The Wreckage of Neoliberalism

[August1991]

On 11/5/2022 at 8:25 AM, reason10 said:

Trump's tax policies.... 

Neoliberalism is a cancer. It is a revival of Nazism. The camps are only a few years away.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher - Deng Xiao Peng - made more far more people better than Mao-Tse Tung or Stalin.

[August1991]

On 11/5/2022 at 7:02 AM, BeaverFever said:

Some are, some aren’t. Especially when factors such as climate change are considered. 

Clueless.

[Michael Hardner]

6 hours ago, August1991 said:

Clueless.

You have landed a good point here, as most of the planet are materially better off.

However I do want to point out that Thatcher and real conservatives like Nixon have always been more concerned about the environment than the new populist types.

[reason10]

13 hours ago, Hodad said:

You aren't the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? If you're going to lie about something, at least make it vaguely plausible, not something everyone can plainly see is a lie with half a glance. You're like Trump, lying about the largest inauguration crowd ever (well, no, that's obviously not true) lol.

FRED

 

Do you need a list of which presidents were in office which years? I can give you a hint, the line climbs showing reductions in deficit (and to surplus) Democrats are in office.

 

Here's a Red and Blue view if that's easier for you. There are many variations of this but this one was easy to read.

 

I don't have to lie. I'm right. And I have reliable sources, not crap from Rachel MadCow.

[reason10]

2 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

You have landed a good point here, as most of the planet are materially better off.

However I do want to point out that Thatcher and real conservatives like Nixon have always been more concerned about the environment than the new populist types.

1. Nixon was the most liberal president in history. (Check his abysmal record.)

2. There are ZERO conservatives today who have a problem with the environment. I do find it  hilarious that the climate change Nazis only want to punish Americans (who have the cleanest energy on the planet) while giving China (the WORST FOSSIL FUEL USING POLLUTER ON THE PLANET) a free pass. I also note that climate change Nazis want the middle class to freeze in the winter, but have no problem taking fossil fuel wasting PRIVATE JETS all over the world to push their stupid environNazi lies.

[BeaverFever]

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

You have landed a good point here, as most of the planet are materially better off.

When you dig into the data you see that whole “the world is flat” claims of people like Friedman use “averages” that gloss over rising inequality around nthe world. For ever new tech billionaire in Mumbai there are hundreds of peasants who’ve been run off their land or displaced by a global agribusiness   The “market efficiencies” of cheap disposable pseudo-designer Joe Fresh clothing sold in your neighbourhood grocery store is offset by the more than 1,000 Bangladeshi workers killed when the 8-story sweatshop building where those clothes were made collapsed. Triple-digit casualties from fires in sweatshops making export goods are still a regular occurrence.  The increasing numbers of migrants at the US southern border aren’t coming because globalization has made their life better, they are the rural poor of the global south whose lives have been made worse

 

”The world is flat” predicting that globalization and the intensity will be the great equalizer logic comes from the same line of turn-of-the-21st century thinking as the infamously wrong “The End of History” which predicted that all the nations of the world will soon be singing kumbaya and basically acting in harmony with each other in one big peaceful worldwide community.
 

Once you start looking past macro indicators like GDP and GDP per capita and actually start examining how different groups of people have fared you can definitely see there are big winners and big losers. As the rebuttal to “the world is flat” thesis goes, “actually, the world is spiky”.

[Hodad]

2 hours ago, reason10 said:

I don't have to lie. I'm right. And I have reliable sources, not crap from Rachel MadCow.

Nobody HAS to lie. It's just a choice you've made. I gave you the chart directly from the FED. The other is simply because I don't trust that you know who was president in a given year. 

Because it's factually correct that Democrats reduce deficits over their terms while Republicans generally grow them. 

Clinton turned the Bush 1 deficits into a surplus. Obama (the biggest Democrat deficits) took office amidst the economic crash of the great recession and after the Bush 2 deficits from his first year, decreased them over the next 8. Trump grew the deficit again over his years and Biden is again reducing Republican deficits. 

This is all easily verifiable fact if you simply look at the data from the Fed or CBO or anywhere else. You're welcome to debate the "why" of any given point, but the facts and figures are simply what they are.

And your buddy Reagan, despite preaching fiscal responsibility, ran huge deficits and is the first modern president to blow up the national debt. But hey, at least his term coincided with a robust economy (for which he should've thanked Carter and Volcker.

