Voters steer Europe to the right
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 18, 2026 16:35
VIEWED: 24282
PAGE 22 of 23
Friday's work is complete. And now I might turn my attention to our evolving conversation.
Quote:What an expansive answer this question requires. Part of the discussion is actually contained in something you posted eariler:
Originally posted by SignyM:
BlueSun... what does "freedom" mean to you?
Quote:I like that statement. I've actually understood this fact for some time, tho defined differently. I like your phrasing of it better, and will probably use it myself in the future.
Someone once told me a long time ago that Americans have a different definition of freedom than Europeans. Americans think of freedom as "freedom to..." while europeans think of freedom as "freedom from...".
I believe that liberty, (or freedom in this conversation) is a socially evolving philosophical paradigm. When humanity was 1st able to create true tangible cultures the repeating pattern of rule was strongest over weakest. Whether one describes strongest in terms of physical might or wealth aquisition is irrelevant because the result is the same: humans have a singular greedy nature. Our biologies demand it from the many thousands of years of survival evolution. It is only through our power of heightened thought that we are able to overcome our greed and need to control others. This establishes a journey of society down an axis of liberty.
The journey along the axis is a trip from one extreme of control to another of absolute individualism. I believe that the european thought process exists about halfway along this axis and is defined in many ways by the glorious revolution of 1688 in england and the subsequent bill of rights that followed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689
With the advent of that document the thought process of european political philosophy shifted into an new gear...but the way I've always seen it they are still driving in that gear. Your statement of "Freedom From.." is quite apt in this regard. It's a defensive stance. It's a position held out of fear. "What will I do without X? If I support a certain political position will I ever again have to worry about X?" The american model took a new step forward to ask a different question: "How can I achieve Y? If I support a certain political position will I have a greater opprounity to pursue Y?"
I read Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad Poor Dad 5 years ago. Robert is actually a rather poor prose writer but his lessons were good and mirrored those of the United States Marine Corps: "Proact. Don't react". The english of 1688 reacted to tyranny and established an english bill of rights (a great thing) but they've been reacting ever since. In the USA there was a great new ideal of expansion and ambition. The divergent anglo cultures became alike to first cousins.
Ask yourself this: At it's very core, what exactly is social security? Answer: It is society's response to the emotion of fear. All socialist paradigms exist as a reaction to fear. What happened just after FDR declared his most famous phrase? (The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.)
Social Security.
As I said previously, you ask a broad question. What is freedom to me? The answer is:
Absolute choice. So long as such choices I make do not violate the rights life, liberty, or property of any other human being.
The reason I resist your attempts to sound a trumpet of universal care is because under that system I'm not going to be given a choice. Do I have a choice to pay into social security? No. Why does the system not exist as a program that asks each citizen if they want the lifetime benifits or not? Why are we forced to pay? The answer is that when given the choice, most would not participate and the system requires broad participation to work. So instead the power structure agresses upon the citizens and siezes income. I tell you now that I will not require social security when I'm old. I'm building my own security dispite the undue burden of paying for the broken program that
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Lemme lob this bomb in here, BSCM...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Catalonia
See, when you do start breaking the chains, you become the enemy of EVERY GOVERNMENT ON THE PLANET.
That's a lesson we've never forgotten, nor have we forgotten that right up till the rage of the populace at it's horrors made fascism politically unsupportable, american big business did (and still DOES - See Also: Business Plot) think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
And american PEOPLE volunteered to fight it*, despite our government actively supporting that murderous bastard Franco cause he was taking on those pesky worker collectives and unions which make things so unprofitable, yanno...
NEVER will we forget staring into the gunbarrels of the communists, socialists, fascists, and democracies of the world at the same time - because who we are, WHAT we are, directly threatens all of them, most especially the lie that people need to be controlled by leaders "for their own" good, which was bullshit when the nobility (helped along by religion) floated it in the dark ages, and it's bullshit now.
But point that out, prove it wrong, and everyone who depends on it for wealth and power instantly becomes your enemy, and they have plenty of guns, bombs, and fools willing to use them.
I've spent my whole live depriving them of the latter, as you well know.
Reason I mention this is the need to think it all the way through to the bloody finale when discussing this - what will you DO when you become enough of a threat for them to engage their armies, their weapons, against you ?
I have my own answers to that, but it's something I want you to think very hard about when discussing this topic.
And if you even for an instant think that such a thing would not happen in america, the use of military force against those who simply want their rightful due as human beings, just because they are not engaging the Gov directly...
Let me FIRMLY disabuse you of that notion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
Now, if you can find some way around that without the massive bloodshed and casualties, be kind enough to share it with me, ehe ?
