Dem leader Joe Crowley loses primary

[Cow Poke]

Given the controversial nature of the topic, Wikipedia is a terrible place to start.

Unless, of course, it agrees with your preconceptions!

[Starlight]

Starlight I have a reccomendation.
Read the communist manifesto. Then read works like Storming the Heavens, The Gulag archipelego, and any history book you can on communism. I plan to read these books st some point.

Why? In general I'm not the biggest fan of reading original sources. I did a PhD in science without ever seeing the need to read Newton or any other centuries-old scientist.

It is on my to-do list to eventually read some history books about different countries that attempted various different types of socialist system with a view to thinking about what they did right and what they did wrong to see if there's anything there that can fine-tune my political thinking. Although I would probably find a modern book about the current politics of Scandinavia much more relevant to my thinking. But as far as communism goes, it's just so far different to anything I would ever advocate that I don't tend to see it as relevant to me. Yes, technically it falls under the historical category of 'socialism' but that's a bit like saying it falls under the category of 'country' - that term is just so broad it covers almost anything. I'm a democratic socialist, not a communist, and those are pretty much as different as chalk and cheese.

[seer]

Not to mention that the businesses have been known to simply move their headquarters to another country so they're no longer a German company but a Swiss company, or a French company or even go overseas and become an American or Canadian company etc.

I was a Teamster for tens years and the treasurer for my Local. There is good and bad with unions, remember it was largely (though not totally) the trade unions that almost destroyed the US car industry. We just could not compete with cheaper better made imports.

[Starlight]

If the advantages are so clear why the decline over the last 30 years or so?

I view post-WWII Western economics as falling into 2 basic time-periods:

1. New Deal era (1945-1980). Tax And Spend. Social programs. Strong Unions. Full employment. Regulation. Keynesian economics. Balanced budgets. Inflation.
2. Neoliberal era (1980-2008). Reaganomics. Tax cuts. Cuts to social programs. Union busting. Deregulation. Monetary theory. Financialisation. Very low inflation. Unemployment. Globalisation. Austerity. Deficits. Trickle-down economics.

At one end of the period we have the Great Depression (& the resultant WWII) and at the other end the Great Recession. And in the middle, the historically unusual event of the Oil Shocks in the 70s triggered huge economic problems leading to a widespread abandonment of existing economic wisdom and a conscious decision to go in a completely new direction based on the economic wisdom popular among academics at that time: "Reaganomics" (in the UK "Thatcherism", in NZ "Rogernomics" & "Ruthanasia", etc). So around 1980 an entire set of economic policies were deliberately phased out and and an entirely new set phased in. And this happened across most of the Western world.

And it didn't work. The new economic systems led to ever-increasing inequality and the gradual destruction of the middle class. Then the whole system fell apart in the Great Recession and was temporarily salvaged only by governments deciding to rescue the banking sector by having the tax-payer take over the massive debts the bankers had accrued, with almost nothing to stop the situation repeating itself. Meanwhile the deficits are spiraling out of control along with wealth inequality, and the cuts to the social safety nets are making it harder and harder for the average person.

Now we are in a position (unlike in 1980) to analyse data from both eras and compare them, and overall we can conclude that the New Deal era worked and that the Neoliberal era was a failure. So the IMF and other economists can compare eras in which unions were strong and eras in which unions were weak and see that strong unions make the difference and make the economics better.

This is the graph (or similar ones) that demonstrates it the most clearly, IMO. It's a plot of productivity (GDP per capita) versus median wage:



In the New Deal era (1945 to ~1980) productivity consistently increases due to better and better technology meaning that any given worker produces more and more goods because the technology they are using is making them more and more productive. And the wages keep pace with that: Workers are getting paid their 'fair share' of what they're producing - the more they produce the more they get paid.

In the Neoliberal era (~1980 to ~2008) productivity consistently increases due to better and better technology meaning that workers produce more and more goods. And the wages don't change: Company owners have zero incentive to pay their workers more than they need to - if the workers produce more and more goods the profit from those extra goods doesn't go to the workers, it goes instead to the shareholders and the CEOs who become billionaires. The workers can't demand more wages because they have no unions. At the graph's right-hand end, that vertical arrow showing the distance between the two lines is all the money that should have been going to the workers that is instead going into the pockets of the business owners, i.e. the amount which the 'top 1%' are stealing from everyone else.

