Surely, though, the point is that it was nowhere near as little as the neo-liberal ideologues had anticipated or advocated?
the neoliberal vision of the future
- Thread starter Dillinger4
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Surely, though, the point is that it was nowhere near as little as the neo-liberal ideologues had anticipated or advocated?
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I'd love to continue but I really have to do some work - and go to the pub for a sunny lunch time pint. But to answer your last question - perhaps just North Korea and Burma have managed to resist 'the neo-liberal' project (with the exception of course of oil and mineral corporations exploiting their natural resources). Global corporations operating under different styles of capitalism are alive and well just about every where else - including China.
Anti-semitism wasn't reignited in 19th century Germany. It had never been away in the Russian empire and elsewhere.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Thatcher managed what Cameron appears poised to achieve too – cuts in services that lead to little or no reduction in overall spending because of the deleterious effect cuts in services have on the economy.
Precisely: and therein lies the built-in failure of neo-liberal economics when applied to actually existing contemporary societies. And that's leaving aside the near-catastrophic events of 2008, caused by neo-liberal financial deregulation.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I was not saying that Thatcher was a social democratic! The point I was making was that it was Thatcher who pioneered our way into the global neo-liberal world.
The public spending figures are miss leading. They conveniently miss out revenues from privatisation. I don't have the figures to hand but proceeds from privatisation were accounted as negative public expenditure. Strip these wind falls and the public expenditure shrinkage does not look so big.
The seeming drop in public spending also ignore longer terms costs. For example selling off of the social housing stock may have been a short term fix but longer term there have been huge rises in housing benefit expenditure. A case of stripping away the state but leading us open to longer term social costs or reduced social welfare.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You called the thatcher govt a formally socially democratic economy.
It was the previous govts - acting under under global pressures - that did this - both tory and labour.
Did they? How does that explain the drop in total puplic spending post-privatisation?
It was the previous govts - acting under under global pressures - that did this - both tory and labour.
Did they? How does that explain the drop in total puplic spending post-privatisation?
Has anybody got the actual figures? And which period are we talking about? The whole period 1979-97? Or what?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That link doesn't work for me. But I'm off now for the rest of the day in any case.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
This is brilliant. Have you got a book? I'd love to buy a copy
His arguments seem to mostly be out of this work of lunancy
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
His arguments seem to mostly be out of this work of lunancy
Never heard of him but that sounds very close (judging from the massive amount of info on the cover) to a grotesque popularization/dumbing down/polemicisiation of of the academically respectable Sternhall thesis that fascism was a synthesis of modernised classical left and right traditions. It looks big shit basically.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Here's Roger Griffin ( a writer who i have many disagreements with) absolutely destroying that book.
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
I doubt if he's ever heard of Sternhell. From the little I've read of the latter, the proto-fascists he rights about were interested in taking over the revolutionary idea of violent revolt against decadence, but not so interested in the whole liberation and emancipation thing. (I once mentioned Sternhell work on the early Labour Zionists to an Israeli diplomat I used to know and he got very huffy).
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
I take your word that public spend dropped as a result of Thatcher reforms. Although this graph contradicts that
http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/files/2010/03/thatchermajorblairspending.jpg
As I said before apparent short term drops in public spending ignores longer terms costs. For example selling off of the social housing stock may have been a short term fix but longer term there have been huge rises in housing benefit expenditure. A case of stripping away the state but leading us open to longer term social costs or reduced social welfare.
You'll also experience a short term drop in public spending when you move employment from the public sector to the private sector. Employment in the public sector typically gives you a pension and longer term social provision. Today thanks for 'flexible labour markets' a significant number of people don't have any provision for retirement. Longer term social welfare will decrease, or there will have to be rises to public expenditure to fill this gap.
fredfelt
Mostly unknown member
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
You need itas a % of national income as well. That on its own doesn't say very much.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Isn't the 'good housekeeping' stuff just rhetoric to superficially convince 'the man down the pub' though?
The real point of cutting services would be to reconfigure state finance flows in ways that are more desirable for capital I'd have thought.
Primitive accumulation in effect.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
I've only flicked through it, but I've come across a lot of people on the internet claiming that socialism = fascism and referring to that book.
