Things that right-wingers have a tough time understanding

 There was a similar post on this blog, but it was a translation of an older post with argumentation adjusted to Greek politics (and some awful imitation of my writing style when writing in Greek). This was written in English in the first place, and pretty much adjusted for an American audience (though the argumentation is pretty much valid for European politics too).

There will be some updates with extra points.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Capitalism is not a meritocracy.

    According to the right-wing mythology, capitalism is a system where wealth is accumulated by the most capable, talented, and hard working.

    It doesn't take much thinking to make this myth fall apart. In most countries (e.g. India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc) no matter your IQ and willingness to work, the probability of living a decent life is very small, let alone becoming a multimillionaire. Right wingers typically get around this small detail of our world by attributing this situation to non-western cultures, and claiming that it isn't so in the west (or the USA in particular).

    Now, let's get our facts straight.

    Imagine someone who is extremely skilled and intelligent, has studied for decades, works hard, and saves lives. Any doctor could be that, and especially a neurosurgeon.

    Yet bother taking a glance on the forbes' list of billionaires: you will not find a single neurosurgeon there.

    Just like you will not find a phd mathematician, or a rocket scientist, or a kernel programmer, or a nuclear physicist. You will only find the people extracting surplus value off the rocket scientist (e.g. Elon Musk), the kernel programmer (e.g. Bill Gates), etc.

    Capitalism is exactly what the word says: an -ism (i.e. sociopolical model) where the most powerful are the ones that own the most capital.

    Gaining capital has barely anything to do with being skilled and hard working, especially if we take in to account the non-western countries (no matter the culture, most are capitalist too). If the fact that Kim Kardashian makes more than a nuclear physisist or that the forbes list does not comprise of neurosurgeons and phd mathematicians, does not convince you, I don't know what will.

    Gaining capital is about extracting it from the ones who actually produce it, not about being talented or hard-working.

    Thinking that the forbes list comprises of the most hard-working persons or capable minds, is almost like thinking that the MTV charts comprise of the most talented artists. "Almost", because sometimes an artist on the MTV charts may actually have some talent.


2. Businessmen/entrepreneurs don't innovate; scientists and engineers do.

    There is some confusion as to who is the actual innovator and mastermind behind modern technologies. Society wants to you believe that it is businessmen and entrepreneurs who are behind your technological advancement, but this actually is far from the truth.

    The ones who innovate are scientists and engineers. Some businessmen may have an engineering degree, but just because you have studied guitar does not mean you are a musician, let alone a composer. Not to mention that most businessmen don't even have an engineering degree in the first place.

    Elon Musk did not design the electric cars his companies sell; the engineers that work there did it for him. Bill Gates did not design or write the code for Windows; the programmers he hired did it for him. The list can go on for ever.

    A businessman only solves the financial problems for his own business, not the technical problems that improve your technology. As a matter of fact and precision, even the financial problems are seldom if ever solved by the businessmen themselves -they hire financial analysts to do the job for them

    Thinking that the CEOs of tech corporations are the masterminds behind technology, is fully equivalent with believing that the CEOs of publishing companies are the masterminds behind literature.


3. When scientists and engineers innovate, they are, more often than not, government-funded.

    Yes, you read that right. The microprocessor, the computer, the internet, and most of your medicine, owe their existence to government-funded research.

    Just like sending humanity to space (USSR) or landing it to the moon (high tax USA of the 60s) were achieved by government-funded research.

    One of the most persistent myths by capitalists to justify privitazing everything is the technological advancement that supposedly was a result of the private economy. The real reason behind it was actually the increase of population (larger population  more hands working & more brains thinking), which in turn can be attributed to a combination of related and unrelated factors, but we are not writing a book here.

    Most of the technological advancement that improved your life can be traced back to government-funded programs like DARPA in the USA, or projects such like CERN in EU.

    No sane investor would invest millions or even billions for a hadron collider (can you even imagine a way it would be profitable?). But the thing is, the HTTP protocol came about when the scientists in CERN needed an efficient way to access data stored on other machines.

    You can find numerous similar examples with details on the internet, but I will encourage you to read "the entrepreneurial state" by the prize-winning economist Marianna Mazucatto.

4. Basic economics only applies to "basic" economies.

    Basic economics is just like basic physics: pretty sufficient to describe a simple system, but falls apart when attempting to describe anything more complex.

