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Neeksy posted:Obama just got slammed! Lol, but do you really think that's true of him? I'm sure he's said it, but presidents say a lot of things, and he had to take unusual care not to seem "militant"
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Jan 19, 2017 08:42
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Yeah let me walk back my talk about what liberal means a bit, and Tiny Brontosaurus sorry but I'm doing this so it's easier (for me) to talk about what "liberals" are going to do. A lot of people on the right pretty much lump "everyone to the left of John McCain" into the "liberal" bucket and if this thread is supposed to be about what these people are going to do collectively, then I think we need two threads because I don't believe liberal, as defined by your typical idiot Republican anyway, can continue to exist as a unified bloc for much longer. Democratic socialists, Marxists, Leninists, basically whatever other "not-capitalist" label you want to throw out, and perhaps also those at the left edge of what can still be considered capitalism (Nordic model, social democratic types, basically) are either going to be running the Democratic party soon or they aren't going to identify as Democrats or vote for Democrats. I don't think there is much room for compromise because they think they've been compromising all along anyhow, in the interest of winning elections, and welp. As such, they're a lot harder to appease than the other group, which is: People who are actually just a little bit to the left of John McCain. I don't know what these people are going to do. Continue to run the Democratic party into the ground, most likely, and since that's about all they're going to be able to achieve I think there is not much else to discuss there. I do think, all else being equal, it would be easier for leftists to get these people to go along with what they want than the other way around, but on the other hand they are entrenched in the party and in all the support organs that surround it, and somehow they continue to perceive, despite November 2016, any strong reasons to appease the left. So all else is not actually equal, and we're stuck with a left that doesn't want to budge (and good for them, IMO) and a center that seems to think "the left" consists of one old dude from Vermont and a handful of schoolkids. Is there any way forward from that which doesn't involve one side browbeating the other into compliance?
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Jan 19, 2017 08:44
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I legit think this is interesting but speculation about alternatives to/modifications of capitalism definitely deserves its own thread. I'd read it! Yeah, was just trying to separate out liberalism and capitalism. I think an important thing to keep in mind is that a system will naturally accumulate leaders and power brokers that like the system, because if they didn't it would have changed, and then kept on changing until it reached a point where enough of the powers that be wanted to maintain the system. Basically every system settles into an equilibrium where it will take force to change it from that state. I think any approach that wants to change things needs to assume it will have to overthrow or heavily pressure the establishment, you're just not going to get anything done if the people up top have their way. They might say they want change, but they basically can't mean it or the system wouldn't be what it is. That's in addition to people generally helping people they agree with and funding sources being easier to get from people who benefit from the current system, etc. Basically you have to assume near everybody with power doesn't want to change anything meaningfully.
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Jan 19, 2017 08:45
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Kilroy posted:Is there any way forward from that which doesn't involve one side browbeating the other into compliance? Yes, but it's essentially breaking both the major parties (which is very necessary at this point anyway). The centrist and leftist Dems could go their separate ways, and the business conservatives could divest themselves of the homophobic and racist 'moral majority' types who will never be satisfied by any candidate that doesn't profess to hate as hard as they do. Unless Trump fucks up so hard as to get us near to a shooting civil war I don't think it'll happen, though.
