Doing sociology and philosophy in real time by looking at developments in contemporary Western politics and culture, from a Moral Libertarian perspective. My mission is to stop the cultural systemist left and the authoritarian right from destroying the West's Enlightenment traditions.
Why Andrew Yang Puts People and Families Before Profits, Even Better Than Bernie! | TaraElla News | #YangGang
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During the recent MSNBC Atlanta debates, Andrew Yang highlighted something that mainstream politicians, progressive and conservative alike, tend to avoid looking at: the fact that not every parent wants to work, that having two working parents may not be the natural wish of every family. Of course, the majority of families have two working parents nowadays, and many families are just fine with it. But still, not every family is. Some have their own special circumstances, which make having two working parents a difficult thing, or at least not the optimal choice.
The trouble is, it is very difficult for families to survive on one income these days, unless they are very wealthy. Let's ignore for a while the fact that women had unequal opportunities back in the 1950s. Back in those days, most families were single income, and they did pretty well. The fact that the average family can't choose that anymore nowadays means that the average family is worse off, more economically deprived, compared to back in the 1950s. And with all the advancement in productivity we have had since then, and all the extra hours that people tend to work nowadays, this just ain't right! It certainly isn't what classical liberal thinkers like Adam Smith or America's founding fathers intended. The fact that no other politician, left-wing or right-wing, would talk about this, shows how the whole establishment simply bends to the will of the corporate establishment, even when they clearly treat the average worker very unfairly. Andrew Yang, being a real outsider, has become the perfect candidate to expose this hypocrisy.
Looking in hindsight, Bernie Sanders probably did more than anyone else to kick start a much needed conversation about economic justice. I think we really need to thank him for doing this. But I think Andrew Yang does it even better, because he relates all of this back to the challenges faced by families, the fundamental building block of our social fabric. This is what makes Yang the most relatable candidate on the debate stage. The fact is, we all know at least subconsciously that, if families suffer, so does all of society. If families suffer, the social fabric is inevitably torn, and the resulting low social trust means that traditional liberal values won't be able to thrive. That's why even the dysfunction in things like free speech have a partially economic cause. Complaining about things like how our Enlightenment civilizational values are being eroded by postmodernism without looking at how families are suffering is ultimately useless, because you are not curing one of the most important root causes of the problem.
The fact that establishment politicians would put corporate profits before the health of families is literally equivalent to deciding to sacrifice the whole future of humanity at the alter of profits. This is why it's important that we have someone like Yang to challenge these spineless establishment people.
