Random political thought thread.

[Lark]

I wonder if populism can be defeated by more democracy or if its just adding fuel to the fire?

 

[The Cat]

I wonder if populism can be defeated by more democracy or if its just adding fuel to the fire?

Depends, is it wet democracy? Dry democracy tends to burn better.

 

[Red Memories]

I wonder if populism can be defeated by more democracy or if its just adding fuel to the fire?

Is not populism what our country's democracy is supposed to be based upon anyway? The common person rather than the CEO of Walmart?

 

[Lark]

Depends, is it wet democracy? Dry democracy tends to burn better.

Smokeless democracy

 

[The Cat]

Smokeless democracy

oh; well most, ime, just chew on that a while before spitting it out.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Is not populism what our country's democracy is supposed to be based upon anyway? The common person rather than the CEO of Walmart?

That depend on how you define populism.

Are you serious about helping people or are you pushing empty promises, distorted fact, make mostly value based talking points ... etc. for the sake of power and popularity.



However in my culture populism is defined as a bad side of it, since otherwise you basically just have "normal" and "how it should be".

 

[Maou]

That depend on how you define populism.

Are you serious about helping people or are you pushing empty promises, distorted fact, make mostly value based talking points ... etc. for the sake of power and popularity.



However in my culture populism is defined as a bad side of it, since otherwise you basically just have "normal" and "how it should be".

Isn't that all politics regardless of what kind? Empty promises and talking points?

What exactly is wrong with populism to Americans? I've always defined it as a politician who builds trust and becomes popular with the people because that politician actually wants to give them what they want. The risk of them not actually doing what the people want feels a lot less than a politiical party because its been like that seemingly since JFK. Maybe thats why populism is on the rise, because people got fed up with the empty promises.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I think philosophies like Georgism and Mutualism are about as much as we can hope to apply practically at this juncture in history. At least until we’re mining asteroids and post scarcity is a reality that can make anarcho communism an attainable state of society

The software just won’t run on the current hardware

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think philosophies like Georgism and Mutualism are about as much as we can hope to apply practically at this juncture in history.e

I'm for preserving independent George. We all know a George divided against itself cannot stand. There should be legislation to prevent worlds from colliding.

In all seriousness, I need to read up on Georgism, since I don't understand what it is. Or mutualism, for that matter.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Isn't that all politics regardless of what kind? Empty promises and talking points?

What exactly is wrong with populism to Americans? I've always defined it as a politician who builds trust and becomes popular with the people because that politician actually wants to give them what they want. The risk of them not actually doing what the people want feels a lot less than a politiical party because its been like that seemingly since JFK. Maybe thats why populism is on the rise, because people got fed up with the empty promises.

No it is not.
Since for me the difference is seriousness and realism of promises. Therefore for me things should be called populism when there is no clear way how to deliver.



My current administration won reelection exactly on the message that times will be tough during the pandemic and that various populists, experiments and charlatans will not be able to keep things together. What they presented exactly like that through the campaign and the debates. Of course there is some national pride in the mix etc. but the message was fairly down to earth next to most of their opponents. So people trusted them since they completely undone our first wave and there was no spike in unemployment. What continued to this point, just as they promised. The general "folk wisdom" is that this is the party for which you should vote when things get very hard (what is the reputation that isn't fully undeserved, they got us through harder times than the current pandemic).


In a way this is why it is important to have the possibility of snap elections and multi party system. Since if you BS too much you can be thrown out of the office much sooner than when it is actually the time for that. What then forces politicians to be more realistic and actually deliver "something".

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I'm for preserving independent George. We all know a George divided against itself cannot stand. There should be legislation to prevent worlds from colliding.

In all seriousness, I need to read up on Georgism, since I don't understand what it is. Or mutualism, for that matter.

Forgive my crappy explanation but mutualism seeks to retain markets and certain capitalist practices whilst granting workers greater reward for their labor. That is just a very bad and oversimplified explanation though

It’s basically about allowing workers to be more active participants and benificiaries in the market and business

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

The double standards...

If Obama had halfassedly recited the pledge of allegiance whilst Michelle stood behind him stone faced and refusing to recite it, just imagine the shit we’d have heard from the tea baggers and Fox News pundits. uNaMeRiCaN! sEcReT mUsLiM tErRoRiStS! Reeeee

Trumps do the same thing, crickets from the white right wing. They don’t even try to hide their double standards and hypocrisy anymore

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Forgive my crappy explanation but mutualism seeks to retain markets and certain capitalist practices whilst granting workers greater reward for their labor. That is just a very bad and oversimplified explanation though

It’s basically about allowing workers to be more active participants and benificiaries in the market and business

Oh, I might be down with that.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Oh, I might be down with that.

[MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION] seems pretty well read on these theories, kind of hoping he can provide a much better definition than I could

 

[Lark]

I think philosophies like Georgism and Mutualism are about as much as we can hope to apply practically at this juncture in history. At least until we’re mining asteroids and post scarcity is a reality that can make anarcho communism an attainable state of society

The software just won’t run on the current hardware

UBI beats all those old ideas.

 

[Maou]

No it is not.
Since for me the difference is seriousness and realism of promises. Therefore for me things should be called populism when there is no clear way how to deliver.



My current administration won reelection exactly on the message that times will be tough during the pandemic and that various populists, experiments and charlatans will not be able to keep things together. What they presented exactly like that through the campaign and the debates. Of course there is some national pride in the mix etc. but the message was fairly down to earth next to most of their opponents. So people trusted them since they completely undone our first wave and there was no spike in unemployment. What continued to this point, just as they promised. The general "folk wisdom" is that this is the party for which you should vote when things get very hard (what is the reputation that isn't fully undeserved, they got us through harder times than the current pandemic).


