TINA versus populism

[warpus]

Yeah, Wynne isn't very likeable, I don't know why the Liberals didn't replace her. Her popularity is insanely low. Probably some stupid internal politics

As for the NDP.. they don't do anything. Their leader doesn't do anything. It seems like a perfect time for a party to speak up and say: "Hey you know how there's 2 parties that nobody wants to vote for because they're ran by morons? What about us? Check out our awesome platform"

But they aren't doing anything of that. They might as well not exist, I don't understand their strategy at all. I guess they don't have one

 

[Traitorfish]

No, but part of the point of this thread is that you can apparently enforce class discipline through supranational entities and international treaties, even when national governments are inclined to be less gung-ho about it for whatever reason.

But all of that is mediated by national governments. The state is the immediate manifestation of class power. That national governments have more formal restrictions on freedom of action today than they did in the twentieth century doesn't imply that they have diminished power over their citizens, only that those actively wielding that power are dependent on a more broadly-based consensus within the ruling class than they may previously have been.

 

[innonimatu]

It means that deviating from the "norm", which just happens to be mostly defined by the ruling class, is now much harder. Which severely weakens those who what to challenge the preferences of the ruling class.
The conservatives' dream, neutering of universal suffrage. And without having to abolish it.

 

[Lexicus]

But all of that is mediated by national governments. The state is the immediate manifestation of class power. That national governments have more formal restrictions on freedom of action today than they did in the twentieth century doesn't imply that they have diminished power over their citizens, only that those actively wielding that power are dependent on a more broadly-based consensus within the ruling class than they may previously have been.

Sure, it's 'mediated by national governments,' and the keyword is 'immediate'. If the national state is acting as a collection agency for multinational corporations, then it's not clear to me how insistence that the national state is really holding all the cards helps us grok the situation.

 

[Traitorfish]

It means that deviating from the "norm", which just happens to be mostly defined by the ruling class, is now much harder. Which severely weakens those who what to challenge the preferences of the ruling class.
The conservatives' dream, neutering of universal suffrage. And without having to abolish it.

If the working class have the power to force concession on globalisation, they have the power to do so without the patronage of the national state. The national state here is at best terrain to be fought over, an institutional barricade, it doesn't have any inherent or enduring value beyond the advantage it offers. There's nothing inherently special about national states as a political division, as compared to subnational or supranational divisions. There's only the illusion of specialness, because the ruling class spend centuries accruing powers and privileges and a whole mythology of "sovereignty" to these specific formations, and the fact that this has now become an inconvenience and embarrassment for some sections of that class some of the time doesn't lend the national state any automatic popular let alone proletarian character.

Sure, it's 'mediated by national governments,' and the keyword is 'immediate'. If the national state is acting as a collection agency for multinational corporations, then it's not clear to me how our view of the matter is clarified by insistence that the national state is really the entity that's holding all the cards.

As opposed to acting as the colleting agent of national corporations, as in the imperial era? As opposed to acting as its own collecting agent, as in the Soviet Union? What is the fundamental significance of how the ruling class structures itself, except in how we go about dismantling it? And if a certain structure is more amenable to dismantling, do we imagine that we'd be permitted to force it into that shape? And if he had the power to do so, would we would not have the power to just start dismantling? (Was that too many question marks? It feels like I'm overdoing it? I'm sorry if this comes across as rude, I got carried away?)

 

[Lexicus]

What is the fundamental significance of how the ruling class structures itself, except in how we go about dismantling it?

"How we go about dismantling it" is the only questions I'm really interested in answering. And it seems clear to me that in a world where, as @innonimatu rightly points out, the lowering of trade and -more importantly- investment barriers means that capital can engage in a global race to the highest rents, the strategy we use to "dismantle" the ruling class must change accordingly.

 

[innonimatu]

If the working class have the power to force concession on globalisation, they have the power to do so without the patronage of the national state. The national state here is at best terrain to be fought over, an institutional barricade, it doesn't have any inherent or enduring value beyond the advantage it offers. There's nothing inherently special about national states as a political division, as compared to subnational or supranational divisions. There's only the illusion of specialness, because the ruling class spend centuries accruing powers and privileges and a whole mythology of "sovereignty" to these specific formations, and the fact that this has now become an inconvenience and embarrassment for some sections of that class some of the time doesn't lend the national state any automatic popular let alone proletarian character.

In politics appearances, existing institutions, are the political reality. And that reality is changed by changing those institutions. If you have a working plan to do away with the national state, it'll be the first working one.
Until that plan delivers, people must live and deal with the structures they have. Why should they not fight to control those structures, which influence their lives? Why should they cede it to the exclusive control of others, just because the structures do not correspond to a perfect ideal?

The national state is not a barricade. It is the arena of public life, until something else replaces it. Globalisation did not replace it. It emerged upon the national state, modifying some things within the national states. Or rather, because some things were modified within. It emerged as part of a loss of power by the working classes within the national state. Why shouldn't the working people fight to increase again their influence within the national state?

The promise of anarchy, or of the ultimate communist society, is like the promise of Heaven. We live on Earth. If we want to make a heaven (and we should be able to some day...) out of it, we better start now with the earth we have and improve it from there. It's part of the old arguments within the left...