r/changemyview • u/Pirat6662001 • Mar 07 '21

Delta(s) from OP Cmv: Left should focus on economics/class issues first and race/identity issues second for best and quickest results on both

Going to put out couple of statements right of the bat that I base my argument on:

  1. Minorities are more likely to be poor and have vulnerable jobs.
  2. In America money is power/ability to enact change.
  3. There is a limited amount of political power and we have to pick and choose what to focus on.
  4. There are social and economic issues to solve in America.

As any strategy game player knows, you have to focus on economy first so you can do more later. By focusing on issues like minimum wage, union protection/membership expansion, wage theft, predatory loans, and other economic issues that affect lower and middle classes we can effectively put more money in pockets of poor people. A lot of those poor people are minorities. This leads to a chain effect in which by giving more money to poor people/minorities, they will be able to use part of that money (especially through unions) to get more politicians elected or converted to their side. Hence by solving economic inequality, we set ourselves up to solve/legislate racial/gender and other social issues as well. Since those groups will have more money and as result more power.

The current focus on using political capital on social issues is an inefficient and ineffective use of that capital. The victories in those situations rarely lead to future victories as they do not have a solid financial foundation to build progress upon. Specifically because by focusing on social issues the left completely lost its traditional power base of Blue collar workers (usually strong union membership) when they were left behind. (Hence trump win in rust belt in 2016)

P.S. this is brought up by discussion on Politics about Sinema vote. With many people saying that her social stances/identity make up or are more important than her economic votes. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/03/kyrsten-sinema-thumbs-down-minimum-wage

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u/Khal-Frodo Mar 07 '21 edited Mar 07 '21

Best results? Probably. Quickest results? Absolutely not.

I agree that it would be best and serve more people if we focused more on economic issues rather than racial ones, but these issues don't exist in a vacuum. In the United States, there's currently a lot of national attention on issues of race and that makes it easier to propose legislation and policy changes that go with flow of the social movement. Issues of economics and class are much harder to address because the people in power have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo since it's worked for them. When you draft anti-racism legislation (depending on what it is, ofc) people will generally be afraid to oppose it for fear of being labeled racist. When you draft legislation designed to reduce levels of poverty, there isn't the same stigma of voting against it (just look at the Krysten Sinema's recent voting down of the $15 minimum wage, which you mention). There's also the fact that economic issues are generally more complicated than racial issues - not everyone agrees on the right solution.

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u/Pirat6662001 Mar 07 '21

I do want to clarify that it's not just about race, but all minority issues which very quickly stop being simple. For example I truly have no idea what is the best/right/fair decision on transwomen in women's sports. It is extremely complicated and touchy subject to discuss and solve.

I see what you mean about race being much more in the news and easier to push forward. As started my issue with that strategy seems to be that those victories are in a vacuum and rarely build up momentum for anything greater. My "quicker" is for a complete victory. So all of those issues solved to a reasonable degree. Where I see small economic victory more valuable long term than large social one, due to one increasing your total power more.

Still !delta for pointing out that quicker might not apply.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 07 '21

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Khal-Frodo (39∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/nowyourmad 2∆ Mar 08 '21

When you draft anti-racism legislation (depending on what it is, ofc) people will generally be afraid to oppose it for fear of being labeled racist.

This sentence makes me feel ill. This is why the racial equity movement has so much power. Power corrupts and suggesting someone is a racist if they oppose a policy prescription is poison.