    Newton's equations can describe a simple planetary system (e.g. a star and a couple of planets), but fall apart even when trying to describe large planetary systems, let alone star clusters, galaxies, and black holes . Newton's equations have became useless long before coming anywhere near to describe star clusters and black holes, and the infinitely more complex Einstein's equations come into play (though even then one needs massive computational power to actually make precise descriptions).

    Same with basic economics. You may describe a simple economy using them -e.g. a (isolated and self-sufficient) village with a dozen economic players-, but you are not going to describe a chaotic supersystem of banks, states, monetary funds, incomprehensible legal systems, international politics, shareholders, and  tight interdependence between all of them.

    So, before trying to oWn ThE liBz with bAsIC eCoMoMicS, make sure that those economics are actually meant to describe the real world.

    You won't describe or make predictions for a star cluster with basic Newton's equations. You won't describe or make predections for the international economy using basic economics. Fox news "analysts" and PragerU have deceived you.

5. Welfare state is for the "irresponsible" / "weak"? Isn't this the case with the law and the police?
`
    "What?! A welfare state, with tax-funded college, healthcare, regulations, and economic safety nets for everyone?! You want the government to be your daddy?? All these taxes are hurting the economy! And why should the taxpayer pay for your weakness and irresponsibility? *You* are responsible for your economic situation, and no one else! As for the big corporations, they will realize that [*insert bad stuff here*] is non viable and the market will regulate itself."

    this sounds exactly like:

    "What?! A lawful state, with tax-funded police force, a legal system, and juries for everyone?! You want the government to be your daddy?? All these taxes are hurting the economy!  And why should the taxpayer pay for your weakness and irresponsibility? *You* are responsible for your safety, and no one else!  As for the criminals, they will realize that robbing everyone isn't viable and society will regulate itself"

    A welfare state is as much a prerequisite for a civilized society as much as a legal system and a police force is.

    Abolish the police and the law, and you will end up with groups of armed bandits breaking into your house while you sleep, murder you, rape your wife, and take everything valuable. Theoretically, you will be able to defend yourself with your guns, but 1. they are more than you, 2. why should all this happen? Can't we just have a police force and a law?

    Abolish the welfare state and deragulate everything, and you will end up with the big corporations buying up everything and forcing you work from dawn to sunset for pennies. Theoretically, you would be able to survive by "starting your own business" and working 90h/week, but 1. Google and Amazon are way stronger than you are, 2. why should all this happen? Can't we just have regulations and an economic safety net for everyone?

    Your ancestors did not work from dawn to sunset just so that you would have the same fate.

6. You have been lied to in your whole life about the communist regimes.

 

    "Communism only ever brought famines, suffering, and destruction!1!". This is what we have been told about communism. And we have been told that this much, that is has become a part of our culture -pretty much in the same sense that worshipping Kim Jong Un has become a part of North Korean culture.

 

But bother checking this out:

 

 

 

    This is the life expectancy in China before and after the communist revolution, as found on Statista.  A similar pattern is noted in the USSR.

 

    The so-called communist regimes of China and Russia did not have as good living standards as the West, but they were very very better than what they replaced. Statistical facts such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and literacy, speak for themselves: life was even more awful in the Tsarist regimes and pre-communist China respectively.

 

    Yes, there were famines in the beginning, but they were the last to ever happen in those countries. Famines were a routine in Tsar's Russia and Imperial/Republican China. If famines were the rule or even frequent Mao's regime, how come and the Chinese population grew that much under Mao? Would the population more than quadruple under Mao if the Chinese were indeed starving?

 

    Some of the so-called communist regimes had a standard of living that was somewhat decent even by the Western standards -namely Tito's Yugoslavia (which you, more likely than not, have not even heard of) and Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam. The average citizen there lived like a low-to-middle-class westerner; not enviably well, but definitely not very bad either.

 

    I don't know if implementing communism in the West would be a good idea, but I can assure you of this: communism did not only bring "famines, suffering, and destruction". China's population would not have increased that much under communism; and Russia would not become an industrial superpower that sent humanity to space under communism, and all this despite the WW2 casualties and material destruction.

 

    You have been lied to in your whole life. Bother asking who lied to you and what was the purpose.