The slow revolt of Western electorates

[Altherion]

There has been a lot of doom and gloom in the past few days due to the turbulence associated with Brexit. I think that there is some validity to that, but people are missing the big picture and the fact that something wonderful has happened: the Western electorates (mostly, though not entirely, composed of the working and middle classes) are finally starting to revolt. This is not specific to the United Kingdom -- you can also see it in the current presidential campaign of the US and in the politics of quite a few European countries (France, Austria, Greece, etc.). Much of the media has portrayed this revolt as something revolting, but after Brexit, the idea that there is more to this than racism, xenophobia, etc. is finally getting through to them (see the links below this post).

The overall problem is actually simple enough to summarize in a few sentences and, at this point, is no longer controversial. In the past few decades, the ruling elites of Western nations have pursued a set of policies usually labeled neoliberalism. The exact meaning of the word is debated, but it is effectively capitalism run amok or, in the terminology preferred by its proponents, freed from the shackles of government. It includes increasing the porousness of national borders, possibly to the point of non-existence (I mean not merely immigration, but also free trade, outsourcing, etc.), eliminating all manner of government regulations, reducing government spending (sometimes called "austerity" and known not to apply to bailouts) and privatization of government resources. Much of this sounds reasonable (which is why they got away with it for so long), but the result of it has been that while on average, productivity increases (they're not lying about this, the overall economy really does benefit), the benefits are not evenly distributed.

In particular, the ruling class itself collects the lion's share, the immigrants and those to whom the work has been outsourced get a tiny amount (but this is large relative to what they had before so they're generally better off) and the working class of Western nations loses big time. The middle class of Western nations is split: those whose jobs are important to the ruling class and difficult to replace in an acceptable manner have done well, but the rest are going down. To prevent people from fighting against this outright, the dominant parties of the political system of every country were co-opted to promote it. The way it was done is actually quite clever: there is no single "Neoliberal Party" in any country. Instead, different parties support different elements of neoliberalism while being theoretically against the rest... but their support is much more effective than their opposition so the overall result is that it slowly moves forward. Of course, it didn't work equally well in every country -- some were taken over it almost entirely, others were highly resistant.

Today, with the vote for Brexit in the UK, the rise of Trump (and surprising success of Sanders) in the US, improvements in the standings of parties in many other countries the media labels "far left" or "far right" (e.g. FN in France), the people of Western nations are finally revolting against this arrangement. Of course, these are only the first attempts and they are very likely to be futile: the ruling class will almost certainly either weasel out of Brexit or negate its most important consequences via a new treaty, Trump will probably lose the US election (Sanders has already lost) and Le Pen is unlikely to become President of France. Furthermore, the current leaders of the revolt are themselves most definitely members of the ruling class -- they are almost certainly participating in it mostly because they seek to increase their own power. Finally, at the moment, there is no widespread agreement on what is to be done: people are united in their discontent, but divided in what they believe to be the main cause of the problem and thus also in the solution (the media has exploited this by focusing on the least politically correct...).

However, the fact that Trump got as far as he did and especially that the UK voted for Brexit are still very important signals that people have had enough. They are also remarkable for occurring without a crisis: some discontent is expected during economic troubles, but Brexit was like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. Some people over at the UK Politics thread are upset, but on the whole, this is definitely a positive development: the people have lost their fear. They are no longer afraid of claims that the economy will suffer and no longer shy away from people whom the media has labeled with its favorite pejorative terms. Here are some more links in case you'd like to read more about it:

Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept: remarkable for pointing out that the media itself is a substantial part of the problem and for calling out the idea of peace through neoliberalism for the lie that it is.

Salon: focusing on the economic problems.

The Atlantic: Brexit and Trump.

The Washington Post: mostly a defense of neoliberalism, but surprising nonetheless (especially given the newspaper) in that it acknowledges the problems.

[Werthead]

That's the problem of capitalsim as a whole. Also, whilst I agree that some people are voting for Trump on the basis that they perceive him as standing up for the little man that does not stand up to scrutiny. His hotels and casinos were built on cheap immigrant labour and many of them are still run with cheap, badly-paid staff. The consequence of Brexit is likely the removal of the regulations protecting employee's rights and the environment (the EU's adoption of such rules is a slight problem in your argument) and the adoption of TTIP, possibly the most ultimate expression of neoliberalism yet seeen, is far more likely for Britain out of the EU rather than in it.

