2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Ziggy Stardust]

You, people, do know that the vast majority of people are fine with capitalism because it has worked and socialism/communism has not worked despite being tried numerous times. And don't say 'well what about Europe/Nordics'. They are capitalist. Just campaign on a non-toxic label.

Global capitalism is not in a good state. But the basic fundamentals of a market system have led to the greatest sustained growth in human history, and has lifted billions from extreme poverty. The issue is making sure governments continue to reinvest in the system, break up market distortions and keep innovating. Not try either an untested or failed system, which the people who want capitalism to keep degrading will use as a lever to stay in power and keep breaking things.

Socialism/communism has not worked because it went all out socialism/communism.

No country is all out capitalist. Capitalism works when it's restrained. A pure capitalist society has never been tried.

edit: The certainty I display there is contrary to what we call capitalist societies. From a poor source: "Most of the existing capitalist economies are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning."

Using that definition, sure capitalist societies have worked, but only because they were mixed economies.

 

[Ironsided]

The overarching message seems to be ‘I do not like the extremes’ therefore I choose the centre. Is that correct? If so, is the Macron/Biden message just the right temperature? Was it the same temperature ten years ago, or forty? As an experienced centrist, and many of you are aging and experienced, were you a radical economic right-winger in 1980? Will you be a radical lefty if you survive for forty more years? Or are you ideologically flowing with the times? Is that the centrist position? A sort of political equilibrium seeking chaos pilot dodging extremism and ideological discussions through time and space? If so, what about the long standing issues? Inequality, democracy, law and justice etc? If three people owning more in assets than the poorest 170 million Americans together is OK today, centristly speaking will one person be too much tomorrow, or does it depend with time?

What I am getting at is that I see no centrist political position only a centrist political evasion.

 

[EgonSpengler]

What I am getting at is that I see no centrist political position only a centrist political evasion.

I think part of the problem is that some people want to find a single label that neatly sums up a person's positions on all things. That's probably more work than it's worth. We'd need 1,000,000 different political labels and a reference book to look them up in ("I'm a green neo-socialist anarcho-republican." "wtf does that even mean?" )

Here in New England, a lot of people describe themselves as "socially liberal and fiscally conservative" as a handy shorthand that tries to sort every issue into two neat categories instead of just one, but that drives some people crazy because economic issues are social issues so frequently (e.g. a devoutly Catholic employer doesn't want to pay for health insurance that covers birth control: is that an economic issue or a social one? the answer, of course, is "yes"; what about real estate agents who steer Black home buyers into particular neighborhoods? is that social or economic injustice? I'm sure we could make a long list).

 

[Lexicus]

I think one reason the Left has lost almost every struggle it's ever been in for the last hundred and fifty years or so

I disagree with this premise completely. The left has won almost every struggle it's ever been in for the last hundred fifty years. That is why the conservatives needed to engineer a counterrevolution.

Claiming they don't want anything changed is just lying.

Joe Biden is lying when he tells rich people that nothing would fundamentally change then?

Or is he lying when he claims he's going to fight for a "progressive" policy agenda?

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

No I'm not. Neither am I saying Republicans represent "unbridled capitalism"

Then your post as written makes little sense. What ideologies are you talking about? Why do the parties need to balance one another out?

You, people, do know that the vast majority of people are fine with capitalism because it has worked and socialism/communism has not worked despite being tried numerous times. And don't say 'well what about Europe/Nordics'. They are capitalist. Just campaign on a non-toxic label. An average voter is a middle-aged person who has it drilled in their head that socialism is bad, not an edgy person online. Winning elections requires the former people, not the latter.

Global capitalism is not in a good state. But the basic fundamentals of a market system have led to the greatest sustained growth in human history, and has lifted billions from extreme poverty. The issue is making sure governments continue to reinvest in the system, break up market distortions and keep innovating and solving problemsms. Not try either an untested or failed system, which the people who want capitalism to keep degrading will use as a lever to stay in power and keep breaking things.

Right, capitalism has worked so well! The only problems it's brought us are...let me just see...multiple genocides, colonialism and imperialism, a dozen or so depressions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, two world wars, fascism, Nazism, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, an ecological crisis that threatens to collapse human civilization...I could go on...

