The Left Fails Yet Again

[Patine]

on the contrary, it's much rather because "the left", as dumb as this generalization is, has become more and more intoxicated by the neoliberal human centipede apparatus and abandoned all of its formerly relevant goals like unions, classlessness, workers owning the means of production, healthcare and egalitarianism. all we have now is this weird charade that all center left parties engage in where they pretend they're something they clearly haven't been for the last few decades. there is no better example of this than the SPD in Germany. once a revolutionary party almost on par with the KPD, nowadays a dry, empty husk.

But how many of the parties and groups I listed in my "litmus test," above, are really guilty of these sins. For the absolute generalization "the Left," and actually have a concise, real defined meaning, and not be vapid "non-term," that leaves an empty in all your rhetoric, those groups I listed above MUST be EQALLY and COMPLETELY applicable to, and guilty of, the SAME ARGUEMENT EXACLTY, or you should REALLY be using specific terms to avoid spouting utter nonsense.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

But how many of the parties and groups I listed in my "litmus test," above, are really guilty of these sins. For the absolute generalization "the Left," and actually have a concise, real defined meaning, and not be vapid "non-term," that leaves an empty in all your rhetoric, those groups I listed above MUST be EQALLY and COMPLETELY applicable to, and guilty of, the SAME ARGUEMENT EXACLTY, or you should REALLY be using specific terms to avoid spouting utter nonsense.

I'll only speak for the SPD then, instead of for the majority of the European left, since that's the party I know well, so if you want a specific statement then you got it

 

[Patine]

I'll only speak for the SPD then, instead of for the majority of the European left, since that's the party I know well, so if you want a specific statement then you got it

Yes, because I HIGHLY doubt that Xi Jinpeng, Nicolas Maduro, or Gennady Zhuganov are at all REMOTELY in the same boat, or guilty of the same problems or failings, as you or @Zardnaar are referring to here. Which means, by default, there is no possible way at all that "the Left" can be...

 

[Peuri]

Yes, because I HIGHLY doubt that Xi Jinpeng, Nicolas Maduro, or Gennady Zhuganov are at all REMOTELY in the same boat, or guilty of the same problems or failings, as you or @Zardnaar are referring to here. Which means, by default, there is no possible way at all that "the Left" can be...

Well, the "left wing" parties have been in a downward trend in Europe at least for over the decade, so something in that general direction is failing. Rise of Green parties and populist parties certainly played a part.

 

[Patine]

Well, the "left wing" parties have been in a downward trend in Europe at least for over the decade, so something in that general direction is failing. Rise of Green parties and populist parties certainly played a part.

But Green Parties are on the left-side of the spectrum. And you completely excluded the Pirate Parties, as well as the "reformed and rebranded" Cold War-era Communist Parties. Thus, this chart proves NOTHING against my particular point. "THE LEFT" hasn't been shown to drop as a whole in these charts, only a few specific Social Democratic Parties. And the distinction there is an important part of the point I'm making.

 

[Peuri]

But Green Parties are on the left-side of the spectrum. And you completely excluded the Pirate Parties, as well as the "reformed and rebranded" Cold War-era Communist Parties. Thus, this chart proves NOTHING against my particular point. "THE LEFT" hasn't been shown to drop as a whole in these charts, only a few specific Social Democratic Parties. And the distinction there is an important part of the point I'm making.

True, although at least here where I live the Green League is more of a hip academic and professional party. Essentially if you want to signal that you are "on the right side of history" in around your lecture halls or the water cooler, you say that you voted for the greens. It's jokingly called "the garden division of the National coalition party" (neolibs), but that's not entirely fair. Unfortunately I can't seem to find similiar graphs on the green parties and the new left parties in Europe.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unions don't matter due to self inflicted wounds.

For example here they always used to go in strike at holiday times so the trains and ferries would shut down. It wasn't like they were low paid either.