Whilst neoliberalism is hugely problematic and needs to be replaced by some kind of fairer and more equal capitalist system (somehow), there is also the issue that advocating the break-up of the EU and the reduction of such forces in countries like the United States could leave them economically vulnerable to competition from other countries. The EU, with its 500 million people, can negotiate with other countries (such as the US and China) from a position of strength. In the case of a country like Russia, from a position of utterly overwhelming strength which collapses as soon as it starts having to deal with small European states on a one-on-one basis.

The EU maintaining its cohesion whilst abandoning more neo-liberal policies (some of them introduced to Europe by, er, the UK) and moving to a fairer model is certainly something I would support. Ironically, I wonder if Britain's exit makes it more likely that the rest of the EU will start moving away from neoliberalism whilst it engulfs Britain much more completely than it otherwise would have done.

[Iskaral Pust]

I agree that electorates are revolting against neoliberalism, but I think you over-estimate shrinking govt as a source, at least in the US, which contributes to their anger -- you want to solve their problem with what you want, not what they want.   Trump supporters are not asking for more govt bureaucracy for elites to direct their lives.  They want to work and feel in control of their lives, not receive handouts.

Immigration is the touchstone but they seem to be angry about a new economic and social order that weakens their position: economically, globalization or porous borders for people, trade and capital means we are importing low wages from the third world; socially, multiculturalism or "political correctness" cries racism at the rejection of non-assimilated immigrant and minority groups, who appear to coast on govt benefits and affirmative action and cause many social problems while the established middle class "follow the rules" without reward.  This fear of being undermined manifests in many ways, including gun ownership (restores a feeling of power), tribalism and nativism, suspicion of the motives of elites, etc. 

I agree that these people are demanding change, but can they have what they want?  We certainly can step back from globalization: reduce immigration, restrict trade and capital, disallow off-shoring.  That will fix some of the problem and help wages.  It does so at the expense of some economic slowdown and reduction in profits, but mostly at the expense of the third world, which is the whole point: their lift out of poverty comes at the expense and global equalization of the first world middle class.  The global economic pie is expanding but the relative standing of the developed world middle class is declining.  So they want a moat around their relative prosperity and to hell with peasants in India and China and elsewhere.  But there is a big problem they cannot fix: increasing complexity.  Technology replaces simple jobs and makes complex jobs more productive.  This pushes wages toward complex jobs (educated poindexters) and takes it away from blue collar men (manly guys at a plant/mill/mine), simultaneously threatening some longstanding notions of masculinity: the family provider and the value of physical toughness.  That will be harder to fix.  Union bargaining could increase those blue collar wages but would reduce the number of those jobs -- the higher the wages, the quicker they are replaced by machines.  

So we're back to Luddites breaking machines out of fear.  The answer to that has always been a social safety net and education for the displaced workers.  So expanded govt is a temporary bridge over the difficult transition, but not a permanent economic dependency or centralization of power and wealth for more elite parasites to glom onto.  Trump supporters mistrust that, but that's where both sides need to connect.  You cannot just shout at the tide. 

[Cato.the.Elder]

We have seen this before. Huge economical crisis, and people resorting to totalitarian parties to save them for poverty, and selecting some group as the guilty of tall heir problems (the last time it was the Jews, now are emigrants and Brussels)

Farage, LePen or Trump are not champions of the people againts neliberalism, but just the plain old fascism returning from the grave. And no, Brexit is not a positive development, but a worrisome sign of what it is to come.

[HobbsTuna]

41 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The overall problem is actually simple enough to summarize in a few sentences and, at this point, is no longer controversial. In the past few decades, the ruling elites of Western nations have pursued a set of policies usually labeled neoliberalism. The exact meaning of the word is debated, but it is effectively capitalism run amok or, in the terminology preferred by its proponents, freed from the shackles of government. It includes increasing the porousness of national borders, possibly to the point of non-existence (I mean not merely immigration, but also free trade, outsourcing, etc.), eliminating all manner of government regulations, reducing government spending (sometimes called "austerity" and known not to apply to bailouts) and privatization of government resources. Much of this sounds reasonable (which is why they got away with it for so long), but the result of it has been that while on average, productivity increases (they're not lying about this, the overall economy really does benefit), the benefits are not evenly distributed.