 

[aelf]

You must have slept through the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Equal Rights Act, the women's movement, the Vietnam War protests, Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting, the New Deal, school desegregation, Obamacare, Title IX, Medicare, etc.

Unfortunately, the struggle doesn't end once any of those milestones were reached. Today we're seeing erosions to the gains made during those moments in history.

I see what you're getting at, but poverty-stricken towns in Appalachia with more drugs than jobs and farmers who have to cull livestock because they can't afford to feed them aren't the powerful, unless you broaden the definition of powerful to include "those who used to be doing okay, but aren't anymore."

Right-wing ideology appeals to those you're describing but ultimately serves the powerful. That's the idea.

 

[stinkubus]

Socialism/communism has not worked because it went all out socialism/communism.

No country is all out capitalist. Capitalism works when it's restrained. A pure capitalist society has never been tried.

edit: The certainty I display there is contrary to what we call capitalist societies. From a poor source: "Most of the existing capitalist economies are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning."

Using that definition, sure capitalist societies have worked, but only because they were mixed economies.

The political programs which operated in the countries you think of as communist were anything but. For the love of all that is holy please let go of this lie.

I'd argue the UK in the 19th century was pretty GD close to all out capitalist. There was no relief for the poor other than private charity, almost no restriction against the activities of private capital, and the only means of upward class mobility was service to the empire.

State capitalist systems do not dominate the globe because they are optimal arrangements. They exist because its the only known mechanism by which elites can entrench their wealth and power in a world without monarchs. Without the resources of the state they are largely helpless against the populace.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Right-wing ideology appeals to those you're describing but ultimately serves the powerful. That's the idea.

Yes, no question. People fall for it, hook, line & sinker, over and over. Every once in a while, I still hear somebody say something like "rich people and corporations should get tax breaks so they can use that money to buy things and pay their employees." They may not know the words "trickle-down economics" but it's so embedded in people's brains they think it's just a law of nature, like gravity or something. "We may not know how it works, but we know that it works." It's no coincidence that authoritarian regimes always go after journalists and educated people. Every time Republicans cut education funding, it's not because they're not trying to save money or balance a budget; they're trying to keep people stupid because they know their [stuff] smells.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The political programs which operated in the countries you think of as communist were anything but. For the love of all that is holy please let go of this lie.

I'd argue the UK in the 19th century was pretty GD close to all out capitalist. There was no relief for the poor other than private charity, almost no restriction against the activities of private capital, and the only means of upward class mobility was service to the empire.

State capitalist systems do not dominate the globe because they are optimal arrangements. They exist because its the only known mechanism by which elites can entrench their wealth and power in a world without monarchs. Without the resources of the state they are largely helpless against the populace.

There were the Poor Laws. However under these although it was accepted that people couldn't just be allowed to starve to death there was a strong element of coercion and punishment. Poverty had to be unpleasant. Hence the workhouse.
Theres still an element of that in our attitude to benefits today.

 

[Kyriakos]

I find it funny that some people actually believe Biden will do stuff. He isn't even likely to stay alive for the duration of the presidency...
His whole selling point is "I am not Trump". Time to realize this.

 

[Narz]

Trump trying to reach out to gay community

 

[AmazonQueen]

I find it funny that some people actually believe Biden will do stuff. He isn't even likely to stay alive for the duration of the presidency...
His whole selling point is "I am not Trump". Time to realize this.

I think all of us who would've preferred Warren or Sanders as the Democratic candidate do realise this, but not being Trump is a pretty big selling point atm.

 

[Hrothbern]

Every day I wake up and sip my morning coffee... I look at 538... and every other day the chance that Trump wins has gone down with 1%.

 

[RobAnybody]

I find it funny that some people actually believe Biden will do stuff. He isn't even likely to stay alive for the duration of the presidency...
His whole selling point is "I am not Trump". Time to realize this.

Everybody already realizes this. Posting it 100 times isn't going to change who the two candidates in this election are.

 

[thecrazyscot]

[Biden's] whole selling point is "I am not Trump". Time to realize this.

I realize this, and it is enough to get my vote in this election. I usually try to vote 3rd party out of principle, but Trump is catastrophic. Anything less than catastrophic is an improvement.

