Do left wing people practice self-delusion?

Post Reply New Topic

To be fair, a number of leftist governments are "mysteriously" dismantled and turned into military dictatorships thanks to the support of "mysterious" benefactors.

Yes, but what is the right-wing alternative to big government? Its to privatize, i.e. to allow things that the government would otherwise do to be done by corporations.

Its a difference of pretexts - governments claim to care about those they govern. Whether or not they in fact do is open to debate. Corporations really do not claim to care about anything except profits - to the extent that they do things that would indicate that they care about the rest of society (charity, things that are good for the environment), I tend to think these are done only after calculations that show these things boost image and thus profit.

Look at it another way - governments claim to be motivated by helping the citizenry. In a democracy, if the government fails to do so those running the government are accountable to the people. Corporations are motivated by profits. If it fails to make sufficient profits, or loses money, those running the corporations are accountable not to 'the people', but only to the owners (stockholders) of the corporation. At my company, one of the upper managers once opined that he was glad our company was not as large as one of our much more profitable competitors, since he felt a company that size was too difficult and complex to manage. Possibly so, but I shudder to think of the reaction the company's owners would have had to hear one of their principal employees basically saying he did not want the company to grow larger.

Likewise the corporate worker (of which I am myself one) - they too are trying to minimize work while simultaneously trying to maximize pay and benefits, its no different in that respect than what government workers do. Most corporate workers will tell you that they aim to serve themselves, not the corporation for which they work, or society. Furthering corporate goals is simply a means-to-an-end of getting something more for themselves. As a way to increase employees feeling like they have a stake in the success of their employer, sometimes corporations tie company profitability and performance to employee compensation (i.e. bonuses based on company profits, stock options / awards) but these usually amount to only trivial amounts to the average employee.

In any case, trusting the government is no more self-delusional than trusting corporations, and the standard right-wing approach is to get the government out of everything and privatize everything in the hands of corporations. Somehow this would supposedly create some sort of utopia where market forces and competition would prevent profit-driven corporations from screwing over the average person while seeking to maximize profit, despite the fact that today market forces and competition AND some degree of applicable laws and government regulations do a very poor job of preventing the very same.

I am more left wing than right wing and I would not say more government is better per say....and I think its a major problem that the politicians and others involved in the government aren't doing a good job of serving the population or protecting individual rights/freedoms and what not. I think a government that actually did its job and served the people would be a good thing. I certainly don't think having pure capitalism with corporations in charge of all the goods/services and resources would be any better than the government having complete control over that.

So yeah I don't really think having left wing veiws makes one delusional....but then last I checked thinking the current government has the goal of helping its citizens is not a left wing veiw but rather an naive veiw point I have seen more from people leaning more right wing than people more on the left.

What leads you to believe people with left wing veiws in general actually think that about our current government

I'd say the more right wing view of privitize everything, scrap all the welfare programs and too bad for anyone who can't make ends meet...unless their family or some chairity organization can and is willing to help......being a way to actually improve things in this country is quite delusional speaking of delusional beliefs.

Of course, just like everyone else, though if I had to pick one thing that defines left wing delusion it would have to be studious, willful ignorance of the principle/agent problem and public choice theory.

anyone gullible enough to allow themselves to be sucked into political or religious discourse, is wallowing in self delusion, myself included

Civilization in general is a human made delusion

As a government worker in the VHA, the majority of my co-workers talk about doing what is best for the veterans of this country on a very regular basis. Many here work for sub-industry standard wages in large part because they feel very strongly about it, myself included.

It still amazes me that you can decry wasteful big government and then gleefully brag about taking the cash you think it shouldn't be giving you. If your conviction is so strong, I really think you should look for work elsewhere instead of contributing to the problems you so despise.

irony anyone, considering the title of this thread? It could be that some personality types cannot recognize or refuse to believe that other people may have different values or motives than they do. Just because one particular person wants to minimize work and maximize benefits for himself at the cost of the greater good, and even if all his workmates have that same ethic, does NOT mean everybody is like that! Hooray!