Chapter 3 - Empathy & The Social Contract
In this series, political commentator John Scully argues the Left has lost its way, focusing on banning plastic straws instead of building an American where all people can work & lead dignified lives
The social contract between labor and capital is failing. Simply put, the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else. Work no longer provides for the basic needs of working people and their families. The Left has spun off into a fragmented wilderness of innumerable policy demands, forgetting that work is the basis of a healthy society. To lead the country out of the wilderness, the Left must turn its energy to making work pay for life’s basics – food, home, health, financial security and protection from the coming AI upheaval. Success will not come without a change of attitude toward empathy and caring for all working people no matter their cultural, religious or political background. Read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.
The “Real Dollar” Versus the “Political Economy”
Without empathy for the feelings of all citizens, a program to promote work and establish a sound social contract may not work.
We on the left wonder why many people vote against their economic or other aspects of self-interest. The answer is clear. There are two economies: The real dollar and cents one where policies increase or decrease an individual’s wealth or status, and a “political economy”. In the political economy (not my concept) emotions and values determine economic and other behavior. Those having such emotions and values are impervious to “rational” arguments about the effects of bad economic or other public policy on their personal economic lives. Such arguments are seen as “lecturing” and condescending and, in fact, are likely to drive people defensively further into their belief system.
The Right Feels Under Attack By The Left; It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way
Many on the left see MAGA supporters as racists, religious extremists and gun owning fanatics who feel they are being victimized within American society. There is some truth to this, but there are also many decent people who support MAGA and who feel this way. There are clear and understandable reasons for these feelings. These reasons have been explored endlessly. Here is my version:
Economic. All citizens have seen their incomes eroded while the wealthy get really rich. The group hurt the most has been white men and their families. For millions, their formerly safe and decently paying jobs are all in China and Mexico and their fortunes are low. The “Rust Belt” is real.
Religion. A large portion of the citizenry are strongly religious. While we on the left see the religious right as trying to restrict our freedoms, they perceive us as judgmentally and existentially hostile.
Cultural. In a half a century, people with white skin have gone from the dominant group to an increasingly minimized group. The economically successful whites have generally split from them and become the hated “liberals”. Swirling around them is a gigantic social change the likes of which their fathers could not have imagined. Gay people are getting married and fighting for their country. Abortions are rampant. Black and brown people with funny names increasingly inhabit politics. Everyone intermarries. And, OMG, one with black skin and an Arab-sounding name became president. And, worst of all, an awful lot of “these people” are highly successful.
MAGA Is Angry
In a different life I easily could become a gun toting, government hating, anti-feminist and gay bashing, anti-abortion, anti-Obama Care MAGA member. How else to explain why my world is so threatened than to believe that the President is a foreign-born Koran-reading Muslim dedicated to screwing me?
If the Left does not understand and express genuine empathy, it will never achieve a majority large enough to redirect trillions of dollars into creating a social contract of a healthy, capitalist society.
 | A guest post by
|