Now if you go to a work place with a union and their are layoffs is last on first off. The older staff are union members, a lot are incompetent and have the easy jibscany cabbage could do. And they can't even do that right

I was in one and they always asked for stupid payrises of 20%, spent months arguing with no backdated payrise to settle on 3 to
3.75%. We were told you can't negotiate with the company as an individual. I quit the union negotiated a 10% payrise in less than a week.

Then job losses were announced. I negotiated another generous pay rise and relocation package. The union also wants about 1% of your paypacket so a 3% payrise is more like 2%.

Now unions are basically the old crappy workers private club that's inefficient. And they look after themselves first. Not a lot of point joining them if you're new on the job depending on workplace.

Companies also don't fear unions much, they do fear your personal employment lawyer though.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Spoken like a true scab.

 

[Zardnaar]

Never crossed a picket line. Your idea of a scab is non union members?

To me loyalty is a two way street, why bother with it if you're late to the party and get laid off first?

Only real way to dodge that is get promoted into management.

When I was in it in the union members I often did the math. I could do it faster in my head than the union rep could do it with the calculator. I worked out a pay rise offer in real terms was approx 3.75, the actual number was 3.74.

They didn't even understand financial statements. For example we had access to company revenue, debt etc and expenses. You could look at the wage expenses vs company profits. They always asked for bigger payrises than the company could afford and got shot down every time.

They would spend months arguing over this going around in circles.

They were also big on same job same pay. This meant they wanted equal pay regardless of location. In USA terms if you lived in Alabama you would get paid the same as New York. They ignored cost of living and transport costs after it was known our jobs were on the line.

I was always focused on getting the best deal for our worksite, the higher union members were concerned about the larger union movement.

One year we got our 5%. And then all got laid off when they closed everything down.

I ran into a few if the union organisers since then. None of them got a job paying as much as what they were on. We were reasonably well paid with time and a half and double time.

The last job site with a union had a heap of temporary contracts, with a last on first off policy. Almost no young ones joined the union as they were more concerned with their own stuff than expanding with new members. Well they wanted new member money but wouldn't do much to help them.

Wife's not in a union she gets 6 to 15% pay rises doesn't even ask for one. I'm used to 5 to 10% ones.

Personally I think you need to overhaul companies and unions. Come up with a third way.

 

[Hrothbern]

Never crossed a picket line. Your idea of a scab is non union members?

To me loyalty is a two way street, why bother with it if you're late to the party and get laid off first?

Only real way to dodge that is get promoted into management.

When I was in it in the union members I often did the math. I could do it faster in my head than the union rep could do it with the calculator. I worked out a pay rise offer in real terms was approx 3.75, the actual number was 3.74.

They didn't even understand financial statements. For example we had access to company revenue, debt etc and expenses. You could look at the wage expenses vs company profits. They always asked for bigger payrises than the company could afford and got shot down every time.

They would spend months arguing over this going around in circles.

They were also big on same job same pay. This meant they wanted equal pay regardless of location. In USA terms if you lived in Alabama you would get paid the same as New York. They ignored cost of living and transport costs after it was known our jobs were on the line.

I was always focused on getting the best deal for our worksite, the higher union members were concerned about the larger union movement.

One year we got our 5%. And then all got laid off when they closed everything down.

I ran into a few if the union organisers since then. None of them got a job paying as much as what they were on. We were reasonably well paid with time and a half and double time.

The last job site with a union had a heap of temporary contracts, with a last on first off policy. Almost no young ones joined the union as they were more concerned with their own stuff than expanding with new members. Well they wanted new member money but wouldn't do much to help them.

Wife's not in a union she gets 6 to 15% pay rises doesn't even ask for one. I'm used to 5 to 10% ones.

Personally I think you need to overhaul companies and unions. Come up with a third way.

I can tell a long story on trade unions in various west European countries, with differing cultures in their style and objectives: strong and weak points.
But first a question:
how big are the trade unions you talk about in your examples ?
I do not mean the "overall" council, but the separate entities that are in principle free to make their own deals.

