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On May 25 2016 19:23 xM(Z wrote:
well you could've easily said people vote based on their wallet and be (more)right; frame it as a poor vs rich issue(in relative terms).
educated people make, on average, more money(or have more advantages/prospects) in the current system/establishment so they would be pro status quo; the reverse is true for the uneducated.
so, unless one of the/your arguments is that the uneducated austrians can not comprehend a political platform, you have nothing; worse actually, you divide people in castes and sic them onto each other.
(ps: i'm using "you" as in: you - the idea/concept not you - the person; You, as a speaker, represent the idea itself)
i'm trying to argue that "educated" and "uneducated" needs to be applied to the issue you are discussing, e.g. "construct a democratic society around certain values".
there's not "the uneducated" and "the educated" as absolutes, there's only (for example) "the uneducated in how an economic system works" and "the educated in how an economic system works"
I'm tying stupidity/knowledge to fields (for example i don't know shit about the anatomy of horses, so i can't possibly decide on how to treat a horse's illnesses) and argue that most of the people are stupid in the field of "anatomy of states and economic systems" and therefore can't possibly make proper decisions on how to treat their illnesses 
that's the standard democratic problem if you like, i'm still a democrat and constantly tell people: plz go and educate yourself on how economies and states work, so you can't be so easily made into a tool of politicans and media, who'll always tell you what you wanna hear, but never the whole story, because i know that it's highly unlikely, if not impossible, that you know everything you have to know to make perfect decisions.
and at this point i'd say that most people sadly don't have the necessary level of education in the issues, which are impacted by their votes.
also, education that leads to people being able to make money, doesn't necessarily have to do with knowledge on how the underlying system works they are making money in. (for example, knowing how to do tasks on a pc, vs know how to fix the pc when it doesn't work any more, or even worse, knowing how the hardware works the pc is made of - it's not neccesary to know how a cpu calculates to make money by manipulating spread sheets)
If you trust in the ability to fix the pc of people using the pc, then you falsely apply their education in using the pc, which is a quality you'll see represented in their income, to their education in fixing it.
I think less educated/knowledgeable people in how a system works are much more likely to vote pro system, because they are more easily swayed by the media and populists.
Also from my point of view the FPÖ is pro system, the same system with their people in power, at least their voting behaviour is. It doesn't matter if the people who vote for them try to vote "against the system", in their stupidity about how it works, they get yet again fooled into voting for it, for different guys running it.
other than that you are of course right, people vote based on their income, but i don't like this income = education level thing, because i don't like this general idea of education (most generalized education is deemed not worthwhile economically, just think of how philosophy is always branded as a waste of time) and i think it's more a question of market value of certain specialized education.
mb this is just a question of how i use my words, sry for rambling
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The real problem, as I see it from the few exchange we had in this thread, is that people don't understand what a democracy is, don't understand that a political action, whatever it may be, is never entirely a question of efficience (where "education"/knowledge could play a role) but a question of politics (a clash between values, perspectives, a conflict of interests, etc.). There are no solutions that are good for everyone, there's always a loser and a winner, even from a purely relativist standpoint, and the rural areas/poor have been losing for quite a while.
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
The idea that immigration does not impact on rural citizens is laughable also, if you think a little about the porosity between agricultural workers and low wage urban workers. Where do you think the son of a farmer work if he migrate to the city ? With which is he in direct competition ?
What is happening is not an irrational reaction to "progress" and "migration", a misunderstanding around the "benefit" of "multiculturalism", it's the simple drawback of the domination of a certain ideology (liberal, multiculturalist - which is not multicultural, the two are entirely different), with the losers expressing their concern with the only vote they feel can respond to their problems.
I'm amazed people still think it's a matter knowledge when the same exact situation (far right, populist figure, against trade and immigration) is appearing almost everywhere in the globalized world.
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On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
Even if you are able to find the most efficient solution, your legitimacy comes from the proof of that efficiency. Proving to everyone the efficiency of the solution sounds fishy, so you would still need some propaganda to explain a decision is harsh, some may suffer from it, but it is the best that could be made for the society we want to have as defined in [ref needed].
Whoever does the explaining will be discredited in time though. One avantage of an elective system is you can change your scapegoat periodically.
