2y ago

Indistinguishable!

294 comments

- Could you point to a left-wing policy or regime that has led to political instability and concentration of political powers?
  I ask because concepts like worker enfranchisement and more equitable wealth distribution seem to address those problems while unfettered capitalism exacerbates them. It's also worth noting how much democracy is undermined in a system where economic power is tantamount to political power and wealth consolidation is the norm.
  On the other hand, are you able to point to centrist policy that effectively reverses the rapidly declining democracy and freedom in say the US?
  
  Could you point to a—
  No. That’s literally the farthest they’ve cared to explore such claims. “I heard it once, that’s good enough for me”
  
  You mean to tell me that a political ideology defined exclusively by the flimsiest understanding of what they're not has no meaningful understanding of the world or any solutions?
  
  Regarding your first point, there is a whole Wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_socialism?wprov=sfla1
  And your second point is clear also in France (hits closer to home for me) where centrist Macron is dangerously flirting with authoritarianism and paving the way for the far-right…
  
  Ah yes - authoritarian worker enfranchisement.
  Thanks for being the perfect case study in centrists having no understanding of politics or economics.
  As for the centrist Macron paving the way for far right authoritarianism? That doesn't sound like much of a solution to enhancing democracy and freedom to me.
  
  Well… I'm no centrist. Sorry if my point about Macron let you think I was happy about it.
  I also think any idea can be used/usurped to oppress, paradoxically including leftism. Authoritarian socialism is unfortunately what most Americans associate with leftism.
  
  The comment about Macron didn't leave me thinking you had a positive impression of him, but thinking citing Stalin as left-wing did (incorrectly it seems).
  Those regimes were absolutely founded in a corruption of leftist values, but wound up in a state that bore no resemblance to leftism. Yes, most Americans think the USSR and China are left-wing, but by just about any serious definition of the term, they're wrong.
  
  The issue is most of you tankies think socialism is something that magically will not lead to what is the CCP or USSR... you're delusional to think that power doesn't corrupt.
  
  There's more than one way to run the system. The Six nations managed a very communist society for 15,000 years before white man killed off 90% of them with diseases. They had a council of grandmothers, and their constitution (much of which the founding fathers blatantly plagiarized) started with the rule that no law could be made that didn't directly benefit all of the next 7 generations of children. They weren't Marxist or Trotskyist, but they were definitely communist/socialist. They barely had commerce, and lived with an excess of wealth even by today's standards, their medical care was somewhat lacking, but they still had decent medicine all things considered.
  
  Post war consensus and the power of workers' unions in Britain during the 1970s? Especially the Winter of Discontent in '78- '79.
  The governments of Wilson and Callaghan were still a continuation of the Attlee socialist philosophy which gave public sector unions an immense amount of power in those days.
  The general strikes called by the likes of Scarsgill were brutal for the country, I remember, I was there, culminating in pediatric nurses walking off the job and leaving child cancer patients unattended.
  The trade unions did have legitimate grievances back then, their pay was paltry, and they hadn't had an inflation adjusted wage increase in like 15 years. I totally support their strikes, but the government's hands were tied, they simply had no money due to a confluence of factors, and eventually the whole country went bankrupt (like Greece) and had to be bailed out by the EU.
  While it wasn't pure socialism back then, Britain was still capitalist and deeply classist, it did basically destroy the country to have a lot of the social safety net and public building projects which people like Sanders and Corbyn champion today, along with very powerful unions. I'm a huge proponent of government building houses at a loss in order to give citizens a chance at affordable housing, but doing that for 20 years straight contributed massively to the UK going into financial bankruptcy in the 70s.
  Also, giant workers' unions can be a force for unbelievable evil, for example, the police union in the USA.
  
  There were certainly negative outcomes from that, but I'm not sure it led to political instability, and a shift of power toward an under-represented class that represents the vast majority of the economy certainly wasn't a concentration of power.
  