 

[Zardnaar]

I can tell a long story on trade unions in various west European countries, with differing cultures in their style and objectives: strong and weak points.
But first a question:
how big are the trade unions you talk about in your examples ?
I do not mean the "overall" council, but the separate entities that are in principle free to make their own deals.

I'm not sure to be honest. The unions are not as strong as they were. The problem being for them people remember when they were strong.

Public service and maybe some engineering ones are the only ones you could probably call strong.

 

[Akka]

on the contrary, it's much rather because "the left", as dumb as this generalization is, has become more and more intoxicated by the neoliberal human centipede apparatus and abandoned all of its formerly relevant goals like unions, classlessness, workers owning the means of production, healthcare and egalitarianism. all we have now is this weird charade that all center left parties engage in where they pretend they're something they clearly haven't been for the last few decades. there is no better example of this than the SPD in Germany. once a revolutionary party almost on par with the KPD, nowadays a dry, empty husk.

I think you both are right. The left has been gangrened by the neoliberal ideology, but that's come either as a cause or a consequence of switching their equality mindset from economy and the larger view to identities and specialized interests.

 

[Hrothbern]

I'm not sure to be honest. The unions are not as strong as they were. The problem being for them people remember when they were strong.

ok
The thing is: what I hear is almost workers council level or very small trade unions strongly intertwined with the local industrialists (in a "hate-love" relation) with "some" central guidelines from a bigger entity.
A lot of horse-trading I hear as well.
Are there not per economical sub-sector central Collective Employment Agreements in place with "job descriptions" coupled with wage boxes (a minimum-maximum box with years of employment) ?

 

[Zardnaar]

ok
The thing is: what I hear is almost workers council level or very small trade unions strongly intertwined with the local industrialists (in a "hate-love" relation) with "some" central guidelines from a bigger entity.
A lot of horse-trading I hear as well.
Are there not per economical sub-sector central Collective Employment Agreements in place with "job descriptions" coupled with wage boxes (a minimum-maximum box with years of employment) ?

Some places yes. Where I was they had 3 levels of skills each with 3 grades. Then it was modified by length of service. There were other things as well like shift and clothing allowances.

Most places are a set hourly rate or salary, time and a half is rare now and bosses complain staff don't want to work weekends and overtime lol.

Some places are also paying less than what they were 19 years ago. My other thread on immigration used this example but in freezing works they used to give you a heads pay in 8 or 9 months with an off season. Fairly generous pay and overtime rates. Now a lot of immigrants and refugees end up doing that type of work.

 

[Patine]

Unions don't matter due to self inflicted wounds.

For example here they always used to go in strike at holiday times so the trains and ferries would shut down. It wasn't like they were low paid either.

Now if you go to a work place with a union and their are layoffs is last on first off. The older staff are union members, a lot are incompetent and have the easy jibscany cabbage could do. And they can't even do that right

I was in one and they always asked for stupid payrises of 20%, spent months arguing with no backdated payrise to settle on 3 to
3.75%. We were told you can't negotiate with the company as an individual. I quit the union negotiated a 10% payrise in less than a week.

Then job losses were announced. I negotiated another generous pay rise and relocation package. The union also wants about 1% of your paypacket so a 3% payrise is more like 2%.

Now unions are basically the old crappy workers private club that's inefficient. And they look after themselves first. Not a lot of point joining them if you're new on the job depending on workplace.

Companies also don't fear unions much, they do fear your personal employment lawyer though.

Spoken like a true scab.

ok
The thing is: what I hear is almost workers council level or very small trade unions strongly intertwined with the local industrialists (in a "hate-love" relation) with "some" central guidelines from a bigger entity.
A lot of horse-trading I hear as well.
Are there not per economical sub-sector central Collective Employment Agreements in place with "job descriptions" coupled with wage boxes (a minimum-maximum box with years of employment) ?

What is this unions stuff that suddenly cropped up out of nowhere? Did someone I'm ignoring bring it up, I'm assuming? Like @metatron or @Rashiminos?