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@Noizhende, i'm with WhiteDog.
people don't need to know/to have learned economy to have an informed opinion on it. some people can be and are objectively right when voting against current economic trends while knowing nothing about said economic trends and that happens by simply comparing the then and the now.
they were economically better then and are economically worse now = current economic model is bad(bad for them but again, they are objectively right when making that call).
what i take form all of this is that there are a lot more poor people now than there were years or decades ago and that it's a continuing/growing trend.
@Scorch, you parroted what they feed you(the statistics in this case) without questioning them. you bear the burden of being guilty by association.
- my p.o.v. is that those statistics are shit and that they tell you nothing(except the above).
- your p.o.v. is that you need to educate more people to make them agree with you ... i don't even.
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On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
The idea that immigration does not impact on rural citizens is laughable also, if you think a little about the porosity between agricultural workers and low wage urban workers. Where do you think the son of a farmer work if he migrate to the city ? With which is he in direct competition ?
This does not really describe the situation in developed western nations in my experience (I am open to statistics of course). From how I see it, those living in rural areas who are not qualified (and would maybe have to compete with migrants) are exactly those who don't migrate to the cities in the first place. You can of course argue that they only stay because they can't find work in the cities and then argue that this was due to immigration but both of these claims sound spurious enough to need some evidence.
I can see some merit in the argument that in specific situations migrant workers suppress wages in agricultural work which leads to natives not taking these jobs even if there is nothing else but I am a bit doubtful if this is really widespread and whether stopping cheap migrant labor would even help (as it might be impossible to pay higher wages while competing on the market and the work is just seasonal to begin with). Also let me note that "son of a farmer" does not describe the rural poor anymore, not that it matters for the argument but we should avoid this kind of romanticism.
I do agree with your point about politics. But exactly for this reason I find it hard to believe that the resentment held towards foreigners in rural towns can best be explained by a rational economical argument. It is more a question of identity, values and world view (lack of opportunity plays of course a part, the link is just not very causal).
Just look at it from the opposite side: The pro-refugee side has put forward arguments about how the refugees would benefit Germany economical. Notwithstanding the truth of this point, do you really buy that this was the reason for these people to support pro-refugee politics?
I am very much critical of the kind of liberal consensus of public opinion we have nowadays, but that's no reason to make any opposing position more credible than it is
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On May 26 2016 00:35 xM(Z wrote:
@Scorch, you parroted what they feed you(the statistics in this case) without questioning them. you bear the burden of being guilty by association.
- my p.o.v. is that those statistics are shit and that they tell you nothing(except the above).
- your p.o.v. is that you need to educate more people to make them agree with you ... i don't even.
I'm "guilty"? Of what? If you believe the statistics are wrong and there's some kind of conspiracy, you better back that up with some evidence. If you can't do that, watch your tone. I'm done dealing with your unprovoked aggression.
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WhiteDog is right that it's essentially a moral question and not one about 'facts'. The 'urban mindset' has a hard time accepting that basic democratic rights end at your own border and that someone is entitled to live a cosy live at the expense of others simply because they happened to be born within the right borders. The rural population still lives in a nationalist world and thinks that they're entitled to X by the virtue of being a member of their country.
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On May 25 2016 23:59 Oshuy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
Even if you are able to find the most efficient solution, your legitimacy comes from the proof of that efficiency. Proving to everyone the efficiency of the solution sounds fishy, so you would still need some propaganda to explain a decision is harsh, some may suffer from it, but it is the best that could be made for the society we want to have as defined in [ref needed]. Whoever does the explaining will be discredited in time though. One avantage of an elective system is you can change your scapegoat periodically.
You completly misunderstood my argument.
On May 26 2016 01:14 silynxer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
The idea that immigration does not impact on rural citizens is laughable also, if you think a little about the porosity between agricultural workers and low wage urban workers. Where do you think the son of a farmer work if he migrate to the city ? With which is he in direct competition ? This does not really describe the situation in developed western nations in my experience (I am open to statistics of course). From how I see it, those living in rural areas who are not qualified (and would maybe have to compete with migrants) are exactly those who don't migrate to the cities in the first place. You can of course argue that they only stay because they can't find work in the cities and then argue that this was due to immigration but both of these claims sound spurious enough to need some evidence. I can see some merit in the argument that in specific situations migrant workers suppress wages in agricultural work which leads to natives not taking these jobs even if there is nothing else but I am a bit doubtful if this is really widespread and whether stopping cheap migrant labor would even help (as it might be impossible to pay higher wages while competing on the market and the work is just seasonal to begin with). Also let me note that "son of a farmer" does not describe the rural poor anymore, not that it matters for the argument but we should avoid this kind of romanticism. I do agree with your point about politics. But exactly for this reason I find it hard to believe that the resentment held towards foreigners in rural towns can best be explained by a rational economical argument. It is more a question of identity, values and world view (lack of opportunity plays of course a part, the link is just not very causal). Just look at it from the opposite side: The pro-refugee side has put forward arguments about how the refugees would benefit Germany economical. Notwithstanding the truth of this point, do you really buy that this was the reason for these people to support pro-refugee politics? I am very much critical of the kind of liberal consensus of public opinion we have nowadays, but that's no reason to make any opposing position more credible than it is
Datas are too complicated for me too link them here, there's plenty of books on the subject on France - people living in suburb or rural area are not all farmers, many take the train / car to go to the city and work daily.
