Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[Norgy]

I think most "industrial" and "post-industrial" states are in a race towards the bottom. By choice, really.

There is a very strong and politically charged upper strata throwing money at anti-immigration parties and nationalist parties. Which is rather contradictory to this class' interest, which has been and is free flow and free trade.

On the other hand, splitting working people into them and us is rather effective. The point being made is that it should be harder for people to move between borders and easier for money to move.

We live in a Hayekian dystopia. None of the promises of the St. Pelegrin Society have come true. And all the worst fears of those brave enough to oppose the Reagan/Thatcher/Hayek/Friedman agenda have become true as well.

We spend our time discussing which immigrant group is the worst, while we should and can confront those powers that make us do that.

End of.

[Razgovory]

The problem is that the radicalization isn't coming poor.  The DSA stalwarts aren't working class or poor.  They are mostly from the Middle Class or really upper-Middle Class.  And this is true for a lot of MAGA (though MAGA probably has more working class people in it, both as a percentage and in absolute terms.)  What these people do have in common is a fear of downward mobility.  For all the talk of solidarity about the working class, the these people don't want actually be the people waiting tables for minimum wage.

A lot of people would be fine with minimum wage if you could actually live off of it.

What, like the people here?  I doubt it.  Most of the people here are college graduates, and people go to college so they can receive high paying, high status jobs.  They don't go to college so they can make the same amount of money as a high school dropout mopping floors at a fast food restaurant.  

[Syt]

I think most "industrial" and "post-industrial" states are in a race towards the bottom. By choice, really.

There is a very strong and politically charged upper strata throwing money at anti-immigration parties and nationalist parties. Which is rather contradictory to this class' interest, which has been and is free flow and free trade.

On the other hand, splitting working people into them and us is rather effective. The point being made is that it should be harder for people to move between borders and easier for money to move.

We live in a Hayekian dystopia. None of the promises of the St. Pelegrin Society have come true. And all the worst fears of those brave enough to oppose the Reagan/Thatcher/Hayek/Friedman agenda have become true as well.

We spend our time discussing which immigrant group is the worst, while we should and can confront those powers that make us do that.

End of.

Amen.

[crazy canuck]

I think most "industrial" and "post-industrial" states are in a race towards the bottom. By choice, really.

There is a very strong and politically charged upper strata throwing money at anti-immigration parties and nationalist parties. Which is rather contradictory to this class' interest, which has been and is free flow and free trade.

On the other hand, splitting working people into them and us is rather effective. The point being made is that it should be harder for people to move between borders and easier for money to move.

We live in a Hayekian dystopia. None of the promises of the St. Pelegrin Society have come true. And all the worst fears of those brave enough to oppose the Reagan/Thatcher/Hayek/Friedman agenda have become true as well.

We spend our time discussing which immigrant group is the worst, while we should and can confront those powers that make us do that.

End of.

Amen.

Yeah, and the observation that Reagan's policies were creating a race to the bottom was largely dismissed at the time, but has proven to be accurate.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And yet is quite clear that mass migration has been quite disastrous for our western societies.
Both need to be discussed and dealt with. It's not an or but an and thing.

[Jacob]

There is a very strong and politically charged upper strata throwing money at anti-immigration parties and nationalist parties. Which is rather contradictory to this class' interest, which has been and is free flow and free trade.

I generally agree with your post, but I've been thinking about the underlined part all morning and I don't think the current oligarch actions are contradictory to their class interests.

For one thing, it's a classic "kick the ladder down once you're up" manoeuvre. If the free flow of trade and information is restricted, it'll be harder for new people to get wealthy. That's not really a concern for those who are currently super rich who can focus on accumulating more through accruing monopolistic and cartel like advantages. When you're rising, the free flow of trade is critical. Less so when you're already on top.

Secondly, you look at Elon Musk whose rise has been significantly fuelled by taking advantage of political relationships and exploiting policy - Tesla would be nowhere near where it is without leveraging gov't subsidies and credits. More broadly, the ability to exploit and manipulate government policy is massively advantageous. Currently (and probably classically) the most effective way to gain influence seems to be to supporting populist right-wing nationalist causes because those causes are not concerned with economic policy at scale. So that's what they do.

