big wildcats, and lions are the biggest of the bunch (ligers and tigons, though larger, are man-made hybrids).  Also, even though they’re apex predators, lions generally don’t kill people unless they’re provoked or extremely hungry.  I wanted to convey both a generally laid-back temperament (some might say lazy, particularly with regards to the adult males and the cubs) outside of confrontation and the far-from-certain odds of survival upon confrontation.  Lions fit the bill nicely.  Lastly, this also shows the competitive nature of the economic landscape.  Survival, much less prosperity, is not guaranteed and requires physical and mental fortitude (plus luck).

The last question I see coming is about what works better.  The real-world examples in these posts hint at an answer, but this is a whole other topic best left for another day.

A Look at the ESP Spectrums – Economic Part 1

As I did with the social and political spectrums, I’m going to start this look at the economic spectrum by copying exactly from my first post in this series.  From my previous column:

“We don’t typically see a global economic spectrum, but I’d contend it looks like Figure 4.

Free-Market Capitalist				Socialist		Communist

Note the lack of partition and higher concentration of more solid colors in Figure 4 versus Figure 3.  Also, note the absence of anything to the right of socialism shown in Figure 2.  The reason is that these (republic, democracy, monarchy, theocracy, and fundamentalist) are generally considered more to be social and political structures than economic structures, and as such, these structures can, in theory, appear throughout the economic spectrum.  So, we have free-market capitalist, socialist, and communist economic structures.

But Figure 4 is flawed.  It creates a perception that if one is not a full-on free-market capitalist, one is a socialist or even a communist.  This is why I’d like to change the economic spectrum in Figure 4 to look more like Figure 5.

Free-Market Capitalist	Capitalist		Neutral	Socialist		Communist

As you can see, there is much less solid color and two new categories have emerged, namely capitalist and neutral.  This distinction is necessary because it creates a new category, the capitalist, for people who believe the economy should mostly be left to its own devices, yet sometimes requires the government to act as a referee or a guide.  Such people are often and unfairly demonized by free-market capitalists, socialists, and communists alike.” 

We’ll spend Part 1 looking at the red side of the spectrum and Part 2 looking at the green side (along with the grey).  Before we start, let’s just acknowledge as a basic premise for the sake of this post that both true free market capitalism and communism are very difficult (arguably impossible) to achieve in the real world on larger scales.  We could spend a while discussing why, but that’s way out of scope here.  The various examples that I’ll mention ultimately do not reach the far ends of the spectrum.  Mao-era China, the USSR, North Korea, Cuba, etc. all fall short of the communist ideal, just as the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc. fall short of the free market capitalist ideal.

I mentioned in the political spectrum discussion that the major differences between socialism and communism are economic in nature.  I put those off until now, so here they are. 

The first question is about what to do with the remaining capitalist spirit once the socialists/communists take over.  They hold divergent views, but both loathe the capitalist spirit.  In the eyes of a communist, capitalism and communism cannot coexist.  Communists believe that the capitalist system must be destroyed.  There is no compromise, as only the total destruction of all things capitalist will satisfy the communist.  However, a socialist doesn’t necessarily embrace this mutual exclusion.  In other words, socialism and capitalism can coexist in the eyes of a socialist.  The socialist contends that the capitalist spirit need not necessarily be destroyed because the socialist can use it to advance socialist goals.  If communists wish to destroy the capitalist spirit, socialists wish to tame and control it.  It’s almost a question of hatred versus merely contempt.

Socialism and communism both have a more collective view of property ownership.  The difference here stems from the strength of private property rights, which are generally stronger with socialism than communism (in a communist model, private property rights are virtually nonexistent).  Because of this shared collective view of property ownership, socialism and communism are actually both an economic structure and a political structure.  In both cases, the government would generally directly own the means of production.

Considering the differences, you can now see why I commonly refer to socialism as communism-lite.  We could even go so far as to say that any type of government could embrace a socialist or communist economic structure.  Indeed, we see socialism and communism used quite frequently (and correctly) to describe both economic and political models.  We see the government in say the old USSR, Mao-era China, North Korea, or Cuba referred to as communist regimes. 

There may be questions about why fascism isn’t on here.  Similar to the political spectrum, fascism is something of a blend, this time between socialism and communism.  Also, like socialism and communism, fascism can be considered both an economic and political system. 

In a socialist economy, we’d be more likely to see the government directly own the means of production, but allow the people to retain property ownership.  In a fascist economy, production and property ownership are more likely to be officially in private hands, but unofficially controlled by the government.  Either way, the result is a somewhat tight grip on the economy by the government (versus the death grip communism would have on an economy, a looser grip for neutral and looser still for capitalism, and really no grip for free market capitalism, as I’ll detail later). 

