The global recession and an ideological shift?

silverharp

Het-Field wrote: »

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the residents of Leipzing, Dusseldorf, East Berlin, Hungary, Czechslovakia, Romania and others began caming out on the lawn's of West German embassies.

one of these towns is not like the others, which one can it be.......:D

Húrin

I don't think that the recession will cause the rise of socialism, but it will permanently reduce the power that the financial sector has exercised over the economy since the 1970s.

Re-regulate the domestic financial system. Inspired by reforms implemented in the 1930s, this would imply cutting interest rates across the board– including the reduction of the Bank of England’s interest rate - and changes in debt-management policy to enable reductions in interest rates across all government borrowing. This is designed to help those borrowing to build a new energy and transport infrastructure. In parallel, to prevent inflation, we want to see much tighter regulation of the wider financial environment.


Break up the discredited financial institutions that have needed so much public money to prop them up in the latest credit crunch. Large banking and finance groups should be forcibly demerged. Retail banking should be split from both corporate finance (merchant banking) and from securities dealing. The demerged units should then be split into smaller banks. Mega banks make mega mistakes that affect us all. Instead of institutions that are ‘too big to fail’, we need institutions that are small enough to fail without creating problems for depositors and the wider public.

http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/greennewdealneededforuk210708.aspx

corkstudent

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

What? You have things excactly the wrong way around. If anything it's the degree to which capitalism ISN'T kept in check that's causing it. Banks, major corporations making a dime and ending up under no pressure to manage their finances properly.

The problem with "economics" is that economics as we know it is a right wing concept. Checking socialist ideas against your right wing ones of course isn't going to add up if you're going to examine them on your terms. When it boils down to it socialism vs. capitalism is an ideaological struggle rather than being down to "Which economy is better". Supposedly Ireland had a marvellous economy up until now, yet it was still a relatively **** place to live. Capitalists tend to over focus on certain concepts being better for all of us because they offer a greater sense of "freedom", when in reality, it's the freedom to work ****ty jobs and people subconciously realise this.

If left learning capitalism/socialist hybrids are so bad, why have Norway and Sweden been doing pretty damn well?

Your concept of "freedom" is just ****. There are some dumb ****s who believes capitalism promotes individuality, too. Wealth being poorly distributed does not give cause for greater individuality, and giving more freedom to corporations only destroys individuality as they can hire and fire who they please without regulation under most bull**** "Libertarian" philosophies.

"Right Wing Think Tank" is a contradiction in terms.

corkstudent

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

This is the problem; uber-capitalists like to call socialists delusional yet turn a blind eye to wear socialist policies and government intervention often works.

For example without any kind of government intervention, many Irish corporations could get away with not hire openly gay people or certain foreigners. Libertarians have no real ethics. I think right wing nuts have a strange definition of "government intervention" too, though.

corkstudent

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I don't accept that.

Capitalists in pursuit of profit will corrupt government if it serves their purpose and they can do it. That does not mean that the appropriate response is to abolish government so far as that is possible. Societies prior to the growth of modern forms of government (generally "bigger") were very unequal and unjust. We don't need to go back to that.

Yes.

Also, the problem with Libertarianism/Anarchism is this: People are far too good at oppressing themselves, and each other.

In our society, it is by far other people that do the most oppression. Corporations and bussinesses limit us too - our appearance must meet certain bigoted standards, if you disagree with this it takes a very long time to find a job that's understanding; all the while being called immature by hecklers.

If anything, government is mostly corrupt due to corporate/capitalist influence anyone. Many Monies involved. Corporations would just be much more corrupt.

nesf

corkstudent wrote: »

What? You have things excactly the wrong way around. If anything it's the degree to which capitalism ISN'T kept in check that's causing it. Banks, major corporations making a dime and ending up under no pressure to manage their finances properly.

The problem with "economics" is that economics as we know it is a right wing concept. Checking socialist ideas against your right wing ones of course isn't going to add up if you're going to examine them on your terms. When it boils down to it socialism vs. capitalism is an ideaological struggle rather than being down to "Which economy is better". Supposedly Ireland had a marvellous economy up until now, yet it was still a relatively **** place to live. Capitalists tend to over focus on certain concepts being better for all of us because they offer a greater sense of "freedom", when in reality, it's the freedom to work ****ty jobs and people subconciously realise this.

If left learning capitalism/socialist hybrids are so bad, why have Norway and Sweden been doing pretty damn well?

Your concept of "freedom" is just ****. There are some dumb ****s who believes capitalism promotes individuality, too. Wealth being poorly distributed does not give cause for greater individuality, and giving more freedom to corporations only destroys individuality as they can hire and fire who they please without regulation under most bull**** "Libertarian" philosophies.

