Extreme Liberals and Conservatives are the same.

Extreme Liberals and Conservatives are the same.

Hopefully this will be a short post.  I’ve been thinking about the people i know who are politically very liberal or very conservative and it struck me recently that in many ways they are the same.  They both share the same strengths and the same flaws.
For example, take an extreme liberal.  Liberals generally believe in large government to solve social issues.  They will endorse government regulations and increased government power.  They will do this for a number of reasons, but one common one I hear is regulation of large corporations to prevent exploitation of workers, the community, the environment, consumers and so forth.  Government then is considered a tool by the people to prevent wealth and powerful corporations from becoming too powerful and corrupt.  Powerful corporations are considered “bad” by extreme liberals because they can then use that power to exploit the people in various ways such as paying unlivable wages or dumping toxic waste near a residential area.   Corporations are also very bureaucratic and deceitful and therefore will not hear the complaints of their various stakeholders–employees, shareholders, consumers and so forth.  They will be slow to take corrections in matters such as public health or welfare until it is deemed profitable or legally necessary.
There is definitely some truth to this but there is a core problem with this philosophy.  Namely by expanding government power to “check” large corporations and their corruption, bureaucracy and deceit, they create a government that in fact acts just like a large corporation.  Government and politicians are incredibly bureaucratic, much like large private businesses.  They practice a fair amount of spin and ideological manipulation just as corporations do and are just as susceptivle corruption.  Worse, they do not have financial incentives the way a business does to become more efficient.  Where a corporation must make money at some point in order to survive, the american government can literally print its own money or increase taxes and borrowing against the future from foreign lenders.
Ironically, conservatives have a similar problem.  They are generally anti-government for exactly the above reasons, and are often pro-business to the extreme.  The problem with their view is that without SOME sort of government regulation, corporations take over, eliminate competition and fair trade through monopoly and aggressive tactics with vendors and partners  and actually use the government itself through lobbying to protect their interests.   While corporations have some monetary incentive to be efficient in a way the government doesn’t, they are not necessarily beholden directly to the public, because their leaders are not elected by the citizens, but by shareholders.  They also can practice exactly the same level of deceipt through advertising and media relations as the government.  They don’t even have to produce good products in order to survive–merely profitable ones that may be cheaply made, over-hyped or even unsafe.
Similarly, both groups will claim to be defenders of liberty.  Ironically, both fail here as well, just in different ways.  Liberals will strive for personal liberty, such as on issues of private drug use, abortion, religion in public schools, and so forth.  However, they will often vote in ways that gives the government more power to control people’s personal lives, so that it can solve problems such as poverty and health issues.  Liberalism also tends to dampen business interests through higher taxes and regulation, which doesn’t just affect large corporations  but small businesses and individual entrepreneurs as well.
Similarly, conservatives will vote to defend things like family values and strong defense, but in doing so they will curtail individual freedoms.  Allowing the government to define marriage, imprison people through the patriot act and control medical practices by outlawing abortion or medical marijuana also gives the government more interference in businesses and individual choices.
It seems that any level of extremism tends to be self-contradictory.