we actually might be witnessing the death of socialism!

[Wonkish1]

The idea that the future is some kind of Star Trek world of socialism where technology delivers everything people want is absolutely ridiculous. I get that the logic may seem inciting because in the short term a piece of technology can take someone's job, but those that subscribe to this theory are a fundamental misunderstanding of the way economies work.

People have been forecasting technology causing large unemployment for over a 100 years. Back when they predicted it at the beginning of mechanization of agriculture they had assumed that most of population that worked in agriculture would be unemployed after it took hold. That didn't actually happen as the people instead learned how to work on an assembly line and work with machinery. The entire economy shifted from one of a few craftsmen making goods to hundreds of thousands of people producing substantially more supply than before and then consuming that supply. There in lies the crux of the truth...

As innovation increases the productivity of people it largely only boosts supply and therefore consumption it rarely has any impact on people cutting back work time(even though it does in some cases). So if you assumed that the current supply of everything people has is the max it will ever be than increases in productivity can only result in less work hours. But history has shown that never happens because people have almost an ever increasing degree of wants and desires. And that may manifest in some people the desire to have every toy they can get their hands on, but also for others it could be many vacations, nice dinners with the spouse, or even donations to their favorite charities.



So how this plays out in a very simplified example. A group of people(employed) invent and produce a piece of machinery that allows company A to replace 5% of its workforce and subsequently lowers prices. That 5% finds work with company B because their demand has increased and need to boost supply. Since company B hired those people maintaining employment and Company A's products have decreased in cost and price then people consume more of company A's products. The increase in demand allows company A to hire more people to subsequently boost supply again. The end affect is still to have less people per unit good, but since there are more goods than employment doesn't actually shrink by the productivity savings and instead depending on how much demand increased could be substantially higher, the same or only slightly less than before the invention. (of course this example doesn't include recessions and/or depressions, but that is a completely different beast that I would be willing to get into)


If anybody thinks that employment is trending downward they are blind to the world. As technology has marched on supply and demand has marched faster and today there are more people employed in our world than ever before. It can be sometimes easy to miss that when your always solely focused on the United States or Europe.

[Wonkish1]

I happen to disagree, right now it looks like the left will win the next elections in Germany, France and Italy, yes Spain and Greece may be lost for the next decade, but it's still a rather good trade for the European left. Ironic Cameron may also have saved the left in UK by winning the last election and in general behaving like a bull in a China shop. The idea that a few minor losses are the death of socialism is a rather optimistic. In fact from where I stand right now things the 2010ties look more like it will be for the right that the seventies was for the left, a decade of where overly ivory tower ideology which alienated the vast majority of the population.

I would say that a socialist being forced into austerity(which is pretty much the admission that their overspending is a failed concept) is pretty bad for socialism in the EU. And what you don't realize is that they have been resisting what will ultimately be a forced large cutback in their welfare state.

I wouldn't be to bullish on the left doing well in Europe and simultaneously remaining anything like the European left of yesteryear. You'd be in for a awful surprise.

The European left are going to be forced into doing things not even the European right had the balls to do even a couple years ago. Socialism is dying in Europe. But it wont be dead when it emerges out of this just very mangled.

[Wonkish1]

I'm not really sure I should take your post serious,because it's either the purest form of sarcasm I have ever seen, or a rather ignorant post. So I apologise for taking it serious if it was sarcasm.

In the early 90ties the Danish Social Democrats started an economic boom, which lasted 15 years, they took the necessary step to avoid overheating something their right-wing successor didn't. The only responsable governance Italy have had the last 15 years have been from the left, the best government Germany have had in decades was the CDU-SPD coalition (and most German governments are above average), while the SPD-Green government took brutal and responsable decisions something which strengthen the far left (in fact if SPD hadn't hated the communist so much they could have continued their government), but still in two years SPD will likely regain power. The European left have taken the hard decision for decades sometimes they have been rewarded and sometimes punished, but it has survived and thrieved, and when it was punished its voters didn't vote to the right but moved to the left.

Putting your analysis to the side here, what does your post have to with mine in any way?

Europe will be forced into making some rather large cut backs to their government spending. Feel free to disagree with that, but if you do its you people shouldn't take seriously.

Or are you trying to say that the European left are for reducing government spending by large amounts if they weren't forced into doing so?

[Wonkish1]

I say the European left tend to look at the economic effect of growing or reducing government rather than looking to ideology, in 1993 the Danish SocDem lowered taxes, they sold several state owned companies and in general put increased prosperity over ideology. SPD in Germany reduced the wages of the workers in a attempt to reduce the chronic unemployment (primary in the former DDR), the left-wing government of Italy in the 90ties created the biggest surpluses on the state's budget since WWII.

Well clearly the European left has been forced to move a little bit more to the right over the last several decades because of the onset of more international competition. That is mostly true in the US as well as well the rest of the world.

