JP Morgan to the Eurozone periphery: your constitutions are too anti-fascist

[Vosem]

It's pretty obvious if you read the bolded statement that this line

put in place in the aftermath of the fall of fascism

is calling the constitutions outdated, as opposed to insufficiently fascistic.

[Vosem]

It's pretty obvious if you read the bolded statement that this line

put in place in the aftermath of the fall of fascism

is calling the constitutions outdated, as opposed to insufficiently fascistic.

Indeed, Vosem, democracy is so outdated...

It's not removing democracy they want, it seems mainly to be strengthening the national (elected) executive at the expense of regions, fighting 'political clientelism' (presumably by shifting away from party-list systems where being an insider can get you a seat in a legislature towards FPTP, where you must be elected on your own personal merits), and removing planks about labor relations, such as Article 23 in Greece (which guarantees the freedom, in any industry, to unionize, and the freedom to strike is given to all except 'judicial functionaries and those working in the security corps' -- which I think we can all agree is overbroad). Only the last ('the right to protest') strikes me as inherently damaging to democratic structures; though all of the things they're calling for in Lief's quote are enunciated rather vaguely and therefore difficult to judge.

[Vosem]

strengthening the national (elected) executive at the expense of regions

What a progress, undoing these paltry 30 years of decentralization. Also, go tell to Germany that their Länder have too much power.

What the effect would be is dependent on where they want it done, but I don't think centralization is an inherently undemocratic thing.

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rofl

Not sure what you're laughing at...do you have some other interpretation of 'fighting political clientelism'? It's a pretty vague goal.

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I fail to see what's wrong with such a provision. Syndicalism and strike are basic worker's rights.

Certainly they are not for public employees, or even those working in certain fields where ceasing work may create a public emergency. Certainly in certain industries unions are key to fundamental workers' rights, but this is certainly far too much. It also seems to me that 'right to strike' prevents companies from hiring equally skilled workers to replace strikers, which seems to be a very dangerous position.

Ultimately you're going to end up with a problem of over-unionization interfering with the public good.

such as Article 23 in Greece (which guarantees the freedom, in any industry, to unionize, and the freedom to strike is given to all except 'judicial functionaries and those working in the security corps' -- which I think we can all agree is overbroad).

Errr, all Republicans, maybe yes.

Doesn't 'republican' signify 'left-wing' in France, or am I mistaken?

Of course in any industry you should have the right to unionize and to strike. That's a basic really.

Hospital employees? Firemen?

I'll grant you that allowing the Army to strike is hard to imagine, but they should be able to unionize as well, they have working conditions and wages problems as anyone else.

Or people working to ensure national security? Really?

[Vosem]

Centralization is not undemocratic, it just makes absolutely sense since most European countries (contrary to the US) don't have excessively powerful local entities, but often quite the opposite.

I don't know very much about how much power European administrative divisions have as compared to US states, it just seems a bit of a stretch to call this 'fascist' like some of the posters above seem to be doing.

I don't really care about interpreting what JP Morgan's "advice" to European democracies, but the idea that under PR all elected parliamentarians are party hacks while under FPP they are elected on their own merits is definitely worth laughing at.

The thread title is an interpretation of JP Morgan's advice and it is devoted to such interpretations. I don't agree that PR inherently results in the election of hackish faceless politicians, but that does seem to be what JP Morgan is suggesting.

And yeah, like it or not, even public employees have a right to strike and unionize. Sure, it's annoying to have a few trains delayed/canceled from time to time, but I don't think this trumps basic principles of workplace democracy.

And here is where I disagree; an elected government is there to represent all the people and by giving people who work for it the right to strike and thereby influence appropriations and policy you're breaking a fundamental 'one-man-one-vote' principle. As an employee of the government, you are also there to help all the people as opposed to just yourself. As an employee of a private company, obviously you're there to help yourself and you obviously have a right to unionize/strike to do so -- but even there, including an explicit 'right to strike' in the constitution seems as if it would have odd implications in the negotiations, since if companies can't fire strikers, they essentially can't really do anything except agree to strikers' demands, whatever they may be.

Of course there are necessary exceptions for cops, servicemen etc, as the article you cited mentions.

It doesn't unless, say, nurses are somehow included in either 'judicial functionaries' or 'security corps'. Admittedly, I'm going off of an English translation (an official one, on the Hellenic Parliament's website) as opposed to the original Greek text, which would presumably be clearer, but still.

Why do you care so much about public employees anyway?

Their competence is a pretty integral part of a high standard of living?

Don't you guys want to privatize everything?

I'm one person, Antonio. There's no 'you guys'.

[Vosem]

Supporting centralization and FPP is not the worst part of that set of "recommendations", though it is still pretty disgusting.

Haven't we both agreed that trying to limit the public's right to protest is far and away the worst part of that?

It's really hilarious to hear you lecturing me about the notion of public service now.

Anyhow, obviously you can't always strike in a public utility like you do on a private business. The right to strike, as every other right, is not absolute, as I'm pretty sure that for example, even on strike, hospitals won't leave their patients to die and will keep ERs going.

I would hope so to, but if you read Article 23, it certainly seems to me to protect hospital workers' right to strike (among others).

Basic services are always being provided.

Article 23 seems to provide for occasional gaps in the providing of such.

As for the shortage of other services, sure that's annoying, but society can afford a short and rare interruption of minor public services if this helps protecting the rights of the workers who provide them.

It sure can, but short and rare are operative words there. Strikes are not necessarily short and rare.

Excellent sob story about poor businesses being forced to bow down to the strikers. Business (especially big ones) can more easily afford to suspend their production than workers can afford living without their wages, you know.

But if they have an absolute constitutionally protected 'right to strike', the businesses would presumably still have to pay them while they are on strike. Businesses can more easily suspend their production than workers can afford to live without their wages, but in this case (if the Article is interpreted literally) the workers aren't actually having to give anything up to go on strike, while the businesses do. And businesses can't afford to suspend their production absolutely indefinitely, so in the end they would basically have to give in to all the strikers' demands.

[Vosem]

It's pretty obvious if you read the bolded statement that this line

put in place in the aftermath of the fall of fascism

is calling the constitutions outdated, as opposed to insufficiently fascistic.

Well, going by that standard the United States constitution is the most outdated of them all, and most in need of a serious rehaul.

You forgot San Marino