I think the biggest mistake that the left made was putting a lot of emphasis on the state and on centralized power per se (I would trace this to battle between communists and anarchists - the good side lost).
The idea of "helping the poor", while important (I am not ranting against the welfare state) should be second to "(self)empowering the poor". And here I am thinking in the good old anarcho-sindicalist approach of self-learning, community centres, community empowerment, community solidarity.
Self-reliance in the sense that we need people that can think for themselves and be proactive, not just consumer/slaves, but also producers/artisans.
Self-reliance in the small-scale communal sense. Where people know their neighbor, share their part of their fate and help.
Some might say that the Internet brings back some of this. I would be inclined to agree.
I all places that I know of, there are public libraries with capacity for public access. If you are in cities, you most probably have a library.
But the point is not about resources but willingness. Willingness to take charge of your life and self-improve.
Maybe, some top-down strategies have reinforced low self-esteem and low pro-activity. This in the sense that you are feed, sheltered and dressed by the state: It feels better if you are able, by yourself, to provide.
Disclaimer: This is not a argument against the welfare state (which should be there and is too small for current needs).
But "self-reliance" is an idea that was abandoned by progressives, hijacked by the right. But it is a good idea: You will only fight for your rights if you believe that they are really your rights and you believe you are strong enough to fight for them.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
I am not ranting against the welfare state (you should not have to beg for unemployment benefit, better yet minimum assured income for all). The same about formal education (although I would discuss that it alone is enough as empowerment).
I am just saying that there is another side that was forgotten: (self)strengthening of self-assurance and self-reliance of people (and communities!) less well-off. It is more a process where people (partially by their own) get to trust their own abilities and capacities.
That is a bottom-up approach (notice that it doesn't involve any charity from private parties) and very different from a top-down approach where the state takes care of your welfare. Both are possible and not contradictory. One based only on state help is, in my view, condescending and diminishing to people that got unlucky at some point in time.
Political change through strong, informed, active participation of the majority. I am just claiming that there was too much energy spent on "taking power", where some should have been on cultivating grassroots.
Peer-to-peer is a step in the good direction.
My mistake was to put this argument in the context of American self-reliance (stupid framing of my part). I just saw it as a bait to bring the subject up.
Strong individuals (which have the right to get state help in time of distress but do not have the psychological traits of beggars - especially because they have enough self-esteem). A culture of self-learning, self-improvement, self-belief.
Strong local communities also. Atomization is probably one of the biggest causes fat cats can get away so easily (as they are organized, and have lobbies).
Self-reliance not only on an individual level but also at a community level.
This is not incompatible with a strong welfare state. In fact our individualist culture produced individuals that are completely dependent on a fictional society. What was promoted was promoted by new "labour" types, was above all, egoism.
I guess I want to see you define how your programme and framing differ from those of Third Wayists on the European Center-Left, not just from those of American liberals and conservatives. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
These relationships are what should be fleshed out, to make it different and leftist. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Maybe 10 years ago a shoe factory bankrupted somewhere in north Portugal (cheaper Chinese products were starting to arrive). The thing got on public TV, and they were interviewing people. One of the women working there was desperate. What struck me the most was the attitude. She was begging for some entrepreneur to go there and "take care of them". The response was not either to take the issue in their own hands (and maybe become self-employed - "The American Way"(TM)) or demand the right to state support (which, by the way, she had and for at least two years - at an approximate income level of her salary). No, the way out, in her head was to beg for new masters (and note, they were making a ridiculous low salary with bad working conditions). Next to her was the union leader (which I happen to know), a hard-line trotskyist. We was quite comfortable with that attitude. That woman, might have a job today, but doesn't even know her rights and has the aspirations of being a slave. This is an attitude that I see on people around (starting in my own family), but that TV shot, by being so vivid, so desperate and so clear, stuck.
I contrast this with some very old anarcho-sindicalists that I know: born into poverty, minimal education. But they educated themselves, mostly in union created community centres with small libraries and such.
The only thing missing IMHO has been a non-toxic legal and financial structure to implement what are essentially Cooperatives of service providers in partnership with Cooperatives of service users. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
It's hard if you don't grow up with that mindset to understand how pervasive it is, how confidently you can walk into a bank or an office and feel that you have what it takes to work hard and take charge of things.