In particular, the ruling class itself collects the lion's share, the immigrants and those to whom the work has been outsourced get a tiny amount (but this is large relative to what they had before so they're generally better off) and the working class of Western nations loses big time. The middle class of Western nations is split: those whose jobs are important to the ruling class and difficult to replace in an acceptable manner have done well, but the rest are going down. To prevent people from fighting against this outright, the dominant parties of the political system of every country were co-opted to promote it. The way it was done is actually quite clever: there is no single "Neoliberal Party" in any country. Instead, different parties support different elements of neoliberalism while being theoretically against the rest... but their support is much more effective than their opposition so the overall result is that it slowly moves forward. Of course, it didn't work equally well in every country -- some were taken over it almost entirely, others were highly resistant.

Up till here, I find no fault with your analysis, although I think you skip to quickly over the "How this sad state of affairs came to be.", which I think is important to understand if you want to fight this cancer in the future.

2 Points spring to mind:

1. Globalization

It's my opinion that Neoliberalism is so destructive and hard to resist because there is a fundamental size difference between the opponents: The state actor, which at least in theory is supposed to maximize the common good for all citizens and the market actors, which at least as a theoretical ideal are omniscient psychopaths. (Clearly this model is lacking in nuance, still, here we are.)

Originally you had large market actors doing essentially whatever the fuck they wanted with smaller market actors, limited only by their innate sense of fairness. Predictably that didn't go very well for the vast majority of people, until they achieved enough influence  in the governing bodies of their states (usually by using some kind parliament) to protect their interests.

Traditionally then the state actors set the rules and the market actors comply, mostly because they have no other choice. This allowed the state to direct and limit destructive market behavior and coupled with a election feedback this worked reasonably well for about 30 years. 

This is no longer working as the size of the market has expanded but the size of the regulating, moderating agencies have not. If a state does not comply with the neo-liberal dogma, first it hears cries for reform. "We must be more like the Tiger-States, China, Britain, (insert fashionable country)". Then investment money is starting to leave like water from a sieve. "Yes, of course you treat your workers better here, but over there I get 2.5 % more annually on my investment." This is only limited by the barriers between economies and these continue to decrease. Then unemployment, cries of their-growth-is-sooo-much-higher than ours, election and reform to something neo-liberal. Market-compliant democracy is what they call at home. 

The only way, that I can think of to fight this, is acquiring a large enough part of the market share, that internationally mobile companies and investment entities can no longer easily ignore you. 100 % is no longer possible until we reach the world government but 35 % might be enough. Demand minimum wages and social standards even in foreign locations, demand further compliance with unannounced inspections and open books, also do something about the tax avoidance. Punish non-compliance with high-tariffs and market expulsions. If you don't play by my rules, you are not playing in my sandbox. I hope that, if your share of the sandbox is large enough, the vultures will not be able to ignore you. Mostly I'm relying on Chinese data, here. It's an open secret that Chinese companies have been, err, appropriating intellectual property from western partner firms for years, this hasn't stopped anyone from investing there.

It's the only solution, I can think of, unless you want to cut yourself of entirely from the world markets. Also the reason I originally supported the EU.

Now there are a few polities of sufficient size and market share, for which my previous assertion does not necessarily hold true, but China is still in the stage where it mostly profits from this stage of affairs and the US seems to have a deeply set contempt for it's own poor and working class bred deep into it's political DNA. Helping certain subsets of this, which might even be overrepresented in the low income brackets seems to be ok (women, various minorities) , but polities actually tailored to help the poor, by using it's defining moment aka being poor, seems political suicide. 

2. Death of a believable Countermodel and the threat it implied

A large part of the success of the Social Democratic Movement was always that they were the more reasonable alternative to communism. If you are on of the movers and shakers, giving the dirty plebs a living wage and foregoing that 2nd yacht you earned might turn your stomach, but probably not as much as being dragged from your villa and being hung from the next lamp post. 

As long as the UDSSR was around there was a powerful actor, who might support your malcontents in doing exactly that, if you accumulated enough of them. Fear focuses the mind beautifully. I don't think it's an accident that neo-liberalism really took of around the time the UDSSR was collapsing. 

