The slow revolt of Western electorates

[Jo498]

No, not generally, and I do not have an answer. I just wanted to point out that there is no automatism for a "left counterswing". I am simply not sure how much more has to happen for the establishment to wake up. (Le Pen winning and a threat of Fraxit that would probably lead to a split of the EU might be sufficiently strong.)

And even if it does, there are all kinds of policies they could try. Naturally, they would try to improve conditions for the frustrated supporters of the populists just a little (without ever hurting big sponsors, banks, international corporations), do lots of symbolic things etc. because as long as the major established parties have together a comfortable majority 10 or even 25% of populists don't threaten them too much. In Germany we now have the comfortable situation for the conservatives that they can enter coalitions with everyone except the leftists and the populists (e.g. in Sachsen-Anhalt they have a "black-red-green" local government) The leftists and populists often "feed" from each other, because voters who are simply fed up might vote for either one, so if they both hover around 10% the establishment is not really in danger and will continue to muddle through.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 hour ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

I suppose my question is "What next?" This is to say, if the Western electorates revolt via rightwing populism, what is the shape of things to come in the West? How long will this rightwing populism get its way or make its ascendancy before a presumed leftwing swing? 

8 years probably. Obama was the answer to Bush, Trump is the answer to Obama. 

I think we are all over reacting. Any 'swing' will end up being relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Governments simply do not have the power to overturn most of the things they have set in place. Capitalism is its own beast and most governments are just tinkering with dials a little bit.

I think there are enough checks and balances in the system to mean that nobody strays too far out of line.

PS.. great thread btw.

[Iskaral Pust]

17 hours ago, snake said:

Robert Skidelsky on the challenges facing liberalism and what needs to be done to ensure a liberal West.

Also, Alexander Friedman on whether global capitalism can be saved.

And lastly, but certainly not least, Joseph E. Stiglitz on what President Trump must do to fix a failing economic system.

I had never before heard of Project Syndicate but I like the quality of those articles, so thanks for turning me on to them.

One of my biggest frustrations in life is that it's so easy to stay with the same few news/discussion sources online.  There is a plethora of quality options out there but so many of them fly below the radar.  I sometimes go hunting for new content sources but have not yet found a good referral system.  Most aggregators or referrals are all about mutual business relationships or click-bait or echo chambers.

[Happy Ent]

12 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Most aggregators or referrals are all about mutual business relationships or click-bait or echo chambers.

Amen, Iskaral. That is why this very site is good, in particular when it is heterodox. As for avoiding click-bait, check out these tips. #4 is so good it will blow your mind.

[A Prince of Dorne]

23 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

8 years probably. Obama was the answer to Bush, Trump is the answer to Obama. 

I think we are all over reacting. Any 'swing' will end up being relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Governments simply do not have the power to overturn most of the things they have set in place. Capitalism is its own beast and most governments are just tinkering with dials a little bit.

I think there are enough checks and balances in the system to mean that nobody strays too far out of line.

PS.. great thread btw.

I agree completely. And yes, great thread

[Jo498]

But how was Obama a wide swing to the left? Because of "affordable care"? Otherwise hardly, or what am I missing? Is not the frustration that Hope! Change! did not lead to a lot of change one probable reason that some put their hopes (against all hope) in Trump?

[Altherion]

14 hours ago, Jo498 said:

But how was Obama a wide swing to the left? Because of "affordable care"? Otherwise hardly, or what am I missing? Is not the frustration that Hope! Change! did not lead to a lot of change one probable reason that some put their hopes (against all hope) in Trump?

He was not. This is an interesting case where the propaganda machines of the Democratic and Republican parties converge on an incorrect fact for different reasons. The Republicans want to portray him as socialist. The Democrats want to show that he did not entirely go back on the Hope and Change promise and, assuming any of them are reading this thread, will undoubtedly link you a long list of his liberal accomplishments. The 2008 elections handed him FDR-like domination of the US government and I halfway hoped that his administration would be a sequel to FDR's, but of course it was nothing of the sort in a way that was absolutely obvious to nearly everyone (thus leading to the catastrophic defeat in the 2010 midterm elections).

In fact, this feature of minor differences between the major parties being marketed as much larger ones is not specific to the US. In the 2015 regional elections in France, the two largest parties openly collaborated in the second round to keep Le Pen & Co. out of power. And yes, the absence of any real, positive change for the majority of the population was indeed one of the drivers of the 2016 US election.

[Jo498]

Yes, this is a very common strategy and it is amazing that it works with only two parties. Probably because with only two parties each has to encompass a rather diverse bunch of policies.

