21 ms·

Sometimes I feel like the more has been achieved by western liberalism the more is it being criticized for not magically fixing everything there is to be fixed.

• EekSnakePond 10y ago
  Yes we do. It's just those who have benefited from this arrangement the most happen to also control the relationships that power mass media, which is then used to undermine alternative solutions as "racist", "sexist" and "evil" with no evidence whatsoever and immediately engage in mob swarming and plebeian intimidation. For example: Western Liberalism absolutely requires cheap brown people. (And that deep reliance ABSOLUTELY makes supporters of Western liberalism completely racist) If you make cheap brown people as expensive as Western natives, why do you need cheap brown people? And if you have "good-enough" AI, why do you need either?
  • compiler-guy 10y ago
    This is another criticism, not an alternative proposal. Please give an alternative proposal.
    • crdoconnor 10y ago
      Raise the minimum wage to $20/hour. Watch as "serious economists" lie about: * All of the jobs that will actually not disappear. * All of the prices that will actually not rise (by much). And try really really hard to pretend that: * Raising the minimum wage doesn't channel profits into the pockets of workers. What surprises me isn't that they lie. What surprises me is that people continue to believe them.
      • thebokehwokeh2 10y ago
        > Raise the minimum wage to $20/hour. I don't know how you came to the conclusion of western liberalism being against raising the minimum wage when it's been a core tenet of their platforms for over a decade now. But to $20 an hour is something neither liberal nor conservative has EVER advocated for as until there is a public uproar for it, both will always side with corporate interests. That said, your proposition is an alternative solution that I have never heard anyone of actual influence from either side of the political spectrum (outside of Sanders) ever bring up.
        • Retric 10y ago
          In direct inflation terms the minimum wage was ~10.50 / hour in 1968 or around the current minimum wage in France. Though as a percentage of the economy it was more than 20$/hour. Thus, it's not quite as clear cut as you are suggesting. PS: Inflation is not really a single number as some but not all things end up costing less to produce over time. In other words, A may get more expensive while B becomes less expensive. Which makes long term inflation calculations more complicated.
        • astine 10y ago
          Despite the fact that political language in the United States confuses this, 'Western Liberalism' is not the same thing as 'Progressivism'. Western Liberalism is about liberal democracy combined with free-ish markets. This can come with a minimum wage, or it might not. It encompasses the vast majority of the political landscape in most Western countries and everyone from American conservatives and to British labour fall under its domain.
        • crdoconnor 10y ago
          I don't quite believe I'm hearing somebody say "aside from one of the 3 Presidential candidates who were all in the news constantly, nobody said this so nobody has EVER advocated for it". The fact that the corporatist extremists ("moderates" like Obama and Clinton) squeeze this kind of idea from the public discourse is exactly what led to declining incomes which in turn is what made people furious enough to vote for Trump.
      • nrclark 10y ago
        Out of curiosity, what do you suppose are the long-term effects of raising minimum wage? If you were a landlord managing an apartment building, how much do you charge for a unit? If all of your tenants suddenly make twice as much money as they did, how long before you double their rent? If a McDonalds needs to pay all of its employees twice as much money, how long before they double their food prices to make up the difference? I feel like the working poor in this country get a terrible deal in this world - we definitely need to make conditions better. But does raising minimum wage actually do that in the long run? Or does it just increase inflation and destroy any savings the poor might have?
        • guard-of-terra 10y ago
          > If you were a landlord managing an apartment building, how much do you charge for a unit? If all of your tenants suddenly make twice as much money as they did, how long before you double their rent? Remember, your tenants are now able to move to gentrified areas, their wages allow that. Some might want to get a mortgage for a house they could not dream of previously. So now your apartments will have to compete with much wider selection of property. You'll raise prices definitely, but not as much as you would think, and you'll spend most of the difference doing renovations and spending on security.
          • Retric 10y ago
            It also assumed increasing minimum wage would increase everyone wage. It's not going to boost a retired persons income or a CEO's pay for example.
        • bduerst 10y ago
          Coincidentally, housing prices (buy/rent) are income-elastic and one of the criticisms of a blanket UBI, not just minimum wage.
          • TeMPOraL 10y ago
            Did anyone compile a list of ways to handle this problem? I'm all for UBI, but this feels like a show-stopper, and I don't know of any workaround.
      • tim333 10y ago
        >Raise the minimum wage to $20/hour. Watch as "serious economists" lie appears a bit of a strawman argument. Googling "$20 minimum wage" the only thing on page one is an article explaining the obvious that people would lose jobs if you did. http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/02/20/why-shouldnt-we-increase-the-minimum-wage-to-20hour/#4d63a6083b2e http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2013/02/20/why-shouldnt-we...
        • crdoconnor 10y ago
          >explaining the obvious that people would lose jobs That is neither obvious nor is it true. It is the opposite of what is observed experimentally. When the effect of minimum wage hikes is measured across state borders employment remains static.
