Chorus: Austerity doesn't work | 70 comments (70 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Strawman alert (none / 0)

So I think it's simplistic and empirically disconfirmed to suggest that all we have to do is return to the redistributive policies of the 70s and resource constraints will drift back down into the economic background noise.

Nobody's arguing for the specific redistributive policies of the 70s. The point is to put unemployment in centre stage, instead of the preservation of the purchasing power of rentier wealth.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jan 30th, 2012 at 08:39:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strawman alert (none / 1)

But that's a very 70s mindset itself, with the implication that capitalism is fine as long as the rentiers can be forced to create jobs.

Capitalism isn't fine, jobs or no. Capitalism is a political feedback loop which always concentrates policy access among a tiny minority. Even if there are jobs, the best you can hope for is a temporary respite from policy monopoly.

In the UK, after a hundred and fifty years of socialist history there were maybe 20 years in total - it could be as few as fifteen - where policy was designed to be politically liberating and bottom up.

The rest of the time, it was top-down and pro-rentier.

Jobs are irrelevant. They're too fragile, too subject to political whims pretending to be economic necessity, and not democratic enough.

The only way to eliminate the rentier model completely is to open project investment to the public, convert corporations into coops, and exclude high net worth individuals from politics.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Jan 31st, 2012 at 06:39:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Define "capitalism" (n/t) (none / 0)

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Jan 31st, 2012 at 06:47:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strawman alert (none / 0)

One possibility is to rethink the whole "people need a job to make a living" assumption. Linca challenged it in the comments to this diary. As long as I'm not able to articulate a coherent position around that, I'll stick to unemployment is the problem, capitalism or not capitalism.

tens of millions of people stand to see their lives ruined because the bureaucrats at the ECB don't understand introductory economics -- Dean Baker

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jan 31st, 2012 at 06:52:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strawman alert (4.00 / 2)

As long as only some people 'need a job to make a living' - while others need people to make a living for them - the problem won't go away.

It's not a simple issue, because our culture is based on economic Social Darwinism, and - apparently - it's important that some people get a lot while others work hard for very little.

My point is that if you stop at the 70s-socialist idea of 'jobs for all' you haven't tackled the underlying issues, and you still have a system that's politically and economically unstable.

If you want a stable system - note how close that is to a sustainable system - you have to build in feedback loops that distribute power and reward intelligent reality-based decision making.

Currently you have feedback loops that reward aggressive selfishness above all other social values.

This is not a good thing. It's not only not sustainable, it actually destroys collective intelligence.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Tue Jan 31st, 2012 at 07:00:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Chorus: Austerity doesn't work | 70 comments (70 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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