3 ms·

I wouldn't say bureaucracy or the State is the problem in Spain, but the political caste (in both our traditional left and right-wing parties), rampant corrupti

by kaoD 12y ago

I wouldn't say bureaucracy or the State is the problem in Spain, but the political caste (in both our traditional left and right-wing parties), rampant corruption and a general lack of faith in democracy (or, more specifically, in the currently available democratic instruments). As far as I can tell we're not facing this problem alone, but we're pretty young as a democratic society and most of our politicians inherited their position or remained on it under an amnesty after Franco's dictatorship (hence the usage of "caste"). I think (though it's hard to analyze when you're involved in the situation) we're in the middle of a social and generational change. We've got daily news of corruption cases amongst the mainstream parties and people are really fed up. "Podemos" (literally "We can", a left-wing grassroots party) rose as an alternative to that political caste, and most surveys situate them as a heavy contender (if not winner) for the upcoming elections. Not long ago you'd hear lots of people claim they were not interested in politics, so they were pretty much puppets in the hands of our politician's interests. Nowadays, thanks to the 15M movement and Podemos, there are political debates on Saturday night prime time. Politics are in vogue. Perhaps that's the government competition you were talking about? We'll see what happens.

disputin 12y ago
That's not the competition I talking about, but it is good to hear that it's there. The UK is also sick of its traditional parties, but is voting to the right, away from Europe. Party loyalty is usually ideology loyalty, and in a changing world the suitability of an ideology to the global context will change, so the traditional parties are likely a write off as their idea of keeping abreast is fringe tinkering. My point was that all of the responsibility of competition shouldn't have to fall on the worker when there is scope for the government to ease things for the worker. I'm not saying eg get rid of the health service, (Republicans, we're talking Europe here) but aligning processes with countries that have obviously more efficient ways of doing things. A chap on TV the other night was talking about this, he'd moved north, iirc, Denmark, giving an example of company registration taking a matter of hours. What excuse is there for the Spanish government to slack off on such trivial lubricants, the result of which then weighs on the worker?
- kaoD 12y ago
  > [...] giving an example of company registration taking a matter of hours. What excuse is there for the Spanish government to slack off on such trivial lubricants, the result of which then weighs on the worker? Crony capitalism, though I would call that an explanation, not an excuse. How else would you explain the tax on renewable energy? I guess it's also incompetence. The traditional model of parties is fundamentally broken, and professional politicians (i.e. influence peddlers) are a plague in our Establishment.

by kaoD 12y ago

disputin 12y ago

That's not the competition I talking about, but it is good to hear that it's there. The UK is also sick of its traditional parties, but is voting to the right, away from Europe. Party loyalty is usually ideology loyalty, and in a changing world the suitability of an ideology to the global context will change, so the traditional parties are likely a write off as their idea of keeping abreast is fringe tinkering. My point was that all of the responsibility of competition shouldn't have to fall on the worker when there is scope for the government to ease things for the worker. I'm not saying eg get rid of the health service, (Republicans, we're talking Europe here) but aligning processes with countries that have obviously more efficient ways of doing things. A chap on TV the other night was talking about this, he'd moved north, iirc, Denmark, giving an example of company registration taking a matter of hours. What excuse is there for the Spanish government to slack off on such trivial lubricants, the result of which then weighs on the worker?

kaoD 12y ago
> [...] giving an example of company registration taking a matter of hours. What excuse is there for the Spanish government to slack off on such trivial lubricants, the result of which then weighs on the worker? Crony capitalism, though I would call that an explanation, not an excuse. How else would you explain the tax on renewable energy? I guess it's also incompetence. The traditional model of parties is fundamentally broken, and professional politicians (i.e. influence peddlers) are a plague in our Establishment.