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Jan 19, 2017 09:04
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In terms of how liberalism will move forward, I'd bet the short term (2-4 years) future is bright. It's easy to see the fracturing of social liberalism with those fighting for liberal ideals grouping and ungrouping, trying to out 'left' the other and the perception of 'identity politics' policing itself to death. Voter turnout among democrats was lower, signaling a lack of interest in either the party or the process. To me, this is the response to a progressive president and the perceived power he holds, politically and culturally as well as to the achievements of social liberal ideals in the past eight years. The popular vote and most reliable polls will show the U.S. is a majority left-leaning country. There is a traceable history of more social equality and progress. For example in 2009 54% of Americans opposed same-sex marriage while 37% favored it, recent polls show it's the opposite with 55% supporting and 37% opposing. 20 years ago you could say you absolutely thought marriage should be between a man and a woman, and in the same breath say you were a democrat and it would seem completely reasonable. With the progress made there are those that say it's not enough, find other inequalities to fight for and move further to the left. They will bring others with them, and it could be a natural step that society will make in time, but for many more it could be too much too soon. Those in the 55% that support marriage equality may not overlap enough with the 45% supporting the ACA today but could in 2018. This occurs on the conservative side too, pro-life doesn't always translate to a ban on Muslim immigration, etc. The difference is that conservatives, nationalists, fascists, or any other enemy of liberalism can unite under one commonality. They do not have the status quo. Whatever perception of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Obama etc. people have, underlying it all is that they are liberal democrats and they have controlled the presidency for eight years. The goal of a conservative then is to bring about 'change', to end what they perceive is liberal control. In tandem, the anti-establishment crowd can rally behind any outsider that can convey a voice that opposes the political class. The perceived lack of power or control is a great motivator for voters. It gets people to vote because they can see it as a symbol of protest to the current status quo which, arguably, liberal ideals represent. What you will see is a regrouping, it will seem racial, ethnic, and gender issue groups will unite again to fight a common enemy, Donald Trump. Even their issues will seem more pressing because now there is a tangible oppressive threat and a more insidious target on them. It will appear that liberals now have something to fight for, rather than just trying to overreach their power and they will draw upon the majority of Americans that lean left.
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Jan 19, 2017 17:14
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I think one of the distinct challenges Liberalism faces is the inability to rally around any figurehead. No matter who we put up, someone can find some instance where that person expressed a belief that doesn't meet the liberal purity test. A common theme with conservatives is that they don't care about one of their leaders making a controversial statement. They can brush off the worst of Trump, et al's comments and talking points and claim it was just a joke, just words, or can't amount to anything. Just do a google search for "you cant take Trump literally," and you'll have pages of articles explaining away evrry comment he's ever made. Liberals on the other hand comb through every word spoken by each leader and when you find the 'bad thing' it's over and we tear them apart. As a group we can't seem to justify supporting someone if they weren't perfect from day one, and there seems to be no room for forgiveness for views expressed decades past. Conservatives just don't have that issue.
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Jan 19, 2017 18:16
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bag em and tag em posted:I think one of the distinct challenges Liberalism faces is the inability to rally around any figurehead. I think it's instructive to compare the situation we have with the GOP now to the situation the Democrats found themselves in, in 2008. It's hard to believe but the Democrats were in an even more dominant position then than the Republicans find themselves in now. What did we get out of that? Obama had campaigned on a public option and abandoned it before ever sitting down at the negotiating table. So we got a weaksauce health care law (that's going to be repealed anyway) and nothing else of major import. Instead we were lectured to about "political capital" until 2009 happened and wiped it all away. Meanwhile the GOP is stretching the Constitution to the limit of reasonable interpretation (and often going over that line e.g. the Supreme Court) to deliver their horrible agenda. Like it or not in terms of actually being able to rely on a politician to do the things they say, the GOP have the Democrats beaten, hands down. If what you are saying were a universal thing it would have happened to Bernie Sanders as well. Dude has been in politics for a long time and has said and supported some stupid poo poo. And, Hillary's camp tried to capitalize on that and it mostly didn't work. That's not because the left has blinders on for Sanders specifically, it's that Sanders is unequivocally a credible leftist and once you establish that a lot else can be forgiven, and will be forgiven.
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Jan 19, 2017 18:36
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I know this is a smaller target to aim for and thus trickier to hit, but I really do want to talk about (american-style) liberals, not leftists. I think we have a generational issue here where SA posters mostly know fellow young people, who, if they are into politics at all, tend to hold very strong, rigid opinions and share them freely. But that's not what most older people are like. I want to talk about the group that's huge, but during the election at least, seemed entirely invisible to D&D. Regular non-angry, non-puritiy-testing liberals who punch a straight-D ballot every four years and go home. Happy Hillary voters - there were a lot of them, no matter how impure she seemed to people here. Those people didn't evaporate overnight when the election happened, and I'm really curious where those people are going to go and what they're going to do. They are frightened by leftism and as you guys have rightly pointed out, the left is likely to become more uncompromising, for good and for ill. But we aren't talking about the left, unless it's in the framework of how they can mobilize the liberals. We have a huge chunk of mostly-inert voters that we could make use of, but not if we ignore them and not if we deride them. Ignore the presidential elections for a minute - most people in this country vote by party lines no matter what. We'll never have anybody not funded by the pharmeceutical industry to run for president if we don't build up governors, senators, mayors, city council members, school boards, and for my own personal safety please, DAs and judges. How do we get them to show up in off-year elections, use their old-people wealth and status to put pressure on institutions, to act? How do we radicalize your mom?