Still, my point to @Zardnaar as to how the ENITRE Left side of the political spectrum, including all the groups, without exception, I mentioned in my "litmus test" post, and others besides, have to have "failed" in the exact same way and circumstances as the specific groups you're actually referring to in the thread title and opening post for it to be ANYTHING but nonsense, and absolute non-term, even anti-term. Concise language is very important, even while so many are shrugging it off - because those who do shrug off concise, meaningful, comprehensive terminology that actually makes sense will be the losers in the long run when they're language is no longer their own, but is so amorphous, imprecise, and nonsensical, with just taglines and zeitgeist terms, many of which are not at all specific and mean nothing, absolutely NOTHING on their own (like "the Left") that manipulative ideologues and opportunistic tyrants will eventually start deciding what everyone means with these non-terms and anti-terms for them. It is a VERY serious thing - not the minor trifle you seem to think it is.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I, for one, brought up unions in my post

 

[Hrothbern]

Some places yes. Where I was they had 3 levels of skills each with 3 grades. Then it was modified by length of service. There were other things as well like shift and clothing allowances.

Most places are a set hourly rate or salary, time and a half is rare now and bosses complain staff don't want to work weekends and overtime lol.

Some places are also paying less than what they were 19 years ago. My other thread on immigration used this example but in freezing works they used to give you a heads pay in 8 or 9 months with an off season. Fairly generous pay and overtime rates. Now a lot of immigrants and refugees end up doing that type of work.

I will dig in a bit in NZ history and current structure and reach trade unions.
I get the impression it is less legalistic-general rule based than old Europe. The UK anyway already differing a lot with continental west Europe (and the UK weaker in protective effect despite the more vocal efforts. Is upstairs that much stronger in the UK ?).

What is this unions stuff that suddenly cropped up out of nowhere? Did someone I'm ignoring bring it up, I'm assuming? Like @metatron or @Rashiminos?

Still, my point to @Zardnaar as to how the ENITRE Left side of the political spectrum, including all the groups, without exception, I mentioned in my "litmus test" post, and others besides, have to have "failed" in the exact same way and circumstances as the specific groups you're actually referring to in the thread title and opening post for it to be ANYTHING but nonsense, and absolute non-term, even anti-term. Concise language is very important, even while so many are shrugging it off - because those who do shrug off concise, meaningful, comprehensive terminology that actually makes sense will be the losers in the long run when they're language is no longer their own, but is so amorphous, imprecise, and nonsensical, with just taglines and zeitgeist terms, many of which are not at all specific and mean nothing, absolutely NOTHING on their own (like "the Left") that manipulative ideologues and opportunistic tyrants will eventually start deciding what everyone means with these non-terms and anti-terms for them. It is a VERY serious thing - not the minor trifle you seem to think it is.

Trade unions have been essential for the Left movement. Do not forget that the early start of Socialism was an intellectual effort of world-improvers and do-gooders of the elite class. Trade Unions made the connect to the masses in more practical and understandable language and terms.

The Left:
Discussing "it" in layman's language has all kinds of disadvantages. But... but if you cannot formulate thoughts about "it" in layman's language, we are back in the salon-socialism of the past. Like a Marx married with a nobility wife.

 

[rah]

The left will fail in the US, because there's no way the Dems will end up with a candidate far enough left for them, so they'll sit out and let Trump win again.

 

[Patine]

The left will fail in the US, because there's no way the Dems will end up with a candidate far enough left for them, so they'll sit out and let Trump win again.

So, where is this single, unified, cohesive, single-message- and -platform called "the Left" in the United States - or anywhere else for that matter - outside certain European (like Germany) where a specific takes that actual NAME but in no way, shape, or form is representative of what's being discussed either. What is "the Left," as used? As far as I see things, it is a nebulous, amorphous, non-existent socio-political concept - an anti-term, with no meaning at all, leaving empty, hollow, gaping objects or subjects in a lot of sentences on these matters.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

The left in the US

so, literally no one? Jill Stein? you don't have a relevant left-wing party. you don't even have a relevant center-left party.