 

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Today, with the vote for Brexit in the UK, the rise of Trump (and surprising success of Sanders) in the US, improvements in the standings of parties in many other countries the media labels "far left" or "far right" (e.g. FN in France), the people of Western nations are finally revolting against this arrangement. Of course, these are only the first attempts and they are very likely to be futile: the ruling class will almost certainly either weasel out of Brexit or negate its most important consequences via a new treaty, Trump will probably lose the US election (Sanders has already lost) and Le Pen is unlikely to become President of France. Furthermore, the current leaders of the revolt are themselves most definitely members of the ruling class -- they are almost certainly participating in it mostly because they seek to increase their own power. Finally, at the moment, there is no widespread agreement on what is to be done: people are united in their discontent, but divided in what they believe to be the main cause of the problem and thus also in the solution (the media has exploited this by focusing on the least politically correct...).

However, the fact that Trump got as far as he did and especially that the UK voted for Brexit are still very important signals that people have had enough. They are also remarkable for occurring without a crisis: some discontent is expected during economic troubles, but Brexit was like a lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky. Some people over at the UK Politics thread are upset, but on the whole, this is definitely a positive development: the people have lost their fear. They are no longer afraid of claims that the economy will suffer and no longer shy away from people whom the media has labeled with its favorite pejorative terms. Here are some more links in case you'd like to read more about it:

Well I would be much happier, if they were voting for actual reformists. I could get behind Corbin or Sanders. Why you seem to think that Trump or Le Pen are steps in the right direction, is a bit doubtful to me. 

A system under great excitation is likely to produce ever larger oscillations until it settles into a new equilibrium. These can go in any direction and are not necessarily a good thing. 

 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

Some bonus links to supplement yours, Altherion. 

The Guardian: Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems
The problems of neoliberalism and the failures of the Left, both in embracing neoliberalism and in proposing a viable alternative. 

NY Times (Upshot): Right-Wing Populism Is Prevailing in Left-Wing Strongholds Around the World
The winners and losers of globalization, rural vs. urban, etc. 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

That's the problem of capitalsim as a whole. Also, whilst I agree that some people are voting for Trump on the basis that they perceive him as standing up for the little man that does not stand up to scrutiny. His hotels and casinos were built on cheap immigrant labour and many of them are still run with cheap, badly-paid staff. The consequence of Brexit is likely the removal of the regulations protecting employee's rights and the environment (the EU's adoption of such rules is a slight problem in your argument) and the adoption of TTIP, possibly the most ultimate expression of neoliberalism yet seeen, is far more likely for Britain out of the EU rather than in it.

Right. As I said, the leaders of the revolt (including Trump) are currently much less than ideal and the solutions are just as likely to make things worse as they are to make things better. However, this is still superior to the situation where people meekly accepted the status quo -- it's not possible to succeed if one doesn't try.

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Whilst neoliberalism is hugely problematic and needs to be replaced by some kind of fairer and more equal capitalist system (somehow), there is also the issue that advocating the break-up of the EU and the reduction of such forces in countries like the United States could leave them economically vulnerable to competition from other countries. The EU, with its 500 million people, can negotiate with other countries (such as the US and China) from a position of strength. In the case of a country like Russia, from a position of utterly overwhelming strength which collapses as soon as it starts having to deal with small European states on a one-on-one basis.

This kind of statement is almost always from the perspective of the ruling class. It's not obvious that your negotiation from a position of strength is beneficial to the working class.

Quote

The EU maintaining its cohesion whilst abandoning more neo-liberal policies (some of them introduced to Europe by, er, the UK) and moving to a fairer model is certainly something I would support. Ironically, I wonder if Britain's exit makes it more likely that the rest of the EU will start moving away from neoliberalism whilst it engulfs Britain much more completely than it otherwise would have done.

It could be, but I doubt it. Britain is certainly more neoliberal than most EU countries, but the rest of them are not going to give up on neoliberalism without a fight, Britain or no Britain.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

1 hour ago, Immobile Buffon said:

But there is a big problem they cannot fix: increasing complexity.  Technology replaces simple jobs and makes complex jobs more productive.  This pushes wages toward complex jobs (educated poindexters) and takes it away from blue collar men (manly guys at a plant/mill/mine), simultaneously threatening some longstanding notions of masculinity: the family provider and the value of physical toughness.  That will be harder to fix.  Union bargaining could increase those blue collar wages but would reduce the number of those jobs -- the higher the wages, the quicker they are replaced by machines.  