"Right Wing Think Tank" is a contradiction in terms.

Tone it down a bit mate, insulting other groups as dumb ****s because they agree with your worldview, politics or philosophical positions is simply not acceptable. Tear apart the arguments and assumptions, do not use the lazy option of dismissing them as idiots without argument. Either keep it civil or post elsewhere, those are your options.

corkstudent

nesf wrote: »

Tone it down a bit mate, insulting other groups as dumb ****s because they agree with your worldview, politics or philosophical positions is simply not acceptable. Tear apart the arguments and assumptions, do not use the lazy option of dismissing them as idiots without argument. Either keep it civil or post elsewhere, those are your options.

Sorry, but I don't believe the comments leveled at "armchair socialists" were any more respectful, if anything a lot less so since it's snide and patronising.

If you can only moderate on the strength of language, then that's pure style over substance and that's the last thing you need more of in politics.

nesf

corkstudent wrote: »

Sorry, but I don't believe the comments leveled at "armchair socialists" were any more respectful, if anything a lot less so since it's snide and patronising.

If you can only moderate on the strength of language, then that's pure style over substance and that's the last thing you need more of in politics.

Arguing with me about moderating decisions will just end up with you getting banned. This thread will not be derailed further by your inability to see why dumb ****s is less acceptable than lazy generalisations about socialists. Take it to Feedback if you really feel wronged.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

corkstudent

nesf wrote: »

Arguing with me about moderating decisions will just end up with you getting banned. This thread will not be derailed further by your inability to see why dumb ****s is less acceptable than lazy generalisations about socialists. Take it to Feedback if you really feel wronged.

You know I'm really getting sick of boards moderators. This post is a movement against critical thinking, and as far as I'm concerned, downright unethical.

What, you mean the forum where incompetent moderators make fun of your opinion and the suck ups post cat pictures for 7 pages? And heck, the mods ALLOW the latter to happen. No thanks. Nobody has any real power to protest a decision here, or set up an alternative forum that isn't just a carbon copy and succeed.

This is not even up for debate - it's a fact that Lazy generalisations are much worse than calling someone a dumb **** in a debate forum.

Here's a nice easy wikipedia page on it for you -

Style over substance is a logical fallacy which occurs when one emphasises the way in which the argument is presented, while marginalising (or outright ignoring) the content of the argument. In some cases, the fallacy is employed as a form of ad hominem attack.

Here are some examples of the fallacy and how it is used.

Example One

* Person 1: Who needs a smoke detector? No one ever has a fire in their house, smoke detectors are a waste of money!
* Person 2: What?! You'd rather save a bit of money than ensure your family's safety? Don't you care whether they burn to death, you idiot?
* Person 1: I don't have to take your insults! Go away!

The fact that Person 2 insulted Person 1 does not alter the validity of Person 2's argument, nor does it excuse the hasty generalisation fallacy that Person 1 has employed.


However, making a "generalisation" IS a logical fallacy and therefore IS invalid reasoning. So what you said was most certainly incorrect.

Aggressive debate may be undesirable for some - but it is not universally poor debate. And appealing to the way you do things, the rules, is just circular reasoning or appealing to tradition. A Political forum of all places should respect logic. If the moderator puts himself beyond logic - this forum is useless.

You may still argue purely in terms of conduct, however, quite frankly making bigheaded Judge Dredd-wannabe comments like that is definitely in the wrong, especially in light of this. I am much more cooperative, with a moderator who moderates instead of appealing to force, more fallacious reasoning. You are making yourself infallible when you barely know the first thing about certain very important debating concepts. You are going to give me the boot now anyway, but if you were interested in moderating you would talk it out respectfully instead.

The fact is - this proves you are NOT interesting in moderating, only abusing your power. The fact that you will ban me over this means despite this being true, you will never have to defend yourself against this claim. Or, you ban me, then offer a rebuttal that's easily refuted, but I never get the chance.

The fact that you are almost undebatedly in the wrong here ,yet I get in trouble, which is sickening and against the spirit of good political discussion. It is not immature or out of form for me to protest poor moderator conduct. And again, the feedback forum is beyond useless, neither you nor any other mod show any interest in cleaning it up.

I am not taking this up via PM if you are going to be outright this pushy then I do not see an avenue for mature debate(you tell me to go to the Feedback forum, knowing full well how useless it is, words cannot describe how pompous this is), in which case I nearly may as well just call someone a dumb **** again. You're not encouring mature behaviour. Since I am not interested in mature discussion on a forum with a patronising Objectivist and a control freak moderator, a "disruptive" post such as this one form my point of view is inevitable. It is not my job to keep the board disruption free - it is yours.

