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From a European perspective, I would not say it's antidemocratic if parties who are pro-austerity get elected while being transparent about their policies. How

From a European perspective, I would not say it's antidemocratic if parties who are pro-austerity get elected while being transparent about their policies. However in my opinion, there is a great lack of "class consciousness" from the people who vote for these parties, in a sort of Stockholm syndrome, or because people easily fall prey to the sensationalist idea that you can apply household economics to macro-economics.

mhitza 3y ago
> However in my opinion, there is a great lack of "class consciousness" from the people who vote for these parties After those voted come to power, nothing prevents them from flipping on their agenda. I've seen it happen countless times, and probably so did you. If only there were mechanics (a la Liquid Democracy) to recast votes in collective actions without the initiative of the government, but by way of constitutional rights. Politicians would be more interested to keep themselves aligned to their electorate, or lose their comfy job before their term would normally end. Politician as a career, and unconditional 4 year terms seem like a problem imo.
CM30 3y ago
But do people generally vote for parties based on their attitude towards the budget/austerity plans? Because my experience is that the big parties in most countries cover so many topics in their political agendas that people are voting for them for all manner of different reasons. Sometimes it's the social/moral aspect that they care about more than the economic one, and sometimes vice versa. It's unlikely any conservative will vote for the more left leaning party based on a dislike for austerity, and vice versa.
wesselbindt 3y ago
Democratically elected parties can transparently enact anti-democratic policies. If my local democratically elected fascist transparently has "do not allow group x to vote" as an intended policy, then that policy is anti-democratic, even though it may be popular. The argument the article makes is not that austerity measures are unpopular, it's that they're anti-democratic.
hef19898 3y ago
The proverbial "Swabian Housewive" comes to mind. States, governments and economies don't work like your household budget.
- bluetomcat 3y ago
  Without all the financial abstractions and acronyms, they ultimately work like that. A household is a micro-economy that's connected to the outside world. The productive working members contribute to the well-being of the household. The children, the elderly or the disabled require spending and support. The home needs spending in order to keep it a safe and comfortable environment.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    That's like saying a human and an amoeba are basically the same because one is a micro-organism and the other is, well, also an organism. They've both got inputs and outputs within an ecology! Surely the rest is an implementation detail... A psychologist doesn't learn anything useful from studying amoebas. A macroeconomist can't apply lessons from individual household economics either.
  - Pamar 3y ago
    I think this is a gross oversimplification. Let's say that a place like, say France, maps to a family of six (Mother and Father, 2 children, 2 elders) living in an apartment on the second floor of a 5-floors/ten apartments building. - Can France "extract" the tiles from the bathroom and sell it to Switzerland on floor 4th? - Can France tax movement across the section of hallway directly outside their door? Who takes care of enforcing this, and protect "our sacred hallway section" from expansionistic Germany on the other side of the stairs? - How do the two working adults in the household make sure that a portion of their income will be invested in order to sustain them when they are too old to work? - The daughter is 16 - will she be forced to emigrate to the 3rd floor when she reaches working age? - How is she supposed to send some money back home? maybe Switzerland can help, but of course they will get a share of it for the service...
    - 3y ago
RNAlfons 3y ago
Being "transparent about their policies" doesn't mean that the voter understands them or their consequences. This is just a fig leaf.
- bigfudge 3y ago
  Being transparent would be a start though. The tories in 2019 were still making Red Bus promises about how Brexit would save us all billions we could spend on the NHS.
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  Then just say people are stupid and abolish voting. If the public doesn't have the mental tools to evaluate the simplest of electoral programs then what's democracy even good for?
  - 0thgen 3y ago
    It's probably good for a lot of things, but clearly has drawbacks everyone intuitively agrees on (no one would want medical doctors to democratically seek advice from their patients, at least not on complex decisions like which medication to take) The "10% less democracy" concept (https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28088 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28088) is interesting here, and frames the question as "when and how much" as opposed to "democracy or no-democracy"
  - jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
    >then what's democracy even good for? Historically it's amazingly good for rhetorically justifying war crimes and genocide by way of claiming moral highground.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    Submission: X is antidemocratic HN users: hold my beer
- omnimus 3y ago
  Yeah most people will percieve austerity as saving. As something like when they stop paying netflix or buy less of the expensive cheese they like. Inherently a good thing that will lead to having more money in future.