Edited November 8, 2022 by Hodad

[Michael Hardner]

4 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

1. When you dig into the data you see that whole “the world is flat” claims of people like Friedman use “averages” that gloss over rising inequality around nthe world.

2. For ever new tech billionaire in Mumbai there are hundreds of peasants who’ve been run off their land or displaced by a global agribusiness   The “market efficiencies” of cheap disposable pseudo-designer Joe Fresh clothing sold in your neighbourhood grocery store is offset by the more than 1,000 Bangladeshi workers killed when the 8-story sweatshop building where those clothes were made collapsed.

3. ”The world is flat” predicting that globalization and the intensity will be the great equalizer logic comes from the same line of turn-of-the-21st century thinking as the infamously wrong “The End of History” which predicted that all the nations of the world will soon be singing kumbaya and basically acting in harmony with each other in one big peaceful worldwide community.
 

4.  Once you start looking past macro indicators like GDP and GDP per capita and actually start examining how different groups of people have fared you can definitely see there are big winners and big losers. As the rebuttal to “the world is flat” thesis goes, “actually, the world is spiky”.

1. An 'average' does exactly that - it glosses over the highs and lows.  You need to look at other Indicies for that.

2. Yes, Rana Plaza.  And liberals and conservatives have something in common: they don't talk about it.  What came out of Rana Plaza was an effort to organize around inspected suppliers.   Was Rana Plaza awful ?  Yes.  So were the factory disasters in N. America in the 1920s.  Is it necessary to go through death and disaster to improve ?    It might not be that way at some time but it still is that way today.   

3. The question should be is Global Trade better than the opposite ?  What do we want to achieve with it and how do we make that happen ?

4. Are people better off ?  Yes.  Is inequity increasing ?  Yes.  Is the Environmental Disaster caused by Globalization ?  Yes.  Is the threat of war mitigated somewhat ?  Yes.  

What do we want and how do we achieve it ?  Stopping trade isn't better than Globalization.  Racism, Xenophobia, Climate Change, War, Poverty are all things that are caused by and mitigated by trade.  

And what are we having this discussion ?  

[BeaverFever]

On 11/8/2022 at 10:44 AM, Michael Hardner said:

1. An 'average' does exactly that - it glosses over the highs and lows.  You need to look at other Indicies for that.

2. Yes, Rana Plaza.  And liberals and conservatives have something in common: they don't talk about it.  What came out of Rana Plaza was an effort to organize around inspected suppliers.   Was Rana Plaza awful ?  Yes.  So were the factory disasters in N. America in the 1920s.  Is it necessary to go through death and disaster to improve ?    It might not be that way at some time but it still is that way today.   

3. The question should be is Global Trade better than the opposite ?  What do we want to achieve with it and how do we make that happen ?

4. Are people better off ?  Yes.  Is inequity increasing ?  Yes.  Is the Environmental Disaster caused by Globalization ?  Yes.  Is the threat of war mitigated somewhat ?  Yes.  

What do we want and how do we achieve it ?  Stopping trade isn't better than Globalization.  Racism, Xenophobia, Climate Change, War, Poverty are all things that are caused by and mitigated by trade.  

And what are we having this discussion ?  

1. Right so my point is when you look at the data neoliberalism hasn’t necessarily been so great

2.  In the North American experience the horid Dickensian sweatshops were done away with by reform that wee largely driven by labour and reform minded politicians against the desire of sweatshop owners who tryied to maintain the status quo.  In places  like Bangladesh, Western countries actually resist and undermine such reforms so their companies can continue benefit from the sweatshops.  Let’s be clear:  none of the western companies operating in the third world want those places to become first world. What would be the point of having products made on the other side of the planet if you had to pay the same wages and taxes and deal with the same regulation as you would ar home?  Third world poverty and corruption is a feature, not a bug of neoliberalism. The poverty is the point. 
 

3.  and 4:  I don’t have the magic answers to all of the world’s problems. Definitely many people feel they are not better off, especially working class people and those who rely on the public services and crumbling infrastructure  that have been starved under neoliberalism. I think people can sense that overall quality of life is past it’s peak and it’s not offset by more shopping and entertainment opportunities and more gadgets they didn’t know they needed.   Neoliberals say that alternatives would have only made things worse but I guess we’ll never know. One thing is for sure thou, the wealth did not trickle down. 

