What exactly is “my” side? In previous eras there were more clear-cut definitions of what “left” and “right were. Today there are dozens of variations. On economic issues I’m a typical liberal. Having run my own business and having worked for big corporations, I have a basic belief in capitalism, but I think that government, representing the collective will of the citizens, has a special obligation to balance out the excesses of the marketplace. I wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes to have national health care, better paid school teachers, smaller class sizes in public schools, and more jobs programs to help get people out of poverty and help average-income people deal with their lives more easily. It seems to me that many Western European countries have been better at supporting people on the low end of economic spectrum than Americans have, and the extent of poverty in America seems immoral to me given our country’s wealth. Although I’ve never been a member of a labor union, I believe they should be stronger. Corporations have so much power that it seems healthier to me for there to be a strong counterweight on behalf of workers. I also think our country should be more generous with foreign aid given the immense poverty around the world.
Conservative rhetoric that implies that private charities can replace government doesn’t ring true to me. I know that governments tend to be inefficient, but there are some things that only governments can do, such as build highways, protect the environment, and provide police protection, and so on. The environment is an area where it’s particularly important for government to enforce the public interest when it clashes with the economic interest of businesses.
Danny Goldberg, from his book, Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit, quoted at Altercation.