Social Democrats in the Wilderness

[PRC]

On Judt I recommend his lecture in the New York Review of Books (not the New Yorker, sorry) and this really very sad profile/interview:
http://nymag.com/news/features/64626/

That was a really good read on Judt.  I've read Post War and have Reappraisals on the shelf...

[crazy canuck]

Long (very) on prose and rhetoric, short on logic.

This sums up so much political writing in Britain.

Compared to the brilliant political prose coming out of the rest of the world?

[Admiral Yi]

Compared to the brilliant political prose coming out of the rest of the world?

Britain does seem to enjoy a monopoly on literary criticism mascerading as poliitical analysis.

[Martinus]

I think it is interesting how in the West "moral conservatism" seems to be going hand in hand with free market capitalism, while I don't think it has a bigger enemy and a destructive force. Free market capitalism destroys all competing ideologies - and "moral values" are the most vulnerable to its charm. The alleged erosion of family, glamourisation of free sex and drugs lifestyle, etc. - these are all direct consequences of these things selling well and free market capitalism offering the fix.

[Martinus]

But you're right a religion provides a moral purpose to a society, a sense of direction and communality.  So does utopian thought, even of the rather delicate and incremental form social democracy takes.

The problem with religion is that it is not rational (or even logically explainable) and as such it can only survive through generational indoctrination - something that is not going to happen again without enormous social costs - you can't just tell people to start believe in some fairy tale overnight (this of course notwithstanding the fact that it is an insult to an individual's intellect, and as such is unacceptable - but I am simply addressing your social engineering point).

This leaves us with a utopia.

[Razgovory]

It works out then because there are probably only a handful of rational people living on the earth.

[Richard Hakluyt]

My hypothesis is that "rational" societies die out due to their immorality and lack of social cohesion. Hence the apparently weird survival of religious belief into the modern age.

[Bluebook]

Broadly.  I don't think he answers the problem of local conditions.  But I think his central point about our society is correct, I think that privatisation has actually just created lots of companies that are too big to fail without delivering gains in efficiency is similarly correct.

This is a very current discussion in Sweden. The privatisation of various welfare-functions. I disagree with the notion put forth by the author (and you?) that no gains have been made in that process. All the reports Ive read on the subject, and they are plenty, point to several important differences between private-run and government-run:
1. Emplyoees have much higher job-satisfaction in the private sector than in the government sector.
2. Patients/users are more satisfied with quality of service in the private sector.
3. Private sector is much more economically efficient.
4. They are also much more flexible.
5. Private sector have a tendancy to focus more on patient/user/customer-satisfaction than government sector.

The thing that seems to escape most of the state-should-run-all-welfarestate-functions-advocates is that a government-run hospital, welfare-system, healtcare-system or whatever, is that you always end up with some sort of planned economy-model, and those are never effective, nor are they focused on the individuals working in them or using them.

[Razgovory]

What "rational societies" have existed?

[Josquius]

It's difficult to feel optimistic about the upcoming election. Voters are invited to choose between two major parties: one – New Labour – that has governed for the past 13 years and is responsible for the political and financial crisis facing the country;

I hate this myth.

Can't be arsed to read the rest for a proper comment.

[Martinus]

My hypothesis is that "rational" societies die out due to their immorality and lack of social cohesion. Hence the apparently weird survival of religious belief into the modern age.

I think I disagree. It is perfectly possible to have a highly socially cohesive and "moral" "rational" society. The problem I think that from a modern perspective any "rational utopia" would have a much easier time to develop into a "total" society and the risk of this would be higher than in a religious society (because we are more used as a civilization to freedom of religion than to "freedom of rational thought"). The result is that a rational utopia in the modern West would have a tendency to become more oppressive and totalitarian than an irrational one.

I guess an example of this could be a pre-Directorate French society.

[Martinus]

Besides, I reject the notion that our modern society is immoral or that it does not attempt to enforce morality or social cohesion.

Political correctness. Social welfare. Universal healthcare. Hate speech and hate crime laws. Affirmative action. Consumer and employee protection laws. Minimum wage. Anti-Holocaust-denier laws. These are all tools of the "new morality" enforced by law, in the interest of a greater social cohesion.

The only thing that differs, compared to the "old morality" (provided by religion) is how we define the "Community" and the "Other" - frankly I think our new method is better.

Now, I agree that free market capitalism and free liberal society are in direct opposition to both. But the fun thing it has made the "old morality" and the "new morality" fight each other tooth and nail, while the free market ideology - the moral enemy of both - is selling the tickets.

[Tamas]

I stopped where it started to argue that coal mines should be better off under state control.

[Tamas]

Besides, I reject the notion that our modern society is immoral or that it does not attempt to enforce morality or social cohesion.

Political correctness. Social welfare. Universal healthcare. Hate speech and hate crime laws. Affirmative action. Consumer and employee protection laws. Minimum wage. Anti-Holocaust-denier laws. These are all tools of the "new morality" enforced by law, in the interest of a greater social cohesion.

The only thing that differs, compared to the "old morality" (provided by religion) is how we define the "Community" and the "Other" - frankly I think our new method is better.

Now, I agree that free market capitalism and free liberal society are in direct opposition to both. But the fun thing it has made the "old morality" and the "new morality" fight each other tooth and nail, while the free market ideology - the moral enemy of both - is selling the tickets.

Hey, I seem to be liking a post of Martinus 

[Admiral Yi]

There are some things that government simply does better then private actors because there are some things that will never be profitable or perhaps better put, should never be profitable.  For example prisons, the military, many infrastructure and transportation projects.

Why should running a prison never be profitable?

There was the recent story of the company running a juvenile detention center bribing a judge to "increase the demand" for its services, but it's not exactly as if the history of state-run faciliities is free of any blemish.  Plus you've got the example of the prison guard union in California helping to bankrupt the state.