I see debates over competing ideologies not only in the United States but throughout the world regarding the structure and purpose of government.

One argument rests on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, a British economist who theorized that economic growth and reduced unemployment can be supported through governmental fiscal policies, including spending to move the economy, decreased interest rates, and placement of certain restrictions on market economics.

Another and competing philosophy has come to be known as “neoliberalism,” which centers on a market-driven approach to economic and social policy, including such tenets as reducing the size of the national government and granting more control to state and local governments; severely reducing or ending governmental regulation over the private sector; privatization of governmental services, industries, and institutions including education, health care, and social welfare; permanent incorporation of across-the-board non-progressive marginal federal and state tax rates; and possibly most importantly, market driven and unfettered “free market” economics.

These tenets taken together, claim those who favor neoliberalist ideals will ensure the individual’s autonomy, liberty, and freedom.

Neoliberalism rests on the foundation of “meritocracy”: the notion that individuals are basically born onto a relatively level playing field, and that success or failure depends on the individual’s personal merit, motivation, intelligence, ambition and abilities. Those who are born or enter into difficult circumstances can choose to “pull themselves up by their boot straps,” and they can rise to the heights that their abilities and merit can take them. People, therefore, possess “personal responsibility” for their life’s course.

During this presidential year, the lines seem clearly demarcated.

The neoliberal battle cry of “liberty” and “freedom” through “personal responsibility” sounds wonderful on the surface, but what are the costs of this alleged “liberty” and “freedom”?

How “free” are we as individuals when the upper ten percent of our population controls approximately 80 to 90 percent of the accumulated wealth and 85 percent of the stocks and bonds, and the right wing’s agenda will only increase this enormous imbalance, and when corporate executives currently pay lower tax rates than their secretaries as the right wing fights to maintain these advantages for the super rich?

How “free” are we as individuals when 50 million people in our country go uninsured and their only form of health care is the hospital emergency room that the remainder of the population must pay for because our government will not provide a single-payer health care system, but instead, we all must accept the exorbitant profit-motive insurance premium rates of private health care insurers?

How “free” are we, as college and university tuition increases and governmental student assistance programs dry up, pushing out deserving students from middle and working class backgrounds, and when governmental entitlement programs are cut, thereby eliminating the safety net support systems from our seniors and other residents struggling to provide life’s basics?

How “free” are we when some presidential candidates promise to abolish the Consumer Protection Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Education, and other governmental agencies, as congress threatens to privatize our national parks, and to loosen environmental and consumer protections of all kinds, and when mining, oil and lumber companies lobby to exploit the land, and when they are granted enormous tax breaks and subsidies?

How “free” are we really when the political-and-theocratic right wing pushes for school vouchers to funnel money into their parochial institutions at the expense of public education, and when forces are gathering to drive for the privatization of education for all of our children?

How “free” are we when politicians and business owners attempt to co-opt and decertify labor unions and eliminate collective bargaining? And I could go on in this vein forever.

So I would then ask, do we as individuals and as a nation have any responsibility and obligation to protect and to support people from falling off the ledge of circumstance to their harm or death because they simply cannot “pull themselves up by their boot straps.” (Have you actually ever tried to pull yourself up by your boot straps? If you have, you will know that by doing this, you literally fall on your face!)

Can we begin to perceive the actual crack in this beautiful notion but unmet reality of meritocracy, and respond in common purpose and sense of community to help lift those who are in need of assistance?

I was extremely encouraged this week as I witnessed news reports of a horrendous traffic accident between an automobile driver and a motorcyclist, which resulted in the cyclist being thrust under the burning car. A group of stunned bystanders immediately and without hesitation turned into courageous upstanders by joining in unison, with flames raging around them, to turn the car on its end ensuring that others could pull the young cyclist to safety, thereby saving his life.

I hope that, as residents of our country, we will use this incident as an analogy to come together in unity to work as hard as we can to pull our country and its people to safety according to their needs and abilities.

I argue that government has a vital place in this.