4 ms·

What's most striking, of course, is how the Clintons, Obamas, Merkels and Hollandes of the world have wholeheartedly embraced this "supermanagerial" economic an

by ciconia 10y ago

What's most striking, of course, is how the Clintons, Obamas, Merkels and Hollandes of the world have wholeheartedly embraced this "supermanagerial" economic and political order, while paying lip-service to socialistic ideology. The meteoric rise of the alt-right is only matched by the abject failure of the left.

venomsnake 10y ago
There is not such thing as alt-right since a lot of people there do support leftist schemes of redistribution for the citizens. It is nationalism plain and simple.
pavlov 10y ago
Merkel is part of the left now? Her party is Christian Conservative, and she is a former East German with bad experiences with the Communist government. One has to be pretty far on the extreme right to call her a leftist.
- adrianN 10y ago
  She's pretty far left if you compare her to US politicians.
  - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
    Everyone on Earth is pretty far left compared to the US. How many other countries have two giant gold fasces prominently displayed in their main debating chamber?
    - hga 10y ago
      BS on your latter claim, fasces are everywhere in the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#Fasces_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#Fasces_in_the_United_St... as a homage to the Roman Republic on which ours was explicitly modeled (the S in SPQR stands for Senate), and pretty much were already there before Mussolini adopted them (and being an Italian in Italy, how could he not?).
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    The rest of the planet doesn't consider publicly-run higher education and health-care to be a "political revolution". We consider them an essential part of any healthy society and not to be touched even under the most right-wing of governments.
- DocTomoe 10y ago
  > with bad experiences with the Communist government. Actually Merkel was a fairly loyal follower to the communists in her youth, even being sent to Moscow for her studies (which was a bit of an honour only bestowed upon true believers).
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
The 'left' has been captured. It used to be that aristocrats without money (Grachii, Marius, Caesar) would make promises to the proletariat to gain power, and duly pay off their debt if/when successful. This ticked off the aristocrats with money, who now - after all these centuries - figured it out. They also make a lot of noise and promises, but, critically, not of monetary value. Just general progress, cheap ...
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  It's more complicated than that. When I put on my tin foil hat (listen to that crinkling...) I wonder if the old redistributive working class left wasn't deliberately undermined by a push towards a more abstract, more divisive, and less politically coherent academic/intellectual left which focused on tokenism and identity politics over economic enfranchisement. It's not so much that civil rights and feminism weren't important - because they were. It's more that at some point the third-wayers pushed hard to make them more important than fundamental concerns about class and economic inequality. The latter affected much larger numbers of voters and ignoring the issues made the left much weaker as a political force. The reason I'm suspicious is because this is the line taken by some supposedly left-wing newspapers like The Guardian in the UK, and also the DNC in the US. Whatever the motivation, the political effect is always to keep economic populism off the policy table. Trump has promised to change that, and voters like that idea. But of course he won't. Given his background and connections, there is no chance at all that he's going to be a firebrand economic populist. The absolute best his voters can expect is some token payback projects. But he's mostly just going to keep using race and immigration as a misdirection from the problems caused by the establishment's economic policies.
  - harrumph 10y ago
    > I wonder if the old redistributive working class left wasn't deliberately undermined by a push towards a more abstract, more divisive, and less politically coherent academic/intellectual left which focused on tokenism and identity politics over economic enfranchisement. Do not wonder: this is exactly what has happened. Maybe not intentionally, but it happened. Having their material conditions ignored is exactly why working class Obama voters walked away and gave us Cheeto Jesus. The only HRC supporters I saw active this cycle were managerialist turds who, to these voters, represent the people who talk and think like the guy on the microphone here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ttxGMQOrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ttxGMQOrY
pjc50 10y ago
This is what simplistic left/right views that misinterpret everything as "socialism" will mislead you. Merkel leads the centre-right CDU. You also left out Tony Blair. His "third way" is a good example of how we got here; because unvarnished redistribution and interference in business was unpopular, he decided to run a business-friendly campaign that allowed the existing economic order to continue while taxing it to pay for social programmes. An important part of this was refusing to raise the headline rate of income tax, in order to avoid scaring off middle class voters, while increasing "stealth" taxation in various other places. As an economic programme it worked brilliantly with genuine broad popularity. It was killed by the response to 9/11, in deciding to join the Iraq war regardless of the actual facts.