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Jan 19, 2017 19:00
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I know this is a smaller target to aim for and thus trickier to hit, but I really do want to talk about (american-style) liberals, not leftists. I think we have a generational issue here where SA posters mostly know fellow young people, who, if they are into politics at all, tend to hold very strong, rigid opinions and share them freely. But that's not what most older people are like. I think the key here is how do we radicalize someone who is comfortable? The people you are talking about have what they need and at this point a lot of the fighting to be done would be done for other, distant people over there. The GOP is largely consistent of people who are not fighting against some kind of oppression, but for personal gain. More money for me, gently caress you, is often quoted as the mentality. Unmotivated liberals with institutional power can sit around and go "well it would be nice for other people to benefit from progress so i hope they get on that." But they have no personal need to fight for it.
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Jan 19, 2017 19:11
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I might have been one of those voters, actually. I'm not exactly young and was happy to vote for Hillary because, somehow, despite the situation at the state level, I thought it was still right and good to vote for and support centrists because they can win elections and half of what you want is better than nothing. In the aftermath of the election in trying to process what the gently caress just happened I guess I decided on two things: leftists don't actually get close to "half" by electing and supporting centrist Democrats in the first place, and centrist Democrats are actually pretty bad at winning elections. So that's why I said earlier to just advocate socialism going forward because what else is there to do? Now, you might say that since I am talking in terms of compromise in the first place that I'm actually a leftist all along and so I don't count in terms of this discussion. You might be right, but also keep in mind that you probably wouldn't have taken me for a leftist before November. I didn't take myself for one. So for how we radicalize your mom (mine is probably a lost cause) I think that goes along similar lines: change how they actually think about things. Talk about democratic workplaces and profit sharing, both of which are a surprisingly easy to sell in my experience. Bring up basic income framed as a replacement for minimum wage, social security, unemployment, etc. And as for actually turning out to vote, is that a problem with older Democrats? I think it was mainly the younger ones and the older ones turn out at roughly the same rate as older Republicans. No?
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Jan 19, 2017 19:27
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bag em and tag em posted:I think the key here is how do we radicalize someone who is comfortable? The people you are talking about have what they need and at this point a lot of the fighting to be done would be done for other, distant people over there. The GOP is largely consistent of people who are not fighting against some kind of oppression, but for personal gain. More money for me, gently caress you, is often quoted as the mentality. Unmotivated liberals with institutional power can sit around and go "well it would be nice for other people to benefit from progress so i hope they get on that." But they have no personal need to fight for it. Kilroy posted:I might have been one of those voters, actually. I'm not exactly young and was happy to vote for Hillary because, somehow, despite the situation at the state level, I thought it was still right and good to vote for and support centrists because they can win elections and half of what you want is better than nothing. In the aftermath of the election in trying to process what the gently caress just happened I guess I decided on two things: leftists don't actually get close to "half" by electing and supporting centrist Democrats in the first place, and centrist Democrats are actually pretty bad at winning elections. So that's why I said earlier to just advocate socialism going forward because what else is there to do? Now, you might say that since I am talking in terms of compromise in the first place that I'm actually a leftist all along and so I don't count in terms of this discussion. You might be right, but also keep in mind that you probably wouldn't have taken me for a leftist before November. I didn't take myself for one. I like how you think. I had the same reasoning during the election, and while I don't feel burned the way some people do, I'm of course disappointed. Advocating socialism is like, my favorite thing, and I agree that it's the best path forward. Your ideas for changing minds are great and I'm hoping we can expand on those ideas here. Regarding turnout, they're great in presidential elections but not so great in off-year. Pretty much only old republicans show up for off-year, and that's why our country has so many conservative officials at the state and local level. That's something we urgently need to fix.
