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[jakonovski]

Worldwide poverty has been slashed in half in just 30 years:

https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/

The standard of living worldwide in third world countries has skyrocketed since the industrial revolution. This isn't opinion, or feelings - these are numbers. No one disputes them.

You're saying after capitalism, therefore because of capitalism.

 

[kirblar]

You're saying after capitalism, therefore because of capitalism.

We saw not-capitalism attempted in Russia, China, Vietnam, Chile and other countries attempting state-based solutions.

They all eventually just went for some form of Capitalism and saw massive GDP growth in the wake of doing so.

 

[David H Wong]

History of labor begs to differ. The standard of living started to rise for everyone only once the poor started threatening to throw capitalists over. And even now the capitalist has no interest in bettering the lot of minorities.

The reason standard of living in China and India exploded is precisely because capitalists tend not to care about the workers' skin color.

Racism is still a thing, of course - that's why capitalism only works with a strong central government. And labor absolutely needs to unite to gain bargaining power. But it's the flow of capital across borders that has raised up the poor around the globe and given us one of our longest periods of relative peace (combat deaths worldwide have been on a stunning decline ever since WWII).

Capitalism destroys itself without regulation, but when running properly it does a better job of feeding and clothing human beings than any system we've ever come up with, and it's not even close. "We need regulation to protect the little guy" is a winning argument. "We need to tear down capitalism and start over" is fringe college kid thinking - an argument from naive ignorance. How many of you knew about those worldwide poverty trends before I posted them?

 

[flkraven]

We saw not-capitalism attempted in Russia, China, Vietnam, Chile and other countries attempting state-based solutions.

They all eventually just went for some form of Capitalism and saw massive GDP growth in the wake of doing so.

I'm convinced that the strong anti-capitalism sentiment on the left is driven by people that haven't taken history or economics.

 

[The Technomancer]

Are you new to political discussions here, lol? pigeon is vastly more concerned with angrily denouncing as many people as possible as racists or apologists thereof than in advancing the leftist policies he claims to support.

pigeon and I don't agree on everything, but I think we come from a similar position on this sort of thing: there is a sheer insistence we see in a wide swathe of the leftist movement that is so assertively convinced that it can't be racist that I worry about a lack of reflection. Earlier in this thread we had to have a debate about FDR because he was held up as a successful economic progressive despite all of the ways in which racism informed that progressivism in precisely the ways we are worried will happen again

 

[pigeon]

I have yet to see a leftist defend neoliberals as hard as you have the last few days. It has basically been your job to run around this forum attempting to refute every legitimate issue with the Democratic Party. You can say you're a leftist, but you rabidly support people who clearly aren't.

I mean, I'm sorry you were unable to come up with a coherent response to even one of my arguments and so decided to passive-aggressively ideologically shame me instead, but the fact of the matter is I've been advocating for socialism on NeoGAF for longer than you've been a registered user on NeoGAF. Not all the people who disagree with you are ideological enemies. Some are ideological allies who think your argument is stupid.

But that's really beside the point. Let's get back to the main topic, which is that in your post you explicitly acknowledge that there are anti-social-justice people within what you term the leftist movement, and yet:

* you're fine with them (you consider them part of the movement),
* you downplay them (they're just a "small minority"),
* and you say I'm spreading a "myth" for accurately pointing out that they exist and that "leftists" like you refuse to denounce them and expel them from the movement.

So, I mean, I think I'm just correct. The reason you and I disagree is that I think racism is incompatible with a leftist movement and people who accept and normalize it are failing the left, and you literally are, self-admitted, one of those people.

Note that this is an easy argument to refute. All you have to do is make an effort, when those anti-social-justice leftists pop up, to condemn them, even when they agree with you on economic issues. It's super straightforward! So the fact that you can't or won't do that, because they're agreeing with you on attacking the "Clintonistas," speaks to your priorities and your goals for the movement.

You aren't making sense. Gender is real but any gender can be expressed in any way? Under that definition it has no meaning at all.

This is another example of you basically devaluing the leftist movement by associating it with ignorance. It is literally astonishing to me that you would assert with such confidence that your movement is the one that really supports GLBT issues and yet demonstrate in the very next breath that you don't understand the most fundamental concepts of gender theory.

Are you new to political discussions here, lol? pigeon is vastly more concerned with angrily denouncing as many people as possible as racists or apologists thereof than in advancing the leftist policies he claims to support.

As I think we just agreed, racism is anathema to leftist policy, so denouncing racism is, and should be, a primary goal of the left, and yelling about it is a form of advancing those policies. The fact that you separate the two is a little concerning! I thought we had gotten on better footing here, but maybe I misjudged you.

 

[flkraven]

The reason standard of living in China and India exploded is precisely because capitalists tend not to care about the workers' skin color.

Racism is still a thing, of course - that's why capitalism only works with a strong central government. And labor absolutely needs to unite to gain bargaining power. But it's the flow of capital across borders that has raised up the poor around the globe and given us one of our longest periods of relative peace (combat deaths worldwide have been on a stunning decline ever since WWII).