[Michael Hardner]

7 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

1. Right so my point is when you look at the data neoliberalism hasn’t necessarily been so great

2.  In the North American experience the horid Dickensian sweatshops were done away with by reform that wee largely driven by labour and reform minded politicians against the desire of sweatshop owners who tryied to maintain the status quo.  In places  like Bangladesh, Western countries actually resist and undermine such reforms so their companies can continue benefit from the sweatshops.  Let’s be clear:  none of the western companies operating in the third world want those places to become first world. What would be the point of having products made on the other side of the planet if you had to pay the same wages and taxes and deal with the same regulation as you would ar home?  Third world poverty and corruption is a feature, not a bug of neoliberalism. The poverty is the point. 
 

 

1. It hasn't been across the board great, but yes things changed.

2. Not exactly true.  It was Western companies who came together after rana plaza and put together a standard to deal with suppliers, not the local government. Do they want to pay more for labor? Of course not but they can't control what's going to happen with exchange rates, currencies, and so on 10 years down the line they're only worried about the next quarter.

 

The bottom line is that if we have better information and more details, an informed public sphere will be able to leverage capitalism for a greater good than if we simplify everything to finger pointing and demonization.

[BeaverFever]

On 11/7/2022 at 11:16 PM, August1991 said:

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher - Deng Xiao Peng - made more far more people better than Mao-Tse Tung or Stalin.

Who is mentioning Mao or Stalin???  Talk about clueless. 

[BeaverFever]

On 11/13/2022 at 10:58 AM, Michael Hardner said:

 

2. Not exactly true.  It was Western companies who came together after rana plaza and put together a standard to deal with suppliers, not the local government. Do they want to pay more for labor? Of course not but they can't control what's going to happen with exchange rates, currencies, and so on 10 years down the line they're only worried about the next quarter.

 

The bottom line is that if we have better information and more details, an informed public sphere will be able to leverage capitalism for a greater good than if we simplify everything to finger pointing and demonization.

2.  So now there are no more substandard sweatshops making goods for the west?  More like some gestures were made in response to some bad PR that the public forgot about short time later. 
 

I don’t have a problem with plans to find new ways to make money and grow the economy but neoliberalism  explicitly and deliberately aims to redistribute as much wealth as possible to the wealthiest people at the top of the wealth hierarchy and as little as possible to those at the the bottom   But at the same time neoliberalism REQUIRES that there must always be many people at the bottom of the hierarchy - the hierarchy depends on it. Neoliberalism doesn’t want all of society to be highly paid, highly educated people. Neoliberalism needs an inexhaustible supply of third world peasants and non-unionized minimum wage workers to generate all this wealth for the people higher up on the food chain.

 

This is why Thatcher said there is no society only the individual because neoliberalism can’t offer to improve conditions for people on the bottom, it can only offer a dream that some people might fortune enough to escape from the bottom.  Neoliberalism doesn’t offer the Titanic passengers traveling in Steerage access to a lifeboat,  it only suggests to them individually that if they try hard enough and are lucky enough they might be one of the fortunate few who manage to to get to one of the few available seats and then concludes they those who died must not have wanted to live badly enough  This is why neoliberalism is big on individualism above all else and is openly hostile to altruism.  In order for a neoliberal society to succeed, people must only concern themselves with their own chance of scoring a lifeboat and not care about their compatriots who are doomed to go down with the ship  

 

[August1991]

On 11/8/2022 at 7:59 AM, reason10 said:

1. Nixon was the most liberal president in history. (Check his abysmal record.)

....

Nixon created the EPA.

He imposed wage and price controls.

But he also freed America from Bretton Woods.

And he negotiated a deal with the Soviets - that meant they won Vietnam, but the world was at peace.

=====

I'm more Nixon than Reagan.

[August1991]

This may seem strange to American progressives, but as a foreigner, I prefer Republicans in federal power.

 Carter and Johnson were confusing.

Clinton was an absolute disaster. Missed chance in world history.

[myata]

A good thread but as often we tend to overgeneralize and over dramatize. It may be only the instrument. A two-party system is a sure path to partisanship and division. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook it will happen. It can serve complex needs of a modern democracy and society no better than an ax, for shaving. There's only one exception, and it's a really rare peculiar, one of a kind one. Only complete naivite, loss of objectivity combined with political class smugly playing into own hands can make us take an exception for the rule.

