Question

Diferencia entre moderats - progressistes? ​

Answer 1

Respuesta:

A "moderate" is always somebody who stakes out a midway position. In the case of a progressive/conservative distinction, it means somebody who wants "progress", but not too much or too fast.

"Progressive" is highly dependent on time and place. A progressive in the United States is going to be moderate or even conservative in other places. Progressives in general want some kind of change that can be thought of as "forward" rather than backward (conservatives often want change as well, but in the form of a reversion to an earlier time). The issues requiring change will vary with time and place.

A few issues currently on the minds of progressives in the United States:

* Finance markets reform: a large amount of power is concentrated in the hands of a few companies. Progressives would like to see the companies broken up, tighter regulation, and much more aggressive prosecution. A moderate might want to see their power curbed but not eliminated.

* Wealth inequality: The past few decades have resulted in the wealthy becoming much wealthier, while everybody else is at best treading water or even falling behind. Progressives would like to see many different ways of resolving this, such as aggressive taxation and higher minimum wages. Moderates might call for the same things, but not as large a value. For example, the nominally "moderate" candidate for the Democratic nomination wants a $12 minimum wage; the more progressive one wants $15.

* Education: college has become ridiculously expensive, and that contributes to wealth inequality. Progressives might want a government guarantee of free tuition; moderates might want to continue the present system but alter incentives of student loan companies.

* Health care: Progressives would like to see a unified, national health care program. Moderates are more likely to want to continue the Affordable Care Act, which strongly encourages private health care insurance.

The last issue illustrates one difference in the mode of thinking between moderates and progressives. Many moderates might agree that single-payer health care would be a better outcome, but cannot conceive of any way to get the large number of conservatives to feel the same way. The present compromise is a largely conservative solution. It doesn't appear as a compromise due to political tactics: while moderates would like to stake a middle point between progressives and conservatives, conservatives these days define themselves primarily by opposition to progressives, and anybody who doesn't agree completely with them is an infidel. Thus, a conservative plan (designed by a conservative think tank and implemented by a governor of their own party) is "socialism".

So for the purpose of this answer I've had to define "moderate" in terms of "progressive". Ideally, one would describe it as some kind of middle ground between conservative and progressive, but these days "moderate conservative" means merely "despises progressives" rather than "would see them rounded up in camps and exterminated".