I have another friend who grew up in a huge mansion, and it's the same for him - he's very socially self-assured at board level, very comfortable hiring and firing people, and almost supernaturally aware of his own position in the pecking order and the relative positions of the people around him. He's not a bad person, but his education has left its mark.
If your education is working class, you don't get any of that kind of support or reinforcement. Yes, you can become self-employed - probably in a trade - but if you're of average intelligence and don't have any experience of banking, loans, taxes, employment law, and so on, setting yourself up with a small business is incredibly daunting. Turning a small business into a big business is even harder.
I don't have an answer to this. But I don't think it's just about getting the facts out and telling people that they have options.
But I'd distinguish between community and class consciousness. I think the Progressive idea of community is largely wishful thinking - I don't think 'good' communities ever actually existed.
Most real communities would have been harsh places, and some people will have paid a high price for the economic solidarity they offered.
The problem is the high rate of television ownership. Where does the decision come from to purchase a TV instead of a computer?
One would have to look at the statistics, I suppose...
dti.uk was on about compliance with the EU mandate to migrate analog to digital since 1998, captured market, tax + VAT or no tax. (have you noticed, that and the HH council poll tax are subjects Britons are loathe to challenge.)
Here, coleman's ignorance of planned obsolescence of band (FM/AM/BB/WiFi) auctioned concessions demonstrates one thing: parliamentarian resistance in Ireland to not-free market communication.
Booyah. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Also, are we endorsing the use of a TV as a nanny, now? Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Not to belabour the point, but I think that the argument that Internet access is limited by cost is fairly soft.
Perhaps the technical knowledge issue is more important. One can construct an excellent high-performance workstation from parts obtained by end-of-term dumpster diving at Colorado College. However, the rich college kids take their TVs back home with them...
It would be almost unheard of for all but the absolute poorest families not to have at least one PC now. It's practically a school requirement.
I was talking to a friend who does front-line adult ed in some of the rougher part of London earlier in the week, and she was saying that many of her pupils have surprisingly solid basic IT skills.
What they don't have is the ability to write and spell well enough to get a job that lets them use them.
It's not a good computer, or a computer that I'd buy, but it'll let you got on ET or YouTube without a hitch.
OTOH, design life might be a problem. Because most people replace their computers every few years, they seem to have a design life of only about five years, whereas a TV's design life can easily be ten years - heck, fifteen if you're lucky.
I've never actually owned a TV, so I don't know what a cheap TV costs.
- Jake
[1] For the tower - give it another hundred for screen, keyboard and mouse. Unless you can inherit those - they usually last longer than the box they come with (my own screen and keyboard are on their third or fourth tower). If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
most people replace their computers every few years
um, no. this is fallacy brought from yon by stale corporate HW/software investment stats. turnover/upgrade has been in decline since the dot com crash -- explaining in part, for example, the conspicuous IBM exit from PC (enter Lonovo) by 2005 that complemented its lucrative syst-integration rent biz, H-P and Dell cycles of revenue shocks.
the "early adopter" segment of semiconductor/GUI market is small but very vocal: consider how often and how many column inches MSM gives "analysts." blogging environments are actually fine proxy for purchase incentives and planned obsolescence promulgated by such users... in turn explaining why commentors here have trouble imagining (1) working poor have no time for IP; (2) children of the poor are not barriers to public PC access, when extended family are primarily childcare providers, in any case, to Ideal™ parent custody.
nonetheless, like that of the passenger vehicle, the life-cycle of the desktop PC and other durables in consumer households exceeds allowed depreciation schedules by a factor of 3, easily. however, one could attribute moore's law in semi, expansive consumer credit, and kewl cross-platform entertainment/ISP functionalities (e.g. PSP, Nintendo ?!, "3G" mobile/cell) to erosion of PC replacement market. yeah, actually more people worldwide own mobile/cell than either tv or PC.
Check out this public monitor on penetration by device by region (dig): internetworldstats.com ... Asia's density has been ahead of ROW for sometime ...
OMG, mapnet is back up!!! Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
The number of people who buy a TV just to watch DVDs is small indeed and broadcast TV if being phased out in favour of cable subscriptions where it still exists, even in Western Europe.
