7 ms·

It is amazing how we have been enjoying healthy growth and improvements everywhere in the last 100 years and people still think there is something to fight agai

by kfk 10y ago

It is amazing how we have been enjoying healthy growth and improvements everywhere in the last 100 years and people still think there is something to fight against "neoliberism". You don't trust a system where multiple agents are free to decide with capitalism, but you think everything will be solved with 1 agent ruling them all with a super Leviathan state. He doesn't want to be compared to fascists, but that's exactly along the lines a fascist would think. I don't know, personally, I am going to try and get German citizenship, at least those guys are somewhat reliable and don't do pointless referendums (because you think something is going to change? No, all will stay exactly the same, but at least you can feel happy at the thought of not being a EU state, I guess).

krzrak 10y ago
Sometimes not being an EU state is not something to be happy about. For example now Poland is being taken over by right-wing party, which reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church. There are voices that we should leave the EU. But European Union and its framework is the only institution that from time to time keeps them at bay. When we leave EU, we are lost, the regime will be able to do anything.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  It only took 30 years for Poland to forget the most expensive lessons that were ever learned. I really hope it will end well but there is a good chance that it will not. Polish politics has been quite strange in the last 5 years or so.
  - krzrak 10y ago
    Yeah, the sad truth is that people mostly forgotten how it was under communist rule and now they are pushing their country into the hands of other authoritarian politicians.
    - daemin 10y ago
      It's also disheartening to see how authoritarian supposedly free market countries are becoming, one's that have never been under the control of authoritarian communism.
- ManlyBread 10y ago
  >Poland is being taken over by right-wing party Funny, two years ago everyone here was calling them a left-wing party. >reduces citizen rights, violates constitution They haven't done anything that the previous party didn't, but since the previous party lost this election the very same people who did it for the previous 8 years suddenly act like they have the moral high ground. >oppresses minorities Not wanting uncontrolled immigration is not "oppressing minorities". >removes the separation of the state and church This has never been as severe as people like to claim, even back in 2006.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > Not wanting uncontrolled immigration So you don't want what your country benefited dramatically from in the last 15 years, when Polish people moved to UK to work, sending home additional capital and reducing demographic pressure. I apologize if this sounds inflammatory, it's not meant to but: it is, objectively, a very hypocritical position.
    - ManlyBread 10y ago
      That was in regards to the immigrants that Merkel tried to push on us.
      - gambiting 10y ago
        The EU parliment had a meeting where basically what was said was "this is a huge issue, everyone should help by taking some" and then Polish government decided to get on a high horse and not accept anyone. It flies directly in the face of united Europe and I really hate what they(the government) are doing.
        ManlyBread 10y ago
        Are you really surprised that the when there are so many reports about immigrants causing problems for the countries that take them in? No one here wants an another Cologne. And I find it really amusing that you talk about "united Europe" in the context of non-European immigrants. It is not okay for one country to cause a huge wave of immigration and then basically going "we can't take these people in so you have to and do it unconditionally" - which only encourages even more immigration.
- mamon 10y ago
  >> " right-wing party, which reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church." These are just big fat lies that are being spread by the politicians that lost last elections. None of this is actualy happening in Poland. Minorities are just fine, no action has been taken against any of them, citizen rights are in fact better than in most EU countries (no "political correctness") and the separation of church and state is ensured by the fact that 90% of Polish citizens don't treat their religion seriously anyway. The one thing that makes some sense is accusation of constitution violation, but this has more to do with the fact that Polish constitution is poorly written than with any actions of PiS. And, as a side note, PiS (ruling party in Poland) is of left-wing, socialist affiliation:)
