Urban vs Rural - 3

[timelets]

An interesting debate is unfolding among conservatives about the role of the free market in the modern society. It started with Tucker Carlson, stating the obvious wrt the divide between major political parties:

Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words, functionally libertarian. They don’t care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the markets function.

Rural people are white conservatives, mostly. Republicans now represent rural voters.
... the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes.

Here’s a big part of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made more than men.
Study after study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don’t want to marry them.

Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You’d have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-mitt-romney-supports-the-status-quo-but-for-everyone-else-its-infuriating

This shows once again that in the modern world the traditional Left vs Right division has lost its meaning.

Comments

[tijd]

I was impressed by Timothy Snyder’s videos on oligarchy and sadopopulism:

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCmY71FGkk5kMwde_TP3KbnQ/videos

Target people who are hurting and hurt them some more, because you can then direct their anger toward others and convert it into political support, is a solid strategy. Tucker Carlson plays his own role in it. It is also true that market economy is at odds with oligarchy.

[timelets]

Thanks! Timothy Snyder is a good thinker; I should definitely watch his video.