Whats next?

[Plotinus]

Perhaps I've misunderstood, but I was under the impression that Obama wanted to make healthcare more affordable to encourage more low-income workers to buy it, not that he wanted to make government-run healthcare mandatory for everyone (NHS-style). So I don't see how this is very socialist. On the contrary, it's very capitalist. As I understand it, Clinton is the one with the proposals that are closer to socialism. But really both of them are a million miles from real socialism.

At any rate, as has been pointed out, France is politically pretty right-wing compared to most of Europe; look at the success le Pen has enjoyed in various recent elections. It only seems left-wing to Americans because America is so extremely right-wing by most countries' standards.

But still, I don't think this discussion is really on-topic.

 

[Cutlass]

Barrack Obama has proposed plans for income redistribution, socialized healthcare, and other socialist programs. Also, his wife has said some pretty wacky things about the American dream and the American people. I am assuming that most of his supporters agree with him, so as many as 40% of Americans might want this kind of thing.

Universal health care is not the same thing as making a nation socialist. It's about keeping capitalism viable. National health care would free up about 7% of GDP for capital investment. "Income redistribution" is what the Republican policies are. "Supply side economics", or to use it's technically correct name, trickle down economics, is entirely a redistribuative plan.

 

[WICKLC1]

I was slightly wrong, only children would be required to have healthcare. And he's not going to give people healthcare, he's just going to help pay for it.

Taxing wealthier people and spending the money on welfare is redistribution. Trickle down economics is the theory that the top income earners invest more into the business infrastructure and equity markets, which in turn leads to more goods at lower prices, and creates more jobs for middle and lower class individuals. Also, that when companies make more money, they can sell their goods for less money and can pay their employees more.

 

[Jan H]

Also, that when companies make more money, they can sell their goods for less money and can pay their employees more.

Maybe someone should explain this principle to BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total

 

[Plotinus]

Taxing wealthier people and spending the money on welfare is redistribution.

But all governments without exception do that to at least some degree, and always have done; a country with no tax and no spending on services whatsoever would be one where you'd have to pay a toll to walk along the pavement. So you can hardly call someone a socialist on these grounds. Obama's tax 'n' spend policies are hardly in the league of European socialist democracies; on his website he specifies only that he intends to reverse Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy, so if that's the extent of his ambition in that department he's presumably no more a socialist than Bill Clinton was.

 

[Cutlass]

I was slightly wrong, only children would be required to have healthcare. And he's not going to give people healthcare, he's just going to help pay for it.

Taxing wealthier people and spending the money on welfare is redistribution. Trickle down economics is the theory that the top income earners invest more into the business infrastructure and equity markets, which in turn leads to more goods at lower prices, and creates more jobs for middle and lower class individuals. Also, that when companies make more money, they can sell their goods for less money and can pay their employees more.

The problem with that theory is that in a communist country, where supply side economics works, investment precedes what the consumers want. However a capitalist economy is characterized by demand side economics: There is no business investment except in the reasonable expectation of consumer demand. So what you call "income redistribution" is actually creating consumer demand which leads to business investment which in turn leads to ever larger fortunes for business owners. If you redistribute money downward (up to a point) everyone ends up richer, including the rich.

Trickle down economics doesn't change this, it just lowers its efficiency. What Reagan and Bush and the Republicans have done is actually a Keynesian fiscal expansion. It just happens to be an extremely poorly designed one. The rich took those tax breaks and invested not a penny of it. They went on a luxury consumption spree instead.

 

[WICKLC1]

Maybe someone should explain this principle to BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total

That would be nice.

 

[Traitorfish]

The think I never quite understand about "trickle down economics" is why it is seen as necessary for the money to be spent privately? Surely government spending will create the same "trickle down effect", it'll just go by different routes? Am I over-simplifying things here?

 

[Cutlass]

The think I never quite understand about "trickle down economics" is why it is seen as necessary for the money to be spent privately? Surely government spending will create the same "trickle down effect", it'll just go by different routes? Am I over-simplifying things here?

Trickle down theory is based entirely on the concept that "the rich are better". It's not about capitalism, it's about feudalism. The lords and masters should rightfully be relieved of the burden of taxation so that their benevolence can reward us all

 

[WICKLC1]

Trickle down theory is based entirely on the concept that "the rich are better". It's not about capitalism, it's about feudalism. The lords and masters should rightfully be relieved of the burden of taxation so that their benevolence can reward us all

The rich still pay a higher percentage than other people even with the Bush tax cuts.

 

[Richard Cribb]

Even Francis Fukayama has now accepted we are not at the end of history, (I always thought it was a ridiculous contention myself),

Who takes Fukuyama seriously?

Marxism predicts a sort of end of history when there are no more contradictions in our economic and political system, but that certaintly isnt the case now, and wont be in the foreseeable future.