In European countries, most of which have a broader range of parties it works somewhat differently but is also very effective. Unfortunately such shifts usually help the established/center right parties most of the time. Partly because (at least in Germany) almost everyone wants to appear centrist and never extremist and partly because of sectarian tendencies on the left. In Germany there have been two parties on the left of the centrist social democrats for more than 20 years now (the Greens since the early 1980s and and the Left since the 1990s) whereas only very recently a party on the populist right popped up. Because the conservatives always took pains to cater to the populist right potential as far as this was possible while remaining "mainstream conservative". And the social democrats were so eager to remain "centrist" that they preferred to help out the conservatives (Merkel) in goverment even when there theoretically would have been a leftist coalition possible. Of course, Germany is a somewhat special case because certain kinds of extremist rightists are obviously a no-go for historical reasons (nevertheless they exist unfortunately) and some of the left are also associated with the GDR socialism, so these are additional factors strengthening whatever counts as centrist.

And because the center has shifted in some respects. E.g. tax rates normal under the conservatives around 1990, then lowered by the "social democrats" in the late 1990s are now only suggested by the "far" left (that actually is only about as far left in most respects as 1970s social democrats were) but considered unthinkable in polite society. But because largely symbolic things that were way out of the Overton window in the 1980s like gay marriage are now to some extent accepted or proposed even by the centrist conservatives, the more traditionalist wings of the conservatives or the right populists can claim that mainstream conservatives are basically social democrats now. (Which is not wrong altogether but completely wrong in social/economic policy and only true insofar that the social democrats moved far the the right in economic policies.)

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

19 hours ago, Jo498 said:

But how was Obama a wide swing to the left? Because of "affordable care"? Otherwise hardly, or what am I missing? Is not the frustration that Hope! Change! did not lead to a lot of change one probable reason that some put their hopes (against all hope) in Trump?

I actually meant a 'perceived' swing to the left when he was voted in. He was the anti bush, bush was the anti clinton, Trump is the Anti Clinton as well. One group of people becomes unhappy with the way things are going and imagine a huge swing in another direction will fix things. 

Of course, as the above posts mention, nothing really changes. There is now an agreed way of running the country, most of the fiscal powers have been moved onto independent bodies and advisors who really only see one narrow range of options for setting up a country. All countries now are basically businesses , and are run as businesses. We talk about GDP and competing with other countries on matters of exports and imports. 

Here in the UK, up until Corbyn arrived there was no real perceived difference between the two major parties. Labour might be more interventionist and left wing, but when it comes to economics its basically doing the exact same things that the Tories are. 

I think its this lack of difference, that lack of power that gets the populace riled up and want to vote in a Trump, or for Brexit. Right now there is only one choice when it comes to how your country is run, what type of society you want to create. Its a capitalist free market society where big business runs the show, where wages are kept low to compete with other countries. There is no other option. Maybe due to the fall of the Berlin wall it was decided that the Wests way of doing things was the only correct option, and now everyone is too scared to move very far away from what we are already doing. 
 

[Kalbear]

14 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I actually meant a 'perceived' swing to the left when he was voted in. He was the anti bush, bush was the anti clinton, Trump is the Anti Clinton as well. One group of people becomes unhappy with the way things are going and imagine a huge swing in another direction will fix things. 

 

Bush wasn't the anti-Clinton. Not by a long shot. He ran on a domestic policy, compassionate conservativism and similar policy goals to Gore. It was only after 9/11 that we saw him being the anti-Clinton.

What's amusing to me is that despite the notions of Trump destroying the oligarchy and the status quo, instead what we're seeing is the most naked land grab for the rich and the oligarchs that we've ever witnessed. Trump is directly stating to businesses that you will get benefits if you're nice to me, or you'll pay dearly if you oppose me. Trump is directly hiring anyone who vows to support him. Trump is openly flaunting his conflicts of interests. And no one cares.

[DraculaAD1972]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Bush wasn't the anti-Clinton. Not by a long shot. He ran on a domestic policy, compassionate conservativism and similar policy goals to Gore. It was only after 9/11 that we saw him being the anti-Clinton.

What's amusing to me is that despite the notions of Trump destroying the oligarchy and the status quo, instead what we're seeing is the most naked land grab for the rich and the oligarchs that we've ever witnessed. Trump is directly stating to businesses that you will get benefits if you're nice to me, or you'll pay dearly if you oppose me. Trump is directly hiring anyone who vows to support him. Trump is openly flaunting his conflicts of interests. And no one cares.

