How come left-leaning (read: socialist) organisations are usually more successful than free-market ones? In our discussion today, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was suggested as one way to answer the question.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Left-leaning organisations focus more on issues at the bottom of the hiearchy. For example, they talk about eradicating poverty which falls into the very base of Maslow’s triangle (physiological needs).
On the other hand, many free-market organisations folow the Hayek-Fisher tradition and deal with mainly intellectual issues, which is right at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy.
As a result, socialists get a much wider audience whereas we capitalists attract relatively much smaller number.
Solution: try to talk more about how market ideas can fulfill the basic needs.
Filed under: Freedom & Liberty
Exactly what we need to do.
That of course, relies on the generalisation that left-wing ideas are bereft of discussions on intellectual issues. This perception may be borne out of your own exposure to left-wing discourse, rather than the reality of the situation.
And socialists can be capitalists too. The value of capital, as with the value of everything and what value itself is, is after all, subjective. The whole spectrum of views from left to right merely attaches different interpretations of value to it.
cheers