The Lines Of The Debate

Sean Safford feels the old right-left split on the economy has changed. The left is no longer predominantly about fairness, but sustainability:

Politically, I think this is what explains the ability of erstwhile conservatives like Andrew Sullivan to embrace Obama’s “progressive” agenda. (It goes the other way too, allowing British Conservatives to lure voters away from Labour). Sustainability maintains an interest in the maintenance of the system; but it marries it with a justification and rationale for government action. In the US, it has allowed the left to co-opt and incorporate the notion that history is smarter than we are while rejecting the brand of conservatism which argues that any form of government intervention upsets the delicate natural balance among social systems. The environmentalism movement exposed the fundamental problem with this logic, succinctly captured by the tragedy of the commons: individuals acting independently in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even though it is in everyone’s long term interest to prevent this. That idea, I would argue, has migrated to influence the way we think about a range of public policy issues well beyond the environment.