So we're back to Luddites breaking machines out of fear.  The answer to that has always been a social safety net and education for the displaced workers.  So expanded govt is a temporary bridge over the difficult transition, but not a permanent economic dependency or centralization of power and wealth for more elite parasites to glom onto.  Trump supporters mistrust that, but that's where both sides need to connect.  You cannot just shout at the tide. 

There's another issue, I think: complex, professional office jobs are more difficult to unionize.

One of the issues is Goodhart's Law. Any measure of performance, when it becomes a target, ceases to be a good measures of performance. For any professional job, you can come up with a bunch of objective measures of performance (e.g. lines of code written, hours billed) but they're all rather easily gamed or organically inapplicable in a variety of situations. So with all these measures in hand, it still comes down to managers to make subjective assessments of how well employees are doing.

Where this runs into problems with unions is that unions, at least in America, tend to oppose subjective assessments by management, often for good reasons. But this can create a bit of a mess with office jobs.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Immobile Buffon said:

I agree that electorates are revolting against neoliberalism, but I think you over-estimate shrinking govt as a source, at least in the US, which contributes to their anger -- you want to solve their problem with what you want, not what they want.   Trump supporters are not asking for more govt bureaucracy for elites to direct their lives.  They want to work and feel in control of their lives, not receive handouts.

I agree with you, but I did not say that anyone is angry over the shrinking of government: I simply said that the neoliberals would like to shrink at least the aspects of it that hinder them.

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So we're back to Luddites breaking machines out of fear.  The answer to that has always been a social safety net and education for the displaced workers.  So expanded govt is a temporary bridge over the difficult transition, but not a permanent economic dependency or centralization of power and wealth for more elite parasites to glom onto.  Trump supporters mistrust that, but that's where both sides need to connect.  You cannot just shout at the tide.

Automation is certainly also contributing to the problem and I am fairly confident that it will become dominant in the long run. However, I disagree with you about the solution. The issue is not that people need to be re-educated, it's that there simply won't be enough decent jobs left. The Luddites were wrong in that the machines they were fighting against created more jobs than they destroyed. This has been true up until roughly the beginning of this millennium, but it cannot stay true forever: modern machines are already smarter, more robust and capable of limited self-diagnosis and self-repair.

In the end, the solution to the challenge presented by automation will probably be implemented earlier as a result dealing with current problems. After all, the issue is exactly the same as with immigration and outsourcing: the machines are making us more productive; the problem is that the ruling class pockets practically all of the benefits.

1 hour ago, Cato.the.Elder said:

We have seen this before. Huge economical crisis, and people resorting to totalitarian parties to save them for poverty, and selecting some group as the guilty of tall heir problems (the last time it was the Jews, now are emigrants and Brussels)

But that's just the thing: there is no crisis. Yes, we did have a severe recession, but it ended several years ago. By most economic measures, the economy is doing great. It's not going to get better than this. In fact, we were due for a recession soon even without any economic shock.

Quote

Farage, LePen or Trump are not champions of the people againts neliberalism, but just the plain old fascism returning from the grave. And no, Brexit is not a positive development, but a worrisome sign of what it is to come.

It's not fascism, it's mostly nationalism and nativism with perhaps a touch of racism (the words do actually mean something, even though the media keeps throwing them around interchangeably as pejoratives). Regardless, I agree with you that this is probably not the way to go, but it's not very important -- the important thing is that people are angry enough to effect change. If it doesn't work out, they'll keep doing it until something works.

[Cato.the.Elder]

13 minutes ago, Altherion said:

But that's just the thing: there is no crisis. Yes, we did have a severe recession, but it ended several years ago. By most economic measures, the economy is doing great. It's not going to get better than this. In fact, we were due for a recession soon even without any economic shock.

Macroeconomics has improved, but the recession ended with a more desigual distribution of society. Middle class is almost no longer a thing in many countries, mostly with younger people (who are the ones more in opposition of the extreme right).

 

13 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's not fascism, it's mostly nationalism and nativism with perhaps a touch of racism (the words do actually mean something, even though the media keeps throwing them around interchangeably as pejoratives). Regardless, I agree with you that this is probably not the way to go, but it's not very important -- the important thing is that people are angry enough to effect change. If it doesn't work out, they'll keep doing it until something works.

