4 ms·

Well, I genuinely wonder, are people drawn to nationalism because of austerity, or are there common causes to both austerity and nationalism? Admittedly, I did

Well, I genuinely wonder, are people drawn to nationalism because of austerity, or are there common causes to both austerity and nationalism? Admittedly, I did not read past the abstract, but the paper seems already to fail to differentiate between causation and correlation.

thisisit 9y ago
I just scanned through the paper and here's a quote: With dashed hopes and a loss of faith in the Weimar Republic, fury and despair were channelled into the ranks of populists and demagogues, with the Nazi party campaigning against austerity and offering promises for a new era of prosperity. So, it's not nationalism rather people getting angry against the government which failed them. Any party can then shape the agenda and turn it towards nationalism or a particular community while promising prosperity.
- Gibbon1 9y ago
  It's not just failure but perceived abandonment. Consider old school New deal socialists or paleoconservatives. If you told those guys that honest married black men were out of work and couldn't support their families, they would be concerned. Seeing it as their duty to do something. Compare that with Ayn Randian Libertarians who generally think that the destitute should just up and die already. And Hayekian neoliberals that think that's simply not their problem. It's the above attitude that leads to fascism and communism. They become dominant when the social leaders abandon any sense of duty. It's very scary because that's the exact situation in the US currently.
crdoconnor 9y ago
Austerity causes wage repression in the following ways: * Cuts in benefits make people more reliant upon income from their jobs and give them less leverage. * Cuts to the public sector workforce increases the supply of labor. When the supply of available labor goes up, wages come down. * Cuts to public sector wages reduces competition from the public sector, so wages in the private sector come down too. The strongest effect of this can be seen today in Greece where wages fell ~20%. In Weimar, Bruning actually also issued a direct order to suppress wages (which I'm surprised the authors didn't mention). This did not go down well. People who have suffered from wage repression tend to look for somebody to blame. Extreme nationalism provides targets for that blame. And, the Nazis did end austerity and wages went up again, and of course they provided a scapegoat. Weimar also violently crushed the left wing opposition (the KPD), so people were left with "centrists" vs. "the (Nazi) alternative" and of course a lot of the people who wanted "an alternative" supported the alternative that was available to them, just because it was there.
netsharc 9y ago
My theory is, people want to survive, and they are selfish in order to make sure they do. They first would want to make sure their well-being. Next they would care about their family's survival. Next, their tribe's survival. How big is the tribe, is it the same village, or the same nation, or is it the same race/culture background? And "survival" can be an abstract term. Most people in Western Europe have a warm place to sleep and enough to eat to survive. But maybe they worry about rising prices and worry if they'll have enough (if their government will have enough for them) to retire in 20-30 years. They see their neighbor who got laid off and is still looking for a job months later. Their government says they need to cut some social safety nets because of austerity, and then they hear about the government saying refugees are welcome, with money from... where? My belief is, Angela Merkel basically became the leader of Europe and her (and her finance minister's) disastrous austerity policies lead to so much unhappiness all over Europe, even in Germany itself. As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being. Germany isn't an economic hero, it's exploiting the effects of the single currency while other countries around it are suffering economically. And this has also lead to the rise of populism all over Europe.
- titanix2 9y ago
  > As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being. This kind of moralistic stance is part of what people drives towards populist parties: being denied even the right to hold an opinion makes people angry. We totally have the right to chose who can come in our country and under which conditions. And that applies to refugees as well. This is not a problem of begin "human" or not, it is about making decisions that will have impact for decades on the European societies.
  - mamon 9y ago
    Additionally, they are not refugees at all. By international law's definition they stop being refugees when they reach the first safe country, which for most of them is Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or other Middle East/African country.By the time they decide to go to Europe they are just plain old immigrants, seeking for better life standard, and we should treat them as such. So far the most reasonable approach to the refugee issue was proposed by Hungarian Prime Minister, who wants EU to help them right there, in the Middle East, instead of letting them in.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

thisisit 9y ago

I just scanned through the paper and here's a quote: With dashed hopes and a loss of faith in the Weimar Republic, fury and despair were channelled into the ranks of populists and demagogues, with the Nazi party campaigning against austerity and offering promises for a new era of prosperity. So, it's not nationalism rather people getting angry against the government which failed them. Any party can then shape the agenda and turn it towards nationalism or a particular community while promising prosperity.

Gibbon1 9y ago
It's not just failure but perceived abandonment. Consider old school New deal socialists or paleoconservatives. If you told those guys that honest married black men were out of work and couldn't support their families, they would be concerned. Seeing it as their duty to do something. Compare that with Ayn Randian Libertarians who generally think that the destitute should just up and die already. And Hayekian neoliberals that think that's simply not their problem. It's the above attitude that leads to fascism and communism. They become dominant when the social leaders abandon any sense of duty. It's very scary because that's the exact situation in the US currently.

crdoconnor 9y ago

Austerity causes wage repression in the following ways: * Cuts in benefits make people more reliant upon income from their jobs and give them less leverage. * Cuts to the public sector workforce increases the supply of labor. When the supply of available labor goes up, wages come down. * Cuts to public sector wages reduces competition from the public sector, so wages in the private sector come down too. The strongest effect of this can be seen today in Greece where wages fell ~20%. In Weimar, Bruning actually also issued a direct order to suppress wages (which I'm surprised the authors didn't mention). This did not go down well. People who have suffered from wage repression tend to look for somebody to blame. Extreme nationalism provides targets for that blame. And, the Nazis did end austerity and wages went up again, and of course they provided a scapegoat. Weimar also violently crushed the left wing opposition (the KPD), so people were left with "centrists" vs. "the (Nazi) alternative" and of course a lot of the people who wanted "an alternative" supported the alternative that was available to them, just because it was there.

netsharc 9y ago

My theory is, people want to survive, and they are selfish in order to make sure they do. They first would want to make sure their well-being. Next they would care about their family's survival. Next, their tribe's survival. How big is the tribe, is it the same village, or the same nation, or is it the same race/culture background? And "survival" can be an abstract term. Most people in Western Europe have a warm place to sleep and enough to eat to survive. But maybe they worry about rising prices and worry if they'll have enough (if their government will have enough for them) to retire in 20-30 years. They see their neighbor who got laid off and is still looking for a job months later. Their government says they need to cut some social safety nets because of austerity, and then they hear about the government saying refugees are welcome, with money from... where? My belief is, Angela Merkel basically became the leader of Europe and her (and her finance minister's) disastrous austerity policies lead to so much unhappiness all over Europe, even in Germany itself. As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being. Germany isn't an economic hero, it's exploiting the effects of the single currency while other countries around it are suffering economically. And this has also lead to the rise of populism all over Europe.

titanix2 9y ago
> As for refugees, someone who says they have no right to be in Europe should -- in my opinion -- stop calling him- or herself a human being. This kind of moralistic stance is part of what people drives towards populist parties: being denied even the right to hold an opinion makes people angry. We totally have the right to chose who can come in our country and under which conditions. And that applies to refugees as well. This is not a problem of begin "human" or not, it is about making decisions that will have impact for decades on the European societies.
- mamon 9y ago
  Additionally, they are not refugees at all. By international law's definition they stop being refugees when they reach the first safe country, which for most of them is Turkey, or Saudi Arabia, or other Middle East/African country.By the time they decide to go to Europe they are just plain old immigrants, seeking for better life standard, and we should treat them as such. So far the most reasonable approach to the refugee issue was proposed by Hungarian Prime Minister, who wants EU to help them right there, in the Middle East, instead of letting them in.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]