Capitalism destroys itself without regulation, but when running properly it does a better job of feeding and clothing human beings than any system we've ever come up with, and it's not even close. "We need regulation to protect the little guy" is a winning argument. "We need to tear down capitalism and start over" is fringe college kid thinking - an argument from naive ignorance. How many of you knew about those worldwide poverty trends before I posted them?

It's crazy that being a Keynesian has become a point of contention for the vocal left online now and anything short of socialism is a betrayal of true liberal values.

 

[CrimzonSamurai]

History of labor begs to differ. The standard of living started to rise for everyone only once the poor started threatening to throw capitalists over. And even now the capitalist has no interest in bettering the lot of minorities.

This is a moot point, nobody here is arguing for total laissez-faire capitalism. Labor has and always will have a role to play in balancing interests within a capitalist system. But that doesn't change the fact that capitalism has raised standards of living for the lower classes far better than any non-capitalist system.

Look at any centrally planned economy, like China or Venezuela. China only started seeing standard of living increases for its working poor when they became more capitalist.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

If dems would just drop their stance on gun control they could really start making headway into the Midwest and a lot of southern states. Anecdotally, I know a ton of Trump voters that would have voted differently if it wasn't for the lefts view on gun control. Single issue voters that feel like gun ownership is the only concrete thing that the government can change.

It may sound crappy to lot of you guys, but there are a lot of ppl around here (Midwest) that feel that way.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-wqOApBLPio

Jason Kander for president IMHO

Certainly I see the justification for this position, given what the Labour party have been going through in the UK after Coybyn took over, but the most recent election seems to have steered more people to looking favorably on Corbyn even though he lost.

But I really choke on lines like 'greatest failure'. It was a close election where the DNC picked up seats, despite losing the executive branch. What I, and I think a lot of other people, underestimated was just how deeply people hated Clinton, to the point where her policies and her opponent didn't matter one jot to more than enough people.

In retrospect that was one of the factors that cost the dems the election. Fair or not, after decades of negative stories, that stuff was in deep and many on the left bought into it wholesale too.

Give me a time machine and of course I'd let Sanders have a shot, even if I'm not convinced the outcome would have been any better. I'd still love to roll that dice again.

What I don't see it as, however, is a repudiation of Clinton's policies or way of doing politics. Everything I heard people say as to why they didn't vote for her was about her character.

"Greatest failure" I meant to refer strictly to the presidential election. I like to harp on Hillary for having worse favorables than Goldwater, but Trump had worse favorables than either. Trump was and is an unelectable candidate wide swathes of the electorate loathe. The democrats just nominated a slightly more loathed, more unelectable candidate.

But my biggest problem is this: Hillary Clinton was unelectable, and few of us noticed. I was more skeptical than most and even I thought she was better off than Sanders. Because we didn't think the hate was justified - to to be clear it wasn't - we ignored a huge amount of polling saying she was a severely compromised candidate. It is a conclusion that, in retrospect, was staring us in the face.

So how did we screw up that badly? I think most of us got in an echo chamber, and after so long of shrugging off far right conspiracy theories, thought they were of little consequence.

But it wasn't just Clinton's personality, or character assassination that cost the election. Remember when Trump was going on about how Clinton had been I. Office for 20 years and hadn't fixed the problems yet? The character assassination was of a piece with the fury the electorate feels towards the political class. Clinton is uniquely hated, but any democrat that can't claim outsider status will be hit with similar if less effective attacks.

My two biggest concerns with the democratic leadership are 1.) they do not seem to be taking steps to correct the patterns of thought that led to them missing Clinton's vulnerabilities, and 2.) whether her politics are substantiviely centrist or leftist, they haven't concluded that the next candidate needs to be able to run as an outsider.

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

The reason standard of living in China and India exploded is precisely because capitalists tend not to care about the workers' skin color.

Racism is still a thing, of course - that's why capitalism only works with a strong central government. And labor absolutely needs to unite to gain bargaining power. But it's the flow of capital across borders that has raised up the poor around the globe and given us one of our longest periods of relative peace (combat deaths worldwide have been on a stunning decline ever since WWII).

Capitalism destroys itself without regulation, but when running properly it does a better job of feeding and clothing human beings than any system we've ever come up with, and it's not even close. "We need regulation to protect the little guy" is a winning argument. "We need to tear down capitalism and start over" is fringe college kid thinking - an argument from naive ignorance. How many of you knew about those worldwide poverty trends before I posted them?

If you're a leftist, and on the internet, people constantly yell at you how great it is that billions went from <$2 a day, to $3 a day over a century.

Lol, only a capitalist apologist would celebrate that.

 

[kirblar]

I'm convinced that the strong anti-capitalism sentiment on the left is driven by people that haven't taken history or economics.

When a study looked at who was using the word "Neoliberal" the author found that it's coming from people who haven't actually studied economics - http://personal.lse.ac.uk/venugopr/venugopal2014augneoliberalism.pdf (this is the least surprising thing ever)

 

[jakonovski]

The reason standard of living in China and India exploded is precisely because capitalists tend not to care about the workers' skin color.