This willingness to hijack the capitalist economy versus destroying it is the key factor that differentiates socialism/fascism versus communism.  Fascism would generally have a tighter grip on the economy than socialism.  On this spectrum, fascism would reside right at the border between socialism and communism.  I’m toying with the idea of amending both the economic and/or political spectrums to put fascism as its own category.  Fascism and socialism are similar enough to be reasonably combined for general discussion, but they have certain key differences that prevent them from being used interchangeably.  This is part of why I struggle with how far to separate fascism and socialism.  After all, Nazi Germany was fascist, but Nazi is shorthand for “National Socialist”.  Of the three, I would contend that present-day China is more akin to a fascist economic and political structure than socialist or communist.

In Part 2, I’ll discuss the rest of the spectrum and present what I think is a good metaphor to understand the concepts.

A Look at the ESP Spectrums – Political Part 2

As I did with the social spectrum, I’m going to start this look at the political spectrum by copying exactly from my first post in this series.  From my previous column:

“To narrow it down to what we see in the United States, we have Figure 3, which is the republic portion of Figure 2.  Technically, the United States is a republic, not a democracy.  The difference is mainly in the voting structure.  In a democracy, all eligible voters vote on all matters, but in a republic, eligible voters elect representatives to vote on their behalf on most matters (save the occasional referendum).  Both structures allow for a single executive branch to be elected.  One can easily see how a true democracy is impractical.  In Figure 3, we see darker red/blue as we get further away from the purple center (because red and blue make purple). 

Ultra-Left-Wing	Left-Wing	Center-Left	Moderate or Center	Center-Right	Right-Wing	Ultra-Right-Wing

I’m not going to go into excruciating detail here.  On the left, we would typically expect to see various classes of liberals like democrats, socialists, progressives, and communists.  On the right, we would typically expect to see various classes of conservatives like republicans, libertarians, and social conservatives.”

This is where I’ll go into more detail.  The table below is my quick guide to the lay of the land on political issues.  We have four columns, namely issue, left position, center position, and right position.  These are admittedly very simplistic views on the issues, so they’re more like guidelines rather than hard rules.  You can use this to evaluate your personal views.  It’s the easiest way I could think of to handle this discussion, and could be a useful quick guide for people new to American politics.  Basically, I asked myself how I would go about trying to learn another country’s politics and a table like this would be great.  Note that some of these choices are somewhat binary in nature while others have nuances to consider.

I think it’s a disservice to oneself to make the blanket statement of, “I’m a leftie/rightie,” because there are times when a person may go left/right on most issues, but not all.  I don’t see the sense in towing the party line if you don’t agree with it.  If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know I go left on a few issues, right on others, in the middle on some, and off the spectrum from time to time. 

You’ll also note that my left/center/right spectrum is generalized and we often end up with policy positions that are not at the extremes.  That’s the nature of our system.  It’s also basic negotiation in that two sides start at extremes and work their way inward to make a deal (or they remain at the ends and no deal is made). 

Tending toward the center or left of center would tend to put one in Democrat territory, while tending toward the center or right of center would tend to put one in Republican territory.  We have other parties in the USA.  The far left is where we would find Socialists and Communists.  Libertarians would tend to the left on social issues, but to the right on economic issues. 

These parties outside the duopoly are almost better thought of on the social spectrum, where the Libertarians would claim the center for freedom while the Socialists and Communists would tend toward totalitarian and secular real.  There really isn't a far right equivalent in the USA that would occupy the totalitarian and theocratic realm.