But while the European left has agreed to some policies of the right over the last couple decades I don't think any of them would have imagined that they would have to do the things that are going on today and will be going on in the near future. Hence that is why I included both the left doing well politically and remaining the way they have been in the past in my answer.

This is what will be baked into the cake going forward: The European left will do well in the future only if they change significantly from what they were 10 years ago because its impossible to agree to current spending levels in many of these countries and not have the credit markets shut off to them.

I don't think the European left is looking forward to being the people advocating for moderately severe spending cuts instead of severe spending cuts because at that point your looking more right than the European right were only a few years ago.

[Wonkish1]

I'm not really sure I should take your post serious,because it's either the purest form of sarcasm I have ever seen, or a rather ignorant post. So I apologise for taking it serious if it was sarcasm.

It emerged on another thread that Wonkish had not heard of Willy Brandt before. I'll let that sink in for a moment...

I said that I had heard of him, but couldn't remember which of numerous leaders he was. When you tend to read about other countries political history sometimes the names get melded together and you can't identify who's who after a while. You have to admit though the average American has no clue about European political history at all. I'm much better than the vast majority of Americans on this front.

[Wonkish1]

The European left is in a bit of a crisis. The Right sold out their ideology decades ago, but the left is still not used to it.

Yeah I know right. The notion that much of the European right(as opposed to the US right) has an ideology left is kind of hilarious.

[Wonkish1]

You have to admit though the average American has no clue about European political history at all. I'm much better than the vast majority of Americans on this front.

That may be so, but then the average American does not hold forth as an authority on the issue...

Well I'm an authority on the current economic situation of Europe. I'm fairly good on the current political situation in Europe. I'm probably decent on issues of European political history. No where did I ever say that I was an authority on European political history. You inferred that on to me because of the fact that I've taken authority status on other issues.

[Wonkish1]

That's because the US right has nothing but ideology.


As usual this thread is a collective circle-j**k for the right who think this crisis validates everything everything they ever believed... when in many ways this can be traced back to the unrestricted and unregulated capitalism they think is the answer to all the world's problems... well if you include jmfcst... the Bible as well...

That isn't true at all! To the extent that social issues still dominate a large part of the right its true that ideology plays a big part, but the notion that the US right is completely driven by ideology is untrue and a smear.

And putting aside the causes of the financial crisis(which I could very easily point to the Fed as the primary culprit and I'm a much more of an authority on the subject than anybody here), but do you think that we have somehow gotten past recessions? Do you think you can just regulate them away? So these governments spending like great times are going to be forever is stupid and the private sector has absolutely no blame in that. Furthermore, its these countries that are the new group that are going to put the world back into recession and these politicians are acting just like a Lehman CEO trying to hold it together and are too egotistical to read the tea leaves and do what is necessary.

Excessive leverage/debt in both the private sector and the public sector isn't right and you deserve to have your company or country go through cuts, fire sales, and/or painful debt restructurings when your pie in the sky predictions no longer hold up.

These countries made promises they couldn't keep pure and simple. They then financed those promises with excessive debt for years and years and now they are paying the price. And to the extent you defend a country or an ideology that thinks its perfectly fine to lever up to provide welfare benefits they can't sustain than you're no different than someone defending a I-Bank CEO who thinks its a bright idea to lever up 40 to 1 or a GSE CEO who thinks its okay to lever up 90 to 1 so that they make all kinds of money 'helping people' get homes they can't afford!

Circle jerk my @$$! Some people just wont realize that this party is ending and that includes both wall street and debt ridden socialist European countries.

[Wonkish1]

What would say to a poster who claimed to be expert on the Republican party, who didn't know who Ronald Reagan were? Willy Brandt are maybe the most well known European Social Democrat after the war. I suggest if you want to pretend to be expert on socialism or the Left, that you use wikipedia to read about people whose name is mentioned in the discussion, it won't make you a expert, but it will make you look less ridiculous.

Where did I say that I was an expert on European socialist parties? I did say that I knew a decent chunk about recent European political history(which I do), but that doesn't make me an expert.

And I believe in representing what I know when someone posts to me. I obviously could very easily wikipedia everything and faint knowledge in a bunch of subjects, but that would be dishonest. I respond first off of what I know already and then I may google something.

[Wonkish1]

That's because the US right has nothing but ideology.


As usual this thread is a collective circle-j**k for the right who think this crisis validates everything everything they ever believed... when in many ways this can be traced back to the unrestricted and unregulated capitalism they think is the answer to all the world's problems... well if you include jmfcst... the Bible as well...

And putting aside the causes of the financial crisis(which I could very easily point to the Fed as the primary culprit and I'm a much more of an authority on the subject than anybody here)

No, you're really not.