They defend an authoritarian state (even if they say to be democrats), are racist, despise elites and intellectuals, defend the supremacy of their culture, militarism, and a over-protectionism capitalism. Every single characteristic of the interbellum fascist parties is present here. They are fascist. It´s just difficult to say this because "fascist" has become more just a despective word empty of their real meaning, but for once it is the proper word here.

 

 

 

[Jo498]

Historically, it seems almost as if the 30-40 years between ca. 1950 and 1990 with both a comparably equal distribution of wealth (in the developed world) and (often strongly) growing economies were the exception. But as most of the people living and voting now grew up in these years (or the younger ones at the tail end) we took it as normal. And of course we were told during the last 25 years that it would keep going on like in those earlier years (because computers became cheaper and clothing as well because it is produced in 3rd world sweatshops).

The question is of course what was the reason for the exceptional period and how and why did it end.

Automatization cannot be the main cause because this has been with us for 100 years or more.

Globalization is a factor but this was not merely destiny but could and was governed by decisions of politicians. What's more, workers for Volkswagen in Germany still earn very well but hairdressers don't, although nobody is ever going to fly to China to get their hair cut. It's not that simple. Today the workers in the fields that are the most advanced in automation usually earn best (which makes some sense because automation increases worker productivity).

Both are often a pretext. In the end I think it was power, threats and (usually hidden and indirect) corruption. Why are top executives earning so much more than 30 or 50 years ago? They are not doing better jobs, they are not rare etc. (In Germany which was a little behind here for some time they argued that top CEOs would otherwise leave the country and work in the US instead. I don't think anyone ever left, or if any, the numbers were absolutely negligible).

Overall, if wealth had to be distributed to China and other emerging economies by globalization, there could have been political measures to avoid that only certain workers in the West had to bear the brunt while the fruits were reaped by the 1% or 10% (all of them also taxed far less than in the decades between 1950 and 1990).

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

One reason for more CEO pay is obviously taxes. Lower taxes on the biggests earners leads to higher pay for executives. Another is different tax codes started discouraging companies from giving out tons of perks (which I guess didn't used to be classified as another form of income), and instead just give what those perks cost to the execs directly.

Pay is also more likely to come in the form of stock options, which increase pay due to the way the stock market's been moving.

Also, paradoxically, public disclosure of CEO pay ratchets up the salaries of CEOs. No company wants to publicly announce that they're going to pay their newly hired CEO less than average.

CEOs are also more likely to be hired from outside rather than promoted from within.

And finally, there's probably some sort of incestous relationship between CEOs and board members. The board members on one company might be CEOs in another, so there's some back scratching going on there, probably.

[Jace, Extat]

Atherton, I don't mean to distract from a fairly good thread but I have to ask about the ' ruling elite'. You mention them a lot but who are they really? 

It's easy to criticise something so abstract but without actual persons towards which to direct all of this anger I do not expect this great revolution to end with anything more socially productive than a backlash against percieved intellectuals and whomever error can be called an ' outsider'

[Altherion]

4 hours ago, HobbsTuna said:

Up till here, I find no fault with your analysis, although I think you skip to quickly over the "How this sad state of affairs came to be.", which I think is important to understand if you want to fight this cancer in the future.

I thought about doing this, but that post was already getting so long that many people simply wouldn't bother reading it.

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The only way, that I can think of to fight this, is acquiring a large enough part of the market share, that internationally mobile companies and investment entities can no longer easily ignore you. 100 % is no longer possible until we reach the world government but 35 % might be enough. Demand minimum wages and social standards even in foreign locations, demand further compliance with unannounced inspections and open books, also do something about the tax avoidance. Punish non-compliance with high-tariffs and market expulsions. If you don't play by my rules, you are not playing in my sandbox. I hope that, if your share of the sandbox is large enough, the vultures will not be able to ignore you. Mostly I'm relying on Chinese data, here. It's an open secret that Chinese companies have been, err, appropriating intellectual property from western partner firms for years, this hasn't stopped anyone from investing there.

Believe it or not, we partially tried this in a limited context. At different points in time, Apple and various high-end clothing manufacturers came under severe pressure not from the government, but from the more socially conscious of their customers. They agreed that they would treat their employees well even in foreign countries. Today, the vast majority of the people who manufacturer their products overseas are not actually their employees. In fact, they are not even the employees of the company they partner with in a given country. They are employees of a subcontractor, possibly multiple layers down. Basically, enforcing such a thing is really difficult.