Edited November 15, 2022 by myata

[August1991]

2 minutes ago, myata said:

... A two-party system is a sure path to partisanship and division. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook it will happen. It can serve complex needs of a modern democracy and society no better than an ax, for shaving. There's only one exception, and it's a really rare peculiar, one of the kind exception. Only complete naivite, loss of objectivity combined with political class smugly playing into own hands can make as take an exception for the rule.

Myata,

I disagree strongly. Your constitution does not create a two-party system.

Your constitution admirably creates counter-weights.

=====

You American politicians are messy - but successful - at domestic affairs. You are a disaster at foreign affairs.

 

[August1991]

True, your politicians got you involved in a Civil War. (Avoidable, IMHO. But I'm Canadian.)

But European politicians got ordinary people involved in the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars and then the German Wars.

Thatcher had a good comment about Britain and continental Europe. Britain opposes the European monopoly. Whatever the war, Britain sides otherwise.

France, Russia, Prussia, Austria - Britain chooses the side against.

I note that Sweden too, disagrees. But the Swedes compromise. Since the 1700s, the Swedes take a higher position: not my problem.

====

I like Alberta and Quebec. They're different.

 

 

  

Edited November 15, 2022 by August1991

[myata]

1 hour ago, August1991 said:

Your constitution does not create a two-party system.

A voting system does. I'm not an expert in how it's worded in the American Constitution but first by the post means two dominant parties means eventual partisan division where the point who will win / rule firmly takes the place of: what are the interests and priorities of the society. And so, polarization and division follows naturally and in my view, inevitably.

1 hour ago, August1991 said:

constitution admirably creates counter-weights

Can slow down the process but I doubt very much, prevent the result. And now we can observe it play out in real time.

[Michael Hardner]

7 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

1.  So now there are no more substandard sweatshops making goods for the west?  More like some gestures were made in response to some bad PR that the public forgot about short time later. 
 

2. I don’t have a problem with plans to find new ways to make money and grow the economy but neoliberalism  explicitly and deliberately aims to redistribute as much wealth as possible to the wealthiest people at the top of the wealth hierarchy and as little as possible to those at the the bottom 

 

 

3. This is why Thatcher said there is no society only the individual

4. ...because neoliberalism can’t offer to improve conditions for people on the bottom, it can only offer a dream that some people might fortune enough to escape from the bottom.

 Neoliberalism doesn’t offer the Titanic passengers traveling in Steerage access to a lifeboat,  it only suggests to them individually that if they try hard enough and are lucky enough they might be one of the fortunate few who manage to to get to one of the few available seats and then concludes they those who died must not have wanted to live badly enough  This is why neoliberalism is big on individualism above all else and is openly hostile to altruism.  In order for a neoliberal society to succeed, people must only concern themselves with their own chance of scoring a lifeboat and not care about their compatriots who are doomed to go down with the ship  

 

1. No, they're still in place.  And of course there are still problems but improvement doesn't happen all at once.  In Bangladesh or here.

2. This is capitalism, yes.

3.  "Individuals and families"

4. Look, I'm not going to defend neoliberalism, or even capitalism which is more what you're complaining about. I'm just going to point out that if you want to move to something better you've got to have an alternative, and your criticism needs to be sound.  Of course conditions are inhumane and some of our trading countries, and environmental conditions are bad. To simply point that out and say it's terrible doesn't offer a way forward.  Even bridging to a non-capitalist economy is going to take some interim steps. Moralizing simply doesn't convince people of an alternative.

[Nationalist]

On 11/8/2022 at 5:40 AM, Michael Hardner said:

You have landed a good point here, as most of the planet are materially better off.

However I do want to point out that Thatcher and real conservatives like Nixon have always been more concerned about the environment than the new populist types.

Most...meaning China and India primarily. At the expense of whom?

It is a common tool...endlessly used by extraordinarily common minds...that conservatives are not concerned about the global climate. 

The truth is...everyone is concerned. The primary difference is...while Libbies like the Beave here run about screaming,

"AHHH! WE ALL GONNA DIIIEEE!"

Today's conservative would say...move energy production from coal to natural gas. Use all that money being spent on windmills and mirrors, and dump it into r&d. Man is exceptional at solving problems. We can solve this one too...and we can do it without all the panic and without trashing the gawd-damn base of the global economy!

Have a nice day...

[BeaverFever]

On 11/15/2022 at 7:14 AM, Michael Hardner said:

1. No, they're still in place.  And of course there are still problems but improvement doesn't happen all at once.  In Bangladesh or here.