Racism is still a thing, of course - that's why capitalism only works with a strong central government. And labor absolutely needs to unite to gain bargaining power. But it's the flow of capital across borders that has raised up the poor around the globe and given us one of our longest periods of relative peace (combat deaths worldwide have been on a stunning decline ever since WWII).

Capitalism destroys itself without regulation, but when running properly it does a better job of feeding and clothing human beings than any system we've ever come up with, and it's not even close. "We need regulation to protect the little guy" is a winning argument. "We need to tear down capitalism and start over" is fringe college kid thinking - an argument from naive ignorance. How many of you knew about those worldwide poverty trends before I posted them?

The reason China and India do well is because there's a lot of people working and creating wealth. They could do that under most systems. A person's ability to better their condition is human, not tied to any ideology.

In capitalism, the big thing is creating wealth for the capital holders. It's hell to a worker without regulations and thus is really restricted in what it can achieve. Take the socialist idea of collective ownership and use it to make the capitalist compromise: minimum wages, good working conditions and the creation of a middle class that by its virtue of modest wealth and large size holds power that even the rich and powerful fear.

The US is currently retreating back to the supremacy of laissez-faire capitalism. It's an immensely rich land, but miserable for tens of millions and their number grows every day.

 

[SRG01]

It's crazy that being a Keynesian has become a point of contention for the vocal left online now and anything short of socialism is a betrayal of true liberal values.

The internet favors ideological arguments, not rational debate. That's nothing new, unfortunately.

 

[Father_Brain]

pigeon and I don't agree on everything, but I think we come from a similar position on this sort of thing: there is a sheer insistence we see in a wide swathe of the leftist movement that is so assertively convinced that it can't be racist that I worry about a lack of reflection. Earlier in this thread we had to have a debate about FDR because he was held up as a successful economic progressive despite all of the ways in which racism informed that progressivism in precisely the ways we are worried will happen again

The class-first leftists definitely exist online and I will happily criticize someone like Connor Kilpatrick when he has an extremely shitty take on race, but I'm thoroughly unconvinced that they have any real sway within actual organizing or activism. They certainly don't have any actual power or influence within the Democratic Party or institutions affiliated with it, whereas the ardently anti-Sanders/class-last/class-never centrists and liberals have vastly disproportionate power and influence there.

 

[flkraven]

When a study looked at who was using the word "Neoliberal" the author found that it's coming from people who haven't actually studied economics - http://personal.lse.ac.uk/venugopr/venugopal2014augneoliberalism.pdf (this is the least surprising thing ever)

Incredible. I'll have to read that after work. Thanks for the link.

 

[pigeon]

"Greatest failure" I meant to refer strictly to the presidential election. I like to harp on Hillary for having worse favorables than Goldwater, but Trump had worse favorables than either. Trump was and is an unelectable candidate wide swathes of the electorate loathe. The democrats just nominated a slightly more loathed, more unelectable candidate.

But my biggest problem is this: Hillary Clinton was unelectable, and few of us noticed. I was more skeptical than most and even I thought she was better off than Sanders. Because we didn't think the hate was justified - to to be clear it wasn't - we ignored a huge amount of polling saying she was a severely compromised candidate. It is a conclusion that, in retrospect, was staring us in the face.

So how did we screw up that badly? I think most of us got in an echo chamber, and after so long of shrugging off far right conspiracy theories, thought they were of little consequence.

But it wasn't just Clinton's personality, or character assassination that cost the election. Remember when Trump was going on about how Clinton had been I. Office for 20 years and hadn't fixed the problems yet? The character assassination was of a piece with the fury the electorate feels towards the political class. Clinton is uniquely hated, but any democrat that can't claim outsider status will be hit with similar if less effective attacks.

My two biggest concerns with the democratic leadership are 1.) they do not seem to be taking steps to correct the patterns of thought that led to them missing Clinton's vulnerabilities, and 2.) whether her politics are substantiviely centrist or leftist, they haven't concluded that the next candidate needs to be able to run as an outsider.

This is actually a pretty interesting argument. I need to think about this more, but I think it's a compelling critique of the Democratic Party's biggest weakness right now.

The outsider thing is frustrating, because competence should be a value, but ultimately we shouldn't let cosmetic issues prevent us from nominating candidates that can succeed, so if we need to nominate a competent outsider to win, at least that's an acceptable compromise.

 

[CrimzonSamurai]

If you're a leftist, and on the internet, people constantly yell at you how great it is that billions went from <$2 a day, to $3 a day over a century.

Lol, only a capitalist apologist would celebrate that.

The fact that you don't appreciate the difference in <$2 a day to $3 a day within a century is pretty indicative of a lack of understanding of history.

You realize that for millennia the idea of a salary increase at all was nonexistent, and that the best you could hope for was that the guy who owned your land through force took slightly less of the grain that was your only source of sustenance.

It's like saying evolution can't be a viable scientific theory because you've never seen it happen in real time.

