You Aren't Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative... You're Just Confused
- Peter Gaughan
- Feb 7, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 21, 2022
You might call yourself "socially liberal but fiscally conservative", you almost certainly know someone who does, but how much thought have you given that phrase, really?
I get appeal, we've been conditioned to say it. The phrase is a great way to prevent controversy. It's an excellent tool to dodge awkwardness or discomfort. But it is also an oxymoron (which is what you might sound like to your political friends when they hear you say it...).
Still, it is not your fault. Because, at a surface level, it feels like it makes sense. I am not a homophobe or a racist, I believe in civil rights and gender equality. I am not an asshole, so I'm "socially" a "liberal".
Though at this point the expression already fails because "liberalism" is not justice. American "Liberals" have been responsible for ample acts of racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and sexism (the '94 Crime Bill that decimated Black communities was drafted and passed by Democrats). But this post is not a critique of liberalism and its performative (and often manipulative) acts of inclusion (that's for a later post).
So, for the sake of this conversation, let's accept the premise that when we say "liberal" we mean someone who genuinely believes in dignity and "justice for all".
This means if you don't believe all humans regardless of gender identity, racial and ethnic heritage, their nation of origin, religion, or sexual orientation are owed equal intrinsic value and dignity, please stop using the phrase "socially liberal".
Also, the rest of the post is probably not for you. My writing (and political philosophy) is constructed upon the foundational principle that all people are owed dignity without exception, so if you don't believe that then I am not sure why you are reading this blog...
Ok so now you are "socially liberal". Essentially you agree with all that jazz you saw on a sign at the 2017 Women's March.
Why does that mean you can't also be "fiscally conservative"? People work hard for their money and should be allowed to keep more of it in their pockets, right? Taxes just hurt hardworking Americans. Plus, the government is a mess. We can't trust the government to spend our money and run our economy. Individuals know how best to spend their money, and they'll grow the economy if they have more money to spend, which helps everyone.
It is at this point when aristocrats start having wet dreams. Politicians, executives, celebrities, and investors will talk to their blue in the face about diversity, so long as we keep electing people on the promise of lower tax rates and freer markets.
If you genuinely believe you are not a racist or a homophobe or a sexist, then you cannot be a fiscal conservative. But everyone from the American public education system k will tell you it's not a contradiction, its the basis of a free-society.
While only about 30 states actually require a semester of government and/or economics in high school, most people get some exposure to politics and the economy while in school. At many schools we are taught to think of the economy and economic policy as distinct from the social policy and justice.
But in reality, they are inseparable. The March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr gave his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech was officially known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. American intellectual and Black national leader Booker T. Washington believed, in the decades following the Civil War, that Black social progress was only achievable through education and economic development and entrepreneurship, he explicitly did not see it Black success arriving via civil rights legislation enacted by a white government.
So, your "social liberalism" is inextricably linked with economics. To prove this we can ask the simple question, who has the power? The answer is always, inevitably, those who have the money.
Social injustice and inequity are the consequences of economic oppression and exploitation. America is the perfect case study, racialized politics, exclusionary religious teachings, racist pseudo-science, and divisive policies were used to justify the institution of slavery, and then used again to justify sharecropping, and are now being used to justify ghetto-ing and underpaying blue-collar and service workers.
Economic justice is how we choose to distribute our resources and value each other's labor. Healthcare, childcare. parental-leave, education, universal basic income, nutrition, community policing, redlining, voting rights, mass incarceration, and housing are economic issues but we often see them framed as "social policies" or "identity politics". Americans are sold this false narrative that their civil rights are distinct from the economic wellbeing and that their freedom is derived from a smaller government instead of a freedom from needs and wants.
This is because if voters realized real freedom can only be achieved through a redistribution of wealth, elitists with power would risk losing their privileges. They risk losing the economic structures that maintain their power while keeping the rest of us divided, typically along lines of identity, which marginalize our collective power.
So long as you are convinced that lowered taxes really are intended to help you and that welfare is a crutch we can't afford (instead of society's way of guaranteeing its people the most rudimentary forms of dignity), you will continue to vote to keep the boot on your neck while simultaneously complaining about the injustice in the world, blind to the connections staring directly at you.
Voting suppression, police brutality, divisive politics, and inflammatory media outlets are therefore not random or born out of ignorance. They are the intentional and knowingly performed by those with power to prevent a consciousness of unity and shared interests by you and me; by normal people. A working-class white Republican in Maryland has more in common with an undocumented low-income person of color in Nevada than either will ever have with a Mitt Romney or Micheal Bloomberg. So why do we elect Romneys and Bloombergs?
Overwhelmingly Americans are living a crisis or two away from devastation and are cite money, health, and safety are stressors in their lives. Think about it, your life would be measurably better and less stressful if you had free healthcare, affordable quality education, community-based policing, and a union protected job, but still we elect Romneys and Bloombergs.
Because the Romneys and Bloombergs of the world have driven divisions between us. They have divided the notion of economics and justice, they have brutalized those who try to reconnect them, and they have sold you a fairytale: that justice is possible for you and rest of the world within the economic system they built to profit off our backs.
So, you can stay apathetic and un-intrusive by staying "socially liberal but fiscally conservative". But what it might not be saying what you intended it to.
Or we can stop being "socially liberal and fiscally conservative", we can stop electing the Romneys and Bloombergs.
We are neither "socially liberal" nor "fiscally conservative" and instead we should simply be decent, dignified, and constantly striving towards justice: racial justice, sexual justice, environmental justice, and, connecting all of it, economic justice.
Tonight's selection pairs well with a Moscato watered-down by melted ice cubes
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