In the UK watching broadcast TV requires a TV licence with periodic payments, too... Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
No it wasn't. It is true that the bottom-up elements of socialism have been neglected by social democrats, socialists and especially post-Soviet communists and 'communists'. But it was pretty apparent in the "autonomous" movements emerging in the sixties, and there is a strong emphasis on it among Greens, too. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Which is also true for the whole empowerment thing: The Danish left very much does individual empowerment, within a framework of collective empowerment. There usually isn't any contradiction at the level of policy, even if some might argue that there is at the level of principle (I happen to disagree, but the case can be made).
There are nuances of course, and there's still a decidedly Euroskeptic wing. But first, the EU has evolved so that it is more and more a genuine federal construct rather than a GATT-lite free fraud zone. Second, the Scandinavian red-green left has realised this fact (although they were a bit slow on the uptake). And third, these days the EU sometimes, and on some issues, has a more progressive policy than Denmark.
The importance of this last point should not be underestimated: There used to be an entirely valid critique of the EU on the grounds that it insisted on dragging environmental standards, workplace regulation, labour market policy and provision of government services down to German levels in the name of standardisation and free trade. These days, it's dragging our environmental standards, at least, up to German levels in the name of standardisation and free trade, and pulling more or less even on the general provision of government services (although the EU's Conventional Wisdom on labour market regulation continues to abhor me).
Partly, this is about the EU getting better, but frankly a lot of it is about Denmark regressing. You might call it a pretty standard case of rediscovery of the value of checks and balances that every political faction makes when they're out of power for an extended period of time :-P
One of the big debates during this fall has been the debate over the swedish implementation of IPRED, in particular clauses on giving the copyright industries legislative support for running blackmail scams. The standard argument as to why this was proposed was for a long time the governments cry: EU makes us do it!
The case of Promusicae vs Telefónica has gained quite some reputation and that argument was smashed, though I suspect it will linger. In particular as everything points to the bill being passed before christmas despite pretty overwhelming negative public opinions. The Greens and the Left party (think Linke) are on the side of information freedom here, though the issues are mainly pushed by the Pirate party. The Soc Dems tend to land on that side to, but that is mainly because they are in opposition, they supported the directive when they were in power.
In general, EUs public image is taking a beating here, and the green-red are those that stand mainly to gain in polls from it. To counter this and increasing support for the ugly party (mainly protestvotes agianst the establishment) the largest ruling party - Moderaterna - is going to run on a nationalistic platform in the EP elections.
So I expect the Greens and left to continue on a EU sceptic course, as the votes are there. Though the Greens do - after internal referendum - no longer propose Sweden leaving the EU. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
JakeS:
That doesn't apply any more, and hasn't for some years.
That may be true in Denmark, and is probably, as you later imply, because of the rightward progress of the Danes' recent descent through Night and Fogh.
But my client informs me in no uncertain terms that Norwegians are in fact becoming increasingly pissed off with:
(a) EU financial demands in respect of EEA fees payable - the Lion's share being Norway's.
(b) perceived EU intrusions into areas Norwegians hold sacrosanct, in particular, property rights and the relationship between public and private sectors.
Only today we see Norway's (very left wing and feisty, but constrained by her office) finance minister in Brussels telling the Commission where to get off in relation to Norway's superior (more than double, at current exchange rates) level of guarantees for bank deposits. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
i'd say the internet reveals how common this need is, and proposes a new, globalised community building, ala facebook, Kos, ET.
we have taken one step back, a big one, socially speaking , and two steps forward with technology.
many have whiplash...
as yet so much remains virtual, and small potatoes sociopolitically. as tool for social transformation it has barely revealed its promise, i'm with sven on this, there are all sorts of activism only possible with the new tech, the necessary hiving is not there yet.
me and a friend were fantasising today how if a world sit-down strike were planned, a type of moral blackmail (whitemail?) till all guns were lowered.
we have much more power than we think we have or to use, but the requisite levels of disgust at the present global mismanagement are still rising.
i still dream of a bloodless (R)evolution, not only because i'm squeamish, but because anything else will create further shit down the line to suffer. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