Even if you changed the entire global economy to some leftist ideal you'd need at least a century of stability before any notable increase in average living conditions could be perceived planet-wide. And that's assuming that system would be tenable, which history also shows it wouldn't be.

 

[TheLaughingStock]

We saw not-capitalism attempted in Russia, China, Vietnam, Chile and other countries attempting state-based solutions.

They all eventually just went for some form of Capitalism and saw massive GDP growth in the wake of doing so.

If by went for some form you mean policies diametrically opposed to what I believe in and they succeeded despite that sure.

 

[786110]

I do. I mean, if Obama could have run in November do you think he'd have failed too?

Obama would have known not to disappear for all of August and to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan.

 

[The Technomancer]

The fact that you don't appreciate the difference in <$2 a day to $3 a day within a century is pretty indicative of a lack of understanding of history.

You realize that for millennia the idea of a salary increase at all was nonexistent, and that the best you could hope for was that the guy who owned your land through force took slightly less of the grain that was your only source of sustenance.

It's like saying evolution can't be a viable scientific theory because you've never seen it happen in real time.

Even if you changed the entire global economy to some leftist ideal you'd need at least a century of stability before any notable increase in average living conditions could be perceived planet-wide. And that's assuming that system would be tenable, which history also shows it wouldn't be.

Eh. I think socialism is tenable in some form within the next century, we have reached some fairly critical milestones in technological development. I think its failure throughout the last century can largely be ascribed to:
-Things that needed to be post production scarcity not yet actually being post scarcity
-The authoritarian phase required (because the transition under such conditions couldn't be broadly popular because it was making material conditions worse as part of a painful transition process) becoming just authoritarianism

 

[pigeon]

The class-first leftists definitely exist online and I will happily criticize someone like Connor Kilpatrick when he has an extremely shitty take on race, but I'm thoroughly unconvinced that they have any real sway within actual organizing or activism. They certainly don't have any actual power or influence within the Democratic Party or institutions affiliated with it, whereas the ardently anti-Sanders/class-last/class-never centrists and liberals have vastly disproportionate power and influence there.

Sure, I agree with this.

But this conversation is taking place online.

It's infuriating to have conversations over and over with class-first leftists and then be told by other leftists that those people don't exist and don't matter. Sometimes in the same thread! It is still incumbent on you (like, you personally) to spend time defending social justice if you want people to understand that defending social justice is part of your value set. Nobody gets a free pass.

And you can certainly make the same argument on economic justice, but in fairness to myself, I know you read PoliGAF and I just came off arguing that Corbyn provides another data point that we need to radically rethink our ideas about advocating for socialism in America.

Before you assume I'm a neoliberal shill using race to deflect, consider the possibility that I'm authentic in my reported motivations and the reason I keep yelling at your folks for tolerating racism is because I actually believe it's happening and it's a big problem.

 

[SRG01]

This is actually a pretty interesting argument. I need to think about this more, but I think it's a compelling critique of the Democratic Party's biggest weakness right now.

The outsider thing is frustrating, because competence should be a value, but ultimately we shouldn't let cosmetic issues prevent us from nominating candidates that can succeed, so if we need to nominate a competent outsider to win, at least that's an acceptable compromise.

Outsiders are valued because a huge swath of the American population want change in any form they can get, because the status quo is unbearably bad.

Combine that with a populist that appeals to their base emotions, and it becomes clear as to why Trump won...

 

[Angelus Errare]

Says a left wing that wants to chase after the White-working-class and wants to abandon "Identity Politics".

I mean both left and centrists keep talking about abandoning identity politics while in the same breath talking about creating policies that attract straight male WW class voters (oh look identity politics)

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

I think Dr. Benton Quest is a big ole racist

I said all leftists being racists was a myth. You extrapolated everything else from that. So here:

If you are a leftist and a racist then you are not a leftist.

I condemn all so called leftists who do not support equality and civil rights for minorities.

There are people who call themselves leftists that are racists.

There, now that we're clear, explain to me how you being a rabid attack dog for liberals supports leftist ideals.

 

[kirblar]

If by went for some form you mean policies diametrically opposed to what I believe in and they succeeded despite that sure.

I can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me lol

 

[boiled goose]

When a study looked at who was using the word "Neoliberal" the author found that it's coming from people who haven't actually studied economics - http://personal.lse.ac.uk/venugopr/venugopal2014augneoliberalism.pdf (this is the least surprising thing ever)

So you can't use terminology unless you studied economics??

And, some people do study economics and social sciences and use the word. It's used in academic circles all the time... :/

 

[jakonovski]

This is a moot point, nobody here is arguing for total laissez-faire capitalism. Labor has and always will have a role to play in balancing interests within a capitalist system. But that doesn't change the fact that capitalism has raised standards of living for the lower classes far better than any non-capitalist system.

Look at any centrally planned economy, like China or Venezuela. China only started seeing standard of living increases for its working poor when they became more capitalist.

You kidding me, half the people here are scared of everything even slightly left.