In french, there's Hervé Le Bras' books (he just published one called Anatomie sociale de la France, social anatomy of France) or Christophe Guily's book (which are questionable but whatever).
I do agree with your point about politics. But exactly for this reason I find it hard to believe that the resentment held towards foreigners in rural towns can best be explained by a rational economical argument. It is more a question of identity, values and world view (lack of opportunity plays of course a part, the link is just not very causal).
I totally agree. In France's cases, there are huge differences between terroritories/regional culture. But those differences can't really be separated from rational economical argument : the "culture" of a region and its economical success are linked by a complex relation.
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On May 26 2016 03:08 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2016 23:59 Oshuy wrote:On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
Even if you are able to find the most efficient solution, your legitimacy comes from the proof of that efficiency. Proving to everyone the efficiency of the solution sounds fishy, so you would still need some propaganda to explain a decision is harsh, some may suffer from it, but it is the best that could be made for the society we want to have as defined in [ref needed]. Whoever does the explaining will be discredited in time though. One avantage of an elective system is you can change your scapegoat periodically. You completly misunderstood my argument.
I do not react to the argument you are trying to make, I react to the one you write
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On May 26 2016 03:17 Oshuy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2016 03:08 WhiteDog wrote:On May 25 2016 23:59 Oshuy wrote:On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
Even if you are able to find the most efficient solution, your legitimacy comes from the proof of that efficiency. Proving to everyone the efficiency of the solution sounds fishy, so you would still need some propaganda to explain a decision is harsh, some may suffer from it, but it is the best that could be made for the society we want to have as defined in [ref needed]. Whoever does the explaining will be discredited in time though. One avantage of an elective system is you can change your scapegoat periodically. You completly misunderstood my argument. I do not react to the argument you are trying to make, I react to the one you write
And I wrote that :
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
A solution can't be the "best" for the "society"; because the society is an abstract. When a solution is considered to be the "best", it is always the best for some people, and the legitimacy of this solution does not come from its efficiency but from the institutions that support the decision and the argument used to justify the decision.
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On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
The real problem, as I see it from the few exchange we had in this thread, is that people don't understand what a democracy is, don't understand that a political action, whatever it may be, is never entirely a question of efficience (where "education"/knowledge could play a role) but a question of politics (a clash between values, perspectives, a conflict of interests, etc.). There are no solutions that are good for everyone, there's always a loser and a winner, even from a purely relativist standpoint, and the rural areas/poor have been losing for quite a while.
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
The idea that immigration does not impact on rural citizens is laughable also, if you think a little about the porosity between agricultural workers and low wage urban workers. Where do you think the son of a farmer work if he migrate to the city ? With which is he in direct competition ?
This cannot be stressed enough. Democracy is a large-scale, nation-wide system of making decisions based on vastly differing interests among different parts of the population. This is why trade unions, employer organisations and other lobbying groups are paramount. These organisations, also known as civil society, unite these different interests into groups that are loud enough to be taken into account when decisions are made.
I cringe every time someone says "democracy is power to the people" or "in a democracy the majority chooses the rules". People who claim things like that are referring to mob rule, not democracy. First of all there is no such thing as "the people", and secondly the protection of minorities and their rights is one of the corner stones of democracy.
