Wolfgang Munchau has a fascinating article in the FT today. In it he suggests:
Liberal pro-Europeans are certainly not going down without a fight. But the odds are not looking good for many of them. Liberal democracy is in decline for a reason. Liberal regimes have proved incapable of solving problems that arose directly from liberal policies like tax cuts, fiscal consolidation and deregulation: persistent financial instability and its economic consequences; a rise in insecurity among lower income earners, aggravated by technological change and open immigration policies; and policy co-ordination failures, for example in the crackdown on global tax avoidance.
And from this premise he argues that the future of politics is on the left.
As he argues:
For now, the right is thriving on the anti-immigration backlash. But its rise is self-limiting for two reasons. First, rightwing policies are not succeeding even on their own narrow terms. A wall along the border with Mexico will not stem US immigration flows any more than the re-nationalisation of immigration policies would in Europe. And second, I suspect that immigration will soon be superseded by other issues – such as the impact of artificial intelligence on middle-class livelihoods; rising levels of poverty; and economic dislocation stemming from climate change.
As he puts it, on these other issues the right has no answers at all, barring (but he does not say it) authoritarianism. And he is right. MMT. The JG. Or UBI. And the Green New Deal. We are the only show in town now.
And he thinks one policy will symbolise the change to come:
The killer policy of the left will be the 70 per cent tax rate proposed by freshman US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is not the number that matters, but the determination to reverse a 30-year trend towards lower taxation of very high incomes and profits. There would be collateral damage from such a policy for sure. But from the perspective of the radical left, collateral damage is a promise, not a threat.
I admire his optimism. I woulD like to share it.
Perhaps, deep down, I do.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
H’e only partly correct I think. Where he isn’t , I think , is that the greater ( and more powerful part of the opposition ) doesn’t come from the self defined Right , it comes from the Establishment Democrats in the US and the Blairites ( or the breakaway Labour and Tory members of the Independence Group ) here. Both deplore what they see as the atavism of Sanders and Corbyn , and will fight tooth and nail to prevent them gaining ground . But they are gaining ground ( Trump or not Trump , Brexit or no Brexit ) and the opposition is not Trump or Rees-Mogg it’s the neoliberal world as defined by Clinton in 1992 and Blair in 1997 and consolidated between then and now by the coalition of corporations , politicians , lobbyists and the media. What Sanders, AOC, Tulsi Gabbard etc have done is to rip away the veil covering what – a ramshackle, inefficient ( yes ) pile of garbage and people everywhere have begun to see it for what it is.
I agree.
But I’m afraid the way I see it is what I define ‘liberalism’ as – basically the inability to balance the individual with the collective in a satisfactory way. Modern liberalism has tried to contain two forces that have actually broken apart. It tried to do this with the Third Way in my view – as Mouffet says – by depoliticising politics and placing decision making structures in the apparently non-political field of markets. But as we know, markets are not as value free as they like to appear.
This failure of liberalism is just as bad as the failure of communism at a philosophical level and has also caused untold damage and suffering in modern times.
Liberalism is dead as far as I am concerned and we need to find a new language.
No doubt political traditionalists and orthodox liberals will pour scorn on my comment but frankly I don’t care. The game is up. Type a way as much as you like.
When I have spoken about fairness I have never done so with the mindset of a so-called wish washy liberal. That call for fairness has never been based on believing that just because I might be decent human being, everyone else is too. It’s been based on the observation that some people are not decent human beings and need to be watched and actively encouraged to behave better.
Deep down all progressives do probably.
But tax is not the only game in town. The JG, GND and UBI all have to follow on quickly because these will be the only way the voter will be able to feel the benefits of tax increases and these helpful policies become something that is associated with those tax increases and thus (hopefully) is supported by the voter.
Even then, MMT – the printing of money – has to be sit alongside the creation of transfer payments from tax income. Can we have honest Government that tells us how its expenditure is actually divided up between new and recycled money? I hope so.
And does Ocasio-Cortez know that we spend first and then tax?
AOC gets MMT
And I agree, tax is not the only game in town
AOC gets spend and tax? Good.
As to Left having all the best ideas – I agree wholeheartedly.
According to a trusted source of mine, MMT and spend and tax are not the only things misunderstood. So is the Left.
Here is a most useful blog entry:
http://blog.spicker.uk/misunderstanding-socialism/
I can’t see much of this in anyone in TIG.
Addressing the last para extract in the context of the Green New deal/Green QE: this carries with it the implication of large-scale government spending. However, much of this spending would be directed at “private” companies who would supply the equipment/systems/services/what have you, – needed to implement “green” policies. For the most part these companies are owned by a mix of private individuals, pension funds and organisations such as Goldman Sachs. Given this, the overall impact, absent action on tax, would be to make already rich individuals richer (certainly in the case of private individuals/Goldman Sachs & co).
Thus one argument could be that GND/GQE predicates a more rigourous approach to tax & a move away from “let’s be nice to the rich”. “Collateral damage” is likely to be very limited in a GND/GQE + higher taxes world – given that overall the market for “green” systems would be expanding & thus attracive (conversely the “market” for fossil stuff would be contracting & thus unattractive.) – the “attractiveness” offers a chance to rebalance the taxation system – a pill sweetener – if you like..
It’s amazing that two of the things which give us hope are the influence of a very bright, *very young* politician, and the fact that she is commonly referred to by a TLA.
I’m absolutely serious!
One thing Mr Munchau said really resonates with me. “…a rise in insecurity among lower income earners, aggravated by technological change…”
I would have to think hard, to come up with any other single factor that has been responsible for more loss of jobs in recent years than technological change. It’s accelerating, and becoming quite scary.
Even access to essentials like help for the aged, etc, is now restricted to applying ‘online.’ (I just discovered this myself, trying to help a neighbour with an issue.) If you don’t have easy access to online services (which many people who need benefits don’t reliably have) or an email address, you’re rather screwed.
Unfortunately, this factor is rarely addressed in political circles. We just keep on getting more and more dependent on technology, while ignoring the damage it is doing to people’s employment and access to help with all sorts of issues. It feels like nobody’s job is safe any more, no matter how hard you work or how good a job you do, or how necessary your services might be.
If we had an adequate ‘basic income’ in place to take up the slack, that would help …but only to a certain extent. The technological life is still being seen by too many as a ‘good thing,’ with very few negative consequences. We’re all simply encouraged to get on board.
Worry about technology doesn’t always boil down to old-fogeyish unwillingness or inability to adapt to ‘new’ stuff. It often boils down to an inability to afford the constantly upgraded hardware and ‘contracts.’ Lots of people are already being pushed outside the circle because they can’t afford to be inside it, and as unemployment or low employment increases, this is just going to get worse.
Is the Left going to do anything much about this issue? I hope so. But it’s going to be hard to turn this particular ship around.