Further on modren capitalism, it has the extreme luck of having the top dog empires of its day on its side. Capitalist west exploiting and outright enslaving their colonies for two centuries pretty much stacks the game in your favor. Nobody else ever had a chance, not matter the system.

edit: not to mention the birth of industrialization, a huge technological advance that gives a giant boost (Japan as the prime example of how militaristic exploitation of industrialism can lift a country in the blink of an eye).

 

[The Technomancer]

If by went for some form you mean policies diametrically opposed to what I believe in and they succeeded despite that sure.

I mean the question of "why all attempts at socialism have thus far descended into authoritarian states" is a big one, and one I touch on above, but I'm not sure if there's space to really get into it here.

 

[CrimzonSamurai]

Eh. I think socialism is tenable in some form within the next century, we have reached some fairly critical milestones in technological development. I think its failure throughout the last century can largely be ascribed to:
-Things that needed to be post production scarcity not yet actually being post scarcity
-The authoritarian phase required (because the transition under such conditions couldn't be broadly popular because it was making material conditions worse as part of a painful transition process) becoming just authoritarianism

Well I meant specifically my hypothetical worldwide centrally-controlled system.

But in a larger sense I don't think your second bullet point can ever be solved. No country has ever legitimately democratically chosen a fully centrally planned socialist system, and I don't think they ever will.

Humans are selfish animals, it's a feature not a bug, and it's not going to be tenable as long as that remains true. So, barring like, crazy dystopian genetic engineering or something I don't think it will ever work.

Well-regualted capitalism is the best option for stability because it gives the most parties the most of what they want.

You kidding me, half the people here are scared of everything even slightly left.

Further on modren capitalism, it has the extreme luck of having the top dog empires of its day on its side. Capitalist west exploiting and outright enslaving their colonies for two centuries pretty much stacks the game in your favor. Nobody else ever had a chance, not matter the system.

I've never seen anyone on this forum who routinely engages in political discussion argue for the abolition of organized labor, so I'm going to have to disagree with your first statement. Even the staunchest capitalists here arguing right now are pro-regulation and organized labor.

As to your second point mercantilism is not capitalism and modern capitalism can largely attribute its creation to the absence of exploitable colonial labor. Also the USSR was the second strongest empire in the world for most of the last century and it didn't succeed because its economic model was shit and not because it didn't have an advantage in exploitable labor.

 

[Dr. Benton Quest]

The fact that you don't appreciate the difference in <$2 a day to $3 a day within a century is pretty indicative of a lack of understanding of history.

You realize that for millennia the idea of a salary increase at all was nonexistent, and that the best you could hope for was that the guy who owned your land through force took slightly less of the grain that was your only source of sustenance.

It's like saying evolution can't be a viable scientific theory because you've never seen it happen in real time.

Even if you changed the entire global economy to some leftist ideal you'd need at least a century of stability before any notable increase in average living conditions could be perceived planet-wide. And that's assuming that system would be tenable, which history also shows it wouldn't be.

You argue that because this happened after capitalism that it's the result of capitalism. When workers started fighting their oppressors, things improved for them.

 

[The Technomancer]

You kidding me, half the people here are scared of everything even slightly left.

Further on modren capitalism, it has the extreme luck of having the top dog empires of its day on its side. Capitalist west exploiting and outright enslaving their colonies for two centuries pretty much stacks the game in your favor. Nobody else ever had a chance, not matter the system.

No you think everyone here is scared of everything slightly left because anything other than "run balls to the wall progressive candidate and ride the popular wave to victory" is neoliberal to you guys. That's why people like me are so frustrated! I support strong unionization, worker control of production, dramatic taxation in service of decreasing inequality, investments in education, healthcare, etc. I just don't think the popular revolution is at our back

EDIT: Sorry I don't mean this to be so abrasive. I'm just....argh

 

[The Technomancer]

Well I meant specifically my hypothetical worldwide centrally-controlled system.

But in a larger sense I don't think your second bullet point can ever be solved. No country has ever legitimately democratically chosen a fully centrally planned socialist system, and I don't think they ever will.

Humans are selfish animals, it's a feature not a bug, and it's not going to be tenable as long as that remains true. So, barring like, crazy dystopian genetic engineering or something I don't think it will ever work.

Well-regualted capitalism is the best option for stability because it gives the most parties the most of what they want.

Eh, disagree. I think that nationalization of certain swathes of capital, placing them under democratic control, can and could be a very good thing. I'm actually more of a proponent of centralized socialism than of the opposite; "a world of worker co-ops" is the vision I have trouble getting on board with

 

[boiled goose]

I mean the question of "why all attempts at socialism have thus far descended into authoritarian states" is a big one, and one I touch on above, but I'm not sure if there's space to really get into it here.

It's an idiotic question. Even in the US we have socialist aspects in our government, economy, and society.

Being "ideologically driven" one way or another is silly. You make systems that work.

 

[Father_Brain]

"Greatest failure" I meant to refer strictly to the presidential election. I like to harp on Hillary for having worse favorables than Goldwater, but Trump had worse favorables than either. Trump was and is an unelectable candidate wide swathes of the electorate loathe. The democrats just nominated a slightly more loathed, more unelectable candidate.