It also falls prey to the various problems that plague our own country. You would need a government that would continuously uphold these rules despite constant and powerful corporate pressure against them. Another problem of this sort is regulatory capture (i.e. when the people enforcing the regulation are overly friendly with the industries they are regulating). It's not impossible to overcome all of this, but as the anger quieted, I suspect that the corporations would slowly capture the government of your mega-polity.

Quote

2. Death of a believable Countermodel and the threat it implied

A large part of the success of the Social Democratic Movement was always that they were the more reasonable alternative to communism. If you are on of the movers and shakers, giving the dirty plebs a living wage and foregoing that 2nd yacht you earned might turn your stomach, but probably not as much as being dragged from your villa and being hung from the next lamp post. 

As long as the UDSSR was around there was a powerful actor, who might support your malcontents in doing exactly that, if you accumulated enough of them. Fear focuses the mind beautifully. I don't think it's an accident that neo-liberalism really took of around the time the UDSSR was collapsing. 

 

Yes, this is definitely one of the reasons. As the Guardian article linked by Matrim Fox Cauthon concludes, we are in dire need of a viable alternative.

Quote

 

Well I would be much happier, if they were voting for actual reformists. I could get behind Corbin or Sanders. Why you seem to think that Trump or Le Pen are steps in the right direction, is a bit doubtful to me. 

A system under great excitation is likely to produce ever larger oscillations until it settles into a new equilibrium. These can go in any direction and are not necessarily a good thing. 

 

I'm not sure that they're steps in the right direction (mostly because I have no idea what they actually plan to do). To be honest, even Sanders is probably not a step in the right direction. In fact, I'm not sure which way the right direction would be -- if we knew that, we'd probably go there. However, all of them are valuable because they are disrupting the status quo which is a necessary prerequisite for going in any direction (even if there are risks associated with their actions).

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Jo498 said:

The question is of course what was the reason for the exceptional period and how and why did it end.

Part of it was the end of the Soviet Union and its promise of an alternative (yes, China is still communist, but it's not the same). Part of it was simply that big business slowly infiltrated government. And part was simply because the people who had personally witnessed the Great Depression and the turmoil of the 1930's left the field.

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Atherton, I don't mean to distract from a fairly good thread but I have to ask about the ' ruling elite'. You mention them a lot but who are they really?

That's a good question that probably has different answers depending on whom you ask. When I say it, I mean government leaders as well as leaders and largest shareholders of major (usually transnational) corporations. There is considerable overlap between all of these categories. By "government leaders", I mean not just presidents and prime ministers, but also the more powerful cabinet members, governors of important states/provinces/etc., mayors of the mega-cities, the more powerful legislative, judicial, military and bureaucratic officials and so on. Every once in a while, a member of academia or the media is so influential upon some of these groups that he or she can also be considered part of the class. The Bilderberg Group is a fairly decent cross section of the ruling elite of Western countries, although there are obviously many more of them than that.

[maarsen]

Neoliberalism makes such a good soundbite especially when it is spoken slowly. Too bad there is no real definition of what exactly it means.  Big government,  small government,  everything fits under the catchphrase.  Any system of governance can be gamed.  Those with money have more opportunities to do so. The world is changing so much so fast that anyone older than me has gone from the equivalent of the Neolithic to the nuclear age in a lifetime.  

A computer, when I was young, cost the equivalent  of the GPD of a small nation back in the1950's. A cheap cell phone has more computing power  than NASA had back then. All this change is hard to take, especially when it results in  you losing your job. Who wouldn't want to go back to a simpler time when you actually knew  the answers  to questions.  

There are those that have an understanding  of the world and they take advantage  of those who do not by gaming  the system . Less  government  in your life will do little to help those that need it most.  What you need is people  who can game the system to help those that need help the most.  Right now as a local union exec,  I think I have found my calling in doing just  that. I do not do it for money as I get paid the same whether I work for the employer or the union. 

 

[Clueless Northman]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

The EU, with its 500 million people, can negotiate with other countries (such as the US and China) from a position of strength. In the case of a country like Russia, from a position of utterly overwhelming strength which collapses as soon as it starts having to deal with small European states on a one-on-one basis.

That's good for EU obviously, and its members. On the other hand, if you're a small country having to negotiate with the EU, it's just as bad as negotiating with the US. EU doesn't give a damn about your 3rd world shithole and just wants to exploit it. There really should be internal guidelines in how ruthless to be in making deals; when it's with big powers, say China, EU, Russia or Japan, no quarters; the farther down the food-chain you go, the more lenient you should be.