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On May 26 2016 03:22 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2016 03:17 Oshuy wrote:On May 26 2016 03:08 WhiteDog wrote:On May 25 2016 23:59 Oshuy wrote:On May 25 2016 23:31 WhiteDog wrote:
A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
Even if you are able to find the most efficient solution, your legitimacy comes from the proof of that efficiency. Proving to everyone the efficiency of the solution sounds fishy, so you would still need some propaganda to explain a decision is harsh, some may suffer from it, but it is the best that could be made for the society we want to have as defined in [ref needed]. Whoever does the explaining will be discredited in time though. One avantage of an elective system is you can change your scapegoat periodically. You completly misunderstood my argument. I do not react to the argument you are trying to make, I react to the one you write And I wrote that : Show nested quote +A democracy is not a system that aim for the most efficient political action, it's a system put in place to define the criteria of efficiency and discuss the underlying value/conflict that naturally exist within one society, a system designed to make the losers accept their fate, that legitimate collective decisions. If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with. A solution can't be the "best" for the "society"; because the society is an abstract. When a solution is considered to be the "best", it is always the best for some people, and the legitimacy of this solution does not come from its efficiency but from the institutions that support the decision and the argument used to justify the decision.
Indeed, which is not the point I was reacting to. What I agree on is the legitimacy is not directly linked to the efficiency (I believe there is a correlation), but to the belief of the people in the institutions that justify the legitimacy.
What I reacted to is that you state :
If the world was so simple that we could find a most efficient solution to every political problem, we would not need any democracy to begin with.
Even in the simplified world you describe, you still need belief in the solution to get legitimacy, and that belief would have to rely on some form of institution.
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i think the notion that there has to be competition between migrant workforce and native workforce is one of the biggest problem. it's a neoliberal dogma and the real anti-establishment stance would be to say: workers should band together and try to increase overall employment by increasing consumption on the domestic market through and increase of national income, and the state should take a more active role in creating employment, because the state is the only playier in the economy who's more or less immune to bankruptcy as long as the state controls the creation of money.
(even draghi hints at that!)
and my point is that to get to this point you need an education/knowledge in macroeconomy, which basically nobody has, which is why people are believing in frauds like schäuble, or other hardcore economic liberalists, who'll butcher the eu economy even further the longer they stay in power, since their economic ideas are naive at best.
most people are instinctively voting for the wrong parties (wrong as in voter wants x, but party actually does opposite), because they are viewing the economy as if it worked how they are used to it. (e.g. "debts are bad" - "savings are good" microeconomical, instinctive, but macroeconomically the world debt is always 0 and savings = debt;furthermore if the germans (standard example) want to create an overall surplus somebody has to make debts, and you can't on the one hand say: "we wanna make a surplus", and tell the other countries "don't make new debts") and most politicians are enforcing those ideas, because they help their agendas.
that's what i mean with the "user of pc can't be trusted to decide on how it's repaired."
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Printing money to cover deficits. It works for Venezuala and Zimbabwe!
In the current field of economics there's still plenty of space for disagreement and different perspectives. Why don't you actually go read some of these hardcore economic liberalists instead of dismissing them as naive and everyone who agrees with them uneducated.
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Riot police arrested 16 people and fired teargas in violent clashes with protesters marching in Paris as striking workers continued to blockade refineries and nuclear power stations in an escalating stand-off over labour reforms.
Tens of thousands of people marched across France in protest against François Hollande’s planned labour bill, which aims to make it easier for companies to hire and fire workers and was forced through parliament without a vote this month following more than ten weeks of protests.
Police fired teargas at about 100 people on the edge of a protest march through Paris. Several masked people charged shop windows, smashing them, and cars were damaged near the route of the march. There were skirmishes at Place de la Nation as riot officers cordoned off protesters, some of whom complained of heavy-handed policing.
In Caen in Normandy, the website Normandie Actu filmed what it called a case of police violence as an officer appeared to repeatedly kick a demonstrator on the ground. The police described the incident as legitimate defence.
Police estimated between 18,000 and 19,000 people took to the streets in Paris, an increase on the last national demonstration day against the labour reforms. Unions put the figure at 100,000. Street marches took place in towns and cities across France, including Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nantes.
Striking French workers continued to disrupt oil refineries and nuclear power stations, halted some air traffic and trains and prevented almost all national newspapers from printing in the growing industrial action. Union activists blocked roads and bridges in northern France while some train drivers and air traffic controllers joined the action.
With just two weeks to go before France hosts around 2 million visitors at the showpiece Euro 2016 football tournament, the government is under increasing pressure to find an end to the dispute and stage some kind of climbdown. More disruption is expected next week and unions have called for rolling strikes on the Paris Metro to start on the day of the opening Euro 2016 football match on 10 June.