I think you will find, if you look a bit closer, that Marx and most of his followers are not that deterministic.
I agree that unfortunately capitalism, while obviously declining , will be around for a while.

What do you think comes next in our methods of governing ourselves? It may well seem unimaginable now that liberal, capitalistic democracies wont be around for ever but they wont, nothing has survived yet and the spur of new technology will bring new ideas, new social patterns and eventually new types of government.

I chose to be an optimist.
The way I see it, the choice stands between global corporate fascism (what the ruling elites in the world want to impose) and real democracy (in contrast to the hoax that is euphemistically named liberal democracy by its adherents) AKA socialism.

Any ideas as to what they might be? Will political entities still be constrained by physical borders? Remember fixed national borders are a reasonably new phenomenon, communication technology and economic intergration have made them more obsolete. If this trend continues, in the distant long term, could political entities come to represent something other than all the people inside a fixed geographical area?

See above. Eventually national borders should disappear, but so far I think that it is practically impossible to have some sort of meaningful democratic system without them.

Possibly something like "The Society of Spectacle (Guy Débord, 1967)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Spectacle

A "New Middle Age" possibly, for a while, in the sense that we may be entering a period where radical social and political alternative thinking (society could be set up different, possibly better) will experience a slump.

That would be "Middle Age-like" in the sense that while lots of politics and stuff is going on, very few seriously question the basic mode of social organisation, subsistance and production (liberal capitalism in some form).

What you describe here is interesting, but seems indeed to be more fitting for the 90s, which at least to me is one of those lost decades. It is my impression that more people are waking up from their vegetative state and start to be interested in political changes than what was the situation after those counter-revolution in the former Eastern Bloc.

Oh, and "the end of histoty" in Fukuyama's sense only makes sense in light of Nietzsche; history has already "ended" once already, when man chucked God and providence out of the equation in favour of a secular political history centered on a set of competing political ideologies. If that period of political history as a Great Story, indicating what our societies are about, ends, then history has effectively ended.

In other words, it doesn't make sense then.

I'm personally rooting for a sort of Steampunk scenario.

You have no idea how hilariously ridiculous the concept of an extremist left-wing US sounds to a European.

But sweet, oh so sweet.

Not to mention the implication that such a US would be worse...

Indeed.

Barrack Obama has proposed plans for income redistribution, socialized healthcare, and other socialist programs. Also, his wife has said some pretty wacky things about the American dream and the American people. I am assuming that most of his supporters agree with him, so as many as 40% of Americans might want this kind of thing.

I think you have no reason to lose your beauty sleep over Obama.
As far as I can see he is just another corporate lap-dog. And mind you, I am a real evil communist and know my Pappenheimers.

Universal health care is not the same thing as making a nation socialist.

True, even if the principle, as most good one is a socialist one.

It's about keeping capitalism viable.

Good luck with that, it will be needed.

National health care would free up about 7% of GDP for capital investment. "Income redistribution" is what the Republican policies are. "Supply side economics", or to use it's technically correct name, trickle down economics, is entirely a redistribuative plan.

Income redistribution finds place in all societies, and it is just as much income redistribution when the rich gain more on the expense of the poor and not so rich. As for trickle down, shouldn't it rather be called trickle up?

 

[Cutlass]

The rich still pay a higher percentage than other people even with the Bush tax cuts.

Not when state and local taxes are also counted.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Who takes Fukuyama seriously?

Who would take someone who's name starts with "Fuk u " seriously ?

 

[innonimatu]

What do you think comes next in our methods of governing ourselves? It may well seem unimaginable now that liberal, capitalistic democracies wont be around for ever but they wont, nothing has survived yet and the spur of new technology will bring new ideas, new social patterns and eventually new types of government.

That's true. The hard thing is predicting what new technology is going to show up. Not hard, impossible. I can only say that the general trend is to shorten distances, therefore, as you said, to transcend borders. But they won't be entirely eliminated...

Any ideas as to what they might be? Will political entities still be constrained by physical borders? Remember fixed national borders are a reasonably new phenomenon, communication technology and economic intergration have made them more obsolete. If this trend continues, in the distant long term, could political entities come to represent something other than all the people inside a fixed geographical area?

...states will remain the base unit, but confederations of states will continue to form and grow. There is no better proof of that than the fact that some of the most fiercely nationalistic governments of the world saw the need to form one such confederation in Europe.
Governments have two purposed: to regulate daily life, making it predictable, stable, and to allow the accumulation of power by those so inclined. Both are directed by technology and circumstances, but in the long term only technology matters (no single state managed to conquer Europe, but it is uniting nevertheless). The more daily life depends on events happening far-away, the larger the political entities must be. But technology is not only making us dependent on what happens in far-away lands, it is also creating a denser network of dependencies around each of us: water, food, energy (gas, fuel, etc), telecommunications (tv/telephones/mobile phones/internet/whatever comes next), jobs, social security, medical care, ... All these things must be managed, all these systems are too important, and too frail, to place under separate political jurisdictions. With the exception of telecommunications, all have small mobility. So political entities will become larger, but still retain the monopoly of power within fixed geographical areas, and human migrations will remain regulated.