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Jan 19, 2017 19:36
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Regular non-angry, non-puritiy-testing liberals who punch a straight-D ballot every four years and go home. I guess the main difference is that as long is that they don't care about purity of thought, only action - you can think whatever you want so long as you don't bring it up in polite company.
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Jan 19, 2017 19:54
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Regarding turnout, they're great in presidential elections but not so great in off-year. Pretty much only old republicans show up for off-year, and that's why our country has so many conservative officials at the state and local level. That's something we urgently need to fix. Well to take a page out of the right's book, push the message that whatever happens in the next two years is the responsibility of the GOP from the top down. If there is a problem great, if not create the illusion of one. Let the conspiracy theories come back to the left and sow distrust and discontent among the government as a whole. I mean, at this point I can only see fear and anger motivating people to be politically involved anymore in non-presidential elections. There isn't enough to tangibly connect people to local politics unless they have a vested interest in it.
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Jan 19, 2017 20:51
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This is empty calory bollocks on my part but it just occurred to me that liberalism is kind of like the pre-reformation catholic church. You can salve your conscience and buy your way into heaven through indulgences in the form of charities and good causes, the entire establishment is corrupt and no-one seems to notice or care, there's a cult of saints in the form of activist celebs and adherence to ritual is much more important than any kind of belief in its founding principles.
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Jan 19, 2017 21:10
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:How do we radicalize your mom? I've had good luck with this by simply openly discussing the goals that have turned me into a leftist. Some discussion of economic inequality issues and the need for single-payer healthcare was pretty influential on someone looking at retirement age and a little worried about her benefits vanishing or another crash eating her retirement.
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Jan 19, 2017 23:37
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:It's okay to be against things. Against fascism, against bigotry, against inequality and oppression. Political groups who fear anger and disruption will always lose to the ones who don't. Republicans win because they don't care who they make mad, because they are for and against things - incoherent and repugnant though they may be. This guy appeals to action in the same breath as he frets over a "radicalized" left. I also find that for many liberals, how liberal you are is defined by how strongly you are against Republicans/conservatives, rather than what you support yourself. Like, when many people think of "the most radical liberals" what comes to mind is the people who laid down the sickest burns against Republicans. But in reality someone can be vehemently opposed to Republicans and still not be particularly left-wing themselves. I see this in my dad, who I consider fairly representative of Baby Boomer liberals in general; his liberalism seems to be largely motivated by a sort of "gently caress you dad" against Republicans and the idea that being a liberal = being open-minded. He follows a bunch of liberal blogs, and they almost always focus exclusively on talking about how terrible Republicans are, rather than defining and discussing any of their own long-term goals. While I won't necessarily argue that it's necessary for a political movement to be successful (though it might be), I think it's generally a positive and healthy thing for a political movement to have clear goals they support and are working towards. Liberals are generally lacking that, with their behavior usually defined either by resistance to Republican measures or by individual legislation that, while good, doesn't really tie into some "grand vision." edit: bag em and tag em posted:I think the key here is how do we radicalize someone who is comfortable? The people you are talking about have what they need and at this point a lot of the fighting to be done would be done for other, distant people over there. The GOP is largely consistent of people who are not fighting against some kind of oppression, but for personal gain. More money for me, gently caress you, is often quoted as the mentality. Unmotivated liberals with institutional power can sit around and go "well it would be nice for other people to benefit from progress so i hope they get on that." But they have no personal need to fight for it. I think this is a difficult problem (and possibly an impossible one to fix). I know a bunch of wealthy liberals, and they sorta-kinda care about helping people in theory but it never goes beyond discussions and is almost always limited to ideas that wouldn't be considered "radical." I think this is partly because wealthier people don't really understand what it even means to deal with hardship, in the same way as a man doesn't know how it feels to be a woman. Their lived experiences basically render them completely and utterly ignorant about what it's like to not have a comfortable, happy life. And these are people who I think, at their core, are good people. But it's impossible to communicate to them with just words what it's like to experience difficulty. As a result, it's impossible to really get these people to feel any sort of urgency, since the very concept of urgently needing help is foreign to them. I distinctly remember this one time I was talking to this guy and he told me about how the most difficult and painful thing he had ever experienced was not being accepted into Harvard for undergraduate (he was accepted to NYU Stern, which is the college we both attended). He was dead serious and had absolutely zero clue that this was an absurd sentiment. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 00:43
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History shows that if you try to integrate their schools it does radicalized them very quickly.