Really I'm not an authority on capital markets?

[Wonkish1]

lol wonkish1, just lol.

Also, Am I alone in being disappointed we have threads about this but not about the concentrated attack on the welfare state we're currently witnessing?

There is a difference between being supportive of a welfare state and being supportive of a to large of a welfare state of which your country can't afford and is instead financing via increasing amounts of debt.

Apparently you want to defend the latter and assume that wealth is infinite.

[Wonkish1]

There is a difference between being supportive of a welfare state and being supportive of a to large of a welfare state of which your country can't afford and is instead financing via increasing amounts of debt.

Under-taxation.

You think that raising taxes much beyond ~50% marginal tax rates, 20% VATs, huge gas taxes, 30% corporate taxes, plus property taxes, etc.(and that is just federal) is going to yield much more revenue? If you believe that your crazy. Even most of the Dems on this site admit there is a point where any marginal increase in tax rates starts to be not worth it any more and I think its pretty safe to say that many European countries have hit that limit.



Look since I don't live in Europe they can do what they want, but for God sakes is it really to much to ask for that people stop believing certain government benefit promises that are obviously unsustainable? Have your welfare state, but make sure everything in there you can afford?

I'll separate my views on a lot of welfare here and just focus on sustainable welfare spending and just focusing on that the Europeans have been beyond insane. They aren't even good Keynesians(they are worse than that) at least Keynesianism believes in cutting spending and posting huge budget surpluses in the good years, but do the Europeans do that? Hell no, they have a good economy they spend more and post deficits, they have a bad economy well you can't have people suffering now can we? So they spend some more. Its just stupid. These guys are idiots! They aren't just socialists, social democrats, Labour, etc. they are idiots!

[Wonkish1]

But at least they know who Franz Kafka was.

I hope that consoles the average European when they're screwed over because their country just defaulted. That will certainly make not having an income all better.

[Wonkish1]

Are you Francis Fukuyama by any chance? I seem to have read this before.

I had no idea who that was so I googled him. And since I'm practically on the polar opposite of the party as what you would describe as Neo Conservatives I think you apparently aren't paying attention very well.


The argument above isn't some sort of ideological manifesto you have to wrap your head around. Its basic math, Europe has spent more than it takes in for so long that now it is going to pay for those mistakes. Had the people of Europe only demanded the amount of social welfare that their countries could afford they wouldn't have had this problem. They didn't so now they do!

[Wonkish1]

Is Wonkish under the impression that Europe is a single country?

Where do you get that?

[Wonkish1]

Is Wonkish under the impression that Europe is a single country?

Where do you get that?

Your posts.

And I said that where?

[Wonkish1]

You have to admit though the average American has no clue about European political history at all. I'm much better than the vast majority of Americans on this front.

That may be so, but then the average American does not hold forth as an authority on the issue...

Well I'm an authority on the current economic situation of Europe. I'm fairly good on the current political situation in Europe. I'm probably decent on issues of European political history. No where did I ever say that I was an authority on European political history. You inferred that on to me because of the fact that I've taken authority status on other issues.

The problem here is that most people here do know a fair bit about European political history.

Sooo....whats your point?

[Wonkish1]

That you might be able to BS people into believing you're a genius elsewhere, but for all of this forum's (incredible) faults, we're at least pretty good at calling people out what they're clearly flying blind in any given thread. We have some smart people around here (particularly on European political history) and they're clearly way out of your league.

Way to jump into something you when you have no idea how it started.

I made an off the cuff very general remark referencing European socialist parties between 1940s and 70s. A remark that was true. Another poster decided to go into more detail and throw out a bunch of names of Prime Ministers and Presidents. In particular Willy Brandt. I said I recognized his name, but didn't recognize which of several people he was. Then people said asked how I could be an expert on European socialist party history. I said that I never claimed I was, I just made a very general and true statement. The issue died and now its been resurrected.

So Marokai, is it wrong for a person to say what he's an authority on, what he's not an authority on, what he's pretty good about, what he's so so about, etc. or should everybody just assume because someone is good at a few subjects that they have somehow taken on the identity of "genius of everything"?

My ability to remember exactly who Willy Brandt was or even know who Kafka was doesn't mean anything in reference to my ability to assess capital markets, government budgets, my knowledge of economics, and many more subjects. I guess you seem to think it does?

[Wonkish1]

I made an off the cuff very general remark referencing European socialist parties between 1940s and 70s. A remark that was true.

Except that it wasn't, dear. The whole point was that it wasn't.

Actually yeah it was. I essentially said that period was an example of something. That is a general statement.

Lets just be clear at no point have I said the notion that I am an expert on European socialist party political history. That is all that needs to be said.