  It was a crazy amount of political instability, a G7 nation went completely bankrupt and defaulted on its national debt, imagine the US doing that. And, the Winter of Discontent led to so much political instability that it completely destroyed an entire political party and ethos - British Attlee-style far left socialism. The Labour party was pretty much annihilated, and wouldn't see power for 20 years, and even then, only because it was completely remade in Thatcher's image as New Labour by Blair. It wouldn't be until Jeremy Corbyn that anyone even remotely tried on those same policies with the electorate again, and he was soundly defeated.
  The leftist, socialist style government of Attlee, Wilson, and Callaghan had their hearts in the right place with their policies: government built lots of housing at a huge loss in order to give the masses affordable housing, the government nationalised many industries and utilities (such as 100% ownership of all trains, water, electricity, coal mining, but also auto manufacturing and aerospace), all of these nationalised industries had huge and very powerful trade unions, taxation on the rich was massive (this is why all the famous movie stars and musicians like Mick Jagger famously left the UK and moved to the USA in the 70s. Only Oliver Reed remained). There was even a wealth tax. Government provided healthcare was established by Attlee.
  Basically all of the things leftists like Sanders and AOC want today, we had them in 70s Britain, and it did lead to "political instability" because it led to national bankruptcy, and a huge brain drain as millions of young Britons went abroad to find opportunities (many went to Canada and Australia).
  The only thing that has survived from those days is national healthcare, but it's an utter catastrophe these days due to the slave labour wages it forces on its workers with no ability to strike (they technically can strike, but it doesn't matter, because the government can force them to accept any new contract regardless, which they did in 2016).
  
  but in the end it was thatcher gutting the system and an unwillingness of the British capitalist to actually be competitive with the rest of the world, take for example the martial fund, most European nations used the money with use stipulation that often included modernization and a repayment plan, Germany for example stall has many programs funded by the marshal fund because it acts as a loan, the UK instead, in all their wisdom just have it to rich people, in the belief that they would have of their own volition invested it.
  Guess what didn't happen? The problem with the UK was that capitalists don't care about actually making anything better, they just care that the ratio of stuff they have is greater than the other person.
  
  I'm not sure I understand, British capitalists were the same before, during, and after Thatcher. They weren't allowed to be competitive prior to Thatcher because so many industries were nationalised, for example auto manufacturing and aerospace.
  It was Thatcher who divested and deregulated all those industries, removing central government from being involved in any businesses such as trains, home building, aerospace, etc. Rather than be forced into deals with labour unions, British capitalists were now free to deal in the global market, and immediately began closing British factories because they were uncompetitive and the government was no longer forcing them to remain open or paying subsidies.
  
  Not OP but I think it's fair to say Chairman Mao counts, Stalinist Russia counts, and no, I don't think they're particularly relevant to the modern conversation, I just think it's important to recognize that extremist thinking isn't sustainable regardless of its political bent.
  There are strengths and weaknesses to any extremist view, and if a concerted effort can be mustered to try and take the good and leave the bad, it doesn't really matter if one side is 90% evil and the other side of 90% good, if there is no capacity for self reflection and humility, then both sides will continue to suck to the extent that they suck and everyone will keep pointing fingers. So, railing against centrists as somehow weak and spineless is just outing oneself as unable or unwilling to evolve.
  Happy to have that argument torn apart, I just can't stand the current cuntscape of self-assured asshats who show up to any conversation with thirteen talking points about why they're the second coming of truth and justice and the other side is a bunch of NAZIS!!1!
  
  China and the USSR were authoritarian state capitalist - this isn't compatible with leftist values of worker enfranchisement and equity.
  I don't care that they call themselves communist any more than the DPRK calls itself democratic - they're lying, and you'd have to be a fool to trust either.
  Self-reflection is necessary to have good political prescriptions, but calling Nazis scumbags or centrists weak doesn't stop that Self-reflection in any meaningful way - you'd be a fool to seriously reflect on a statement from any idiot with a bad ideology and bad take.
  
  Fair points
  
  And good on you for living your stated values of introspection - I've got a hell of a lot of respect for that when it's the easiest thing in the world to dig in your heels when some interntet dipshit like me disagrees with you.
  