Hiring loyalists and getting oligarchs to play nice is logical, Trump is trying to get the economy going. He vowed to fight the corruption of politics by lobbyists, not the corporations those lobbyists represent. He isn't at war with oligarchs, he's at war with the political class of oligarch puppets whose loyalty is to the oligarchs rather than the American people.

[Minstral]

23 minutes ago, DraculaAD1972 said:

Hiring loyalists and getting oligarchs to play nice is logical, Trump is trying to get the economy going. He vowed to fight the corruption of politics by lobbyists, not the corporations those lobbyists represent. He isn't at war with oligarchs, he's at war with the political class of oligarch puppets whose loyalty is to the oligarchs rather than the American people.

Hiring one proverbial elite over the other is just signifies that one one is out of favor, but the "oligarch" has seeming access to the reigns of power. Who needs to appeal to lower tier politicians when when you essentially sit the dog at the table to eat? The very fact that you suggest that it would be a good thing if they were part of a politicians inner circle is ignoring the fact this is very much establishing a true oligarchy, and in nature is a tremendously corrupt system.

Edit: Just to be clear, I am responding only to the logic that you are applying in your post.

[Kalbear]

Also, if your plan is to fight the corruption of lobbyists by instead simply cutting out the middle man and being directly corrupt, you've not really solved a whole lot. Well, I guess you personally get richer, but the system is not any less corrupt. 

[DraculaAD1972]

1 hour ago, Minstral said:

Hiring one proverbial elite over the other is just signifies that one one is out of favor, but the "oligarch" has seeming access to the reigns of power. Who needs to appeal to lower tier politicians when when you essentially sit the dog at the table to eat? The very fact that you suggest that it would be a good thing if they were part of a politicians inner circle is ignoring the fact this is very much establishing a true oligarchy, and in nature is a tremendously corrupt system.

Edit: Just to be clear, I am responding only to the logic that you are applying in your post.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's intent is to establish a new oligarchy... and keep control of its direction in the hope that he can achieve his main goal - to galvanize the economy in a way that creates more jobs and wealth for the nation (including the oligarchs) and stops the decline of the American worker.

Once America is great again, what is to stop the oligarchy re-introducing globalism and screwing over the workers once again? Trump wants to reduce the relationship between politics and lobbyist corruption.  If he did this we could see a future where nationalist leaders and compliant oligarchs rule over a productive and generally content population. 

Trump is an oligarch who has stepped up and siezed control of the corrupt political system, disgusted at the way puppet politicians have allowed the standards of society to decline and globalism to run roughshod over the average American worker. 

[Minstral]

4 minutes ago, DraculaAD1972 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump's intent is to establish a new oligarchy... and keep control of its direction in the hope that he can achieve his main goal - to galvanize the economy in a way that creates more jobs and wealth for the nation (including the oligarchs) and stops the decline of the American worker.

Once America is great again, what is to stop the oligarchy re-introducing globalism and screwing over the workers once again? Trump wants to reduce the relationship between politics and lobbyist corruption.  If he did this we could see a future where nationalist oligarchs rule over a productive and generally content population. 

Why would you think that the establishment of an oligarchy of any kind is good? They are a bane of democracies and workers which need only be viewed with their effects on the Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia in the 90's. The definition of oligarchy is that the only real power held in a state is by oligarchs. This is no proverbial swamp that you are proposing but an actual one; its the reign of big business being the only brokers of power in government. The same businesses that created the issue of less and less jobs in the US by shipping them to lower paid workers.

You assume the good intent of a system without recognizing the context only on the promise that Trump could keep its direction, assuming he is not inclined to undercut his vague promises in his campaign. The most you promise is four to eight years then, until it asserts itself at great cost. Thus America is still not great.

Seriously, "nationalist oligarch" ruling a "content population". The thing is that those lower tier politicians also have a number amongst them for fighting tooth an nail against corruption, and the others must address it the issue if it is brought to the public or they may lose their elected positions. You counter though that a removal of the "middle man" will result in assumed result of national oligarchs working for, and ruling,  the country. And don't tell me that you are not assuming.

40 minutes ago, DraculaAD1972 said:

Once America is great again, what is to stop the oligarchy re-introducing globalism and screwing over the workers once again? Trump wants to reduce the relationship between politics and lobbyist corruption.  If he did this we could see a future where nationalist oligarchs rule over a productive and generally content population. 

