EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 907
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On July 07 2017 00:02 TheDwf wrote: State of emergency prolonged for the 6th time until November the 1st. Touching unanimity in securitarian demagogy from the fauxcialists to the far-right. Zombie majority didn't even bother to reinforce parliamentary control, as suggested from a "constructive" centre-right guy. The next law should make the state of emergency fairly permanent... after which it will be stopped, in the purest Orwellian style. Only the radical left voted against. (137 for vs 13 against.) Next week, the majority will vote the law which authorizes Macron to destroy workers' rights by decree (actual, precise content not known before September when decrees are published; only general principles are known for now). 107 years of workers' rights to be "rewritten" by the Prince and a bunch of technocrats while no one knows the exact extent of what will be smashed by the bulldozer. It's ironic that you write a post like this and then wonder why nobody is willing to engage with the French far-left. Is there any attempt to even critically engage Macron's reforms or is it going to be "destruction, zombie majorities, demagogy, fauxcialists" ad infinitum? There's people in France who like Macron's reforms, given that he was elected. So you'll have to come to an agreement with them in some way at some point if you don't want to be absolutely without power and in a permanent opposition role. The left here does exactly the same thing. I guess it's convenient if you never have to hold office. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On July 07 2017 02:17 Nyxisto wrote: It's ironic that you write a post like this and then wonder why nobody is willing to engage with the French far-left. Is there any attempt to even critically engage Macron's reforms or is it going to be "destruction, zombie majorities, demagogy, fauxcialists" ad infinitum? There's people in France who like Macron's reforms, given that he was elected. So you'll have to come to an agreement with them in some way at some point if you don't want to be absolutely without power and in a permanent opposition role. The left here does exactly the same thing. I guess it's convenient if you never have to hold office. 1) I didn't wonder why "nobody [was] willing to engage with the French far-left", so don't put words into my mouth. 2) It's not my fault if the majority behaves like a zombie, blindly approving whatever the government does so far, even when it's actually contradictory with Macron's promises. 3) It's not my fault if people who call themselves socialists are not socialists. 4) Prolonging something useless because you committed to a lie for almost 2 years is the very definition of demagogy, yes. I can understand why you're mad at this since you were basically arguing, in some past conversation, that permanent state of emergency was OK as long as it made people feel safe. 5) Yes, and those people are still minority in some domains, including further liberalization of labour market, especially when done in an authoritarian way, with no discussion in the Parliament and no way to know what will precisely be inside until it's too late. I have no idea why people like you act as if winning an election means every single of your proposed measures was automatically approved/majority in the country, especially when your popular support is the weakest for decades. 6) I don't even understand what your last paragraph means. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
the radicals seem to be content with branding themselves as political pariahs because it gains them points with the radical base but is absolutely politically impotent. If you don't like having a centrist or centre-right government, how about make everybody on the centre to the left join up in a big tent rather than balkanizing the political forces? Recognise that political parties aren't ideological factions but coalitions between people with overlapping interest where compromise has to be made. | ||
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bardtown
England2313 Posts
On July 07 2017 03:14 Nyxisto wrote: I don't see the productivity of the Mélenchon / radical left movement. They have no majority either socially or politically and they're splitting the left of French politics, hurting both which opened up the way for Macron in the first place. It's the same story as in the UK with the Corbyn / centre-left split. the radicals seem to be content with branding themselves as political pariahs because it gains them points with the radical base but is absolutely politically impotent. If you don't like having a centrist or centre-right government, how about make everybody on the centre to the left join up in a big tent rather than balkanizing the political forces? Recognise that political parties aren't ideological factions but coalitions between people with overlapping interest where compromise has to be made. So what you're saying is we need more FPTP and 2 party politics? I mean what you're suggesting is essentially the system we have, with broad coalitions forming two major parties. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Basically to go further I'd say that I don't want party politics at all if it is understood as excluding large parts of society. The US is two party oriented but very antagonistic. I would want as broad and consensus based of a government as possible. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
 Just to tell you that, at least I, don't really give a damn about interal classifications. Classifications have to always from an external, objectivistic look. Otherwise they are worthless. | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22584 Posts
On July 07 2017 03:29 Nyxisto wrote: I don't know if you need a FPTP system because here in Germany we broadly have the same kind of politics without it, but yes I would say that a two faction system, with a centre-right and centre left party in charge is fundamentally more stable and representative of the general population, yes. Extremists by design should not call the shots in democratic societies. Basically to go further I'd say that I don't want party politics at all if it is understood as excluding large parts of society. The US is two party oriented but very antagonistic. I would want as broad and consensus based of a government as possible. Ehm, isn't France already a mostly FPTP system and that is why it suffers from these issues in the first place? | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