I recommend this great youtube talk by Professor Mark Blyth from Brown University on the subject. He gives a detailed explanation of these two economic periods and argues that "populism" (Sanders, Corbyn, Trump, Brexit etc) is the predictable response to the failures of the neo-liberal era and the fact that mainstream politicians are refusing to grapple with those failures enough to satisfy the public.

I think as a result, we will increasingly see the election of openly pro-union leaders like Sanders, Corbyn, and in my country the new PM elected last year who's currently on maternity leave because she just had a baby, Ardern.

[rogue06]

I was a Teamster for tens years and the treasurer for my Local. There is good and bad with unions, remember it was largely (though not totally) the trade unions that almost destroyed the US car industry. We just could not compete with cheaper better made imports.

My father was the regional sales manager for one of the Big 3 and was predicting that would happen for as long as I remember. Back then (mid 70s), when a new car cost $4,950, roughly $500 (10%) of the cost per car went just to pay for the health benefits of the UAW members.

[rogue06]

I view post-WWII Western economics as falling into 2 basic time-periods:

1. New Deal era (1945-1980)...

The New Deal was in effect during the 1930s and many of its policies and programs had become extinct by the end of WWII (1945).

[TheWall]

Why? In general I'm not the biggest fan of reading original sources. I did a PhD in science without ever seeing the need to read Newton or any other centuries-old scientist.

It is on my to-do list to eventually read some history books about different countries that attempted various different types of socialist system with a view to thinking about what they did right and what they did wrong to see if there's anything there that can fine-tune my political thinking. Although I would probably find a modern book about the current politics of Scandinavia much more relevant to my thinking. But as far as communism goes, it's just so far different to anything I would ever advocate that I don't tend to see it as relevant to me. Yes, technically it falls under the historical category of 'socialism' but that's a bit like saying it falls under the category of 'country' - that term is just so broad it covers almost anything. I'm a democratic socialist, not a communist, and those are pretty much as different as chalk and cheese.

Why? That is easy. If you want to see how ideas develop you travlce it back to the roots. The USSR did many horrible things in the name of communism and as i dont want to repeat the mistakes of those before me i have to learn from them.

[RumTumTugger]

The way US conservatives attack all possible sources of knowledge and information is, yet again, duly noted.

Wiki actually tends to be pretty good, in my experience, on well-known but divisive topics. About the worst it tends to get is someone adding a sentence in that says something like "but these arguments are all wrong, as proven by my favorite author, SomeGuy [12]". The articles wiki's not always great for are not divisive topics, but rather on really obscure topics where one person has written the article from a slanted point of view and nobody else knowledgeable has read/corrected the article.

Translation: I can find articles on Wikipedia that agree with my view of divisive topics so I'll go with Wikipedia even when it is proven wrong by valid scholarship because it helps me pretend I'm an open minded intellectual

[seer]

Yes, technically it falls under the historical category of 'socialism' but that's a bit like saying it falls under the category of 'country' - that term is just so broad it covers almost anything. I'm a democratic socialist, not a communist, and those are pretty much as different as chalk and cheese.

So what do you do with all those who don't want to play your socialistic game?

[RumTumTugger]

Why? In general I'm not the biggest fan of reading original sources. I did a PhD in science without ever seeing the need to read Newton or any other centuries-old scientist.

This is being an open minded Intellectual?

[One Bad Pig]

The way US conservatives attack all possible sources of knowledge and information is, yet again, duly noted.

Oh, cut the melodramatic BS. Wiki is hardly all possible sources of knowledge.

[RumTumTugger]

Why? That is easy. If you want to see how ideas develop you travlce it back to the roots. The USSR did many horrible things in the name of communism and as i dont want to repeat the mistakes of those before me i have to learn from them.

TheWall starlight is just showing that he only pretends to be the openminded intellectual he keeps proven he isn't. this latest post is such proof. he only wants to read and hear things that tickle his ears.

[ke7ejx]

Why? In general I'm not the biggest fan of reading original sources. I did a PhD in science without ever seeing the need to read Newton or any other centuries-old scientist.

I'm totally questioning the validity of said Ph.D. I can't think of a single dissertation committee letting you pass if you haven't read original sources for your studies. You have absolutely no credibility, Starlight.

[Mountain Man]

I'm not the biggest fan of reading original sources. I did a PhD in science without ever seeing the need to read Newton or any other centuries-old scientist.

Which explains why your science degree is so worthless.

[Cow Poke]

Which explains why your alleged science degree is so worthless.

fify

Though, for the record, I really have no reason to doubt his word... one can be a PhD AND a total nutcase at the same time.