A tenured six-figure government job must be sweet, professor, but this is utopian silliness: “Under capitalism, we’re forced to submit to the boss. Socialists want to establish freedom from rule by the boss, from the need to smile for the sake of a sale.”Capitalism, Socialism, and Unfreedom by Krugman
My impression of job guarantee advocates, which I am afraid you are not doing much to dispel, is that they are not willing to admit that their preferred approach ahas any drawbacks, or that any alternatives have any merits.
But on a more serious note, I’m geniunely puzzled as to how this is any different from what used to be called liberal Democrats (before and during the 1990s–and who were mostly purged from power by the Clinton era New Democrats) would propose... So it’s really hard to see how what is currently referred to as socialism would differ from Hubert Humphrey’s economic proposals.It would be nice to discuss this with a historian of post-war liberalism.
Medicare for All nationalizes the US health insurance industry, bringing it under social ownership and control. It also combines this nationalization with a universal public benefit program that should be very popular and appealing to socialists and non-socialists alike. Thus it is a fairly straightforward democratic socialist strategy as it moves the ball on social ownership through incremental reforms that could win popular democratic support.Ocasio-Cortez sounds a lot like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.
America has long-championed individualism as the foundation of our democracy and the free market economy. Such values form not only the bedrock of conservativism, but also the pillars of the post-World War II global order, which is under assault from a backlash against globalization and the rise of populist nationalism, both here and abroad.
By highlighting individual dignity and the dignity of our neighbors, Ocasio-Cortez is advancing a new social value-- one which sees the individual as both a solitary being with certain inalienable rights and as a citizen and member of society. This duality could de-polarize American politics by introducing 21st century social values into today’s political discourse while upholding long-held individualist values.
The tension between individualist and communitarian values has fostered binary choices between American conservatives and liberals, the market and the state, right versus left, red versus blue, and “us” versus “them.” This dichotomy assumes a left to right continuum in which compromise in the middle is the modality for public choice. The idea of binary choices on the spectrum from left to right is threatening our democracy.
...What is at issue and more starkly evident in the 21st century is that the individual is vividly embedded in the social fabric and is connected with neighbors, near and far. This web of engagements and entanglements in our globalized era invites a new outlook, one that embraces complexity, contradiction, and conflicting viewpoints. Those with such open mindsets can adopt blended mixes of contrarian perspectives to reach inclusive agreements about the way forward rather than simplistic middle ground compromises.
The key is that Ocasio-Cortez founds her formulation on both the idea of the individual and social responsibility.
The truth is that individualist values of liberty, property rights, freedom and sovereignty worked well in the 20th century as the foundations of competition, free markets, democracy and the nation-state. Yet today, well into the 21st century, globalization in the broadest sense has penetrated and transformed our individual lives in ways that make clear our inter-connectedness.
Today, we need to add to these bedrock American principles new values that embody and honor this connectivity, including by upholding respect for others, fairness for all, trust in one another and a sense of personal (and mutual) responsibility. Adding these social values to the American political discourse would help prioritize actions that could achieve greater social mobility, public access, economic security, and systemic sustainability.
These actions, which would seek blended, mixed economy, pluralistic approaches, could lead to better social outcomes from the market economy, greater social cohesion, more inclusive markets, less polarization, and greater effectiveness of policies, politics, and governance. These would restore confidence in markets, faith in institutions, and trust in government.
Thank you, Ocasio-Cortez for bringing America face-to-face with the new understanding we need and the new narrative required to transform American politics for the 21st century.
DSA has certainly been a beneficiary of the Dirtbag Left and its iconoclastic rage; Chapo Trap House frequently directs its guests to support the socialist organization, and its founders are in Chicago for the DSA convention. Mother Jones called the podcast a “gateway drug” for democratic socialism, and DSA’s leaders recognize that’s correct. Even if DSA won’t adopt Chapo’s insult-humor shtick in its official platform, it’s hard to imagine that some of its beliefs won’t seep in some way into the organization through new membership.
Chapo’s “dirtbag” politics have alarmed other left-leaning writers. In an essay for the New Republic, Jeet Heer warned against what he called its “dominance politics” as counterproductive to building a coalition with center-left Democrats.
But in an interview last year, Chapo Trap House co-host Matt Christman countered that Donald Trump had captured the “transgressive thrill of defying the cultural expectations of the elite,” and that the left would be wise to reclaim it. Incisive put-down humor, he suggested, isn’t just useful for amassing a podcast following; it could also be helpful to an ascendant left-wing politics.
“The gonad element of politics is now totally owned by the right. All the left has now is charts and data. You cannot motivate people with charts and data and lecturing,” Christman said. “If we’re going to win, we cannot allow [right-wing provocateur] Milo Yiannopoulos and all of these carnival-barking Nazis to have all of the fucking fun.”
The first question I would ask any 2020 Dem primary candidate is “what is your plan for the destruction of the conservative movement?”
These folks are actually proud that they don't know how to do politics. "Mueller will save us." "Good Republicans will save us." "A recession (!) will save us."
