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Higsian posted:Notice how centrists deride the rust belt for wanting jobs instead of welfare? I don't think centrists do this at all. Bill Clinton is the president who said that he wanted to "break the cycle of welfare dependency" and "end welfare as we know it," after all, and Bill Clinton is basically the poster child for Democratic centrism. The problem I have with this, and it definitely seems to be an issue that's dividing some of the left at the moment, is how do you actually help people who want jobs without it simply being a form of welfare? "Make more jobs" is not actually an actionable plan, because the government's ability to do that within a normal economic context is severely limited. The government can literally create jobs if it wants to, of course, but that doesn't really fulfill your criteria of empowering workers. If the work doesn't need to exist or if it's in some way being subsidized, then workers don't really have any power and are still effectively being given a handout in the form of employment. Like, what is the actual solution to the jobs problem? Because it comes up constantly and I haven't seen real answers from anywhere on the political spectrum.
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Dec 12, 2016 16:01
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Gio posted:With regards to the topic and related to what I've been saying-- Right, so how do you do this? Like, if those jobs literally don't exist or it's cheaper/more efficient to outsource or automate them then how do you create this sense of empowerment? If you're creating good jobs through subsidies or protectionism then you are for all intents and purposes pushing more power onto employers, who are now employing people only because they absolutely have to. You're just talking about a form of welfare where people are now reliant on government assistance for their continued employment status.
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Dec 12, 2016 19:47
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Gio posted:I honestly don't know. I know the problem but I can't pin a solution. For what it's worth, I think this is why you get so many people on the left saying that we need to make an active effort to change how we engage culturally with the concept of "work." The goal isn't to permanently place people on welfare so much as it is to separate a basic standard of living from employment. Not currently working? No problem, you don't have to be destitute while you look for a new job, go back to school, or otherwise figure out how you're going to deal with your situation, and ideally no one will be forcing you back into the labor force to keep your benefits. I think concepts like wage insurance are a good step in this direction too. Basically, the point of most strong forms of welfare (including things like UHC or a UBI) should be to put workers in a stronger bargaining position vs. their employers by allowing people to choose unemployment over a bad job. The fact that a strong safety net can help smooth over issues like automation is a bonus. In any case, I mostly brought it up because the welfare state is something that I've never seen associated with centrists before. Democratic centrists in the 90s and early 00s were actively trying to dismantle the welfare state and focused heavily on pushing people back into the labor force, which mostly just had the effect of pushing people off of welfare and onto SSI.
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Dec 12, 2016 23:34
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General Dog posted:There's a folly in expecting leftism to take hold in the US that's akin to those who think that democracy would take root in the Middle East if they just had the chance. It's not a lack education or opportunity- the people understand leftism, and largely they reject it. It's not our cup of tea. Ignoring the weird implication that there's something special about Middle Easterners that makes democracy just not work for them, you aren't even right. Americans support a wide range of policies, some of which are drastically farther to the left than mainstream political discourse. The problem is that the well has been poisoned so badly for certain terms that the support only really shows up in polls where you describe the actual policy rather than use terms like "socialized medicine" or "universal healthcare." There's also the problem with trying to gauge public reaction for political policies that haven't been seriously advocated for within the living memory of most voters. Republicans have largely controlled the narrative here, which in turns influences public opinion. Most Americans support voter ID laws which are almost always racist in intent, so should we just accept that Americans are racist and push for racist policies? Most Americans support drug testing for welfare recipients too, so should we accept the idea that Americans enjoy literally setting taxpayer dollars on fire? Point being, public opinion is not a static thing and democracy as practiced in the modern world is as much about molding the will of the electorate as it is about following it. FULL SOCIALISM NOW will never work, but you can absolutely push and enact leftist policy by selling it correctly.
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Dec 13, 2016 05:54
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