European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1393

On November 27 2024 02:24 RvB wrote:
The far left favours the establishment as long as it suits them. They're not any different than the far right or the centre in that regard. People will favour the establishment as long as it suits their interests.

Left vs right does not really answer that question well. Liberalism (in the European sense) is considered right wing. It has nonetheless destroyed the classical hierarchies of the past.

On November 27 2024 02:21 WombaT wrote:
Excellent writeup Dan! Of course I’m extremely au fait with Romanian politics already but I’m sure other folks will find it useful :p

How socially conservative/liberal is Romania more generally? Are there big geographic discrepancies there within the country?

On November 28 2024 04:48 RvB wrote:

The point is that an establishment can also be far left.

You're right my example of liberalism in the past was not a good one. The liberals were the left in the French revolution after all. If we look at modern history the revolutions of 1989 are an example of liberal revolutions against a far left establishment. That would not fit in your definition of left vs right. Additionally I'd argue that the free market economy very effectively sweeps away old hierarchies via Schumpeters creative destruction. If you take a list of the highest valued firms over the decades there's a high amount of churn.

On November 28 2024 22:01 Nebuchad wrote:


I don't really understand why you conclude that this doesn't fit in my definition of left vs right. Also would like to point out that it isn't truly *my* definition, it's very similar to what you get whet you look up leftwing politics and rightwing politics on wiki, I didn't come up with it in my bedroom

As a sidenote because I enjoy this, the wiki definitions are not entirely matching each other. On the leftwing one the definition starts by describing a goal for society: "Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism". The rightwing one starts by describing a belief about society: "Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable". It's almost like the description feels like it needs to justify itself immediately for being rightwing, which I find amusing.

It is true that there is some social mobility in capitalism, but there's less than it presents. The requirement of capital ensures that even if some individuals can go up and down, having wealth is still a huge factor in being successful. When you google a massive capitalist today, it is not rare to find out that their dad was already a capitalist, more or less successful than they are. Even for those who are "self-made" to a degree and can't have inherited their position because their industry is young, the pattern repeats. Like, I googled Steve Jobs' kids for this post and his son Reed Jobs is... a venture capitalist, because of course he is, he's not a fisherman or a journalist is he.

We can go back all the way to Edmund Burke for this by the way, in his quest to maintain the privileges of the higher class he certainly didn't think that capitalism was the best system to achieve that, but he recognized that it would be an acceptable compromise (given the revolutionary wars of his time) because of the outsized influence that the wealthy have within capitalism. I feel like the centuries since then have proven him correct.

Maybe more importantly than that, social mobility is an individual solution. If you, as an individual, are unsatisfied with your current class predicaments, you can, if you work hard + Show Spoiler +, gain access to an upper class. That mobility is accounted for in the system, it doesn't threaten it. It is similar in role to how you could be a nobody under feudalism and then receive a knighthood because you fought well in your lord's wars.

On November 29 2024 02:37 Dan HH wrote:
Sorry to keep droning on about Romanian politics here but this is some avant-garde stuff that is coming soon to an election near you.

As I said the parliamentary elections are this weekend and Calin Georgescu, the surpirse winner of the presidential 1st round, doesn't have a party.

There's a small left-wing progressive party called SENS that your average Romanian hasn't heard of, and they are not expected to get the >5% required to enter parliament. Their fans are currently trying to trick low-information Georgescu voters to vote for SENS by spamming Tiktok and other socials with messages like this that are implying they want the same things:

+ Show Spoiler +

I don't think it will work but I hope it does, it would be hilarious.

On November 28 2024 22:53 Jockmcplop wrote:


This is a similar discussion to interesting ones I've had about meritocracy in capitalism previously.

I find it really interesting.

I'm always left wondering whether there's a 'sweet spot' in capitalism, around the sort of 'social democracy' area of policy, where you can successfully maintain a situation whereby there's good social mobility and equality of opportunity.
These are things that tend to regress pretty quickly over time unless a deliberate effort is put in to keep them in good shape. We've seen this in the UK as the last 15-20 years have shown. The tories have made exactly zero effort to improve social mobility and the poor are getting both poorer and having fewer chances to escape poverty.

Long term, there's the issue that if you start from a level playing field, those who are successful naturally want to use their success to provide as much advantage for their kids as they can, and also tend to be the people who gain enough power and influence to be able to do so.
Individually you wouldn't never expect anything different from these people, but in wider societal terms, it is definitely damaging.
The only way to counter this is concerted effort in legislation and regulation.

On November 30 2024 01:02 RvB wrote:
This post and the Wikipedia article made your point much clearer for me thanks. Theoretically I think you're right. On the right it's considered natural and sometimes desirable to have a hierarchy on a societal scale. To use more Marxian terms the far left strives for a classless society. In reality it never accomplishes this. It always devolves into an authoritarian nightmare where the old establishment is replaced by a new one. The centre left is a different story but they also usually operate in liberal democracies with market economies.

On November 30 2024 04:30 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Eh to be fair it's possible to think some degree of hierarchy is desirable without wanting kings and serfs. Like you can think that it's good that certain jobs like being a doctor carries some status with it, thus inspiring the most capable people in society to aspire to doctorhood, which one could plausibly argue is a more important job than that of a grocery store clerk.

Now I don't think that 'the right' generally aspire to 'some degree of hierarchy' - so that doesn't really apply to them because they are generally fine with 'quite a lot of hierarchical division'. So I mean I agree with your statement that we can observe that less rigid social hierarchies have produced better societies than more rigid social hierarchies, but it doesn't follow from that that no social hierarchies are desirable.

On November 30 2024 20:59 RvB wrote:

That you think the right just wants to make life worse for people says more about yourself than the right. Billy is right. What matters, for liberals like me at least, is equality of opportunity. That will always lead to differences in outcome and as a consequence social hierarchies because humans have different skills, capabilities, and desires. Coming back to the example of the doctor, you feel that there's not a ton of social power derivated from it. I disagree. Doctors are upper class in status and income. The high status extends to the workplace. For good reason since they're experts in their fields.

Your proposal to organize society into jobs that are essential for society is creating a social hierarchy. You've split society into essential jobs and non-essential jobs where one comes with more status and income. It's a good example of the left replacing one hierarchy with another. It raises the question of how you'd decide what jobs are essential. Centralising the decision making under a governement entity or something similar concentrates a lot of power in few hands. Democratically choosing comes with its own share of issues. It'll inevitably lead to special interest groups advocating for their own jobs to be designated as essential. We can already see where that leads with farmers in the EU. Poor policy that costs billions, hurts consumers, and leaves poor farmers in the developing world worse off.

I'm aware of the concept of market socialism. It's already possible to create a company that you propose. Yet nobody does it. The closest are cooperatives. Cooperatives work well in some sectors. It's a good type of company to exist but not good enough to use them for every market. If they were much more efficient than regular companies we'd see them out compete them. That leads me to the conclusion that people don't want the type of companies you propose and that they're not more efficient so lead to worse capital allocation. It makes everyone worse off in the end.