That's a pretty strong indication that "neo-liberalism" (whatever that is) is misnamed. Liberalism can only cogently mean ONE thing: a SMALL but STRONG government. That is, government does very little and mostly leaves people in peace, but the few things government does it does properly and forcefully (crime fighting).
fractionMan
Custom Title
Yes, you're right. It's everyone else that's using language wrong.
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
"SMALL but STRONG government" is translated as the repressive functions (police, security services) are left intact and possibly strengthened. The legislature acts as a rubber stamp for the interests of oligarchs. In which case elected representatives are less accountable to their constituents and are more likely to represent the interests of business.
I find it amusing how you people are dismissive of the word "neo-liberal". An act of denial perhaps?
No, it's perfectly possible to be collectivist without being fascist. The key here is voluntarism. The Israeli Kibbutz was essentially a voluntary (and hence non-fascist) collectivist form of organization. But generally speaking we can define fascism in terms of collectivism: fascism = FORCED collectivism (i.e. no individual is allowed to deviate from the collective), whereas liberalism = FORCED individualism. (i.e. groups are not allowed to form mafias or gangs that bully or force individuals to join them)
I strongly disagree that society and sociality implies forced unity. The term social comes from latin and means "living together." Does a rapist and his victim "live together"? Is raper-rapist a social relationship? Is slave-master a social relationship? No. These are not social. If we look at the species which biologists typically term "social" (ants, antelopes) then what is their defining characteristic? Ants (in the same colony) don't kill each other. They don't eat each other. They don't use physical force against each other. In other words, they coexist PEACEFULLY. And that is the nature of sociality: peaceful coexistence. Violent, forceful behavior cannot be social. (In fact, in psychology it is called anti-social behavior)
So fascism (i.e. FORCED unity) cannot be social. Fascism is a form of ANTI-social behavior, because it is based on chronic violence. The only social system that exists is one that is 100% peaceful, and that is one in which all individuals are allowed to live in peace with each other ("laissez-faire" = "leave in peace"). Thus, the only social human system is laissez-faire capitalism.
Yes! I *do* understand this, and I'm very greatful for you stating this because if you have studied feudalism you will know that this is precisely the definition of feudum, the most common form of property right in the feudal age and it is defined as a right that comes with obligations. Serfs had certain rights, and they were acquired with the duties to the feudal lord. The feudal lord also had rights to the king's land, but only in exchange for the duties to defend the king. In contrast to feudum was allodium, which was a right WITHOUT duties. Laissez-faire is a system based entirely on allodium. The revolutionary idea of the enlightenment was that the individual has "certain inalienable rights." I.e. rights without duties. Those rights were the right to be left in peace.
Yes, that is the core of medieval feudalism and also precisely the idea that Mussolini wanted to revive with his Fascism. No feudal king could have stated this more eloquantly. But we liberals think that you DO have certain meaningul rights that you do NOT have to give anything for. Every individual has the right to self-defense and self-ownership. In liberalism ALL forms of serfdom are banished. You cannot inherit a debt or a duty. That is the core of the enlightenment reaction to the feudal system.
Actually the defining feature of a grown-up is that he makes his OWN decisions. It is only the child that cannot live his own life. Originally collectivism was strongly linked to religion. We were all children of God, and as children we needed to be obedient and had a duty to our heavenly Father. (and his representative here on earth, the King) In the Enlightenment a strain of atheism threw out God, but retained the structure of religion. God was replaced with "the collective" to which we now for some reason had duties, and we were still like little children, only now we needed to have a Welfare State to take care of us. Sadly this strain of religious atheism won out, and as a result we have essentially reinvented the feudal dark ages.
Yes, it's just not a very nice one.
Helpful hint: You are always onto a loser when you start having to resort to etymology to support your arguments.
TruXta
tired
Rights cannot not come with duties, at minimum it comes with the duty of mututal recognition of "inalienable rights" or whatever rights are posited. Also you seem to think that individuals are atoms and that decision can be made in a social vacuum, which shows you know the square root of fuck all about psychology, or indeed people in general.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Yeah, I mean if you want to talk about forced collectivism, call it that, or call it 'Doris' or make up a Latin or Greek word for it; but trying to insist it means 'fascism' when it's pretty clear that nobody agrees, just makes it obvious that your objective is propaganda not discussion.
Is there a word for that particular kind of thinking? When you insist on using existing words as if they had some divinely-ordained meaning, but altering your understanding of them to suit your own arguments? It is so common in conspiracy theory land that it ought to have a name.
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