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Jan 20, 2017 05:37
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Ytlaya posted:I think this is a difficult problem (and possibly an impossible one to fix). I know a bunch of wealthy liberals, and they sorta-kinda care about helping people in theory but it never goes beyond discussions and is almost always limited to ideas that wouldn't be considered "radical." I think this is partly because wealthier people don't really understand what it even means to deal with hardship, in the same way as a man doesn't know how it feels to be a woman. Their lived experiences basically render them completely and utterly ignorant about what it's like to not have a comfortable, happy life. And these are people who I think, at their core, are good people. But it's impossible to communicate to them with just words what it's like to experience difficulty. As a result, it's impossible to really get these people to feel any sort of urgency, since the very concept of urgently needing help is foreign to them. I have seen this from another angle too, where someone has indeed lived legitimate hardship but worked their way out of it, so now they can sympathize with the hardship of others but feel like that's just part of the deal and it will soon turn out all right.
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Jan 20, 2017 06:03
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bag em and tag em posted:I have seen this from another angle too, where someone has indeed lived legitimate hardship but worked their way out of it, so now they can sympathize with the hardship of others but feel like that's just part of the deal and it will soon turn out all right.
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Jan 20, 2017 06:29
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Ytlaya posted:
This was me a long time ago, and it was counteracted by getting out hitting the pavement and simply experiencing things. Meeting people who are really different to you, listening to their hardship and making their struggles as valuable as your own is vital for overcoming this malaise. One of the arguments I used to tell myself, and I hear it a lot from others too, is 'I can't change anything significantly by myself anyway, so why bother? I do my bit for charity.' This mentality has several sticking points that you need to overcome. Oftentimes these liberals will be doing something unambiguously good in some small way, donating to charity being the main one. It's as if they believe that there is some kind of 'goodness tax'. You also need to emphasise that, no, you can't make a significant change by yourself, but that is ok. If you add your voice to a chorus of others, you can move mountains. It is really hard though. I have this argument with so many people and the temptation sometimes to just get angry at their apathy can be overwhelming.
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Jan 20, 2017 10:46
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I want to echo what other posters said, that European "liberalism" is not as different from American "liberalism" as is often suggested. They both say that the economy should be left to run itself Tiny Brontosaurus posted:I know this is a smaller target to aim for and thus trickier to hit, but I really do want to talk about (american-style) liberals, not leftists. I think we have a generational issue here where SA posters mostly know fellow young people, who, if they are into politics at all, tend to hold very strong, rigid opinions and share them freely. But that's not what most older people are like. Honestly, there's a wealth of socialist rhetoric built up over the past two centuries that people simply don't read. That rhetoric is still effective, but people will only really get exposed to it if they are willing. That shouldn't be a problem with your mum if she's actually and truly disappointed at the Democrats. It is going to be a problem if she thinks the Democrats were failed by their electorate instead of the other way around, however, and that seems to be the dominant tendency within liberal circles that I've seen.
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Jan 20, 2017 14:58
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I think it's more than liberalism and American liberals,the post WWII consensus on the direction the world should go in is tearing down the middle, a diastatis. Who the hell knows what happens next.
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Jan 20, 2017 15:33
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What caused the world to abandon Keynes and capitalism with a robust safety net? I keep hearing about stagflation and oil crises as the prods that rose neoliberalism out of the muck, but were those crises inevitable? This is a really naive question, but was postwar capitalism always doomed to collapse, with Milton Friedman and his pack of ghouls simply giving the system a few more years by crushing its victims to feed the top? Or could we still be living in a less racist 1963 with a big middle class and lots of work for all of the welfare state hadn't been disassembled? I know that's a dumb question, but I'm inarticulate.
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Jan 20, 2017 17:53
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The short answer is that the system gives the people at the top every incentive to break it for their own benefit and no reason not to. Government can act against this tendency, provided the political will is there, but the second it's absent every problem that can be solved with 'gently caress the weak' will be solved with 'gently caress the weak'.