Why not a world-state? Perhaps it will happen. But it's not on the horizon, because of the "accumulation of power" aspect of the state: large political entities are already hard to manage, a worldwide one would be impossible, no current political system would be stable: not enough top places for the contenders, nor a uniform "way of life" usable to keep the population united and accepting of the system. But we're slowly heading that way.

 

[WICKLC1]

I think you have no reason to lose your beauty sleep over Obama.
As far as I can see he is just another corporate lap-dog. And mind you, I am a real evil communist and know my Pappenheimers.?

I'm shaking in my halliburton t-shirt.

 

[ulsterman88]

In the short term, I expect the old isolationst America to come back...and I expect widespread social unrest throughout Europe this century...and I expect we will run out of oil in the next 50 years...and I expect China and India's economies to collapse in the next 10 years...

Start building the bunkers in your backyards now.

I completely agree with soical inrest in Europe and the UK its coming in the next 10 years.

 

[warpus]

I predict a new type of havarti cheese storming onto the cheese scene in the coming years.

 

[Keroro]

I predict death. I'd like to see anyone prove me wrong.

In the absence of death, the following:

I predict the breaking down of the relationship between the physical boundaries of the state and the locations of the citizens of states. Physical boundaries already mean little to the lucky elite (which in effect includes me), who can travel to and live anywhere they want to without abandoning their original national identities. In the future these will break down further, and the solid nations of today will melt into air, providing nothing but an identity to the people who remain members of them (think of it like a brand identity). At the same time actual brand identities will sense a way of shoving their products further down our throats by blurring the boundaries between what they do and what nations do. What we'll be left with in terms of physical organisations will be very local, with towns and villages, and districts of a city, governing themselves. Due to their small size these entities will be constantly at risk of being screwed over by the corporational and national brands that remain.
(Consider: The first postmodern states may be closer than we think - several pacific island chains are very close to sinking under the waves. When they do disappear, what will happen? Will they be kicked from the UN and the people forced to relocate to other countries and apply for another nationality, or will they remain citizens of the islands they originally came from? What will happen to the passports issued by them, their internet domains, their phone codes?)

If a worldstate of any kind is formed, then I predict that it will be based upon trade, and it's membership will 1-Not include all the nations of the world 2-Include some entities that are not nations in the traditional sense. The popular imagination will not connect with the idea, and people will generally mistrust the people in power of it. The infighting and lobbying that we see in present international organisations would be magnified in a worldstate, and despite a collosal extra tax burden on the people who live within, the worldstate would not actually have a significant impact on the problems that the world faces.

That's my guesswork done for the day. It's a fun, but ultimately pretty meaningless exercise. Thanks for giving me the excuse to indulge in it.

 

[Dragonlord]

What do you think comes next in our methods of governing ourselves? It may well seem unimaginable now that liberal, capitalistic democracies wont be around for ever but they wont, nothing has survived yet and the spur of new technology will bring new ideas, new social patterns and eventually new types of government.

Any ideas as to what they might be? Will political entities still be constrained by physical borders? Remember fixed national borders are a reasonably new phenomenon, communication technology and economic intergration have made them more obsolete. If this trend continues, in the distant long term, could political entities come to represent something other than all the people inside a fixed geographical area?

I'm surprised no one here, though obviously all internet-literate, have yet mentioned the new possibilities for direct democracy the internet makes possible.
Since ancient Greece, direct democracy hasn't been implemented on any large scale, though Switzerland utilizes some aspects of it. What we call 'democracies' today are representational democracies or republics: franchise is limited to electing the decision-makers, not to making the decisions themselves.
It was always seen as impractical to practice direct democracy on any larger scale than one of the Greek cities because of the difficulty of informing the voters of the issues on one hand and, especially, gathering and counting the votes in a timely enough manner to allow decision making.

Now, however, when just about everybody in the Western states has access to electronic information systems and the internet, it would certainly be technically possible to allow voters to directly decide important issues.

I for one would appreciate having a larger say in decision making - for many years now I haven't felt myself truly represented by ANY politician or party... going to vote has increasingly seemed irrelevant, as I only get a choice between evils ...

Of course, those same politicians and political parties resist direct democracy in any form - as we saw with the ratification of the European Constitution, where most countries, including Germany, avoided plebiscites ... so I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to be implemented soon... :-(

 

[citedon]

A world where all of the important decisions are decided by the people who surf the internet?!

Wait a minute. That's not funny it's frightening.

Seriously, you do make an interesting point.