Looking at the Swedish owner of Mulvad VPN - he'll be able to gain more economic advantage (cost-effectively) if he's the patron oligarch of a right-populist party (aligned with the broader international of right-populist parties and patron oligarchs) than if he's essentially just a very very very well-off upper middle-class person.

[Josquius]

And yet is quite clear that mass migration has been quite disastrous for our western societies.
Both need to be discussed and dealt with. It's not an or but an and thing.

It hasn't been though. The mid 20th century, the largest period of immigration, saw the biggest rises in living standards in history.

It's not that immigration is something that can be totally ignored. But fundamentally it's just an easy distraction to get us to look away from the actual problems.

[crazy canuck]

Without immigration there would be no Canada, or me. Without immigration the person who I hope will one day be the mother of my grandchildren would not be here. So I must disagree with the premise that it has been bad.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Without immigration there would be no Canada, or me. Without immigration the person who I hope will one day be the mother of my grandchildren would not be here. So I must disagree with the premise that it has been bad.

That's your argument for mass-migration? A country built on pushing away the indigenous population?
It can only be hoped that the countries in western europe don't undergo the same fate.

[Razgovory]

I think most "industrial" and "post-industrial" states are in a race towards the bottom. By choice, really.

There is a very strong and politically charged upper strata throwing money at anti-immigration parties and nationalist parties. Which is rather contradictory to this class' interest, which has been and is free flow and free trade.

On the other hand, splitting working people into them and us is rather effective. The point being made is that it should be harder for people to move between borders and easier for money to move.

We live in a Hayekian dystopia. None of the promises of the St. Pelegrin Society have come true. And all the worst fears of those brave enough to oppose the Reagan/Thatcher/Hayek/Friedman agenda have become true as well.

We spend our time discussing which immigrant group is the worst, while we should and can confront those powers that make us do that.

End of.

Well, most money comes from the upper strata period.  That's where the money is.  In the US at least, most of upper strata has been very pro-immigration.  Even with Trump in office, the oligarchs have been quick to ask for carve outs for their industry.  Hell, even Trump wants carve outs on immigration for hospitality workers.  The Neo-liberal order that er... Hayekian dystopia as you say, is very much built on the free movement of people.  Our betters do need to have vast pool of cheap labor.  We are told that is a net positive for the economy, and that is probably true, I don't know, but I'm not sure it's a net positive for everyone.

[Norgy]

I won't be arguing against you, Jacob, because you are right on, well, the money.

The "fiscal conservatives" have gotten a rather smelly taint in "okay, this IQ and race science make some interesting points".

While still sort of marginal, I am fairly certain that the old doctrines of eugenics coupled with high tech will make a big comeback.

Raz wrote he was angry at some point in this thread. I suppose I am too. Angry at my own stupidity at accepting that social democracy should be full of market liberalism. That subsidising "innovation" would somehow be good.

Put that market horse back in its harness.

From my own past, or rather my father's, I know these things to be true.
My dad was not a great dad. But he was a prize-winning typesetter. A union man, chair of the local union of typesetters for three non-consecutive 2 year periods. He was also the one who was elected to the board in the newspaper I later worked at.

About the same time my parents got divorced, the paper started slowly introducing Norsk Data's computers to replace the manual typesetting. In the UK, Maxwell and Murdoch were doing the same albeit at a much higher pace. Dad was against this, but reluctantly retrained and was an expert in Norsk Data's hyperscript, which later became HTML.

He did see the writing on the wall, though. My fond memories of my father, who chose to leave this world when I was 16, are those long talks about politics and technology. "They're making humans redundant with all this. It'll only get worse, son".
"Dad? I'd like to write"
"You want to be... a journalist? No. No way. You will go to university and learn".

So. I did.

25 years after my dad died, I was writing for that paper. And there were no typesetters left, and the printing press was downsizing. When I had my first job there, there were 260 people employed. When I left last year, there were two dozen.

"Progress" some say. "Food for the angry right", I say.

[Norgy]

but I'm not sure it's a net positive for everyone.

It is not. Has never been. I would say it is getting worse now.

Bernie Sanders would not get such traction if there was nothing to his claim the middle class was almost gone.