-Frem
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Brigade
I do think it kind of ironic that they would name their anti-fascism brigade after a man who in retrospect, happens to be one of the nastiest fascists in history, but american public school "education" being what it was at the time, they didn't know just how much bullshit the lincoln myth really was.
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Quote:
doesn't it mean that the exporting country is either employing a lot of automation
You're against automation? You want to go back to where we were all peasants, all 'employed' toiling the fields? Or should we use technology to liberate humanity, make the price of food much cheaper and then employ more scientists/artists/entertainers etc.? In my mind you can apply the same principle of automation for food production to production for all essential goods.
Quote:
(in which people are unemployed)
Only one generation of workers is left redundant to society, like an obsolete branch that is cut off the tree. Progress is natural, and cruel like nature - again I'd argue that government let nature take its course and put a safety net in place to help the obsolete workers that fall into it. The tree will be stronger in the future as a result, as that manpower will be reabsorbed and put to new uses.
I see unemployment as part of the 'natural' system's cycles. In any civilisation and any economic system technology will render some workers obsolete, and resources that a town has been built around will dry up, etc. Just the fallout from an evolving natural system - another argument for a role for government.
Quote:
or paying substandard wages
Japan and Germany are two major exporter nations with generous social welfare systems and worker priveleges. I think the happy thing here is that to a large extent social welfare is like investing in people, so that you get more from them (eg. education). Of course you need to have the wealth first, before you can really start to invest it - which is where capitalism, global trade and 'tiger economies' come in, in my view.
Quote:
Also, I tried to imagine a system that you propose, of capitalist production and social distribution. The problem is, I reach the same conundrum as before: as long as competition for markets is the the main driver, that approach (capitalism with a friendly face) will be out-competed by "pure" capitalism all the time, every time.
Germany, Japan... even the US to a very significant extent pays for social welfare for its people. No society is interested in employing 'pure capitalism' as you describe it, and if it did I doubt it would be competitive in this modern world - an educated worker is worth several uneducated workers.
Heads should roll
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Quote:Nope. I'm all for it. Like I said, its one of the factors that keeps us from having to work in unending dawn to dusk toil. Ideally, we should have just enough automation ot give people about four hours of productive work a day. (And that's for psychological reasons.) I do, however, have a problem with automation under pure capitalism,
You're against automation?
Quote:You have this in your head:
Only one generation of workers is left redundant to society, like an obsolete branch that is cut off the tree. Progress is natural, and cruel like nature
natural= good.
natural= cruel
therefore cruel= good.
Please get rid of it, as its false on its premises.
Quote:And then we have a boatload of other economies which have NO support networks at all, which includes all of Africa, and most of southern and south-east Asia and Russia, and (possibly) China and virtually all of South and Central America. For decades the USA has made extensive use of that cheap labor for profit, and actively impoverished a dozens of nations in the process, leaving them in worse shape than before our involvement. (Confessions of an Economic Hit man). PART of our wealth comes on the backs of exploitation elsewhere. Even China is exploiting Africa (coal and copper mines). As I see it, capitalism seems to be a zero-sum game. India, the latest to experiment with free(er) market capitalism, has seen the development of shopping malls and a larger upper class, but ALSO the growth of the ultra-poor. ON BALANCE, the only thing that capitalism has done in India is to separate the wealth, not generate it. Meanwhile, the Indian state of Kerala, which is run on cooperatives, is the only state which continues to do well and which consistently has a a much better standard of living.
Germany, Japan... even the US to a very significant extent pays for social welfare for its people.
Capitalism is viral. That's not necessarily a good thing. Just because something grows rapidly sucks up everything in its path doesn't mean its good, as that description could apply to viruses, cancers and hurricanes.
Quote:But economic policies aren't always determined by "societies". Quite often they're dictated by foreign powers, corrupt leaders and corporate heads. Russia underwent "shock treatment" which threw their economy back sixty years, actually REDUCED the standard of living and lifespan by fifteen years(!), because of a few people who followed the Chicago School of economics. Regulated capitalism only works in viable democracies (which, I argue, the USA is not).
No society is interested in employing 'pure capitalism'
Everywhere capitalism has been introduced and allowed to develop "naturally" has seen an increase in misery, from industrializing Britain to Russia, South and Central America, Africa, and India. And while you seem to think that the misery is only temporary, that the unemployed will be folded into the new economy, that capitalism has within itself the economic seeds of its own solution ("progress is natural") you also argue that regulation is needed. It sounds like you haven't quite decided whether capitalism can/ does right its own problems, or whether outside intervention is required, and whether that intervention is natural and economic or not.