2. This is capitalism, yes.

3.  "Individuals and families"

4. Look, I'm not going to defend neoliberalism, or even capitalism which is more what you're complaining about. I'm just going to point out that if you want to move to something better you've got to have an alternative, and your criticism needs to be sound.  Of course conditions are inhumane and some of our trading countries, and environmental conditions are bad. To simply point that out and say it's terrible doesn't offer a way forward.  Even bridging to a non-capitalist economy is going to take some interim steps. Moralizing simply doesn't convince people of an alternative.

I don’t equate neoliberalism with capitalism, we had capitalism before we had neoliberalism. Keynesian economics is still capitalism. There is no reason why governments had to coddle the wealthy and corporations the way they did under neoliberalism. Neoliberalism massively grew the capitalist pie but it also redistributed the slices upwards while pretending not to be redistributive.
 

The reason why America is coming apart at the seams is because:

a) the ultra rich and corporations have gotten so large and so wealthy that they no longer fear, respect or need government and as political force have become a fifth column in western nations.  In many case they have captured government altogether and placed yes men and business worshippers in power throughout government and within the ranks of the bureaucracy. And

b) many of the victims of neoliberalism in the lower working classes (and those in the middle classes who believe their situation is precarious) have turned to populism and antidemocratic movements because they’ve lost all hope and faith in their government’s ability to helping citizens improve their lives. Unlike the post war years when go now expanded services and infrastructure, for the past 40 years governments have reduced and neglected these things. Statistics don’t lie and social mobility has decreased in recent decades.  People who don’t believe given doesn’t and shouldn’t do anything for them are naturally going to gravitate toward anti-government, antisocial and nihilistic worldviews. Couple that with our hyper materialistic mass consumerism culture which is arguably also a byproduct of neoliberalism and naturally you’re going to get people who don’t care about climate change or anything else, they just want money and to consume and satisfy their base desires without inconvenience. These people are fertile ground for populisms ugly message. 

[Rebound]

On 11/7/2022 at 11:16 PM, August1991 said:

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher - Deng Xiao Peng - made more far more people better than Mao-Tse Tung or Stalin.

Wow. Better than Stalin and Mao. What a tremendous accomplishment. 

[Michael Hardner]

10 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

1. I don’t equate neoliberalism with capitalism, we had capitalism before we had neoliberalism. Keynesian economics is still capitalism. There is no reason why governments had to coddle the wealthy and corporations the way they did under neoliberalism. Neoliberalism massively grew the capitalist pie but it also redistributed the slices upwards while pretending not to be redistributive.
 

2. The reason why America is coming apart at the seams is because:

 

1. Ok but with this statement you are acknowledging that it's a continuum and a gradient.  We had 'capitalism' which led to colonialism pretty early on, slavery, emancipation, robber barons, universal suffrage, the new deal, unions, the great society, Reaganism, globalism ....

I maintain what a Communist told me once: trade deals are deals between elites.  It doesn't say whether the deal is "good" or "bad" but that the so-called problems (and benefits) of capitalism are distributed on a wider and more complex scale.  

2. I'm not going to argue a) and b) except to add that the 'public sphere' was purchased by corporations - which explains the 'lost all hope' part.

I think that your general concerns are well-founded but that we should be specific as to our criticisms.  "Global Trade" as far as it enables win-win is a good thing.  Layoffs are not "bad" across the board if they facilitate expansion in other areas of the economy.

[Rebound]

On 11/15/2022 at 12:12 AM, August1991 said:

This may seem strange to American progressives, but as a foreigner, I prefer Republicans in federal power.

 Carter and Johnson were confusing.

Clinton was an absolute disaster. Missed chance in world history.

Study the war in Bosnia. Compare it to the disasters in Iran, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Clinton did a remarkable job there. He also balanced the Federal budget twice. 
 

Yes, Clinton was impeached because of Monica Lewinsky. Was Trump impeached because of Stormy Daniels? Isn’t it pretty much the same thing? 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Rebound

[August1991]

13 hours ago, Rebound said:

Study the war in Bosnia. Compare it to the disasters in Iran, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Clinton did a remarkable job there. He also balanced the Federal budget twice. 
 

Yes, Clinton was impeached because of Monica Lewinsky. Was Trump impeached because of Stormy Daniels? Isn’t it pretty much the same thing? 

You Americans had a chance in the 1990s.

The world could have been a peaceful place for a century, or more

=====

But you progressive Americans - Clinton -  f^cked it up. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by August1991