But my biggest problem is this: Hillary Clinton was unelectable, and few of us noticed. I was more skeptical than most and even I thought she was better off than Sanders. Because we didn't think the hate was justified - to to be clear it wasn't - we ignored a huge amount of polling saying she was a severely compromised candidate. It is a conclusion that, in retrospect, was staring us in the face.

So how did we screw up that badly? I think most of us got in an echo chamber, and after so long of shrugging off far right conspiracy theories, thought they were of little consequence.

But it wasn't just Clinton's personality, or character assassination that cost the election. Remember when Trump was going on about how Clinton had been I. Office for 20 years and hadn't fixed the problems yet? The character assassination was of a piece with the fury the electorate feels towards the political class. Clinton is uniquely hated, but any democrat that can't claim outsider status will be hit with similar if less effective attacks.

My two biggest concerns with the democratic leadership are 1.) they do not seem to be taking steps to correct the patterns of thought that led to them missing Clinton's vulnerabilities, and 2.) whether her politics are substantiviely centrist or leftist, they haven't concluded that the next candidate needs to be able to run as an outsider.

This is a very good take.

Clinton's campaign was run out of an affluent, urban professional thought bubble that was consequently incapable of recognizing the full extent of her unpopularity, or the extent to which many Americans were and are deeply unhappy with the status quo. That's what led to the infamous Schumer quote confidently predicting that they'd pick up twice as many moderate Romney voters as they'd lose blue-collar Obama voters.

 

[kirblar]

So you can't use terminology unless you studied economics??

And, some people do study economics and social sciences and use the word. It's used in academic circles all the time... :/

No, it's saying that the terminology isn't actually used (as a slur) by people who have actually studied economics. It's coming from outside the house, from people who've studied other social sciences, but don't have an economics background. (within econ, neoliberal's meaning is largely historical at this point, since most people aren't '80s lassez-faire types.)

The example here would be people who've read a lot of Marx, but haven't actually ever had even the basics of supply/demand, markets, elasticity, price ceilings/floors, etc.

 

[leroidys]

i reposted what MrGerbils posted earlier because its a great recap.

From what i can tell there is not even a picture of Rodney Stooksbury out on the internet. They won +20 against someone whose actual existence is up for debate.

Comparing vote totals from a presidential election year and an off-year, off-season special election is highly misleading at best.

 

[Abounder]

"Greatest failure" I meant to refer strictly to the presidential election. I like to harp on Hillary for having worse favorables than Goldwater, but Trump had worse favorables than either. Trump was and is an unelectable candidate wide swathes of the electorate loathe. The democrats just nominated a slightly more loathed, more unelectable candidate.

But my biggest problem is this: Hillary Clinton was unelectable, and few of us noticed. I was more skeptical than most and even I thought she was better off than Sanders. Because we didn't think the hate was justified - to to be clear it wasn't - we ignored a huge amount of polling saying she was a severely compromised candidate. It is a conclusion that, in retrospect, was staring us in the face.

So how did we screw up that badly? I think most of us got in an echo chamber, and after so long of shrugging off far right conspiracy theories, thought they were of little consequence.

But it wasn't just Clinton's personality, or character assassination that cost the election. Remember when Trump was going on about how Clinton had been I. Office for 20 years and hadn't fixed the problems yet? The character assassination was of a piece with the fury the electorate feels towards the political class. Clinton is uniquely hated, but any democrat that can't claim outsider status will be hit with similar if less effective attacks.

My two biggest concerns with the democratic leadership are 1.) they do not seem to be taking steps to correct the patterns of thought that led to them missing Clinton's vulnerabilities, and 2.) whether her politics are substantiviely centrist or leftist, they haven't concluded that the next candidate needs to be able to run as an outsider.

People could predict that her all-time toxic ratings & FBI investigation would haunt her...but no one could have predicted her coasting to defeat by skipping WI, flying home every night, holding zero press conferences for months, collapsing on 9/11 memorial, & letting the birther dominate all forms of media. In other words even an 'insider' like Hillary should have won vs Trump if she had half the work ethic of her winning predecessors, and no (D) frontrunner will ever be that lazy or stupid again.

But definitely agreed the party is better served getting away from Hillary & Co. - for the love of god don't run Tim Kaine & stop bullshit problems like Lynch/Schultz before their optics get out of hand....now the Dems have nothing except maybe retaking the WH in 2020

 

[boiled goose]

No, it's saying that the terminology isn't actually used (as a slur) by people who have actually studied economics. It's coming from outside the house, from people who've studied other social sciences, but don't have an economics background. (within econ, neoliberal's meaning is largely historical at this point, since most people aren't '80s lassez-faire types.)

This is a purely semantics argument then. Which is silly.

Think of current use of the word as a label for something else. The label is irrelevant. It's referring to something, that's what is important.

Your Argument is basically that economists use the term in one way, and social scientists use it in another way.

 

[kirblar]

This is a purely semantics argument then. Which is silly.

Think of current use of the word as a label for something else. The label is irrelevant. It's referring to something, that's what is important.