So let me tell you that history shows that the only thing which rights capitalism's exploitation is pushback by workers. In the Industrial revolution, the standard of living didn't naturally rise. In fact, it was heading towards more exploitation and greater poverty UNTIL riots and strikes forced such issues as the workweek and wages. The same thing happened in the USA- although that lesson was blunted by our unique post-war position in which we could exploit the entire non-communist world. "Pure" capitalism does not create a better future on its own, it does not painlessly become generous and concerned. And the response to capitalism is every bit as natural and economic as capitalism itself, since capitalism'
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Also, what is Capitalist about centralised Government regulation, legislation and social programs. All those things are socialist in nature, there's nothing capitalist about them, whether they're being applied to a largely capitalist economy or not.
Which comes back to what I was saying earlier, that was largely seemingly purposefully misrepresented.
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So anyway KPO, I've given your proposal considerable thought. As I understand it, it seems to me what you're saying is that you can't have progress without am initial period of misery. In a broad way, this is probably so: in order to progress, one must work without an immediate reward: keep the peace, educate the population, build an infrastructure, perform research, invent new and better ways of doing things, build new factories or retool old ones, even keep people healthy. None of that is immediately involved in production. AFTER productivity is increased, wealth can be distributed.
HOWEVER, that distribution does not happen "naturally" under capitalism, which concentrates wealth and power in a positive feedback cycle. Some other factor must be introduced such as unions or government.
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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
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Quote:
You have this in your head:
natural= good.
natural= cruel
therefore cruel= good.
Lol, no. Your problem is you think too much in terms of good and evil. Is nature/capitalism good or evil? What a pointless question. I personally only think about what is effective, and best for humanity - I never talk about good.
Concerning nature one could describe it: vibrant, diverse, chaotic, cruel - and capitalism by analogy is the same: it has advantages and disadvantages. I'm arguing to take the advantages and then use government to tackle the disadvantages. There's no ideological purity there, but I'm a pragmatist, I want what is most effective. In the same vein I'm not interested in calling socialism 'evil', just useless - it's an economic system that doesn't generate wealth!
Quote:
Ideally, we should have just enough automation ot give people about four hours of productive work a day. (And that's for psychological reasons.)
Interesting. Is this for all kinds of work, even for people who enjoy their jobs? If we increase automation perhaps we can all have enjoyable jobs in the future - we'll all be artists/entertainers etc. Why do marxists think that human civilisation has 'arrived'?
You have lots of historical arguments against capitalism, but we'd be arguing all day if we get into our different interpretations of history - plus marxism's track record is definitely not perfect. Can we not just agree that capitalism has a track record of lifting millions out of poverty, and its success doesn't have to come at the unfair expense of other nations via imperialism...? I'm thinking of post-war Germany and Japan, and all the tiger economies examples... I've been saying all along capitalism has to be properly managed.
Quote:
Regulated capitalism only works in viable democracies (which, I argue, the USA is not).
Hmm, I think the US GDP per capita is very impressive - surely you can't fault capitalism for the amount of wealth it has created? I don't task capitalism with spreading that wealth out across society, government must step in here.
Quote:
it seems to me what you're saying is that you can't have progress without am initial period of misery.
I suppose I am - but sometimes the misery of capitalist toil is a step up from grinding poverty. Sometimes not, and that makes me angry - heads should roll. What can I say but poor countries first of all need good, uncorrupted leadership - this isn't just for capitalism though, this is a lesson we've learnt just as well from some African countries striving to become 'socialist paradises'.
Quote:
HOWEVER, that distribution does not happen "naturally" under capitalism, which concentrates wealth and power in a positive feedback cycle. Some other factor must be introduced such as unions or government.
You've got to be careful with unions though, because they can bring industry down (or at least make it uncompetitive) when they get too powerful and demand too much. I would rather government intervene if it can, with legislation. Democracy can solve this, in theory. But I heard recently that America is quite unique in that its working class do not traditionally offer strong support for the political left and the labour movements, that in any european country would represent them.
Heads should roll
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Unions bring an industry down???
What, you don't think that workers should be able to negotiate their pay and power from an equal position? Don't believe in real negotiation? Isn't that the basis of capitalism: that EVERYONE gets to represent themselves on an equal footing in the economic sphere? (Or, at least that was part of Adam Smith's theory!)
I'd like to continue this, but in another thread. this one's too long.
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We should have strapped him into a glider, filled it nose heavy w/ explosives, and dropped his Allah lovin' ass into a large, empty field. After which, release wild boars into the area so they could make good use of his remains. Now THAT's justice.- rappy
Yeah, that's what Sheikh Issa said. Seems you both have a lot in common.- signy
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the propaganda multiples
a Correct Leader but not 'Rightwing'?
call her Hitler again?
Why France might soon have a far-right government
https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct716x
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Two Alabama women and their children were attacked on a train in Brussels, Belgium for being American
The attacker reportedly approached them with a knife and asked if they were American, when they confirmed, he threatened to kiII them.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2022156202613043650#m
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