Philosophies of Political Parties

I don't think people's political opinions can be completely reduced to a basic philosophical principle - our minds are far more complicated than that (in good ways and bad ways). But I do think it's helpful to have a simple-and-fairly-accurate way to categorize how people think differently. Instead of the usual two-sided "big govt vs. small govt" scale, I prefer to think of 4 basic groups, where each group is focused on a different value that they want the government to maximize.

Group	Value
Libertarians	Freedom
Republicans	Justice
Liberal Democrats	Equality
Moderate Democrats	Well-being

Libertarians believe freedom is the ultimate "good", and therefore the government should do whatever maximizes freedom, even if that means letting otherwise bad things happen. This is often how people describe the Republican party, but overall I don't think that "fits".

For a long time I've had a hard time understanding how to simplify the Republican party into a single idea, but I recently read someone say they are concerned mostly with "justice", which I think works very well. A sense that virtues should be rewarded and vices should be punished is a good way to understand what makes Republicans different from Libertarians. A large military budget will help us bring justice against evil in the world. The war on drugs, even though it limits freedom and well-being, is perceived as punishing a sin. Same with the opposition to illegal immigrants, gay marriage, etc. It can explain why they oppose redistribution in some cases and support it in others: capitalism is viewed as the way to distribute money according to who deserves it, but with Medicare, seniors are viewed as "deserving" of public help because they are assumed to have already devoted their life to their country.

The more liberal Democrats are focused mostly on maximizing equality (or fairness) over everything else. This is often how people portray all Democrats, but I don't believe that's right. An example of this thinking that I've seen many people cite is this bit from Obama during a Democratic primary debate in 2008, where at first he seems to support raising the capital gains tax even if it decreases revenue out of concern for "fairness" (in his elaboration though, he doesn't end up supporting that idea).

I think most progressives, including myself, want the government to maximize well-being. This is my understanding of what Obama meant when he said the role of government is to "do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more." Maximizing well-being justifies redistribution, because transferring a dollar from a rich person to a poor person benefits the poor person more than it harms the rich person. But it doesn't justify too much redistribution, because that harms economic growth. But diminishing marginal utility explains why those who value maximizing well-being and those who mainly value equality are natural allies in many cases.

An example of people thinking about political issues in different ways and not understanding each other is this question I've seen conservatives bring up many times: "If you want to help the poor, instead of taxing others to do it, why don't you just give your own money?". Well, take the example of social security. Before social security was passed, poverty rates were very high among the elderly. After social security was passed, poverty rates among the elderly shrunk to "normal" levels. That increased the well-being of many seniors. But if instead of passing social security, a much smaller fraction of our population just decided to "give their own money", that would not have led to nearly the same increase in well-being of the elderly that needed help once they couldn't work anymore. Therefore, as someone who judges government programs primarily by their effect on people's well-being, I just don't understand why conservatives even ask that question. But maybe the question makes sense if you're thinking primarily in terms of freedom or rewarding virtue and punishing vices; you don't get "credit" for a good deed if it's just done involuntarily via taxation.