  There's the Portuguese government, mostly left wing for a long time and they've plunged us into an economical crisis and are ready to do it again. But they still are in power because the old folk doesn't want to vote for anything they haven't for the past century.
  
  LOL! "Leftwing" - OMG!
  We're talking about the guys who are usually talking about "doing what's good for businesses", have spent 3 billion euros saving a failing private company (TAP, the airline) and now want to fully privatise it (which will yield less than half of that amount), over they years rigged the housing market in multiple ways to pump up a massive house price bubble (which now causes half the portuguese who get degrees to emigrate) and have cut funding for the National Health Service so hard that medical doctor have been leaving it in such large numbers that pregnancy services and ever emergency services are now regularly (and irregularly) closing in hospitals all over the country.
  And don't get me started on how big they are on subsiding well-connected companies and closing their eyes to their fiscal evasion (not just avoidance, actual evasion) like when the privatise electricity company sold a bunch of hydrogeneration dams without paying any of the due tax on the sale.
  These guys are exactly the "centrists" being pointed out here, or in other words they're neoliberals (hence the obcession with unconditional "supporting businesses" and privatisation) and they're not even left of center by traditional political thinking (only in this day and age of an Overtoon Window so shifted to the right by late stage capitalism that "business supporting" and "privatising" are considered leftwing activities by the ignorant).
  Unsurprisingly they and another party pretty much have a power duopoly and have held power together for almost 5 decades, making Portugal the shithole it is.
  
  Technically speaking, PS is left wing, even though they are centrists on their policies.
  But between them and the PSD, or even worse, the PCP, who are undoubtedly left wing, pick your poison.
  
  Nah, the say of themselves as "leftwing" all the the while pursuing mainly a rightwing ideology in pretty much everything, most notably things like supporting any and all businesses (without a "only the ones positive for society" restriction), privatisation, lowering of regulation (most noteably by simply not applying the laws in the books) and so on.
  I mean the only meaningful left-of-center policy they had in the last decade was raising the minimum wage, and that was more than offset by their treatment of the housing market as an "investment asset class" and pumping with several price-influencing measures (from given Golden Visas for 500k "investments in houses" and refusal to build public housing - in the country of Europe with the least public housing - to a very liberal attitude on turning housing into AirBnBs - which recently was found unconstitutional by the supreme court) a massive house price bubble that ate that minimum salary raise and then some (houses have been up about 12% a year, faster than even that minimum salary raise and way faster than average salary growth).
  They were once consistently left of center, but nowadays they preach the same neoliberal "solutions" you'll get from the likes of Merkel, only, funnilly enough, even under the CDU in Germany they actually had more and better regulations in such key markets as housing than the supposedly "left" PS has.
  (I lived in both The Netherlands and Germany and the idea that the PS is "leftwing" in its policies is, when compared to what's done in Northern Europe by even their righwing, pretty funny).
  Sure, they're leftwing by comparison with the US with their ultra-nationalism, religious nutcases and 2 centuries of power duopoly, but not by comparison with Northern Europe, which are the ones we should be emulating, not the socially backwards US and UK (I also lived in the latter).
  But yeah, I agree that the choice of political parties in Portugal is horrible: not only does the mathematically rigged anti-democratic voting system (unlike, say, the Proportional Vote system that the Dutch have) creates a near power duopoly were people only really have to electable choices (the "lesser evil" and the "greater evil", who switch periodically) but the party leadership suffers from the general problem in portuguese leadership (nepotism, cronyism, zero strategic thinking) only worse because they're politicians.
  (And don't get me started on the PCP: I don't think that putting Party first, always and above all else, is at all compatible with the leftwing principle of "The greatest good for the greatest number", especially when - as we so clearly see on their take on the Russian Invasion of Ukraine - The Party is de facto nothing more than the arm of a specific foreign government and bunch of half a century old slogans).
  Frankly, having returned to Portugal after 2 decades abroad, I have come to believe that in between the incoming desertification from Global Warming and the brain drain caused by house price inflation, low salaries and the shitiest managment culture and business class in Europe, the country is well on its way to be totally fucked withing a decade or two. Certainly making Tourism a keystone of the Portuguese Economy will never get the country to catch up with the sort of country in Europe where they bet on industries with high value adding (like Tech) - and to where many of those degree holding portuguese that emigrate end up working - simply because Tourism is mid-level in the value adding chain (more than agriculture and maybe low-tech low-scale industrial production) and has no real path to reach the levels of wealth creation per-worker as even modern industrial production can (the only high-value added kind of Tourism is that which caters for the rich, and that's only a large enough market for nations the size of San Marino, not for a country of 10 million), so that condemns Portugal to be a just-about-developed country forever.
  