What I oppose is simply factionalism regardless of the voting system. If you perceive politics as a zero sum game and all you use democracy for is to hit some other part of society with a club I think you're pretty much done as a country. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 07 2017 04:02 Nyxisto wrote: I'm not sure if it's the system. As I said, you can go to war with each other in FPTP and you can have a fairly consensus based government with a proportional system, both possible. What I oppose is simply factionalism regardless of the voting system. If you perceive politics as a zero sum game and all you use democracy for is to hit some other part of society with a club I think you're pretty much done as a country. Aren't you doing the same if you paint 40% of the voters (in the French case) as left-wing radicals or right-wing radicals and demand that they should please subscribe to a center party, as you don't want them to be in power. You do realize that if you are in the center and proclaim someone a radical for being "far away" from a center opinion (whatever center actually means...), then that radical from his point of view has every right to perceive you as a radical, as you are just as far away from his view as yours is from his, don't you? | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
You can maybe use the 'veil of ignorance' here. Imagine you don't know who you are, you just wake up tomorrow as a random French person, you could be anybody. How would you feel about Le Pen, Mélenchon or Macron? I surely wouldn't take the bet with the first two. If you have a government where that thought experiment doesn't scare you I'd consider it moderate or centrist. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On July 07 2017 03:14 Nyxisto wrote: I don't see the productivity of the Mélenchon / radical left movement. They have no majority either socially or politically and they're splitting the left of French politics, hurting both which opened up the way for Macron in the first place. It's the same story as in the UK with the Corbyn / centre-left split. the radicals seem to be content with branding themselves as political pariahs because it gains them points with the radical base but is absolutely politically impotent. If you don't like having a centrist or centre-right government, how about make everybody on the centre to the left join up in a big tent rather than balkanizing the political forces? Recognise that political parties aren't ideological factions but coalitions between people with overlapping interest where compromise has to be made. Define productivity... Once you lose the presidential, your actual input to the policy led during the next 5 years is close to zero. French institutions are like that, nothing we can do about it. All polls have the FI (Mélenchon's movement) embodying opposition far better than the PS (better than any other party in some polls), so that's what its use is: being the left-wing opposition/alternative to Macron, leading the contestation, giving a voice to the social majority (which would otherwise be quasi-absent from the Parliament...), offering other solutions to the current problems. That's what the opposition does... The PS made the left lose, not the radical left. They were the one who maintained a useless candidature while the radical left had a small to decent chance of reaching the second round. They were the ones who divided the left. Between the one who got 19,58% (= less than 2 points away from qualification) and the one who ended with 6,36%, the result was clear. Social-democrats always expect the support of the radical left when they're in a winnable position, but when the reverse happens social-democrats don't help. Their choice, their responsibility. In 2012, when Hollande reached the second round, even knowing that he would never conduct a left-wing policy, Mélenchon said "vote for him as if he was me". In 2017, when Mélenchon was close to 20%, Hollande said that he was a dictator whose aim was to destroy the Western world. Yes, it actually happened. You talk about splits, but precisely Mélenchon's campaign partly ended the traditional balkanization of the radical left. In 2002 there was 19% at the left of the PS too, but split on 5 candidatures. This time it was united on one. The FI filled a gap. There is no political coherence between the radical left and the centre, that's the point. No stable compromise can be reached because the compatibility is simply non-existent. The political positions are too far from each other and antagonistic. The PS was the "big tent" that you are actually describing. See how it turned out when they had to actually govern after 10 years of easy postures in the opposition: total collapse and explosion. You cannot unite contradictory movements simply because "they're at the left/right of some point"; unless awful systems like FPTP force you to do so, but thankfully we don't have that. There is decent compatibility with left-wing social-democrats (~30% of the PS), and even then there are heavy disagreements, particularly on the EU (they refuse any arm wrestling to change EU treaties). We'll see how things evolve in the next 5 years. I personally expect political polarization/radicalization to continue. If we do well, we'll get many voters because of Macron's policies. First test mid-2019... | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 07 2017 04:25 Nyxisto wrote: They're not just radical by virtue of being politically distanced from me, they're also politically antagonistic towards each other and large parts of the general population. It's not like the French far-right and the French far-left are a homogeneous block. They hate each other just as much as they hate the centre, and not just the upper caste of the establishment, but significant parts of the population. You can maybe use the 'veil of ignorance' here. Imagine you don't know who you are, you just wake up tomorrow as a random French person, you could be anybody. How would you feel about Le Pen, Mélenchon or Macron? I surely wouldn't take the bet with the first two. If you have a government where that thought experiment doesn't scare you I'd consider it moderate or centrist. I wouldn't take the bet with Macron either. Knowing the participation numbers for the last elections, by far the biggest chance is that I wouldn't even care at all about democracy anymore. