Is the Right Wing Better Than the Left Wing

It is interesting my opponent"s choice of the three negatives chosen of the left wing - for all three are key strengths that bring balance to the free market ideology of the right wing and soundly demonstrate why it is not better than the left wing. Universal health care Most Western democracies have seen the value of providing universal health care for their populations. They understand that health issues effect all social strata and that health costs as a percentage of income are much higher for those on lower (or no) incomes. As an illustration, this is how the plot for Breaking Bad would have panned out if it was set in England, Canada, Australia, or a variety of Western European nations: Walter White is diagnosed with lung cancer. He receives state subsidized health care and gets better. The end. One of the single major causes of mortgage defaults within the USA is due to financial difficulties brought about by health issues. (1). A lack of adequate health coverage thus spills into other areas of the economy. It can also reduce labour mobility as workers cling to unfulfilling or poorly paid jobs due to perceived value in their attached health insurance. The implementation issues of Obamacare speak more about the competence of the current US administration more than it speaks to the worthwhile nature of the program itself. Despite its lack of universal health care, the US spends $8,508 per person on health care (2011) " considerably more than its left wing contemporaries, and without the same gains in life expectancy they have enjoyed: Per capita spending (2).Life Expectancy (3). USA8,50877.9 UK3,40579.7 Australia 3,80081.5 New Zealand3,18280.4 France4,11881.2 Welfare: Welfare is a key pillar of left wing philosophy where the most vulnerable of society are ensured the basics of living, be it housing, food, education, unemployment benefits. Without it countless millions and especially their children will be left without equity of opportunity as they reach adulthood, and the poverty cycle would continue in perpetuity. Right wing governments tend to cut back and limit social spending with the mistaken belief that the invisible hand of the market and the trickle-down effect will help the most vulnerable. Economic liberalisation, despite the very real fact that it creates more wealth and jobs has also shown that it does not lead to income or wealth equality. Let me point out that this is not due to the fact that the wealthy are doing anything untoward, more so it is the mathematical reality that wealth naturally flows to a disproportionately small number of the population. (5). To negate this natural phenomenon a reallocation of wealth to the less fortunate is required to bring balance. So is the US deficit caused exclusively by excess Welfare spending, or is the main cause on the revenue side? Over the last five years tax intake as a percentage of GDP has been a couple of percentage points below historical averages. What is even more telling is that the corporate tax intake as a percentage of GDP is less than half of what it was during the fifties and sixties (4). Welfare spending as a percentage of GDP has also increased over the last few years across much of the developed world, but what is interesting is that as the global recovery has occurred the workers have not enjoyed the same growth in wages as their wealthier counterparts " which leads us onto the next point. A Living Wage A minimum wage gives those without any, or very little, negotiation power in the market place some form of living wage. Compared to its OECD contemporaries, the US has a comparatively low minimum wage (7), especially considering the fact that its GDP per capita exceeds all of the below listed. UK16,557 Australia 20,743 New Zealand18,136 USA15,080 Canada16,314 France19,414 Increased wages do put upward pressure on inflation, but at the current meagre level it reduces the populous to being wage slaves having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. It is worthwhile to note that director and executive salaries over the last thirty years have grown into many multiples of the average wage - but for some reason those that run such companies do not have the same qualms about the effect their salaries have on inflation and the company bottom line. In 1978 CEO were paid on average 26.5 times the average worker " this has now increased to 206 times (8). All three of the above facets of left wing philosophy are an important counterbalance to the often dogmatic belief by the right wing that an unfettered market place will magically benefit everyone - it simply doesn't. Finally a tough stance on law and order is also often an attribute of a right wing philosophy. Although the protection of the population is paramount, an inflexible and harsh sentencing regime combined with the war on drugs has seen the US prison population grow to over 2.2 million inmates. This is the highest incarceration rate in the world, and five times the OECD average. Once again if we compare this to more left leaning countries one can see that this stance is highly undesirable. It costs the public purse dearly (over 70 billion dollars per annum) and mixes petty criminals, or personal drug users with hard core criminals. (9),(10) All of the above demonstrate that a left wing philosophy is a beneficial one and is very far from being inferior to its right wing counterpart. Sources: 1.http://pnhp.org... & http://papers.ssrn.com... 2. http://www.oecd.org... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org...(PPP)_per_capita 4.http://www.taxpolicycenter.org... 5.http://en.wikipedia.org... 6.http://www.bloomberg.com... 7.http://stats.oecd.org... 8.http://thinkprogress.org... 9.http://en.wikipedia.org... 10.http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org...