  - Kristine1975 10y ago
    Wikipedia sez: Law and Justice, abbreviated to PiS, is a right-wing national-conservative political party in Poland.
  - TheTrotters 10y ago
    The constitutional crisis has everything to do with the actions of PiS. They deliberately disregarded previous ruling of the CT, and President Duda refused to swear in three judges correctly elected by the Parliament. Zbigniew Ziobro, the Minister of Justice, also serves as the Attorney General and under the new law he can interfere with the work of District Attorneys (he can essentially stop any prosecutorial case if he wishes to do so). This is an enormous threat to citizen's rights. The new government has already made several decisions which help the Catholic Church. The most important one concerns the sale of the farmland, which will benefit the church financially. On top of that there's the increase in taxation and a massive spending increase on welfare, but I suppose that's just run-of-the-mill fiscal irresponsibility.
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- MustardTiger 10y ago
  Repeating globalist lies in a one sided slander against the majority of the people is not going to help your cause.
- lgieron 10y ago
  > reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church Can you give example of these (except the "violates constitution", which in itself is nothing new, consitution was also violated by previous governments)? Which minorities are opressed? Which citizen rights are reduced? How the separation of state and church is removed? I live in Poland and am seriously confused by your post.
stuaxo 10y ago
The irony is that outside the EU, the UK will probably become much more neoliberal.
realusername 10y ago
In the last 100 years yes, there is no debate on this. However, since the mid-80s / 90s, the middle class has been completely crushed to a no return point (in most developed countries, not only the UK) and pretending the system is still working is at best dishonest. We are not even in a financial crisis right now but the system never recovered at all from 2008, in almost 10 years now. I can only guess what will happen on the next crisis... Having a jobless society where all the stability and balance of power is based on jobs is obviously not working very well at the moment.
- roel_v 10y ago
  But that has nothing to do with the EU! It's a global trend, completely orthogonal, and will manifest itself even stronger in a Britain outside of the EU! This is the tragedy about this whole ordeal - it's those that have voted 'leave' with the most conviction that will be hit hardest by the consequences, because they can not discern macro trends that are and are not caused and/or influenced by the Parliament and Commission.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    > It's a global trend, completely orthogonal Maybe. Maybe not. Developed countries have been largely centralizing power over the last twenty years. It's possible that has effects on the middle class. So Brexit could be a particular reaction to that.
  - MustardTiger 10y ago
    It has everything to do with the EU. It is globalism that has caused this, and the EU is a massive globalist force, pushing globalist policies on people against their will. A nation having the ability to defend itself against economic warfare is the only way to do anything about it.
    - makomk 10y ago
      You know what's an even bigger globalist force? Technology. Everything from your computer to your car is stuffed full of specialized parts and materials from a huge number of countries, many of which can't be produced locally at all or require factories that are economically infeasible without a global market. Saying no to globalism is also saying no to almost all the technological advances of the past few decades.
noelwelsh 10y ago
It's amazing that you think the economic improvements of the last 100 years are purely attributable to neoliberalism, a term which only acquired its current meaning around the 1980s.
tootie 10y ago
The neoliberals bash Keynes saying he advocates busy work to stimulate the ecomony, yes these guys are advocating artificial market inefficiency to stimulate the economy.
AlexandrB 10y ago
I think what people are missing is that the result of income inequality is not "more poor people" but more people who feel disenfranchised and left out, even if they're objectively better off than they were before. This is the end result of that. Globalization has been great for economic growth but in developed nations the benefit has disproportionately gone to the top 5%. Now the other 95% are restless and willing to vote for whomever promises them puppies and unicorns since existing leadership has failed to deliver.

