Why do the left and the right disagree about capitalism? Hint: It has to do with freedom.
There are many reasons why those on the left and the right disagree in their assessments of capitalism. But a big part of that disagreement can be seen in this simple chart. It concerns differing assessments of work and consumption under capitalism.
Left Right
Life as a worker Deeply unfree Incidental, not very unfree
Life as a consumer Incidental, not very free Deeply Free
In each case, they differ in their assessments of freedom. The left sees workplaces as sites of tyranny. Workers spend most of their lives working for an undemocratic firm and thus have little control over their lives. This unfreedom is not balanced out in their life as a consumer, because the freedom to choose between brands is not inherently meaningful and in many cases there are few choices. Many consumers also lack the resources to have wide consumption options.
The right sees life as a capitalist consumer as a source of deep freedom to choose how one wants to live via one’s consumption of products both necessary and just for fun. Consumers are also empowered—the market supplies what we want to buy and firms that fail to do so die out. Conversely, this freedom is not meaningfully weakened when at work. Just as the left does not see capitalism’s consumerist upside, the right does not see its workplace downside.
These are hardly the only reasons the left and the right disagree on capitalism (and not every person will fit in these boxes). But it is important to remember that a key part of the disagreement has to do with freedom. You will see these disagreements embodied in essays on the left (at, say Jacobin) and the right (at, say National Review) and in the books of major thinkers on the left, like Noam Chomsky, and the right, like Milton Friedman.
I think the arguments, evidence, and framing are much more persuasive on the left. But one of the values of political theory is that, as a theorist, one can work through a body of thought and pinpoint where, how, and why two people, or two political perspectives, disagree.
Doing so won’t eliminate disagreement (nor should it) but it might create a little more clarity and respect.