A vague idea that believes that stimulating an oligarchy is the answer to everyone's problems in society. It ignores the history self interest of such systems. When do oligarchs hold themselves to a standard other than self interest? The answer is that they typically, and almost certainly, don't. By definition, oligarchs subsume institutions and power for their exclusive interest, and it is not national.

[DraculaAD1972]

47 minutes ago, Minstral said:

Why would you think that the establishment of an oligarchy of any kind is good? They are a bane of democracies and workers which need only be viewed with their effects on the Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia in the 90's. The definition of oligarchy is that the only real power held in a state is by oligarchs. This is no proverbial swamp that you are proposing but an actual one; its the reign of big business being the only brokers of power in government. The same businesses that created the issue of less and less jobs in the US by shipping them to lower paid workers.

You assume the good intent of a system without recognizing the context only on the promise that Trump could keep its direction, assuming he is not inclined to undercut his vague promises in his campaign. The most you promise is four to eight years then, until it asserts itself at great cost. Thus America is still not great.

Seriously, "nationalist oligarch" ruling a "content population". The thing is that those lower tier politicians also have a number amongst them for fighting tooth an nail against corruption, and the others must address it the issue if it is brought to the public or they may lose their elected positions. You counter though that a removal of the "middle man" will result in assumed result of national oligarchs working for, and ruling,  the country. And don't tell me that you are not assuming.

A vague idea that believes that stimulating an oligarchy is the answer to everyone's problems in society. It ignores the history self interest of such systems. When do oligarchs hold themselves to a standard other than self interest? The answer is that they typically, and almost certainly, don't. By definition, oligarchs subsume institutions and power for their exclusive interest, and it is not national.

I should have said nationalist, elected leaders and compliant oligarchs rather than nationalist oligarchs.

Big business being the only brokers of power in government? That's the system Trump want to counter, the current globalist system of warmongering puppet politicians who promote the decline of America. 

 If Trump is successful, in 8 years or 12 years America will be rich enough to afford to elect the next Bernie Sanders - and finally have socialized healthcare. Trump's impact on politics could be a paradigm shift to nationalism against globalism on both sides of the political spectrum. After a successful Trump presidency, could a future presidential candidate seriously run with the tagline 'Globalism not Americanism'?  

[Werthead]

The average Chinese worker makes about 1/10th of the average American worker. So, even if Trump introduces his tariffs on Chinese goods, it'd still be massively cheaper to import goods from China than making the same goods at home. You also have economies of scale where China can produce a hell of a lot more of whatever you want because it has four times the population. That's not even considering the fact that China itself is offshoring jobs to factories in Vietnam and Africa, where the economics work even more in their favour.

It seems bizarre that so many people are expecting job growth to come through protectionism. That never really works and will have no impact on those jobs lost to mechanisation, computers and automation. Unless you send people with hammers round to every business in United States and take the Internet offline, you're not going to bring back the good old days. Those are dead, gone and buried forever. What communities really need to do is diversify their sources of income, get on board with growth industries (renewable energy is looking increasingly profitable, huge and, most notably, permanent) and stop pretending that the 1950s are going to roll back around again.

If you want to fight globalism, electing an arch-globalist who makes products in China and employs cheap immigrant labour, is really not an effective strategy.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

@DraculaAD1972 is evidence that Trump's followers will never turn on him, no matter what he does. They'll always be able to contort themselves into pretzels to convince themselves it's all part of his master plan.

[Iskaral Pust]

Amen, Werthead. 

I have some sympathy that conservative brains, having evolved over a very long period of relative stasis, long cycles and only slow change, are confronted with an exponential rate of change in recent generations.  But that doesn't mean they can wish it away. 

[maarsen]

11 hours ago, DraculaAD1972 said:

I should have said nationalist, elected leaders and compliant oligarchs rather than nationalist oligarchs.

Big business being the only brokers of power in government? That's the system Trump want to counter, the current globalist system of warmongering puppet politicians who promote the decline of America. 

 If Trump is successful, in 8 years or 12 years America will be rich enough to afford to elect the next Bernie Sanders - and finally have socialized healthcare. Trump's impact on politics could be a paradigm shift to nationalism against globalism on both sides of the political spectrum. After a successful Trump presidency, could a future presidential candidate seriously run with the tagline 'Globalism not Americanism'?  

Oligarchy has been around for a long time. The result is a disaster for those countries. Look at Latin America, Argentina in particular.  For a newer example look to Russia.  All great examples of how to run a country into the ground. 

I suspect it can only be worse when you have an incompetent oligarch in charge. History does not have many examples of the electorate choosing to go with the stupidest candidate.