 

6 hours ago, Cato.the.Elder said:

They defend an authoritarian state (even if they say to be democrats), are racist, despise elites and intellectuals, defend the supremacy of their culture, militarism, and a over-protectionism capitalism. Every single characteristic of the interbellum fascist parties is present here. They are fascist. It´s just difficult to say this because "fascist" has become more just a despective word empty of their real meaning, but for once it is the proper word here.

Well, then, be ready for having a large part of Western lower and middle classes considering that fascism is better than laissez-faire capitalism in the near future. Can't tell if they'd be correct or not, though considering how utterly despicable current and 19th century capitalism is, that's probably a tie.

 

8 hours ago, HobbsTuna said:

Well I would be much happier, if they were voting for actual reformists. I could get behind Corbin or Sanders. Why you seem to think that Trump or Le Pen are steps in the right direction, is a bit doubtful to me. 

It's not that they're voting for the right people, it's that it's a clear sign they're totally fed up with neo-liberalism and are ready to try any vaguely coherent alternative.

It means that if the Left managed to get its head out of its sorry ass, it could have a real influence on how things work. But for that, it first would have to go back to put the economics and its reform as the first priority and the main point of debate in political projects.

 

5 hours ago, Jo498 said:

The question is of course what was the reason for the exceptional period and how and why did it end.

As implied above, the upper class couldn't get away with cutthroat economy because it would mean workers' revolt and pushing them towards Moscow. They actually feared USSR and communism and had to placate the bulk of the people by giving them a fairer deal than usual. This stopped mostly after 1991, and things have been going downhill since then in the Western world.

 

31 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Neoliberalism makes such a good soundbite especially when it is spoken slowly. Too bad there is no real definition of what exactly it means.  Big government,  small government,  everything fits under the catchphrase.

If I was in a trolling mood, I would say that, apart from reading Hayek, Friedman or Mises, or lisetning to Thatcher and Reagan, the 4 Freedoms put aheady by the European Union are a good hint - I mean, just compare them to what the core rights and freedoms have been for the last centuries in charters and declarations of human rights, and you can clearly see how they barely overlap.

[Iskaral Pust]

5 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Atherton, I don't mean to distract from a fairly good thread but I have to ask about the ' ruling elite'. You mention them a lot but who are they really? 

I've made a similar point in the past that there is no evil cartel who meet up to decide how to rule the world for their own gain.  BUT I'm going to be provocative and say if your income exceeds $100k (arbitrary threshold), then you are part of the "ruling elite", however small and/or unintentional your part.  It does not require conscious intent.  You are at the powerful end of the system, your participation enables it, and consciously or unconsciously you try to preserve or grow your stake in it and pass it on to your kids.  It's a less formal version of an aristocracy.  This system suits you more than most others.  You didn't design it that way but you are helping it to be. 

And I think this is important because it means lots of us have to acknowledge that I am a (small) part of the "ruling elite" from the perspective of everyone outside it, and probably all of the others in the "ruling elite" (even much bigger parts of it) also thought that they were just living their lives as best they could and not harming anyone.

That doesn't mean this group is inherently evil or even doing anything wrong, but it makes them tangible and numerous.  Not some shadowy "them" or "those guys". 

[Kalbear]

16 minutes ago, Immobile Buffon said:

That doesn't mean this group is inherently evil or even doing anything wrong, but it makes them tangible and numerous.  Not some shadowy "them" or "those guys". 

IT WAS ME ALL ALONG

AND YOU'VE DANCED TO MY PUPPET STRINGS ALL THIS TIME

OS WAS RIGHT TO CALL ME A LYING LIAR WHO LIES

[The Anti-Targ]

Aye?

Brexit may have been voted for by people who are suffering from the downside of neoliberalism, but their vote is not one that will have any effect on the UK's neoliberal direction. So Brexit is meaningless in terms of any sort of revolt against neoliberalism, even if it's an expression of dissatisfaction with it.

And if anyone thinks trump is going to overturn neoliberalism they are completely deluded. Trump might say he is against globalisation and outsourcing. But the financial muscle behind the Republican party will never let Trump's public statements about globalisation ever become government policy. And IMO Trump is straight up lying.