In a way this is why it is important to have the possibility of snap elections and multi party system. Since if you BS too much you can be thrown out of the office much sooner than when it is actually the time for that. What then forces politicians to be more realistic and actually deliver "something".

This isn't the case in America. Most people assume politicians are lying (At least I hope so), so often times elections are a shot in the dark with hopeful optimism. (or naivety) This is due to the overabundance of lobbying, and the meta gaming for votes (see gerrymandering, empty campaign promises, non-cohesive approaches) . Many politicians tend to cater to the populist movements, but in actual office they don't do anything the people want. They do what their party wants. Which is funded and operated by corporate interests for the most part. Political parties campaigns are based almost entirely around popular interests, because its what they told the public to care about. Then get them to vote based on that. It is a massive manipulation game played by the people in power. Which is why it is so alien to me, to see populism as a bad thing, because its always been populism. I am just trying to figure out what is the difference between Trump and other politicians. My only conclusion, is that Trump isn't a lobbied and supported politician by corperations and or inside interests. He is a real populist, whom who has convinced people and proven to be a real one by actually attempting most his campaign promises.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Lark]

[MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION] seems pretty well read on these theories, kind of hoping he can provide a much better definition than I could

Mutualism is described by some of its advocates as "uncapitalist" rather than "anti-capitalist". Proudhon (the main advocate of mutualism) thought that free or cheap credit, from credit unions rather than banks, maybe some other forms of micro finance were essential. This would make everyone practically "self-employed" every producer, or group of producers, would own the enterprise that they were working within (instead of working for). All earnings would be in the form of business profit/share dividend, therefore "wages", "rents", "interest" would be abolished. Its basically a form of market socialism but there are a lot of different varieties of market socialism.

Some radicals who think the market can be abolished or dispensed with altogether without surviving, reviving or being reproduced in some shape or form will consider a mixed economy as a variety of market socialism. Its not. Market "socialisms" would only consider a mixed economy a matter of expediency or pragmatism and favour forms of privatization as much as other supporters of markets. I think the principle market socialist was called John Roemer who had some interesting ideas, similar to mutualism, but they are usually pretty complex. Every citizen controlling the economy through share portfolios, the benefits system AND wages replaced by share/dividend income. The circulation of money in the economy happens as at present but the whole process is private, no politicians involved or exercising influence.

The ideas are interesting, although pretty convoluted/complex, involving some shares which are tradeable but not saleable, so individuals, and combinations of individuals, can determine public investment priorities by prioritizing education, policing, health, army, navy, airforce, in their portfolios, some schemes have annual or biannual points at which portfolio's would be "reset". I cant remember how the income part of the portfolio (which replaces wages, benefits etc.) works but it was something closer to the Alaskan or Scandinavian Oil Trust funds than it was like a UBI.

Market Socialism and Mutualism are closer to anarchism than other sorts of socialism because the idea of "whithering away of the state" matters/is practical as a policy, there's no "tax and spend" or "management" of the economy by politicians. In those respects its akin to some schools of neo-liberalism. At least they graze in the same pastures. JS Mill would have liked those ideas, in his essay on socialism in which he is pretty keen on a version of socialism based on co-operative banks, co-operative shops and producers co-ops he said whether the economy was capitalist or socialist the role of the state should be the same. Mills' idea of the economy is, capitalism or socialism, its private (meaning "voluntary"). I'm very keen on this idea too but I think UBI, and a couple of other similar policies, is/are the missing pieces of the puzzle.

NB: Mutualism and Proudhon largely predate the "managerial revolution", owners of enterprises where generally managers, there where no "sleeping partners" or hedge funds or fund managers or anything like the role of finance that there is today (at least in the anglosphere), Proudhon could see the beginnings of that and it was what he criticized when he attacked "capitalism". Its something to keep in mind too that socialism, largely all of it, predates personal credit, none of them could have anticipated credit cards, multiple credit cards, easy credit as it exists today or anything at all such as sub prime loans and the sub prime bubble and financial crisis. That's before you consider technology innovations even. Like mobile phones. Or automation and AI like it is today. There definitely wasnt a "leisure class", "leisure pursuits", "leisure time" and none of those things were sources of business revenue like they are today.

Also consider the extent to which Mutualism and market socialism have so little to say about equality, that old bogeyman, original socialism didnt care about equality that much at all, Marx and Engels definitely thought it was stupid, even for propaganda purposes. It was instead about a "classless society" which was about defeating the ways in which "class status" or "old money" could control the economy, render everyone servile through poverty etc. None of them would recognize the "egalitarianism" of modern socialism, they'd even less recognize the whole homogenizing, androgyny craving, equality as sameness trends/neurosis.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Mutualism is described by some of its advocates as "uncapitalist" rather than "anti-capitalist". Proudhon (the main advocate of mutualism) thought that free or cheap credit, from credit unions rather than banks, maybe some other forms of micro finance were essential. This would make everyone practically "self-employed" every producer, or group of producers, would own the enterprise that they were working within (instead of working for). All earnings would be in the form of business profit/share dividend, therefore "wages", "rents", "interest" would be abolished. Its basically a form of market socialism but there are a lot of different varieties of market socialism.

I'd have to learn in more detail, but it seems that this would solve the problems incentives. One critique of socialism I've heard is that there would be no incentive for people to work hard and produce quality. But if workers directly own the profits, that solves that problem, at least to the extent that profits result in hard work and quality "goods". It seems to me it would actually provide a stronger incentive, there would be none of those mysterious "productivity gains" that don't result in wage growth that has the brainless talking heads so baffled. If you know the work you're going to put is going to directly result in a stronger benefit for you, you're going to put in more work. If you think it's going to benefit someone else, but not you, maybe not.