Your Argument is basically that economists use the term in one way, and social scientists use it in another way.

It's used pretty much exclusively as a slur by non-economists is the point. It's not really indicative of anything other than moral posturing.

 

[CrimzonSamurai]

You argue that because this happened after capitalism that it's the result of capitalism. When workers started fighting their oppressors, things improved for them.

There were revolutions against oppressors constantly throughout human history and none resulted in the same kind of economic growth in the working classes that we have seen in contemporary western capitalist democracies. And yes, I'm including the nordic countries because aside from one or two industries those countries are still capitalist. Correlation and Causation seem pretty indistinguishable in this case.

Eh, disagree. I think that nationalization of certain swathes of capital, placing them under democratic control, can and could be a very good thing. I'm actually more of a proponent of centralized socialism than of the opposite; "a world of worker co-ops" is the vision I have trouble getting on board with

We live in a country of 30% uneducated racists, 30% uneducated yuppies, and 30% used car salesman, leaving 10% educated technocrats.

Why you would trust fellow citizens enough to think they could manage their national capital on that level, I honestly don't understand. I don't mean that as insulting I just actually can't not be that cynical.

 

[O Canada Our Home and Native Land]

No, it's saying that the terminology isn't actually used (as a slur) by people who have actually studied economics. It's coming from outside the house, from people who've studied other social sciences, but don't have an economics background. (within econ, neoliberal's meaning is largely historical at this point, since most people aren't '80s lassez-faire types.)

The example here would be people who've read a lot of Marx, but haven't actually ever had even the basics of supply/demand, markets, elasticity, price ceilings/floors, etc.

Why do you waste so much time fighting the term neoliberal? Are you that offended by it? If you aren't a neoliberal then it doesn't apply to you, and if you are, then why not embrace it? Looking up a study about people who use the term neoliberal and then linking it here comes across absurdly petty.

 

[flkraven]

This is a purely semantics argument then. Which is silly.

Think of current use of the word as a label for something else. The label is irrelevant. It's referring to something, that's what is important.

Your Argument is basically that economists use the term in one way, and social scientists use it in another way.

My problem is that I have no idea what that 'something' is. Nearly every time I see the word 'Neoliberal' thrown around today, it's by a 'leftist' that is having a disagreement with a liberal about literally anything.

 

[jakonovski]

I've never seen anyone on this forum who routinely engages in political discussion argue for the abolition of organized labor, so I'm going to have to disagree with your first statement. Even the staunchest capitalists here arguing right now are pro-regulation and organized labor.

As to your second point mercantilism is not capitalism and modern capitalism can largely attribute its creation to the absence of exploitable colonial labor. Also the USSR was the second strongest empire in the world for most of the last century and it didn't succeed because its economic model was shit and not because it didn't have an advantage in exploitable labor.

There's a lot of people all freaked out by unions on this board, as weird as it seems. And in a purely American context, what kind of unions do you guys even have anymore?

Exploitation of colonies continues to this day, although a fraction of what it used to be. Post WW2 was when it started to crack. I don't think you can get away by defining everything before that as mercantilism. Also wealth accumulates. Centuries of colonial exploitation under any system will benefit those who come after.

And let me add here that I'm a social democrat. I believe in a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. I just find akin to ideological brainwashing to define capitalism so that all the good things are because of it. As I said, the ability to work is human. Capitalism makes capital move. Socialism makes sure the worker doesn't die creating value for the capitalist.

edit: and I'm not even touching on the literally terminal inability of capitalism, or socialism, to deal with externalities like CO2 emissions causing climate change. So you need to have the ecologist perspective too.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

We live in a country of 30% uneducated racists, 30% uneducated yuppies, and 30% used car salesman, leaving 10% educated technocrats.

Why you would trust fellow citizens enough to think they could manage their national capital on that level, I honestly don't understand. I don't mean that as insulting I just actually can't not be that cynical.

I'm pretty sure a yuppie is by definition educated.

Also fuck technocracy.

 

[kirblar]

Why do you waste so much time fighting the term neoliberal? Are you that offended by it? If you aren't a neoliberal then it doesn't apply to you, and if you are, then why not embrace it? Looking up a study about people who use the term neoliberal and then linking it here comes across absurdly petty.

Because it doesn't mean anything. It's just a slur. I'm not "fighting" it, I'm calling it as a meaningless husk of a phrase that doesn't exist to do anything other than to signal that you're a good person and those other people are bad.

 

[Joeytj]

The reason China and India do well is because there's a lot of people working and creating wealth. They could do that under most systems. A person's ability to better their condition is human, not tied to any ideology.

In capitalism, the big thing is creating wealth for the capital holders. It's hell to a worker without regulations and thus is really restricted in what it can achieve. Take the socialist idea of collective ownership and use it to make the capitalist compromise: minimum wages, good working conditions and the creation of a middle class that by its virtue of modest wealth and large size holds power that even the rich and powerful fear.

The US is currently retreating back to the supremacy of laissez-faire capitalism. It's an immensely rich land, but miserable for tens of millions and their number grows every day.