      • PeterisP 10y ago
        A significant rise of the minimum wage would rapidly accelerate the ongoing process of automation making people unemployable. Already there are swaths of jobs that could be done better by machines but currently it's cheaper to hire a "cheap brown person" as the parent post says by outsourcing it. For example, the manufacture of clothing and footwear which currently employs many millions of people worldwide, mostly in SE Asia. As soon as rising wages pass that barrier and companies pony up for the required capital investments these jobs are never coming back. There will always be more desires for new jobs/tasks that could be done - but the market price for them will be below the minimum wage, so they will happen only as hobbies.
        • crdoconnor 10y ago
          >There will always be more desires for new jobs/tasks that could be done - but the market price for them will be below the minimum wage That's a brave and entirely unsourced claim. Given that this never happened in the past (e.g when almost the entire workforce was automated out of farm work), why are you so confident it will happen in the future?
  • rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    How, exactly, does Western liberalism absolutely require cheap brown people?
    • EekSnakePond 10y ago
      Every single thing you touched (And every single thing connected to what you touched) to type that statement was made overseas. Welcome to the international system of currency and labor arbitrage, a core prerequisite for any democratic experiment. Democracy has ALWAYS and WILL always require slaves.
      • rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        You are conflating economic neoliberalism (which is neither new nor contemporarily liberal) with social liberalism. They are not the same and nobody is pretending that they are. I still fail to see your connection: 1: Slaves 2: Democracy 3: ???? 4: Profit(?) Could you explain with links or examples how exactly slavery (or economic peonage, depending on your definition), is required to maintain a democracy?
        • EekSnakePond 10y ago
          > You are conflating economic neoliberalism with social liberalism. I agree it appears I'm making this conflation. But > nobody is pretending that they are: Is not an honest statement. Any attempt to make cheap brown labor more expensive through legislation (See the Trump protests) or even by IMPROVING their quality of life (See gentrification) is instantly fought off as racist. The powers that be have deeply merged international currency flow with Western liberal morality after the 1940s and use their sacred cows as hostages to stifle any threats to their power.
          • germinalphrase 10y ago
            Gentrification pushes low income people out of their communities by increasing the costs of living there beyond their capacity to absorb those costs. It is also not inherently racist (as it affects anyone who is low income), but is one mechanism through which racial inequities are exacerbated in our country.
• m_fayer 10y ago
  Absolutely. The basics of liberalism as we see it today - rule of law and representative democracy, are young. How many presently-unthinkable violations of liberalism were committed by a Western nation within the lifespan of someone who is 90 today, with full public support? Outright genocide, systematic persecution and disenfranchisement of whole races and genders, violent militarised colonialism, you name it. Building a just state and society is a slow, delicate, multi-generational project of structural and cultural modification, and we are just at the beginning. We're just now getting to a place where we're moving past barbaric mass violence and mass racist persecution. It's like people look around, notice that we're not in fact in some enlightened Star Trek utopia, declare the whole edifice rotten, and decide that the best response is to gleefully burn it all down.
  • the_duke 10y ago
    It's easy to forget that what we understand now as a liberal democracy with free press, rule of law and the right for everyone to vote is extremely young. Just look at the time when women were granted voting rights (1). The US, by some seen as the 'holy grail' of modern democracy, officially allowed women to vote in 1919 (ironically many of the Democratic party were opposed), had extensive voter supression such as literacy tests until the 60ies and arguably still does today. Many European countries were not real Democracies until after WW2, or event until the fall of the soviet union. 60-70, or even 100 years is basically nothing. That's one long lifespan. Let's see if we see it all go down in flames in our lifetimes. (Probably not. Let's hope not). (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage
    • pm90 10y ago
      I was afraid of the whole burning down thing as well. The protests and outrage around the US have made me a lot more hopeful though.
    • jdmichal 10y ago
      The Democratic party of 1919 did not have the same modern liberalist principles of the Democratic party of today. The parties are not static entities with the same principles extending back to their founding.
• rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  In my perspective, the issue is less that the critics decline to offer alternative realistic solutions, but rather that they seek to repackage discredited and harmful solutions (like supply-side economics) as being the correct fix if only it gets implemented correctly and without opposition meddling. This line of argument is also often used to whitewash Communism by saying things along the line of: "Communism would work just fine if it wasn't implemented poorly like the way China or the Soviet Union did." It's rather troubling that in such a connected and technologically advanced age, we can't seem help ourselves from looking to the past to organize ourselves for the future.
  • beat 10y ago
    Those are almost always No True Scotsman fallacies. Supply-side failed because it wasn't supply-side enough. Etc.
    • compiler-guy 10y ago
      It's not unlike abstinence-only birth control. Practiced perfectly, yes, abstinence is 100% effective at preventing pregnancy. There is no question about that. And yes, some small fraction of people do manage to practice complete abstinence, and reap the benefit of not getting pregnant. But as a policy, abstinence only for broad swaths of the population is a total disaster.