Source
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On May 27 2016 01:50 RvB wrote:
Printing money to cover deficits. It works for Venezuala and Zimbabwe!
In the current field of economics there's still plenty of space for disagreement and different perspectives. Why don't you actually go read some of these hardcore economic liberalists instead of dismissing them as naive and everyone who agrees with them uneducated.
I might have been a bit harsh, sry :/
"Printing money" doesn't seem to do much in the Eurozone though, or mb it's even necessary to not go further into recession, if you look at what the ECB is doing right now.
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On May 27 2016 06:04 Noizhende wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2016 01:50 RvB wrote:
Printing money to cover deficits. It works for Venezuala and Zimbabwe!
In the current field of economics there's still plenty of space for disagreement and different perspectives. Why don't you actually go read some of these hardcore economic liberalists instead of dismissing them as naive and everyone who agrees with them uneducated.
I might have been a bit harsh, sry :/ "Printing money" doesn't seem to do much in the Eurozone though, or mb it's even necessary to not go further into recession, if you look at what the ECB is doing right now.
Europe hasn't been in recession for a while just in a period of low growth.
https://piie.com/publications/policy-briefs/quantity-theory-money-redux-will-inflation-be-legacy-quantitative-easing
It then shows that the quantity theory of money has not really been put to the test after the Great Recession, because a sharp increase in banks' excess reserves and corresponding sharp decline in the "money multiplier" has meant that the rise in the Federal Reserve's balance sheet has not translated into increased money available to the public in the usual fashion.
QE is quite a different beast than directly funding deficits.
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fair enough, but let me say it this way, the ECB is buying up more and more of the government debt, which essentielly means that the Euro-states can spend more without having to fear to ever have to pay back what they owe to the ECB, making government debt less of an issue. Why not let the states invest this in a controlled manner (we have the stability pact), when inflation doesn't seem to be an issue anyway. Am i not right in this?
E.g. put the population of Greece, Italy, Spain back into a position where they can develop their economies themselves with government programs from Euro states with a possibilty to spend, because they are not close to the stability pact limitations, in the countries which need it. (Ofc here you need the political will, and people like Schäuble aren't helping, that's why i hate on him)
Mb we don't have recession in the Eurozone overall, but in the south it's very real, and is gonna destabilize those countries more and more, while the limited measures taken now, and all the so called structural reforms aren't really helping. (even the IMF seems to be agreeing)
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E.g. put the population of Greece, Italy, Spain back into a position where they can develop their economies themselves with government programs from Euro states with a possibilty to spend, because they are not close to the stability pact limitations, in the countries which need it. (Ofc here you need the political will, and people like Schäuble aren't helping, that's why i hate on him)
Won't work for basic economic reason. You give them EUROs for spending (as a gift or through loans), they will spend them to buy goods (from the north by the way, helping the north) and it will increase inflation in their countries and not in the north : the north will gain competitivity versus them and they won't get out of the crisis.
There's three way out of the situation : fiscal redistribution from the north to the south, or an increase of the south competitivity through lower wages / benefit or the end of the euro.
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On May 28 2016 07:47 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +E.g. put the population of Greece, Italy, Spain back into a position where they can develop their economies themselves with government programs from Euro states with a possibilty to spend, because they are not close to the stability pact limitations, in the countries which need it. (Ofc here you need the political will, and people like Schäuble aren't helping, that's why i hate on him) Won't work for basic economic reason. You give them EUROs for spending (as a gift or through loans), they will spend them to buy goods (from the north by the way, helping the north) and it will increase inflation in their countries and not in the north : the north will gain competitivity versus them and they won't get out of the crisis. There's three way out of the situation : fiscal redistribution from the north to the south, or an increase of the south competitivity through lower wages / benefit or the end of the euro.
you are right, but that's what i meant. You need to take Euros and buy from greek businesses.
Example: German state finances building some new infrastructure through a greek private company in greece or somewhere else where it's needed. That's fiscal redistribution in a way.
The "giving money so they can buy our products, but never get their domestic economy back up" is going on right now. (example: german arms exports to greece)
a global race to the bottom through lowering wages will kill off demand everywhere, so that's a nono.
unless on the other hand you take measures towards basic income or a negative tax system to dampen the effect of unemployment, or reduce labour time without reducing income, both at a level equal to productivity increase + desired inflation.
generally it's not a good idea to keep competing against each other on the labour market in a monetary union, if you don't have measures to bring countries who lose out in competition back onto their feet.
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EPT
