The Progressive Manifesto Part III

Progressivism, at its core, is a realistic ideology. There is no necessary belief in predestination, no hope that all of our problems will simply be lifted off our shoulders in good time. Progressivism knows our limitations, our boundaries; in essence, it focuses on the world that we have, not the one that we believe we should have. That is a very fundamental distinction. It is helping people in the "here and now" that is our focus, not moving someone on the path to a better life in the future, or, in some cases, in Heaven.

It is this that separates us from almost every ideology.

And it is this that must make the Steady State Economy (SSE) one of the central policy issues we have. Undoubtedly anyone can tell that the current state of the economy is anything but stable. Over the past 100 years, we have experienced a myriad of economic problems, all simply because there was never enough regulation within the system. Obviously the problems were more intricate than just deregulation (much like the problems Conservatives see in the government are caused by much more than just their favorite line, "government thinking they can spend Americans' money better than the Americans themselves"). But the problems could be resolved if we were to adopt this strategy for our economic system.

Steady State Economics would prevent these enormous downward and upward ticks in our economy through a multitude of methods, all of which will be explained a little later on today. As an overview, though, SSE would set a natural limit to the amount we consume and produce. Nobody in this nation can honestly say they believe our ratio between consumption and production is desirable. We should all be embarrassed at our consumption, and the production of goods from this nation is absolutely abysmal; in short, this relationship between high consumption and relatively low production is one of the reasons for our pitfalls and will not be able to be sustained. This system must be eradicated if we are to remain one of the world's major powers, much less the world power.

A steady state would also ensure that the income gap between the wealthiest and, well, everyone else would decrease. The SSE does not, and never would, call for a completely economically egalitarian society (such as communism) but rather focuses on a more refined distribution of income. After all, this "pie" everyone talks about has only been made once. And much like a regular pie, the only thing that can get larger is the pieces, not the pie itself.

Because Progressives recognize we have this one world in the present day, we must adopt this to be the corner stone of our newly founded political philosophy. Until this happens, we are no different than any other political ideology.