I am personally for radical direct democracy, nothing less, nothing more, because I view the political as trumping the economic, feel free to purge me once the revolution is there but I am interested if there are other “alternative” takes
I am personally for radical direct democracy, nothing less, nothing more, because I view the political as trumping the economic, feel free to purge me once the revolution is there but I am interested if there are other “alternative” takes
it’s your opinion, to me political institutions do, or at least can, meaningfully constrain the economy and its form, it is political will that led to the construction of soc democracies and to a non inclusion of the ussr in the market economy. On your edit, there are little to no natural laws, I reject that classical consensus, same reason I am not a marxist, I do not agree with the theory from Smith and Riccardo already, you might disagree or call me a post modernist but they still do not describe well today’s world
The ruling class did not buy into social democracy because it politically made sense, it didn't, they bought in because of the material promises of Keynesian economic theory applied to macroeconomies in the post war era, it gave them a means to sustain their social position and wealth, it gave them a economic and material counter to the promises of soviet transitional state capitalism
But just like the economics of Keynesianism made social democracy it also broke it, it undermined the political institutions that you claim could constrain and form it, and this is the problem with "modernists", history and data don't meaningfully exist in your conception of social organization, so you just end up asserting idealistic narratives that are constantly contradicted by what we observe, which is neoliberalism distilled
neoliberalism is the epitome of politics over the economy since it doesn’t make sense for the continuity of either the institutions or the economy, in Europe for exemple, but the whole political class now was in school in the 90s and so internalized austerity and personal responsibility into its worldview, I do look at data and history, just beyond a sole economic or materialist view
Incorrect, neoliberalism as a historical phenomenon is the triumph of capital mobility over the constraining national politics of the westphalian nation-states, it is capital economism bursting out like a Xenomorph to devour all political and social barriers to the accumulation of capital, neoliberalism was born in the midst of the capital strikes of the 70's and only fully realized politically half a decade later in the electoral victories of Thatcher and Reagan
Again your political institutions stood no chance when the political economy underlying it revolted against the social and political assumptions of said institutions
that’s your opinion, its reproduction is clearly through institutional biases and an avowed powerlessness of the state, yes it coincides with capital, through ideology as much as material conditions in the past, and now almost solely as ideology, neoliberalism in Germany, France or Spain is not a necessity for capital since government contracts are their own incentive to keep a strong state and taxation, it is will by ideologues to have reality conform to their neat ideas about the world, same with the ecb who doesn’t want inflation, it is not because of any material circumstance, it is just a bias towards the monetary doctrine borne out of, again, their education, and so the political, since it is not the sole capitalist doctrine
This is almost incomprehensible compared to the political economy over the political thesis.
in all honesty i do believe that every single part of the human system matters, but that for political purposes the political takes precedence or at least can, I am definitely not just a materialist though since i consider ideas and most importantly institutions, if equal weight, it is messy because it is fragmented and would take a full novel or more to outline everything
If ideas are so central to the rise of neoliberalism, why was it implemented more or less simultaneously in multiple ideologically independent regions of the world?
what do you mean ideologically independent? if you believe in the class analysis no ideology of the top is independent and if you look at history US-EU ties plus american advisers in south america and the former ussr territory, plus the hegemony of the us in media, plus the predominance of neolibs in the scientific publications of the time, which later seeped into the higher education are clear explanations
Its reproduction is sustained by a global investor class that realize its goals thru the institutions of those countries, this is what I mean when I claim modernists have no conception of history or in this case class, instead of recognizing the material incentives of a CLASS of people who wish to preserve their social position against the historical pressures of socialist movements, you instead mystify the education of government technocrats, mistaking selection pressures in political organization for determining the causation of neoliberalism
Ideology is not sustained in a vacuum of ideas, and the only "necessity" capital is motivated by is unrestrained accumulation of more capital, an internal logic that contradicts the idealistic narrative of class collaboration you've been alluding to
believe what you want, not everything is around class, and certainly goal realization, since the ideology goes against the local bourgeois, and if you give some if the what about the larger class, that’s the point, it might have been, on neoliberalism, at some point, driven by class antagonism but it is now just pure ideology who seeped internationally, regardless of material conditions, we are not going into a service and idea economy for nothing, the immaterial (not in the internet sense) infrastructure affects us as much, and I would argue more, than the material conditions
The material resources of the local bourgeois can not match that of the national and global investor class which is why the dominant ideology reflects the interests of the largest capitalist blocs, which again follows from the internal logic of capitalism, the largest accumulators determine the shape and expression of the dominant political philosophy and to claim neoliberal ideology is no longer concerned with class antagonism is genuinely one the most bizarre statements I've read in a while, neoliberal ideology is class antagonism made manifest, it's an utter rejection of social democratic class collaboration and an expression of the will of the capitalists to dominate the global working class, I'm starting to suspect you don't really have a coherent grasp on the terms you're using: Just what do words like class, ideology, and capitalism actually mean to you?
We're not going into an "idea" economy we're heading into a DATA economy where capitalist blocs compete for collective organizational data to undermine both competitors and national labor rights, it's the evolution of neoliberalism into its digitalist stage, its highest form
you’re missing the point and reiterating the same point which again, in practice, doesn’t pan out, neoliberalism is not effective for capitalism ie continued accumulation of surplus, but the leaders’ ideology, ie their belief there is no other reasonable way, means that they continue policies who do not benefit anyone, even more for the ecb monetarism, as proven with covid and earlier qe, capitalists prefer stimulus, it just isn’t in the central bankers’ realm of possibility
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not absolutely nor solely, I think other things come with it as well, being the reason why countries shift while others don’t under similar economic circumstances (Us vs europe now, europe vs france in the 80s, asian continued integration of SOEs, long sold by the europeans...)
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being formerly revolutionary or an ally to the empire, or an hegemon, or a banana republic, is deeply political, and dictated in large part by international relation (france seat in the un security council, colonies being integrated into circles of influences, independance of saudi arabia and not other oil producing countries...)
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