Just because you can, doesn't make it right to do so.

And I would have absolutely no reason to complain about this if you would simply have a more positive and friendly attitude as a moderator. And if I happen to be "out of line", stooping below my level does no good. I don't like wasting my time like this, it's not a hobby of mine.

Now, this was a well thought out post without resorting to calling anyone censored names. It'll still get ignored. I just hope at least one other person realises how insane this is.

When you've calmed down and figured out how to construct a civil, respectful debate, do get back to me.

Style over substance fallacy. A couple of insulting remarks do not debunk my argument

Either way, I'm going to leave that term out of just so everyone here knows the moderator bans on what is beyond a shadow of a doubt incorrect reasoning. If your way of doing things was right, this would not happen. Sugarcoating **** seems to be all you can manage. This entire thing is a good case against Style over Substance since in my experience boards mods put on a fake civility that lets them get away with anything. And again I'm not raging against the machine for the sake of it -I'm just tired of poor moderation, seeing it in a political forum has sent me over the edge.

Your attitude resulted in this post. If you didn't want me derailing the thread by replying, you should have made that comment via PM; otherwise it is pure hypocrisy and nothing more. Being a moderator should not mean YOU get to disrupt the board, if anything, it means the opposite.

nesf

corkstudent wrote: »

Now, this was a well thought out post without resorting to calling anyone censored names. It'll still get ignored. I just hope at least one other person realises how insane this is.

Dear God, which part of continuing to derail this thread and not taking it to Feedback will get you banned didn't you understand? Have a week off from the forum for your troubles.

Kama

Lets try and get back on the rails, more or less...


The irony for me is, that in this time of pretty dramatic shifts in the world-economy, practically begging for bold new thinking to deal with a significantly reconstituted world, that ideologies are shifting so little.

Perhaps I'm wilfully misconstruing the title here, but our ideologies seem to be the direct opposite to shifting, if anything they're hardening. The current situation seems to be a rhetorically-useful hammer to beat home the messages we no doubt would repeat in its absence, whether that is the failure of unregulated capitalism, the failure of regulated capitalism, the necessity of fiscal conservatism and wage restraint, etc.

At the murder mystery or the Irish economy, we all seemed to know the villain was before we enter the room, same as it ever was. The same medicine seems to be prescribed, a panacea, regardless of the disease;
plus c'est la meme chose, plus ca change.

Taking the polemical 'Left' here, how is cutting wages supposed to be a solution, in anything other than symbolism and 'sending the right signals' to the economically orthodox, to an economic collapse emergent from the financial and housing bubbles? Is our high wage levels the cause of our export woes, comparative to, say, the strong Euro? What would be the feedback, on the demand side, to these harrowing and necessary cuts? Are we a high-wage economy, to begin with? Wage cuts seem more like an unimaginative reflex than a solution to our problems.

It's not conceivable, to me anyhow, how we can compete with Asia or Eastern Europe for that matter in wages, although it is possible in productivity; low-waged economies are often low-productivity, much as high-wage are often high-productivity. You get what you pay for, no free lunch, And All That.

Which isn't to say I'm balls-to-the-wall against wage restraint, just that its a little tiring to hear of nothing else, especially in context of the externalization of the liabilities of the better-off onto the State. Similarly, I'd be a lot more impressed with proposals to retool the Civil Service systemically to reward/penalise based on output/performance rather than seniority, than by calls to slash their wages (disclosure: speaking as an ex-civil servant).

SkepticOne

Kama wrote: »

It's not conceivable, to me anyhow, how we can compete with Asia or Eastern Europe for that matter in wages, although it is possible in productivity; low-waged economies are often low-productivity, much as high-wage are often high-productivity. You get what you pay for, no free lunch, And All That.

Though raising productivity is hard and takes a long time and there's no consensus on how it should be done. What is it the world wants that we can produce efficiently? Are governments and civil servants the best to determine this? Or should they get out of the way and reduce burdens placed on private enterprise to the greatest extent possible?

nesf

Kama wrote: »

Similarly, I'd be a lot more impressed with proposals to retool the Civil Service systemically to reward/penalise based on output/performance rather than seniority, than by calls to slash their wages (disclosure: speaking as an ex-civil servant).

See here I'd completely agree with you. I'd much rather see a move away from a seniority pay grade system to something more based on performance (even though I'm not sure that could even be any better if unions et at were allowed pare it down to everyone getting their bonus levels).