by kfk 10y ago

krzrak 10y ago

Sometimes not being an EU state is not something to be happy about. For example now Poland is being taken over by right-wing party, which reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church. There are voices that we should leave the EU. But European Union and its framework is the only institution that from time to time keeps them at bay. When we leave EU, we are lost, the regime will be able to do anything.

jacquesm 10y ago
It only took 30 years for Poland to forget the most expensive lessons that were ever learned. I really hope it will end well but there is a good chance that it will not. Polish politics has been quite strange in the last 5 years or so.
- krzrak 10y ago
  Yeah, the sad truth is that people mostly forgotten how it was under communist rule and now they are pushing their country into the hands of other authoritarian politicians.
  - daemin 10y ago
    It's also disheartening to see how authoritarian supposedly free market countries are becoming, one's that have never been under the control of authoritarian communism.
ManlyBread 10y ago
>Poland is being taken over by right-wing party Funny, two years ago everyone here was calling them a left-wing party. >reduces citizen rights, violates constitution They haven't done anything that the previous party didn't, but since the previous party lost this election the very same people who did it for the previous 8 years suddenly act like they have the moral high ground. >oppresses minorities Not wanting uncontrolled immigration is not "oppressing minorities". >removes the separation of the state and church This has never been as severe as people like to claim, even back in 2006.
- toyg 10y ago
  > Not wanting uncontrolled immigration So you don't want what your country benefited dramatically from in the last 15 years, when Polish people moved to UK to work, sending home additional capital and reducing demographic pressure. I apologize if this sounds inflammatory, it's not meant to but: it is, objectively, a very hypocritical position.
  - ManlyBread 10y ago
    That was in regards to the immigrants that Merkel tried to push on us.
    - gambiting 10y ago
      The EU parliment had a meeting where basically what was said was "this is a huge issue, everyone should help by taking some" and then Polish government decided to get on a high horse and not accept anyone. It flies directly in the face of united Europe and I really hate what they(the government) are doing.
      - ManlyBread 10y ago
        Are you really surprised that the when there are so many reports about immigrants causing problems for the countries that take them in? No one here wants an another Cologne. And I find it really amusing that you talk about "united Europe" in the context of non-European immigrants. It is not okay for one country to cause a huge wave of immigration and then basically going "we can't take these people in so you have to and do it unconditionally" - which only encourages even more immigration.
mamon 10y ago
>> " right-wing party, which reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church." These are just big fat lies that are being spread by the politicians that lost last elections. None of this is actualy happening in Poland. Minorities are just fine, no action has been taken against any of them, citizen rights are in fact better than in most EU countries (no "political correctness") and the separation of church and state is ensured by the fact that 90% of Polish citizens don't treat their religion seriously anyway. The one thing that makes some sense is accusation of constitution violation, but this has more to do with the fact that Polish constitution is poorly written than with any actions of PiS. And, as a side note, PiS (ruling party in Poland) is of left-wing, socialist affiliation:)
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  Wikipedia sez: Law and Justice, abbreviated to PiS, is a right-wing national-conservative political party in Poland.
- TheTrotters 10y ago
  The constitutional crisis has everything to do with the actions of PiS. They deliberately disregarded previous ruling of the CT, and President Duda refused to swear in three judges correctly elected by the Parliament. Zbigniew Ziobro, the Minister of Justice, also serves as the Attorney General and under the new law he can interfere with the work of District Attorneys (he can essentially stop any prosecutorial case if he wishes to do so). This is an enormous threat to citizen's rights. The new government has already made several decisions which help the Catholic Church. The most important one concerns the sale of the farmland, which will benefit the church financially. On top of that there's the increase in taxation and a massive spending increase on welfare, but I suppose that's just run-of-the-mill fiscal irresponsibility.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
MustardTiger 10y ago
Repeating globalist lies in a one sided slander against the majority of the people is not going to help your cause.
lgieron 10y ago
> reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church Can you give example of these (except the "violates constitution", which in itself is nothing new, consitution was also violated by previous governments)? Which minorities are opressed? Which citizen rights are reduced? How the separation of state and church is removed? I live in Poland and am seriously confused by your post.

stuaxo 10y ago

The irony is that outside the EU, the UK will probably become much more neoliberal.

realusername 10y ago

In the last 100 years yes, there is no debate on this. However, since the mid-80s / 90s, the middle class has been completely crushed to a no return point (in most developed countries, not only the UK) and pretending the system is still working is at best dishonest. We are not even in a financial crisis right now but the system never recovered at all from 2008, in almost 10 years now. I can only guess what will happen on the next crisis... Having a jobless society where all the stability and balance of power is based on jobs is obviously not working very well at the moment.

roel_v 10y ago
But that has nothing to do with the EU! It's a global trend, completely orthogonal, and will manifest itself even stronger in a Britain outside of the EU! This is the tragedy about this whole ordeal - it's those that have voted 'leave' with the most conviction that will be hit hardest by the consequences, because they can not discern macro trends that are and are not caused and/or influenced by the Parliament and Commission.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > It's a global trend, completely orthogonal Maybe. Maybe not. Developed countries have been largely centralizing power over the last twenty years. It's possible that has effects on the middle class. So Brexit could be a particular reaction to that.
- MustardTiger 10y ago
  It has everything to do with the EU. It is globalism that has caused this, and the EU is a massive globalist force, pushing globalist policies on people against their will. A nation having the ability to defend itself against economic warfare is the only way to do anything about it.
  - makomk 10y ago
    You know what's an even bigger globalist force? Technology. Everything from your computer to your car is stuffed full of specialized parts and materials from a huge number of countries, many of which can't be produced locally at all or require factories that are economically infeasible without a global market. Saying no to globalism is also saying no to almost all the technological advances of the past few decades.

noelwelsh 10y ago

It's amazing that you think the economic improvements of the last 100 years are purely attributable to neoliberalism, a term which only acquired its current meaning around the 1980s.

tootie 10y ago

The neoliberals bash Keynes saying he advocates busy work to stimulate the ecomony, yes these guys are advocating artificial market inefficiency to stimulate the economy.

AlexandrB 10y ago

I think what people are missing is that the result of income inequality is not "more poor people" but more people who feel disenfranchised and left out, even if they're objectively better off than they were before. This is the end result of that. Globalization has been great for economic growth but in developed nations the benefit has disproportionately gone to the top 5%. Now the other 95% are restless and willing to vote for whomever promises them puppies and unicorns since existing leadership has failed to deliver.