 

[stinkubus]

There were the Poor Laws. However under these although it was accepted that people couldn't just be allowed to starve to death there was a strong element of coercion and punishment. Poverty had to be unpleasant. Hence the workhouse.
Theres still an element of that in our attitude to benefits today.

De facto servitude is not relief, imo.

 

[AmazonQueen]

De facto servitude is not relief, imo.

Which is probably why many of the poor preferred to stay poor rather than enter the workhouse.

 

[Zkribbler]

Every day I wake up and sip my morning coffee... I look at 538... and every other day the chance that Trump wins has gone down with 1%.

Same for me...except I don't drink coffee.

Trump's down to 13% today. On the eve of the 2016 election, he was at 30%.

 

[Zkribbler]

His whole selling point is "I am not Trump". Time to realize this.

Odd. Every other Democratic candidate had the exact same selling point. Why aren't any of them now the candidate?

 

[Sommerswerd]

There were the Poor Laws. However under these although it was accepted that people couldn't just be allowed to starve to death there was a strong element of coercion and punishment. Poverty had to be unpleasant. Hence the workhouse.
Theres still an element of that in our attitude to benefits today.

'Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?" - Ebenezer Scrooge

Which is probably why many of the poor preferred to stay poor rather than enter the workhouse.

"If they're gonna die they'd better hurry up and do it... and decrease the surplus population" - Ebenezer Scrooge

Sorry, I couldn't resist... I love that story/movie/book

 

[Gori the Grey]

This is interesting because it fingers one essential difference between the "moderates" and the "progressives", which is that the former seem pretty much unwilling or unable to analyze society in any systemic way. Treating the behavior of the parties as given is an abdication of analysis. It's typical of the structure-blindness of liberals that drives the left insane. If you really don't think it's possible to understand why the parties "are a certain way" then suddenly the absolute refusal to reckon with certain arguments made by the left (e.g. the argument that Biden represents a return to the status quo that brought us Trump in the first place) makes more sense.

If you are serious about fixing the country you will have to reckon with the fact that, yes, there is a "they," that the Republican Party being fascist and the Democrats being wet napkin fake opposition serves "their" interests very well, and that "they" have engaged in a multi-decade campaign to subvert democracy wherever possible, and to shift the terms of political debates so as to make it seem that "There Is No Alternative" to make what democracy we have less meaningful.

Just to be clear, it is absolutely in the interest of the big capitalists (and, frankly, also of many of the "small business" capitalists we like to pretend aren't capitalists for some reason) for the right in the US to be fascist and the "left" to be Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden.

I owe you a fuller response to this than I can probably dash off just now, but I would make a few notes.

1) The "they" you identify here absolutely does exist and absolutely does profit from the two parties existing in the way that they do. But I don't think that's Graeber's "they" in the video (I mean the actual referent of his pronoun).

2) I don't regard the parties-as-they-exist as an absolute given--just practically speaking the only mechanism by which any sort of change is likely to occur. So, one thinks about the Democratic party's hope to get single-payer health care. Not even a particularly progressive aim, but for the US, progressive. And one watches what Obama was able to achieve, and how even something so meager as a public option disappears if you lose even one vote, and for me, that's a marker of what a load left-leaning people have to move to get anything done. One doesn't even have to characterize the right as Nazis to see how hard a pull they exert against any meaningful reform.

Even as a centrist, I can see all of the goods that would come from a more authentic progressive movement. I just can't see it happening in the country in which I've lived out these fifty five years of my life.

So when a guy in a video who chooses to present himself amid all the trappings of that "mishmash of bureaucracy" he so derides (comfy sweater, comfy chair, stylish lamp) lectures me on how Obama stands for nothing, it just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe this guy has progressive bonafides (had); I suppose I could go look him up. But the video itself wasn't the trenchant critique of centrism that @Ironsided prepared me for. Hell, the average @Lexicus post on this site represents a more impressive critique of centrism.

Every day I wake up and sip my morning coffee... I look at 538... and every other day the chance that Trump wins has gone down with 1%.

Trump's down to 13% today.

I've been meaning to say something and these posts are as good a prompt as any. Starting about a week ago, any increase in the gap in polling is meaningless. Trump is looking like a loser and people aren't going to tell pollsters that they intend to vote for a loser (except the fanboys, of course).