  You're still demonstrating your inability to view as anything other than black and white issue by falsely setting it up as either supporting worker-enfranchisement (which of course sounds good) or not and not looking at any other nuance, as if the left is a single issue party only focused on workers rights and higher pay vs. complete and total political instability. Then trying to force people into making a choice in your false dilemma so you pretend to mentally and morally superior to them when they play along.
  The absolute, bull-shit ridiculousness of what you're saying is the exact reason many consider themselves to be centrist. It's not because they lack the understanding of nuance and politics, it's because YOU do.
  
  What's your definition of left wing, exactly?
  Fuck me for pointing to the widely accepted core, defining traits of a political and economic system without acknowledging every possible stance on each incidental position around it I guess.
  I asked for examples of the instability OP cited and a centrist policy - if you see that as a ridiculous notion devoid of the possibility of nuance and forcing you to make some kind of choice, that feels more like a you issue, my guy.
  Feel free to reach out when you're capable of engaging the point... like just giving examples or a better definition.
- The problem is also thinking it's a one dimensional issue (left or right) when in reality you can pick and choosing different policies. In the US the two party system has cemented the notion that you have to pick red or blue. You end up vilifying the "others" instead of trying to find commonalities. Extremism is inevitable and corrodes society.
  
  This is also the source of a lot of the "they are the same to me". The positions might be dissimilar but if someone considers both parties to be morally bankrupt and disinterested in serving the country then they're still not going to rally behind one of them.
  
  Looking at not just the US (which stands out by being extremelly bad in that regard) but also at other countries with matemathically-rigged-for-power-duopoly voting systems (basically everything with Electoral Circles rather than Proportional Vote), I've conclude that the problem of modern self-proclaimed "democracies" is actually a lack of democracy.
  The whole normalization of the two-sides falacy in political thinking (which justifies the very anti-democratic de facto power duopoly as "normal" by hyper-simplifying incredibly complex social and economic situations into a mere 2 and only 2 options) then fans into all manner of disfunctional (brainless, even) ways of looking at society's problems and how to manage a country, not to mention making politics a tribalist play (the whole "us vs them") rather than a hard-nosed rational analysis of problems and solutions and evaluation managerial capability.
  Meanwhile the whole "choosing of the lesser evil" that's the main voting mode in such systems, leaves people displeased from the start (they're literally voting for a party they don't like, because the only other genuine option they have they dislike even more) and guarantees that things progressivelly get worse (because power just alternates between lesser evils, never actually getting better).
- Centrists: How about a fair and balanced approach to oppressing LGBT+ people, banning books, teaching children lies about history, disenfranchising voters, separating families at the border, protecting the ultra-rich, maintaining systemic racism... have I left anything important out that we need a fair and balanced approach to?
  
  You don't know what a centrist is do you?
  
  Do enlighten me.
  
  ok we'll just kill half the LGBT, only burn the first half of the books, etc...
- I would really hate to live politically and economically unstable country of germany
  
  Completely forgot how Germany is far left and doesn't make it's money from capitalism...
  
  it is far left in the american context of it, Bernie would fit into the CDU
- It's also fun to watch extremists lie nonstop but not call eachother out.
  
  I can't say its fun watching centrists smugly default to "well you're both wrong, extreme, and the same" without realising they're incapable of pointing to solutions to any problem whatsoever, and can only treat the left and right as comparable because they have zero understanding of the political poles they're sitting on the fence between.

294 comments