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You can be on the right and have an extremely dim view of unfettered, and out of control global capitalism, as we currently have. 40 years of an experiment wher

You can be on the right and have an extremely dim view of unfettered, and out of control global capitalism, as we currently have. 40 years of an experiment where the only answer to everything is less government, fewer regulations, lower taxes and damn the economics. That's from both sides. Clinton as bad as Bush. Blair as bad as Thatcher. You're kind of right about who's driving that bus - we've really been given no choice, have we? Both sides have offered a destination that takes only right turns. Forcibly dragging capitalism back to a more inclusive middle ground, nearer where Eisenhower was politically, is hardly revolutionary socialism. Nor is wanting stronger constraints and taxes with fewer loopholes to the corporate machine. Enough to smooth the roughest edges, and limit the worst abuses. That is hardly exclusive to the left, outside the political and media bubble.

rayiner 7y ago
Except the last 40 years have seen the greatest expansion of prosperity in the history of the world. Countries that flirted with socialism, like India, started growing twice as fast when they made market reforms. Europe, which was moribund under more socialist and regulated times, has become economically vibrant under Thatcher and her ideological offspring. Moving back to the Eisenhower era would in fact hurt people. That was an economy where the government decided everything from what price an airline could charge for a flight to what routes a trucking company could run. It’s a roll back to an economic model that has been rejected throughout the developed world. There is a reason that everyone from Canadians to Australians to Germans to Swedes have kept electing market oriented liberals who kept pushing down government spending, corporate taxes, and regulation. Heck, Macron, the “socialist” candidate, is still pro-markets and pro-deregulation. (And socialist France has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world.)
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  For the 1%. For most typical workers, and the middle and lower tiers particularly it's seen stagnation and decline. The expansion has been in the developing economies. Which for a worker in USA or Europe, who has seen all the opportunity go to an ever dwindling proportion of society, makes for an empty statistic The French Socialist Party is most definitely not in this day and age socialist, and hasn't been for decades, just as Blair's Labour wan't socialist. They sit firmly in the centre, and are a centre left party nearer the British LibDems than Labour. In a US context, well there's not really a match, as it's too bipartisan. Macron, the former financial regulator and Rothchild banker, is worlds away from and would be unrecognisable to Mitterand. Yet Mitterand was of the same party. So no, France is not socialist.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    For European countries, which had dabbled with socialism but were liberalizing their economies in the last few decades, growth was strong at the median, not just the top 1%: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAaB94YXsAQSCXI.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAaB94YXsAQSCXI.jpg That is why France is longer “socialist.” People keep voting for people like Macron, and have stopped voting for people like Mitterrand, because capitalism works phenomenally well. As to the U.S., stagnating wages are not true either. There are at least two main problems with the simplistic comparisons: 1) They don't measure the same people. The common choice of start date for the "stagnation" narrative is in the 1970s. Since then, the percentage of people that are immigrants has nearly tripled. The percentage of older people skyrocketed, the percentage of married households have fallen, etc. Looking at the same groups of people, for example, just married couples, has a huge effect: https://www.justfacts.com/income_wealth_poverty.asp https://www.justfacts.com/income_wealth_poverty.asp > This means that comparing the income gains of the bottom three quintiles in 1979 and 2007 has little to do with the path of real families. Instead it is a commentary on the overall structure of the economy in that it compares low income people in 1979 to low income people in 2007 even though they aren’t the same people. … For example, the median income of those 20-31 in 1979 and married was $51,800 (2007 dollars), while 28 years later in 2007, the median of those 48 to 59 and married was $87,200. ^^^ This website has a ton of other great data slicing and dicing the various income trends. For example: > Page 1: “The changing composition of households in the U.S. is the effect explaining the reported increase in Gini coefficient for households since 1967. When corrected for actual decrease in the average household size the relevant Gini coefficient returns to that of personal incomes.” > From 1967 to 2011, the Gini index for persons in the U.S. has not varied by more than 2%. 2) They don't account for benefits. Focusing on just wages rather than total compensation ignores the fact that our tax structure has encouraged more of total compensation to go to untaxed benefits: https://fee.org/articles/dispelling-the-myth-that-wages-have-been-stagnant-for-decades/ https://fee.org/articles/dispelling-the-myth-that-wages-have... > Average real wages and benefits have risen by nearly 40 percent since 1973, after adjusting for inflation. Sensational claims that 80-90 percent of Americans have experienced low and stagnant real incomes since 1973 are also shown to be incorrect . . . real consumption per person increased 74 percent from 1980 to 2004—a rate of improvement that far exceeded the trend from 1950 to 1979.
- littlestymaar 7y ago
  > Except the last 40 years have seen the greatest expansion of prosperity in the history of the world. Not in the developed one, quite the opposite. And the developing countries, rising living condition is a mere consequence of catching up with technological progress ( for instance, the end of famines in India has nothing to do with free market, and is in fact the result of a state-driven agricultural reform [1]). During the last 30 years, prosperity in Cuba and North Korea increased as well… Also, calling France a socialist country, is utterly ridiculous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution_in_India