Issue	Left	Center	Right
Gun Control	As strict as possible.  Guns kill people and shouldn’t exist.  Less guns means less killing because people won't have guns to kill with.	Keep the guns out of the hands of criminals while still allowing upstanding citizens access to guns.	As loose as possible.  Guns don't kill people - people kill people.  Guns protect people and more guns mean less killing due to deterrence.
Abortion	Pro-choice in all circumstances.  Abortions always and for everyone.	Let individuals decide for themselves.  Alternatively, pro-choice in some situations (rape, incest, danger to the mother, etc.) and pro-life in others (procedure restrictions, trimester restrictions, etc.).	Pro-life in all circumstances.  Abortions for no one ever.
War (Military)	War is not the answer.  Ever.	War is sometimes the answer and sometimes not the answer.  Alternatively, differentiate between pro-defense and pro-war.	War is the answer.  Always.
War (on Drugs)	Legalize everything.  Treatment for everyone.	Legalize to various degrees and balance treatment with punishment.	Criminalize everything.  Jail time for all offenders.
Gay Rights	Federal law explicitly legalizing gay marriage and equal legal benefits.  It's beautiful.	Let the states decide, but each state has to honor other states' marriages.	Federal law banning marriage and equal legal benefits.  It's an abomination.
Illegal Immigration	Amnesty for all instantly, no questions asked.	Streamline the citizenship process.  Both amnesty and deportation are needed.	Deportation for all instantly, no questions asked.
Death Penalty	Never justified.  Make it impossible to execute.  It's not a great deterrent, it's expensive, and could kill innocent people.	Sometimes justified.  Assess on a case-by-case basis.	Often justified.  Make it easier to execute.  It's a great deterrent, cost can be solved by streamlining, and innocent people aren't killed.
Taxes	Raise them.  The government knows best how to efficiently allocate money.	Lower some, raise others, leave the rest unchanged.  Maybe scrap the entire current tax code.	Slash them.  People know best how to efficiently allocate money.
Defense Spending	$1 is too much.	Spend wisely and as needed.	There can never be enough.
Environment	Save it at all costs.  Man is a plague upon the Earth.	Balance the needs of man and those of the environment.	Who cares?  The Earth is ours to plunder.
Energy Sources	No drilling or mining.  Green energy can do it all.  Fossil fuels and nuclear are dirty.	Don't rely on just one source.  Come up with something that makes sense.	Drill baby drill.  Green energy is bad.  Fossil fuels and nuclear power are great.
Energy Efficiency	We should use no energy ever.	Let's try to be energy efficient to the most practical degree.	Who cares?  If I can pay for it, I'll use it.
Raise Taxes or Cut Government Spending to Fix the Deficit?	Raise taxes.	A mix of both.	Cut government spending.
How to Fix Social Security?	Tax the rich and deny them benefits.	Tax increases, benefit cuts, age increases, means testing, and/or individual accounts.	Privatize it.
How to Fix Medicare?	Tax the rich and deny them benefits.	Tax increases, benefit cuts, age increases, means testing, individual accounts, and/or cost containment.	Privatize it.
Which is Worse - the Public or Private Sector?	The private sector is the root of all evil.	Evil stems from both the public and private sectors.	The public sector is the root of all evil.
Interwebs	The government owns the interwebs.	Nobody owns the interwebs.	The private sector owns the interwebs.
Favorite Presidents	FDR, Woodrow Wilson.	Could be any of them.	Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln.
Regulation	The more, the better.	Do what makes sense for the situation.	The less, the better.
Government Spending	Raise it.	Raise some areas and slash others.	Slash it.
Affirmative Action	It's still absolutely necessary and needs to be expanded.	The need has dropped over the years, but still exists.	It was never necessary and should be abolished.
Labor or Capital?	Labor.	Neither or both.	Capital.
Income Inequality	The most pressing problem in our society today.  No income inequality is permitted ever.	It's a problem when it becomes too excessive, but it's also necessary to ensure a functional society.	Not a problem at all.  Income inequality is good, even in excessively large levels.
Bias in the Media and Academia/Education	There's no liberal bias anywhere, but there's conservative bias everywhere.  Fox News is the sole and ultimate propaganda and deception machine.  The mainstream media and academia are fair and balanced and objective with no agenda.	Fox News has a conservative bias.  The rest of the media and academia have a liberal bias.  Some of the mainstream media lives up to the lamestream media label.  I'll hear them out with a focus on bias and agenda, then decide for myself who's right and wrong.	There's no conservative bias anywhere, but there's liberal bias everywhere.  The lamestream media and academia are the ultimate propaganda and deception machine.  Fox News is fair and balanced and objective with no agenda.
General View of US History	The US has done nothing but rape, plunder, pillage, murder, and exploit throughout its history.  US history is all evil and a blight on humanity.	The US has done both good and bad things, but it has done more of one than the other.	The US has done nothing but improve humanity and has never done anything wrong.  US history is all good and the bright spot for humanity.

A Look at the ESP Spectrums – Political Part 1

As I did with the social spectrum, I’m going to start this look at the political spectrum by copying exactly from my first post in this series.  From my previous column:

“We now move onto the global political spectrum shown in Figure 2. 

 

 

Again, we assume a government exists, thus no anarchy.  The overlap between Figures 1 and 2 is not a coincidence.  Our political structures are directly correlated to freedom and the social spectrum.” 

