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The 'golden age of capitalism'/social democracy thing didn't work so well throughout the seventies - that's why the neoliberals were voted into office, mainly d

The 'golden age of capitalism'/social democracy thing didn't work so well throughout the seventies - that's why the neoliberals were voted into office, mainly due to problems with the economy. I am also not convinced about the democracy part during the 'golden age' - once upon a time you had unelected bureaucrats and union bosses who would do the decisions (you have some of that in the EU now). Also mighty Goldman Sachs didn't enact Glass-Steagall - you need a government for that.

candiodari 9y ago
The EU is the exact opposite. It started out as the union of coal and steel "community" (for the bosses of the companies). It is the exact opposite of a worker's union: for the largest part of it's existence it was 50% dedicated to taking away rights of employees. It very much was a voice for capitalists, owners and generally the ultra-rich (not even the 0.1%, we're barely talking the top 10 richest of Europe at the time here)
- MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  Yes, very confusing how the EU commissioners get appointed, but they do seem to have a lot of real power.
- jordanb 9y ago
  Another example is how the ECB has no dual mandate. Its only mandate is to control inflation. It has no mandate to limit unemployment. As the Euro crisis began to cause political instability they've backed off a little, but they took their single mandate very seriously and stuck to their "no fiscal stimulus" guns for a very long time during the crisis.
crdoconnor 9y ago
"that's why the neoliberals were voted into office, mainly due to problems with the economy." Except they got their start by preaching monetarism as an appropriate response to the 1970s oil crisis ("inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"). That was pretty much the economic equivalent of prescribing leeches and blood-letting to fight cancer. Eventually the oil crisis subsided (for no reason relating to monetarism) and they took credit for that. Ironically the choice to shift the economy to be oil dependent from coal dependent in the first place was done in order to shift the country from dependency on labor (coal required far more labor to mine but could be done locally) to dependency on the middle east, which was seen as more easily controlled: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/how-coal-brought-us-democracy-and-oil-ended-it-lessons-from-the-new-book-carbon-democracy.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/how-coal-brought-us-d... "once upon a time you had union bosses who would do the decisions" Yes, we shifted from having representatives of people who worked for living makingd policy decisions to representatives of people who own for a living (bankers, etc.) making policy decisions. People who own for a living generally think that that is a bad thing.
- MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  I was not just the oil shock; suddenly they had Japan with its more efficient industry that made GM cars look bad, in GB the the unions were a bit too powerful (too much power isn't good for any entity)

candiodari 9y ago

The EU is the exact opposite. It started out as the union of coal and steel "community" (for the bosses of the companies). It is the exact opposite of a worker's union: for the largest part of it's existence it was 50% dedicated to taking away rights of employees. It very much was a voice for capitalists, owners and generally the ultra-rich (not even the 0.1%, we're barely talking the top 10 richest of Europe at the time here)

MichaelMoser123 9y ago
Yes, very confusing how the EU commissioners get appointed, but they do seem to have a lot of real power.
jordanb 9y ago
Another example is how the ECB has no dual mandate. Its only mandate is to control inflation. It has no mandate to limit unemployment. As the Euro crisis began to cause political instability they've backed off a little, but they took their single mandate very seriously and stuck to their "no fiscal stimulus" guns for a very long time during the crisis.

crdoconnor 9y ago

"that's why the neoliberals were voted into office, mainly due to problems with the economy." Except they got their start by preaching monetarism as an appropriate response to the 1970s oil crisis ("inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"). That was pretty much the economic equivalent of prescribing leeches and blood-letting to fight cancer. Eventually the oil crisis subsided (for no reason relating to monetarism) and they took credit for that. Ironically the choice to shift the economy to be oil dependent from coal dependent in the first place was done in order to shift the country from dependency on labor (coal required far more labor to mine but could be done locally) to dependency on the middle east, which was seen as more easily controlled: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/how-coal-brought-us-democracy-and-oil-ended-it-lessons-from-the-new-book-carbon-democracy.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/how-coal-brought-us-d... "once upon a time you had union bosses who would do the decisions" Yes, we shifted from having representatives of people who worked for living makingd policy decisions to representatives of people who own for a living (bankers, etc.) making policy decisions. People who own for a living generally think that that is a bad thing.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago
I was not just the oil shock; suddenly they had Japan with its more efficient industry that made GM cars look bad, in GB the the unions were a bit too powerful (too much power isn't good for any entity)