rayiner 7y ago

Except the last 40 years have seen the greatest expansion of prosperity in the history of the world. Countries that flirted with socialism, like India, started growing twice as fast when they made market reforms. Europe, which was moribund under more socialist and regulated times, has become economically vibrant under Thatcher and her ideological offspring. Moving back to the Eisenhower era would in fact hurt people. That was an economy where the government decided everything from what price an airline could charge for a flight to what routes a trucking company could run. It’s a roll back to an economic model that has been rejected throughout the developed world. There is a reason that everyone from Canadians to Australians to Germans to Swedes have kept electing market oriented liberals who kept pushing down government spending, corporate taxes, and regulation. Heck, Macron, the “socialist” candidate, is still pro-markets and pro-deregulation. (And socialist France has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world.)

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
For the 1%. For most typical workers, and the middle and lower tiers particularly it's seen stagnation and decline. The expansion has been in the developing economies. Which for a worker in USA or Europe, who has seen all the opportunity go to an ever dwindling proportion of society, makes for an empty statistic The French Socialist Party is most definitely not in this day and age socialist, and hasn't been for decades, just as Blair's Labour wan't socialist. They sit firmly in the centre, and are a centre left party nearer the British LibDems than Labour. In a US context, well there's not really a match, as it's too bipartisan. Macron, the former financial regulator and Rothchild banker, is worlds away from and would be unrecognisable to Mitterand. Yet Mitterand was of the same party. So no, France is not socialist.
- rayiner 7y ago
  For European countries, which had dabbled with socialism but were liberalizing their economies in the last few decades, growth was strong at the median, not just the top 1%: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAaB94YXsAQSCXI.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DAaB94YXsAQSCXI.jpg That is why France is longer “socialist.” People keep voting for people like Macron, and have stopped voting for people like Mitterrand, because capitalism works phenomenally well. As to the U.S., stagnating wages are not true either. There are at least two main problems with the simplistic comparisons: 1) They don't measure the same people. The common choice of start date for the "stagnation" narrative is in the 1970s. Since then, the percentage of people that are immigrants has nearly tripled. The percentage of older people skyrocketed, the percentage of married households have fallen, etc. Looking at the same groups of people, for example, just married couples, has a huge effect: https://www.justfacts.com/income_wealth_poverty.asp https://www.justfacts.com/income_wealth_poverty.asp > This means that comparing the income gains of the bottom three quintiles in 1979 and 2007 has little to do with the path of real families. Instead it is a commentary on the overall structure of the economy in that it compares low income people in 1979 to low income people in 2007 even though they aren’t the same people. … For example, the median income of those 20-31 in 1979 and married was $51,800 (2007 dollars), while 28 years later in 2007, the median of those 48 to 59 and married was $87,200. ^^^ This website has a ton of other great data slicing and dicing the various income trends. For example: > Page 1: “The changing composition of households in the U.S. is the effect explaining the reported increase in Gini coefficient for households since 1967. When corrected for actual decrease in the average household size the relevant Gini coefficient returns to that of personal incomes.” > From 1967 to 2011, the Gini index for persons in the U.S. has not varied by more than 2%. 2) They don't account for benefits. Focusing on just wages rather than total compensation ignores the fact that our tax structure has encouraged more of total compensation to go to untaxed benefits: https://fee.org/articles/dispelling-the-myth-that-wages-have-been-stagnant-for-decades/ https://fee.org/articles/dispelling-the-myth-that-wages-have... > Average real wages and benefits have risen by nearly 40 percent since 1973, after adjusting for inflation. Sensational claims that 80-90 percent of Americans have experienced low and stagnant real incomes since 1973 are also shown to be incorrect . . . real consumption per person increased 74 percent from 1980 to 2004—a rate of improvement that far exceeded the trend from 1950 to 1979.
littlestymaar 7y ago
> Except the last 40 years have seen the greatest expansion of prosperity in the history of the world. Not in the developed one, quite the opposite. And the developing countries, rising living condition is a mere consequence of catching up with technological progress ( for instance, the end of famines in India has nothing to do with free market, and is in fact the result of a state-driven agricultural reform [1]). During the last 30 years, prosperity in Cuba and North Korea increased as well… Also, calling France a socialist country, is utterly ridiculous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution_in_India