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Jan 20, 2017 18:26
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Jack Gladney posted:What caused the world to abandon Keynes and capitalism with a robust safety net? I keep hearing about stagflation and oil crises as the prods that rose neoliberalism out of the muck, but were those crises inevitable? My understanding is a lot of it has to do with the fall of the Warsaw Pact. After all, Social Democracy was an ideology created to provide an alternative to a socialist revolution. During the cold war it was used as a salve for wartorn Europe who had to contend with the expansionist eastern bloc. After things had stabilized in Europe the welfare programs were gradually stripped away, and with the fall of communism the liberal powers didn't have any reason to keep them around. Basically Social Democracy only works when there is a real threat of a Workers Uprising.
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Jan 20, 2017 18:40
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Jack Gladney posted:What caused the world to abandon Keynes and capitalism with a robust safety net? I keep hearing about stagflation and oil crises as the prods that rose neoliberalism out of the muck, but were those crises inevitable? You should talk to people who remember what the 60's were like, QOL-wise (Doing this will probably make somebody's day.). The 60's were not a magical time superior to the 2010's except to people who weren't there. edit: For instance, look at poverty. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/13/whos-poor-in-america-50-years-into-the-war-on-poverty-a-data-portrait/ The whole article is good and worth a read, but tldr: quote:Critics note that the official poverty rate, as calculated by the Census Bureau, has fallen only modestly, from 19% in 1964 to 15% in 2012 (the most recent year available). But other analysts, citing shortcomings in the official poverty measure, focus on a supplemental measure (also produced by the Census Bureau) to argue that more progress has been made. A team of researchers from Columbia University, for example, calculated an “anchored” supplemental measure — essentially the 2012 measure carried back through time and adjusted for historical inflation — and found that it fell from about 26% in 1967 to 16% in 2012. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 18:48
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Ocrassus posted:It is really hard though. I have this argument with so many people and the temptation sometimes to just get angry at their apathy can be overwhelming. You know, I honestly kinda prefer the ones who just go "gently caress this, my life is awesome and I'm gonna enjoy it" to the ones who try to pretend their goal is to help people. I don't really demand that they go out and volunteer at a soup kitchen or something; I think it's more useful for them to just support more radically progressive/leftist politics (that may result in higher taxes for them depending upon how wealthy they are). If anything, direct involvement with charity sometimes results in people thinking "I'm doing the right thing!" and sidelining any sort of discussing about more radical political change (this isn't to say it's bad to be involved with charity, but that I think it can often have some negative psychological side effects when more fortunate people use it as what you described as a "goodness tax"). I think that convincing the wealthy of these goals is ultimately futile, because they (as a demographic, there might be individual outliers) will never consent to anything that crosses a certain line (generally the point where it would noticeably affect their quality of life) An anecdote related to this is related to the aforementioned guy from my previous post (the one who talked about how not getting into Harvard was so difficult). A few years ago this guy created a company that basically focuses on recruiting young investors from universities and linking them with financial institutions (investment banks, hedge funds, etc). If he were doing this just because he thought it was fun/interesting to run a company, I would be totally cool with that. But he talks about how his goal is to help students who are worse off than him. And, like, he might have a point if he recruited from a wider range of universities, community colleges, etc, but he recruits solely from elite schools! These are people who don't need help! 99% of university students at Stern or Wharton or whatever who are interested in investing/trading would have been fine anyways! I think that people like this guy feel some sort of guilt/"responsibility" due to their good fortune and have no clue how to channel it usefully. But they aren't willing to really sacrifice anything and are biased in favor of "solutions" that don't cost them much, and I don't really think there's any way around that.
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Jan 20, 2017 19:05
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Kilroy posted:Yeah let me walk back my talk about what liberal means a bit, and Tiny Brontosaurus sorry but I'm doing this so it's easier (for me) to talk about what "liberals" are going to do. A lot of people on the right pretty much lump "everyone to the left of John McCain" into the "liberal" bucket and if this thread is supposed to be about what these people are going to do collectively, then I think we need two threads because I don't believe liberal, as defined by your typical idiot Republican anyway, can continue to exist as a unified bloc for much longer. I may be biased, but I think Democrats should probably look at what's been happening to Labour in the UK for a living of example of the left trying to take control back from (centre) Liberals - the Liberals are doing everything up to and including sabotaging their own party to stop it happening, and the left are showing their lack of experience actually running things. I absolutely hope that both Labour and the Democrats are eventually able to move solidly left, but in the UK at least the attempt has led to a weakened left and centre and a stronger right so far - and I say that as someone who would love to see Corbyn win.