The thing is, if the unions are adamant about keeping the present system then wage cuts are definitely on the table in my view. I'd much rather addressing the system as a whole but I'm completely unconvinced that the Government could ever get the unions to agree to such a move which would distribute wealth unequally among people of the same grade and seniority.

nesf

SkepticOne wrote: »

Are governments and civil servants the best to determine this? Or should they get out of the way and reduce burdens placed on private enterprise to the greatest extent possible?

Well, either extreme (all Government or all Market) isn't a viable option and we need to look at how best to combine both private enterprise and publicly funded services to achieve the best result. I think we all agree on this, where we disagree is how we define best and what mix is proscribed based on that definition, but in essence we all should be able to acknowledge that there are clear cut cases of things that should be left to the market and things that should be public goods.

The cynical view, which I'm sympathetic to but not wholly in agreement with, is that bureaucracy tends to breed more bureaucracy and that it's extremely difficult to limit the sprawl of the public service for a multitude of reasons. This is a bad thing even with a lean, efficient public service because of inflexibilities in the workforce (i.e. it's very hard to fire public servants in most developed countries). Where this is really a problem is in situations like we're in at the moment where there's been a sudden large drop in tax revenues and we can no longer comfortably afford all the bureaucracy we've built up during the boom years. We don't need anything silly like firing a third or a half of all public servants but the lack of inflexibility due to extremely strong and organised unions means that as a sector, the public service cannot reverse decisions on hiring very easily so we need to look at ways to either change working conditions to make public servants easier to let go or limit the number allowed into the service during good times, neither of these are particularly nice or efficient options.

Kama

I agree completely that the unions would have a fit; lifer-seniority is pretty much their genetics, but that's also why I think it would be...fun. Now there's ofc large problems in measuring productivity and allocating merit; forced distribution undermines solidarity, unforced leads to a circlej*rk analogous to the current system.

But there would imo be definite benefits in terms of competency and change in institutional culture; it'd also show up the difference in interests between the settled and complacent higher grades, and those below who are denied a shot, regardless of their merit, which is quite significant in my epeenion. Which to me is a farmore interesting dynamic than repeating 'inefficient Public Service' ad nauseum. There's a good proportion of committed people in these bodies, but the utter lack of incentives (in my xp) often produces (occassionally sublimely Kafkaesque) results that would make a rational actor theorist gloat. In cynical-tactics terms, with my Rove-hat on, splitting or emphasising the difference in interests internally would be a better approach than the current public-private workers approach.

Running with this for the lulz, forget who possibly Handy, did a consultancy for the Aussie CivService to control a similar problem. He gave them all an exercise: show how your job is unnecessary, or can be done by a fraction of you, and retire now. Slashed payroll costs, quite successful, harnessed the local knowledge by providing a strong incentive.

nesf wrote:

Well, either extreme (all Government or all Market) isn't a viable option and we need to look at how best to combine both private enterprise and publicly funded services to achieve the best result...but in essence we all should be able to acknowledge that there are clear cut cases of things that should be left to the market and things that should be public goods.

Devils in the details, though. I'd like to see that agreement take place, at a greater or lesser level of abstraction. I also wonder whether those clear cases shift contextually, as in our current situation where the market isn't exactly functioning optimally. The more Austrian 'let it crash, its healthy' approach has the problematic for political types in that they look useless, as its a broadly fatalist position for all its merits (I like when economists speak English, it aids in comprehension), while I'm amazed at the rainy-day, Road to Damascus, born-again Keynesian turn, and somewhat pessimistic about its prospects, it does have the benefit that we can try and do something other than slaughter lambs on the altar of competitiveness in the hope that the Gods will return...

silverharp

Kama wrote: »

Devils in the details, though. I'd like to see that agreement take place, at a greater or lesser level of abstraction. I also wonder whether those clear cases shift contextually, as in our current situation where the market isn't exactly functioning optimally. The more Austrian 'let it crash, its healthy' approach has the problematic for political types in that they look useless, as its a broadly fatalist position for all its merits (I like when economists speak English, it aids in comprehension), while I'm amazed at the rainy-day, Road to Damascus, born-again Keynesian turn, and somewhat pessimistic about its prospects, it does have the benefit that we can try and do something other than slaughter lambs on the altar of competitiveness in the hope that the Gods will return...

It depends what you mean by fatalist. From the individual standpoint going from borrowing and spending to cutting back and saving is a very active process. It was debt that got us into this situation so any solution involving more debt is unlikely to work. So the "do nothing" maybe the correct solution.