I think the arguments from both of you are the same. "Strong regulation" in his case means the socialist ideas you want.

And it's true. It's basic economic theory, at least in Mexico. Both my high school and middle school econ classes taught us that a mixed economy is better in the long run.

Of course, the definition of "center" and "mixed" has been muddled and warped in these last 30 years, so there's the problem.

 

[Father_Brain]

Before you assume I'm a neoliberal shill using race to deflect, consider the possibility that I'm authentic in my reported motivations and the reason I keep yelling at your folks for tolerating racism is because I actually believe it's happening and it's a big problem.

Well, if the below post and others like it I've seen from you aren't meant to accuse everyone who didn't share your enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton of being unconcerned with racism, you should probably do a better job of explaining what you mean.

I mean, I'm just gonna say it.

I found Hillary Clinton's message inspiring. Intersectionality and opposing evil seem like good messages to me. I am motivated by them.

It does seem clear that many people don't believe intersectionality is important and don't really think bad things can happen or that people can be hurt. But I don't really think that was Hillary Clinton's fault, even if you're one of those people.

Maybe just take personal ownership of the fact that stopping a white supremacist from becoming president wasn't that interesting to you, rather than putting it on her.

Meanwhile, sure, I agree that the left needs genuinely intersectional politics that treats economic, racial, gender, and LGBTQ issues as being deeply intertwined. I also think leftists who argue that social justice issues should take a back seat to class issues are dumb and bad. I just don't agree with your view of their prevalence.

 

[Cyrano]

The reason standard of living in China and India exploded is precisely because capitalists tend not to care about the workers' skin color.

Racism is still a thing, of course - that's why capitalism only works with a strong central government. And labor absolutely needs to unite to gain bargaining power. But it's the flow of capital across borders that has raised up the poor around the globe and given us one of our longest periods of relative peace (combat deaths worldwide have been on a stunning decline ever since WWII).

Capitalism destroys itself without regulation, but when running properly it does a better job of feeding and clothing human beings than any system we've ever come up with, and it's not even close. "We need regulation to protect the little guy" is a winning argument. "We need to tear down capitalism and start over" is fringe college kid thinking - an argument from naive ignorance. How many of you knew about those worldwide poverty trends before I posted them?

I think what you're missing is that capitalism, regardless of whether it's improved the standard of living (which I'd argue it doesn't, as technological innovation and the Industrial Revolution was what actually increased the standard of living - and further, the evolution of medicine), has also created the greatest inequalities in the history of the world. Never before has there been such a large gap between the wealthiest and poorest.

Strong government regulation is a socialist policy, and if capitalism needs it to survive, then what we need is socialism, not capitalism.

 

[CrimzonSamurai]

This is a purely semantics argument then. Which is silly.

Think of current use of the word as a label for something else. The label is irrelevant. It's referring to something, that's what is important.

Your Argument is basically that economists use the term in one way, and social scientists use it in another way.

This is like the argument from the South Park biker episode about how the f-word isn't exclusively used as a slur anymore and therefore you shouldn't automatically take it as a slur.

The term has a set definition, and it's not used by social scientist at all, just leftists on the internet who needed something to call people less leftward than they are.

There's a lot of people all freaked out by unions on this board, as weird as it seems. And in a purely American context, what kind of unions do you guys even have anymore?

Exploitation of colonies continues to this day, although a fraction of what it used to be. Post WW2 was when it started to crack. I don't think you can get away by defining everything before that as mercantilism. Also wealth accumulates. Centuries of colonial exploitation under any system will benefit those who come after.

And let me add here that I'm a social democrat. I believe in a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. I just find akin to ideological brainwashing to define capitalism so that all the good things are because of it. As I said, the ability to work is human. Capitalism makes capital move. Socialism makes sure the worker doesn't die creating value for the capitalist.

I mean if we're going to say that colonial exploitation is continuing you only have to look at China's "investment" in Africa to show that this isn't an exclusively capitalist or post-colonial problem.

I'm not saying capitalism doesn't have problems. It clearly does. But there's never been a better socialist system, or one that actually functions, so I don't really see a need to plunge headlong into that economic doctrine. Social democracy is an entirely different animal, and really isn't even socialism because it doesn't centrally plan the economy it just has a massive welfare state. Which I'm down with no question.

Also I can assure you we have plenty of unions and political battles for favor from said unions dominates most state-level politics in manufacturing based areas here. Some are more important federally like the AFL-CIO. I mean unions definitely need to make a resurgence but a lot of their current problems are the result of their own internal corruption or inept management.

 

[Joeytj]

cf. minimum wage, single player health care, taxing the rich, etc.

Wait, what? And what about being a lefty and compromising with racist just because they're more protectionist and populist on some economic policies?

That's ok, but compromising with conservatives on financial and economic issues and not on social progressivism, is too much?

That's the fucking hypocrisy I hate from some Berniecrats when they accuse others of "compromising".

Either you admit that sometimes you don't get everything you want, or not and just go full on purist and never actually get a majority on anything.