by ciconia 10y ago

venomsnake 10y ago

There is not such thing as alt-right since a lot of people there do support leftist schemes of redistribution for the citizens. It is nationalism plain and simple.

pavlov 10y ago

Merkel is part of the left now? Her party is Christian Conservative, and she is a former East German with bad experiences with the Communist government. One has to be pretty far on the extreme right to call her a leftist.

adrianN 10y ago
She's pretty far left if you compare her to US politicians.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  Everyone on Earth is pretty far left compared to the US. How many other countries have two giant gold fasces prominently displayed in their main debating chamber?
  - hga 10y ago
    BS on your latter claim, fasces are everywhere in the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#Fasces_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces#Fasces_in_the_United_St... as a homage to the Roman Republic on which ours was explicitly modeled (the S in SPQR stands for Senate), and pretty much were already there before Mussolini adopted them (and being an Italian in Italy, how could he not?).
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  The rest of the planet doesn't consider publicly-run higher education and health-care to be a "political revolution". We consider them an essential part of any healthy society and not to be touched even under the most right-wing of governments.
DocTomoe 10y ago
> with bad experiences with the Communist government. Actually Merkel was a fairly loyal follower to the communists in her youth, even being sent to Moscow for her studies (which was a bit of an honour only bestowed upon true believers).

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago

The 'left' has been captured. It used to be that aristocrats without money (Grachii, Marius, Caesar) would make promises to the proletariat to gain power, and duly pay off their debt if/when successful. This ticked off the aristocrats with money, who now - after all these centuries - figured it out. They also make a lot of noise and promises, but, critically, not of monetary value. Just general progress, cheap ...

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
It's more complicated than that. When I put on my tin foil hat (listen to that crinkling...) I wonder if the old redistributive working class left wasn't deliberately undermined by a push towards a more abstract, more divisive, and less politically coherent academic/intellectual left which focused on tokenism and identity politics over economic enfranchisement. It's not so much that civil rights and feminism weren't important - because they were. It's more that at some point the third-wayers pushed hard to make them more important than fundamental concerns about class and economic inequality. The latter affected much larger numbers of voters and ignoring the issues made the left much weaker as a political force. The reason I'm suspicious is because this is the line taken by some supposedly left-wing newspapers like The Guardian in the UK, and also the DNC in the US. Whatever the motivation, the political effect is always to keep economic populism off the policy table. Trump has promised to change that, and voters like that idea. But of course he won't. Given his background and connections, there is no chance at all that he's going to be a firebrand economic populist. The absolute best his voters can expect is some token payback projects. But he's mostly just going to keep using race and immigration as a misdirection from the problems caused by the establishment's economic policies.
- harrumph 10y ago
  > I wonder if the old redistributive working class left wasn't deliberately undermined by a push towards a more abstract, more divisive, and less politically coherent academic/intellectual left which focused on tokenism and identity politics over economic enfranchisement. Do not wonder: this is exactly what has happened. Maybe not intentionally, but it happened. Having their material conditions ignored is exactly why working class Obama voters walked away and gave us Cheeto Jesus. The only HRC supporters I saw active this cycle were managerialist turds who, to these voters, represent the people who talk and think like the guy on the microphone here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ttxGMQOrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ttxGMQOrY

pjc50 10y ago

This is what simplistic left/right views that misinterpret everything as "socialism" will mislead you. Merkel leads the centre-right CDU. You also left out Tony Blair. His "third way" is a good example of how we got here; because unvarnished redistribution and interference in business was unpopular, he decided to run a business-friendly campaign that allowed the existing economic order to continue while taxing it to pay for social programmes. An important part of this was refusing to raise the headline rate of income tax, in order to avoid scaring off middle class voters, while increasing "stealth" taxation in various other places. As an economic programme it worked brilliantly with genuine broad popularity. It was killed by the response to 9/11, in deciding to join the Iraq war regardless of the actual facts.