What will save you are a long-term electoral strategy and structural reforms aimed at politically dismantling the GOP.
Another part of the package is passing policies that have significant, positive, & easily comprehensible impacts on people's lives when Dems are in power. Free stuff's great. People like free stuff. You "pay" for it by raising taxes on the wealthy & corps, which people also like
Sorry, Mr. Donohue, this IS who you are. People like you made a deal with racists so you could get deregulation and tax cuts. Every step you took was leading to this moment.
new from US Chamber President Tom Donohue: “Thousands of children are being forcibly removed from their parents by our government. There is no other way to say it, this is not who we are and it must end now”
But, intriguingly, Allen’s work in this area has also implications for his work in another area: the origins of the Industrial Revolution. As is well-known, Bob is the originator of the hypothesis of High Wage Economy (HWE), an argument that the Industrial Revolution was driven by high cost of labor in England (and low cost of energy) which made the substitution of labor by capital profitable. This was most famously seen in the evolution of the welfare ratios (nominal wages divided by the cost of the subsistence basket) for North-West Europe vs. Italy vs. China/India. While all three welfare ratios were about equal in the 15th century, they diverged afterwards with North European being much higher and China/India’s welfare rations plummeting. Allen saw in that divergence the origin (and not the effect) of the Industrial Revolution.
Now, with the poverty lines that are subscripted for place and time, what we see to be a welfare ratio from the worker’s perspective is no longer the same thing as the cost of that worker to a capitalist. The new methodology introduces a wedge between what is the worker's welfare and what is the cost of labor for the capitalist. This is most obviously seen in Allen’s former and new results for Russia. With the same basket across all countries (the earlier approach) Russian welfare ratio during most of the 19th century was 2; with a climate/country specific baskets, the welfare ratio is around 1 (that is, is much lower because of high requirements imposed by a cold climate).
But note that the cost of that worker to a Russian capitalist is still twice as high as the cost of an equivalent worker (at the same subsistence) in India. When we now draw the welfare ratios using Allen’s new methodology, we have to explicitly state that they reflect welfare ratios from the worker’s perspective, not the cost of labor. The implication of this wedge is that, following Allen’s own HWE hypothesis, introduction of machines is --everything else being the same—more profitable in the North than in the South.
If that’s the case, then a geographically-determined explanation for the Industrial Revolution suddenly looks more plausible than before. So, I thought, perhaps one (unintended) effect of Bob’s new and much improved methodology is to help the geographical explanations for the rise of the West.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.Should religion be taxed away? Should the rich? I've had social media discussions with ardent MMTers and they believe JG will somehow be a better vehicle than a UBI against the rich and against capitalist logic.
Unfortunately #MMT is a restatement of standard Keynesianism that readily morphs into pernicious nonsense - no need to tax the rich, just run whatever deficit you feel like. In my experience, "no need to tax the rich" is the big selling point.The JG advocates go on about how everyone needs to chip in and produce and do "socially necessary" labor.
Moreover, dangerous human proclivities can be canalised into comparatively harmless channels by the existence of opportunities for money-making and private wealth, which, if they cannot be satisfied in this way, may find their outlet in cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and other forms of self-aggrandisement. It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens; and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative. But it is not necessary for the stimulation of these activities and the satisfaction of these proclivities that the game should be played for such high stakes as at present. Much lower stakes will serve the purpose equally well, as soon as the players are accustomed to them....
The policy implication and take-home message that stems from our results is clear: if one wants to defeat populism, one must defeat first economic insecurity.Chris Dillow is also very good on this.
The cultural backlash against globalisation, traditional politics and institutions, immigration, and automation cannot be an exogenous occurrence, it is driven by economic woes. In fact, as we show, in regions where globalisation was present but have benefited economically there is no such cultural backlash at all and the populist message has retreated. The policy implication and take-home message that stems from our results is clear: if one wants to defeat populism, one must defeat first economic insecurity.
Can consensus towards populist forces persist even after economic insecurity has been reabsorbed? This is the key question today. While the documented culture backlash cannot be the root cause of populist success as it is itself borne out of economic insecurity, it may play a crucial role looking forward. If the new identity politics succeeds in reshaping peoples' beliefs and attitudes, sentiments can acquire an autonomous role and may continue to exert an effect even when their economic cause is gone.
Writing in 1943, with the wartime policies of “full employment” enjoying wide support, Michal Kalecki wrote a remarkable essay entitled “The Political Aspects of Full Employment.” Kalecki opens by writing, “a solid majority of economists is now of the opinion that, even in a capitalist system, full employment may be secured by a government spending programme.” Though he is talking about full employment, which means an “adequate plan to employ all existing labour power,” the same is true of UBI. The majority of economists would agree that a plan to guarantee an income for all is possible.
However, Kalecki ultimately argues that full employment policies will be abandoned: “The maintenance of full employment would cause social and political changes which would give a new impetus to the opposition of the business leaders. Indeed, under a regime of permanent full employment, ‘the sack’ would cease to play its role as a disciplinary measure. The social position of the boss would be undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness of the working class would grow.”