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Jan 20, 2017 19:30
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Dreddout posted:My understanding is a lot of it has to do with the fall of the Warsaw Pact. After all, Social Democracy was an ideology created to provide an alternative to a socialist revolution. During the cold war it was used as a salve for wartorn Europe who had to contend with the expansionist eastern bloc. After things had stabilized in Europe the welfare programs were gradually stripped away, and with the fall of communism the liberal powers didn't have any reason to keep them around. This is my very basic understanding of it. Workers rights that we take for granted like the 40 hour work week, minimum wage, weekends and so forth came after decades of violent clashes in the early 20th century. Workers were treated little better than slaves. Attempts to organize were met with beatings or outright murder from bosses and police. There were massive and bloody strikes that led to workers being granted rights. The western welfare state as we know it came about after WW2. Europe was a broken place. The USSR effectively controlled half of it already. Communists were among the few credible political groups that weren't tainted by fascism. The question was of keeping the populace fed and at work or of facing outright revolution against the frail governments of the time. If anyone would like to comment or challenge or add to this account, I'd like that. I've only recently been learning about this sort of thing. This is (so far) a surprisingly constructive and civil thread.
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Jan 20, 2017 21:16
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il_cornuto posted:I may be biased, but I think Democrats should probably look at what's been happening to Labour in the UK for a living of example of the left trying to take control back from (centre) Liberals - the Liberals are doing everything up to and including sabotaging their own party to stop it happening, and the left are showing their lack of experience actually running things. I absolutely hope that both Labour and the Democrats are eventually able to move solidly left, but in the UK at least the attempt has led to a weakened left and centre and a stronger right so far - and I say that as someone who would love to see Corbyn win. I mean of course they don't have much experience running things - they've been shut out of power by the centrist "left" for decades. It's like the thing in Arizona with Sanders supporters during the primary: of course they don't know what they're doing if they've been ignoring politics while the busybody nihilists who run the party also ignore them. The answer to that (for the busybodies) should be "stop ignoring them and engage them" and if they don't do that (they haven't and they won't) the answer for the people being ignored is to drive these fuckers out of power by any means necessary and make sure they never have it again.
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Jan 20, 2017 21:22
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Count Roland posted:This is my very basic understanding of it. There are two more major reasons social democracy failed. 1. It only works when labor is actually in high demand, as workers strikes, lockouts are a real threat and labor is not easily replaceable. There is a real benefit to capitalists to cooperate. With a globalized economy workers from all over the world can take your place if your too much of a hassle, or they can just move production aboard. Secondly, demand for labor in genera has steadily been decreasing due to productivity gains. Combine this with new labor laws that makes the workforce more "flexible" (ie fireable) and any strike can essentially be met with a giant middle finger and little to no concessions. 2. Most social democratic parties were reformist socialists, split of from their revolutionary comrades. Their end goal was communism, but through democracy, which their many of their party programs stated. But both due to having to win elections this goal was pushed back and back and instead making smaller, more popular progressive reforms that still moved society towards the goals of their ideology. Finally the nail in the coffin was the fall of the USSR which meant that , at least in one aspect, communism had failed. End of History and all that, no more ideologies necessary other than global capitalism and representative democracy. Thus leading to parties striking their goals in of socialism (see Blairs edit in 1995) and implementing the lovely piss weak third way socialism we have today.
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Jan 20, 2017 21:32
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White Rock posted:There are two more major reasons social democracy failed. This is fascinating. Thank you and others who replied. Are there any good reads covering this ground--books or scholars somebody could pick up for more detail?
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Jan 20, 2017 21:36
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Kilroy posted:Party infighting will definitely weaken the party short-term but if they emerge from it with strong leftist leadership and the liberals sidelined or driven out, won't that have been worth it? Right, my point wasn't that the change shouldn't happen, but that the left need to be prepared for a fight. In the UK at least there's still a very real chance that the liberals will end up winning back control.