mhitza 3y ago

> However in my opinion, there is a great lack of "class consciousness" from the people who vote for these parties After those voted come to power, nothing prevents them from flipping on their agenda. I've seen it happen countless times, and probably so did you. If only there were mechanics (a la Liquid Democracy) to recast votes in collective actions without the initiative of the government, but by way of constitutional rights. Politicians would be more interested to keep themselves aligned to their electorate, or lose their comfy job before their term would normally end. Politician as a career, and unconditional 4 year terms seem like a problem imo.

CM30 3y ago

But do people generally vote for parties based on their attitude towards the budget/austerity plans? Because my experience is that the big parties in most countries cover so many topics in their political agendas that people are voting for them for all manner of different reasons. Sometimes it's the social/moral aspect that they care about more than the economic one, and sometimes vice versa. It's unlikely any conservative will vote for the more left leaning party based on a dislike for austerity, and vice versa.

wesselbindt 3y ago

Democratically elected parties can transparently enact anti-democratic policies. If my local democratically elected fascist transparently has "do not allow group x to vote" as an intended policy, then that policy is anti-democratic, even though it may be popular. The argument the article makes is not that austerity measures are unpopular, it's that they're anti-democratic.

hef19898 3y ago

The proverbial "Swabian Housewive" comes to mind. States, governments and economies don't work like your household budget.

bluetomcat 3y ago
Without all the financial abstractions and acronyms, they ultimately work like that. A household is a micro-economy that's connected to the outside world. The productive working members contribute to the well-being of the household. The children, the elderly or the disabled require spending and support. The home needs spending in order to keep it a safe and comfortable environment.
- pavlov 3y ago
  That's like saying a human and an amoeba are basically the same because one is a micro-organism and the other is, well, also an organism. They've both got inputs and outputs within an ecology! Surely the rest is an implementation detail... A psychologist doesn't learn anything useful from studying amoebas. A macroeconomist can't apply lessons from individual household economics either.
- Pamar 3y ago
  I think this is a gross oversimplification. Let's say that a place like, say France, maps to a family of six (Mother and Father, 2 children, 2 elders) living in an apartment on the second floor of a 5-floors/ten apartments building. - Can France "extract" the tiles from the bathroom and sell it to Switzerland on floor 4th? - Can France tax movement across the section of hallway directly outside their door? Who takes care of enforcing this, and protect "our sacred hallway section" from expansionistic Germany on the other side of the stairs? - How do the two working adults in the household make sure that a portion of their income will be invested in order to sustain them when they are too old to work? - The daughter is 16 - will she be forced to emigrate to the 3rd floor when she reaches working age? - How is she supposed to send some money back home? maybe Switzerland can help, but of course they will get a share of it for the service...
  - 3y ago

RNAlfons 3y ago

Being "transparent about their policies" doesn't mean that the voter understands them or their consequences. This is just a fig leaf.

bigfudge 3y ago
Being transparent would be a start though. The tories in 2019 were still making Red Bus promises about how Brexit would save us all billions we could spend on the NHS.
Almondsetat 3y ago
Then just say people are stupid and abolish voting. If the public doesn't have the mental tools to evaluate the simplest of electoral programs then what's democracy even good for?
- 0thgen 3y ago
  It's probably good for a lot of things, but clearly has drawbacks everyone intuitively agrees on (no one would want medical doctors to democratically seek advice from their patients, at least not on complex decisions like which medication to take) The "10% less democracy" concept (https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28088 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=28088) is interesting here, and frames the question as "when and how much" as opposed to "democracy or no-democracy"
- jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
  >then what's democracy even good for? Historically it's amazingly good for rhetorically justifying war crimes and genocide by way of claiming moral highground.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  Submission: X is antidemocratic HN users: hold my beer
omnimus 3y ago
Yeah most people will percieve austerity as saving. As something like when they stop paying netflix or buy less of the expensive cheese they like. Inherently a good thing that will lead to having more money in future.