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On July 07 2017 04:25 Nyxisto wrote: They're not just radical by virtue of being politically distanced from me, they're also politically antagonistic towards each other and large parts of the general population. It's not like the French far-right and the French far-left are a homogeneous block. They hate each other just as much as they hate the centre, and not just the upper caste of the establishment, but significant parts of the population. You can maybe use the 'veil of ignorance' here. Imagine you don't know who you are, you just wake up tomorrow as a random French person, you could be anybody. How would you feel about Le Pen, Mélenchon or Macron? I surely wouldn't take the bet with the first two. If you have a government where that thought experiment doesn't scare you I'd consider it moderate or centrist. People like you are so funny, thinking there is a "circle of reason" somewhere near the centre with competent, pragmatic, modern, "moderate" people who hold the truth; surrounded by a bunch of "extremist populist" who're driven by hate or animal, primitive passions. As "centrist" as he supposedly is, Macron is radical too in his political options... | ||
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Reaps
United Kingdom1280 Posts
On July 07 2017 05:23 TheDwf wrote: People like you are so funny, thinking there is a "circle of reason" somewhere near the centre with competent, pragmatic, modern, "moderate" people who hold the truth; surrounded by a bunch of "extremist populist" who're driven by hate or animal, primitive passions. As "centrist" as he supposedly is, Macron is radical too in his political options... I think you just live in a completely different reality from the majority. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On July 07 2017 05:23 TheDwf wrote: People like you are so funny, thinking there is a "circle of reason" somewhere near the centre with competent, pragmatic, modern, "moderate" people who hold the truth; surrounded by a bunch of "extremist populist" who're driven by hate or animal, primitive passions. As "centrist" as he supposedly is, Macron is radical too in his political options... I don't really know how you got that out of my post. I don't hold that position because I'm feeling superior to anybody else but exactly because I think that anybody's view is limited and that cooperation and moderation are a way to reconcile different views. I see centrism as entirely pragmatic and a way to resolve dispute peacefully, I'm not starting out with it as some holy principle. It's exactly the extremists who think of themselves as righteous and correct, trying to stomp out pluralism. You can't seriously believe that everybody who identifies as moderate sees everybody else as primitive. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On July 07 2017 05:38 Nyxisto wrote: I don't really know how you got that out of my post. I don't hold that position because I'm feeling superior to anybody else but exactly because I think that anybody's view is limited and that cooperation and moderation are a way to reconcile different views. I see centrism as entirely pragmatic and a way to resolve dispute peacefully, I'm not starting out with it as some holy principle. It's exactly the extremists who think of themselves as righteous and correct, trying to stomp out pluralism. You can't seriously believe that everybody who identifies as moderate sees everybody else as primitive. I don't get it from this particular post only, but from your general posting. In my book, what you call "pragmatism" is the way an ideology hides itself to gain credit. Stomping out pluralism is exactly what Macron's family of thought has been doing since the mid-80's. Also contradiction with this post of yours a bit earlier: On July 07 2017 03:29 Nyxisto wrote: but yes I would say that a two faction system, with a centre-right and centre left party in charge is fundamentally more stable and representative of the general population, yes. Extremists by design should not call the shots in democratic societies. Isn't it exactly stomping out pluralism? 1) What you put in the "extremist" box depends on your starting assumptions... which are not shared by everybody. Very easy to mislabel radical options as "extremist" to delegitimize them. 2) When your political system is stable and your centre-left to centre-right pendulum gets 65 to 75% of the votes, "fair enough". But what happens when it represents only 30-40% of the votes? If you decide that the rest should be erased because "extremist," well... | ||
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nojok
France15846 Posts
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KlaCkoN
Sweden1661 Posts
On July 07 2017 06:28 TheDwf wrote: I don't get it from this particular post only, but from your general posting. In my book, what you call "pragmatism" is the way an ideology hides itself to gain credit. Stomping out pluralism is exactly what Macron's family of thought has been doing since the mid-80's. Also contradiction with this post of yours a bit earlier: Isn't it exactly stomping out pluralism? 1) What you put in the "extremist" box depends on your starting assumptions... which are not shared by everybody. Very easy to mislabel radical options as "extremist" to delegitimize them. 2) When your political system is stable and your centre-left to centre-right pendulum gets 65 to 75% of the votes, "fair enough". But what happens when it represents only 30-40% of the votes? If you decide that the rest should be erased because "extremist," well... Well in france the centre-left through centre right 'consensus' got like 64% of the vote in the legislative elections and 50% in the first round presidential. And there is a pretty good argument to be made that a bunch of people who would have preferred PS to FI voted FI anyways for tactical reasons. So this talk about the far left being a social majority doesnt ring very true to me. What does strike me as undemocratic is the complete absence of parliamentary representation for the nationalist right. However didnt Macron promise to introduce some more proportionality to the system? That seems to me be the single most democratic reform he could pursue. | ||
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