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Jan 20, 2017 21:38
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il_cornuto posted:I may be biased, but I think Democrats should probably look at what's been happening to Labour in the UK for a living of example of the left trying to take control back from (centre) Liberals - the Liberals are doing everything up to and including sabotaging their own party to stop it happening, and the left are showing their lack of experience actually running things. I absolutely hope that both Labour and the Democrats are eventually able to move solidly left, but in the UK at least the attempt has led to a weakened left and centre and a stronger right so far - and I say that as someone who would love to see Corbyn win. This is my fear for the US too - even if we got a shot at a strong left it might fail due to lack of leadership experience. That's why I go back again and again to the need to focus on victories in small local races. We have to build up leadership talent on a generational scale. I do think there might be an angle of attack there for the complacent liberals I'd like to mobilize. What do spoiled-rear end white people hate? Parking tickets. Noise violations. Ordinances and regulations blocking the stuff they want to do, and not blocking the stuff they don't want other people to do. When you're comfortable nuisances take on the scale of tragedies, and nuisances are exactly what someone can get elected to city council pledging to fight. But we almost have to do this without the existing left's support, because they want headliners. They'd rather have a failed presidential bid than a successfully elected sheriff, even though Joe Arpaio shows exactly how much damage a fascist can do in a position like that. Look at me breaking my own rules. I don't want to bitch about the left in here. I want to brainstorm ways to sneak leftism in under the radar of comfy cozy liberals. And I want you guys to keep saying smart poo poo about the historical context behind all of this, because it's seriously fascinating. Thanks so much to all of you, it means a lot.
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Jan 20, 2017 21:53
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It's important to keep in mind that, in a roundabout way, the existence of more radical leftists also lends credibility for the less radical ones. A "the existence of the black panthers makes MLK more palatable" sort of situation. You need both groups to make the relatively more "moderate" version agreeable to more centrist liberals.
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Jan 20, 2017 22:44
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Ytlaya posted:It's important to keep in mind that, in a roundabout way, the existence of more radical leftists also lends credibility for the less radical ones. A "the existence of the black panthers makes MLK more palatable" sort of situation. You need both groups to make the relatively more "moderate" version agreeable to more centrist liberals. Yes definitely (look to, say, the way KM and I function in this community  )It would be great if the leftist community recognized that and used that to shape public opinion in purposeful ways. But that just falls back on the age-old problem of how to centrally organize people who by their very nature question authority
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Jan 20, 2017 22:47
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Jack Gladney posted:This is a really naive question, but was postwar capitalism always doomed to collapse, with Milton Friedman and his pack of ghouls simply giving the system a few more years by crushing its victims to feed the top? For what it's worth the Chicago school and Friedman at least tried to have an empirical foundation. But that is not where we are now. We can't stop here this is Austrian country. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 23:17
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Ytlaya posted:It's important to keep in mind that, in a roundabout way, the existence of more radical leftists also lends credibility for the less radical ones. A "the existence of the black panthers makes MLK more palatable" sort of situation. You need both groups to make the relatively more "moderate" version agreeable to more centrist liberals. The Black Panthers appeared after the civil rights act was passed, MLK was killed only 2 years after its founding I never bought the idea that radical leftists make the moderate left more palpable to the electorate, at least in America it's quite the opposite. Students demonstrating and putting up pictures of Lenin and screaming about how America is evil in their protests is what brought the reaction by the silent majority against the center-left 1968-1992. Even labor unions were alienated by the far left of the 1960s when they actually existed in the US. When faced with the fear of far left violence the electorate flees to the right for protection, not to elect the center-left to appease them. Typo fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jan 20, 2017 |
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Jan 20, 2017 23:28
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Typo posted:The Black Panthers appeared after the civil rights act was passed, MLK was killed only 2 years after its founding There's an appealing logic to that but it's not true. The presence of reactionaries is an inevitability and not evidence of failure. There is no such thing as a leftist action that doesn't get a reactionary response. The myth that there's a "right" way to effect change that would meet no resistance is toxic and should be dustbinned.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:41
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Jack Gladney posted:This is fascinating. Thank you and others who replied. Are there any good reads covering this ground--books or scholars somebody could pick up for more detail?
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Jan 20, 2017 23:46
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