One form of government I didn’t capture was fascism.  The main reason for this is that fascism is, in my view, basically an unholy hybrid of the worst of both communism and fundamentalism.  One could put fascism at the extreme left or extreme right of Figure 2 and be able to reasonably justify it because, in essence, it represents a political system in which the government is god-like in power.  Said another way, I don’t view fascism as unique enough to justify its own category.  Nazi Germany is the prime example of a fascist state.

Having just addressed the missing content, it’s now time to address what’s already there.  We’ll start at the far left with communism.  This is a system of government that’s founded with the vision of a society in which everyone is equal.  The government is generally very totalitarian and domineering over the population, granting the people very limited rights.  It truly epitomizes the phrase, “Big government, small people.”  Economically, communists hate capitalism and believe it must be destroyed.  Karl Marx is the man behind it all, so this is relatively new.  It has failed (or is failing) everywhere it has been tried.  Soviet Russia is the quintessential example, but we still have communist-like states failing today in Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela. 

Socialism is basically communism-lite, and no more successful.  Look at present-day Europe.  The main reason they’re in the mess they’re in over there is because of their socialist governments (sometimes called social democracies).  The difference between socialism and communism lies mainly in the severity of the government’s tyranny inflicted on the people.  Communist governments are far more tyrannical than socialist ones, though the disregard for individual rights is still very pronounced in socialist nations.  Also, the economic systems are very different, but I’ll leave that point for my economic spectrum post.  All I’ll say for now is the communists would destroy capitalism while the socialists would try to use capitalism for their own purposes. 

Why would I leave China off?  They call themselves communists, but they’re a different kind of communist than the others.  The Chinese communists (Chicoms) take the totalitarianism of a typical communist regime, but they maintain a sort of capitalist economy.  The Chicoms are really their own category and you can’t reasonably lump them in with the Marxists and socialists.  I think the Chinese model will eventually fail them, as well, but that’s another story for another time.

And we have now arrived at our republic.  The government is functional, but not tyrannical like a communist or socialist regime.  In this government model, the people elect representatives from among themselves and these representatives do the vast majority of the voting on bills (with the occasional referendum on the ballot).  Individual rights are upheld.  Early Rome was the first republic, and the USA is a present-day republic. 

The major difference between a republic and a democracy is who votes on bills.  In a democracy, people vote on everything.  Every bill would basically be a referendum.  I’m sure you can see how this would be impractical on a large and complex scale in the 21^st century.  Imagine how much time it would take out of your day to vote on every single bill that has to get passed.  Society would grind to a halt because we’d always be voting.  “One person, one vote,” works on smaller scales.  The Greek city-state of Athens was the original democracy, but there really is no true modern day example unless you want to count Occupy Wall Street’s general assembly meetings (I don’t want to because they’re not an actual government, among other reasons).

Then, there’s the monarchy.  This is a place where a single ruler, a king or a queen or whatever, runs the show.  The level of tyranny depends almost entirely on the temperament of the ruler.  Monarchies have been around for millennia, so there are countless examples throughout time, such as the Roman Empire (yes, they had a Senate, but the emperor really ran the show).  Present-day England is a constitutional monarchy. 

I put the republic, democracy, and monarchy together because they have strong overlap.  You’ll often see a hybrid structure modeled after the Roman Empire in which you have a central figure (their emperor) and a legislature (their senate).  The two entities work together to run the government.  In the case of Rome, the emperor was far more powerful than the legislature, so the most important lesson to learn from the Roman Empire is the danger of unchecked executive power. 

The USA takes this dual-structure one step further, turning it into a three-branch government by considering the courts (judicial branch) and using an elaborate system of checks and balances.  One could make the argument that, given the steady trend of concentration of power in the executive branch in the USA over the past century or so, the USA has started to drift away from the republic and more towards a monarchy, but that’s out of scope here. 

Also, note that I could’ve put socialism in with these, too, because socialist regimes often have a similar structure, but it’s more closely related to communism than these other three, in my view.

So, what about theocratic and fundamentalist governments?  These are based on religion, but the difference lies in the degree which religion runs the show.  A fundamentalist regime is much more driven by religion than a theocracy.  In some cases, such as ancient Egypt, their pharaoh was essentially viewed as a god on Earth or has some kind of direct link to the divine.  In other cases, the ruler is considered to be ‘blessed’ by the divine and does still interface with the divine.  There’s little (theocracy) or very little (fundamentalism) separation of church and state here.

The next post in this series will break down the American political spectrum.  Obviously, to do that, I first had to do what I just did and take a more global look to show where we fit in.