And the fact that I'm willing to even go down this road of an off the cuff statement shows that I'm willing to hold my self to a high standard on what I am an authority on and what I am not. If I went down and looked at the people who have acted like they understood things like economics, capital markets, the economy, etc. I could quite easily point to a ton of people that act like they know what they are talking about on those subjects that clearly don't have a clue.

Going forward we should have people admitting what they don't know much about and what they do. Not people that try to make a big deal out of someone pointing out they aren't an expert about for example recent European political history as they pretend to know a lot about economics for example when its clearly not true.

[Wonkish1]

Actually yeah it was. I essentially said that period was an example of something. That is a general statement.

The problem was that it was an inaccurate general statement. There was a big difference between the sort of policies advocated and (when possible) pursued by social democratic parties in the 1940s and the sort advocated and pursued (when possible) by social democratic parties in the 1950s and (especially) 1960s. This was especially true regarding nationalisation, which is why those names were mentioned.

Dude, I'm not going down this road again with you. I made a general statement that was true. I then added to a range of 40s to 60s(instead of 60s off the cuff) to get rid of any ambiguity. You like spending time on a complete waste of time!

[Wonkish1]

I made an off the cuff very general remark referencing European socialist parties between 1940s and 70s. A remark that was true. Another poster decided to go into more detail and throw out a bunch of names of Prime Ministers and Presidents. In particular Willy Brandt. I said I recognized his name, but didn't recognize which of several people he was. Then people said asked how I could be an expert on European socialist party history. I said that I never claimed I was, I just made a very general and true statement. The issue died and now its been resurrected.

I hope that doesn't sound to arrogant, but I accidentally started laughing when I read this part. Several times.

In regards to what?

[Wonkish1]

Dude, I'm not going down this road again with you. I made a general statement that was true. I then added to a range of 40s to 60s(instead of 60s off the cuff) to get rid of any ambiguity.

This is like something from one of those delightful little novels by that nice Mrs Franz Kafka.

Anyways, the point is that your 'general statement' was not actually true, as I believe I demonstrated (with a reasonable degree of success) at the time. I don't entirely understand why you are so keen to insist otherwise when, as you yourself point out, you are not any kind of expert on the subject.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's not fair; I have no interest whatsoever in evolutionary psychology.

So between the 1940s to 1960s no member of any European socialist, labour, or social democrat party advocated the nationalization of a business or industry let alone succeed in pulling it off? Look from the beginning I made it clear over and over and over again that it was immaterial to the argument. I tried to prevent you from taking it off on this stupid tangent. But yeah there were people all through that period that advocated nationalization of particular businesses. If you say otherwise then its you that shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Wonkish1]

So between the 1940s to 1960s no member of any European socialist, labour, or social democrat party advocated the nationalization of a business or industry let alone succeed in pulling it off?

Ah, the incredible moving goalposts.

Well, in the 1940s almost all socialist governments nationalised large sections of the economy (though not always for ideological reasons) and almost all socialist parties who were not members of governments advocated doing so. This was at a time when capitalism (however defined) had been discredited by the events of the preceding two decades and when it was also clear that only the state could rebuild the shattered remains of the continent. One big exception was Sweden where there was no great wave of post-war nationalisation despite the country having a socialist government (and it's probably not a total coincidence that there had been no war there either).

But this changed in the 1950s and (especially) in the 1960s as the economy boomed and as socialist parties started to struggle electorally. Revisionism returned to favour for the first time in decades and most social democratic parties adopted the position that the correct socialist thing to do was to use the money generated by (carefully planned and controlled) capitalist growth to fund social programmes and to boost working class living standards. Some, most famously the SPD in 1959, abandoned nationalisation entirely. Others that did not do so in theory (even if they generally debated it) did so in practice; Harold Wilson might have opposed Hugh Gaitskell's attempt to drop nationalisation from Labour's long-term goals, but he did so (in his own words, somewhat paraphrased) that you 'don't remove Genesis from the Bible' not because he actually supported nationalising vast sections of the private sector. Indeed, the 1964-1970 Wilson government followed the revisionist approach fairly strictly and nationalised hardly anything. And the Wilson government was to the left of most of its close contemporaries.

Of course there were always those who continued to believe in nationalisation and in replacing capitalism (rather than seeking to control it), but in most social democratic parties (especially the ones that actually formed governments from time to time) these people were in a distinct minority from the mid 1950s onwards. There was only really a resurgence in that approach after the 'Golden Age of Capitalism' ended in the early 1970s, and even then it never really reached some social democratic parties in a big way (most notably the SPD).

No moving goal posts. I made a general statement and you inferred whatever you wanted onto it. Again this discussion is pointless it had nothing to do with what was first brought up. And it has nothing to do with this thread.

You're pissing in the wind. You have no one on the other end(me) that actually cares nor is making any argument to dispute these details with you. My position since the beginning has been to move on because your talking to nobody about something that is irrelevant to the topic.