      • guard-of-terra 10y ago
        Offtopic-ish: > some small fraction of people do manage to practice complete abstinence I actually think it's a pretty large fraction, but they do it out of inability to secure a mate. The people for whom supply and demand curves never cross. It's much harder to reason why a person capable of having a life will choose to not to.
  • stinkytaco 10y ago
    Perhaps part of the problem is our desire to bundle solutions into grand theories, like supply-side economics or Marxism? I agree that we can beat a horse over and over again until there's nothing left to see, but small changes are how the world actually works. I can say "lowering taxes on producers of x can stimulate growth" or "increased public investment in industry y will resolve the problems it currently experiences" and those things occur all the time. But they also don't sell books. EDIT: Perhaps a better way of stating this is our desire to package academically useful economic models into grand policy solutions.
• stinkytaco 10y ago
  It's easier to complain than it is to fix, but I also think that's why people don't offer solutions more readily. Solutions are iterative and difficult. If you offer small solutions you put yourself out there to be criticized for the solution not being enough, and if you offer large ones, you open yourself up to criticism that the solution is unrealistic. This is why so few people go into politics and why it can be so dysfunctional in a hyper connected society. All is criticism.
• crdoconnor 10y ago
  >Coincidentally those who criticize it never offer alternative realistic solutions. The choice to depict, say, Sanders' proposals as unrealistic by straw manning them was a deliberate political attack: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/01/22/What-Liberal-Attacks-Bernie-Sanders-Are-Really-About http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/01/22/What-Libera... Unfortunately the average Democrat primary voter didn't dig into the substance of the attack well enough to realize that it was essentially bullshit. They simply believed Krugman's lies. The voters wanted a change from the status quo. And that is why Trump is now your president. A similar dynamic is now occurring in the UK. Corbyn's ideas (e.g. rail nationalization/pay caps) are routinely depicted as unrealistic. If people continue to believe those lies, the far right will be seen instead as the 'viable' alternative. The same kinds of economists who declare pay caps unrealistic and are weirdly enough absolutely blind to unsustainable build ups of debt causing financial crises but pretend that magic robots are about to put 80% of us out of work in the next ten years. That's "realistic" I suppose.
  • Animats 10y ago
    Rail nationalization again? Britain has gone back and forth on that since the 1940s.[1][2][3] It didn't help. Currently, trains are mostly private and track is mostly Government-owned, which sort of works. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail
    • crdoconnor 10y ago
      It sort of works at 3x the price you pay in Western Europe. Of course, I don't think people want to return to the period just before privatization either when the rail network was deliberately starved of investment in order to make privatization appear more appealing. Nonetheless, the majority of the public support this idea. The Telegraph literally called the majority of the public communists for doing so.
• droopyEyelids 10y ago
  I strongly disagree. But I think i understand where you're coming from, because instead of 'alternatives' the answer is to stop doing many of our western liberal behaviors. The alternative to a campaign of drone warfare is to not do the campaign. The alternative to regime change and overthrow of democratically elected governments is to treat the nation as a sovereign nation, and not overthrow their government. The alternative to concentrated wealth and monopolists is to split up the monopoly, and make do with smaller 'less efficient' companies.
  • stinkytaco 10y ago
    Not doing things has consequences too. Choosing not to oppose Assad in Syria is undeniably bad for somebody. This is precisely the purpose of government, to decide what to do or not to do.
  • dandare 10y ago
    You have actually illustrated 90% of the problem - none of the the above represents liberal behaviour but rather the very opposite. Liberal fight such behaviour, these things happen DESPITE OF liberalism. You have just validate my post.
    • steamer25 10y ago
      Depends on your definition of 'liberalism'. Classical liberalism was synonymous with libertarianism, minarchy, etc. The modern colloquial usage is closer to meaning left-wing statism (as distinguished from 'conservative' or right-wing statism).
      • narag 10y ago
        Please replace "modern colloquial" with "USA". Outside your country "liberalism" is not ambiguous at all.
• corysama 10y ago
  There's a name for this which escapes me. It happens to individuals a lot. It goes like this: "In today's news, Person A has made a sizable, significant contribution of Something to help Subset B of The Overwhelming Problem. But, one has to ask: What about The Rest of The Overwhelming Problem? Why doesn't Person A care about any of that!?" The issue is that you provided the media with a headline they need, but not one they want. You gave them "Things are getting better, but it's complicated". But, what readers respond to is one of "15 reasons you should be afraid, here's who to blame" or "Everything is magically fixed in a single soundbite".
  • TeMPOraL 10y ago
    It's Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics. https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth... "The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster."
    • dandare 10y ago
      Thanks for sharing this. It is now bookmarked at the top of my "wisdom" folder :)
• api 10y ago
  Oh yes. The genius of totalitarianism and theocracy and similar is to promise nothing but suffering and sacrifice. That way they can always deliver.