[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[nockermensch]

Ordoliberalism

I need the straight dope on Ordoliberalism. I first heard about it a couple of months ago, when a group of friends which I consider being "leftists" were talking about it in largely positive terms. Like "the best parts of capitalism and socialism put together" terms.

[Kaelik]

Never heard the term before today, but from a quick summary, looks a lot like regular fucking captialism with almost no actual leftist anything, but hey, they realized Monopolies might be bad.

So basically, it's like if you took the US anti-trust law, dialed it up to 11, and then repealed all other legislation. Basically, a libertarian hellhole, but with the minor addition of breaking up monopolies, and then still watching a bunch of people starve in gutters while a bunch of companies prove that externalities still exist.

"The Ordoliberal emphasis on the privatization of public services and other public firms such as telecommunication services;[14] wealth redistribution and minimum wage laws as regulative principles makes clear the links between this economic model and the social market economy.[17]"

So apparently they think Minimum Wage laws are for economic regulation, and not because we want people to not starve. Also they want to privatize everything like stupid republicans.

[hyzmarca]

Never heard the term before today, but from a quick summary, looks a lot like regular fucking captialism with almost no actual leftist anything, but hey, they realized Monopolies might be bad.

So basically, it's like if you took the US anti-trust law, dialed it up to 11, and then repealed all other legislation. Basically, a libertarian hellhole, but with the minor addition of breaking up monopolies, and then still watching a bunch of people starve in gutters while a bunch of companies prove that externalities still exist.

"The Ordoliberal emphasis on the privatization of public services and other public firms such as telecommunication services;[14] wealth redistribution and minimum wage laws as regulative principles makes clear the links between this economic model and the social market economy.[17]"

So apparently they think Minimum Wage laws are for economic regulation, and not because we want people to not starve. Also they want to privatize everything like stupid republicans.

I've seen people seriously argue that minimum wage laws are harmful to workers and ultimately cause homelessness and starvation.

[MGuy]

Never heard the term before today, but from a quick summary, looks a lot like regular fucking captialism with almost no actual leftist anything, but hey, they realized Monopolies might be bad.

So basically, it's like if you took the US anti-trust law, dialed it up to 11, and then repealed all other legislation. Basically, a libertarian hellhole, but with the minor addition of breaking up monopolies, and then still watching a bunch of people starve in gutters while a bunch of companies prove that externalities still exist.

"The Ordoliberal emphasis on the privatization of public services and other public firms such as telecommunication services;[14] wealth redistribution and minimum wage laws as regulative principles makes clear the links between this economic model and the social market economy.[17]"

So apparently they think Minimum Wage laws are for economic regulation, and not because we want people to not starve. Also they want to privatize everything like stupid republicans.

I've seen people seriously argue that minimum wage laws are harmful to workers and ultimately cause homelessness and starvation.

An older cousin of mine tried to argue with me that people in the military barely make more money than people working at minimum wage. I'm willing to believe there are people who believe all kind of crazy things about minimum wage.

[DSMatticus]

The notion that minimum wage hikes increase unemployment hasn't held up in the real world. It's based on the theory that a price floor above equilibrium decreases demand and increases supply, leading to an unconsumed surplus. In the labor market, an unconsumed surplus is just called unemployment - more labor is available than is being used. But that theory, in turn, is based on the assumption of a perfectly competitive market at equilibrium, and there is zero reason to believe that the labor market is any such thing. No matter how well-intentioned individual employers may be, labor is fundamentally coercive in nature; you cannot realistically opt not to participate without resigning yourself to a slow death from starvation and exposure.

If the labor market favors employers (as it very obviously does), then a minimum wage is in fact a correcting force that brings us closer to the "perfectly efficient" equilibrium. But even further down the pinko commie rabbithole, the notion that we should treat labor output like a commodity to be economically optimized is fucking absurd. We are talking about human beings and the quality of their life. Obviously it's just fucking better if we have a minimum wage that guarantees a decent life and then counteract any unemployment that causes with public spending projects (because the government has no mandate to profit, and can absolutely just employ people at a loss). But we aren't even at that point. We are at the point where by any sane metrics wages are below what they would be if labor were a healthy, competitive market, and hikes to the minimum wage are objectively an improvement to the economic fundamentals that capitalists beat their dicks to.

[Username17]

You know those stupid equations that Libertarians use to "prove" that market economies are self regulating? Well, Ordoliberalism basically takes those as gospel and determines that therefore all that is needed from our government is to ensure that the economy looks as much like the weird-ass inputs of those equations as possible. So where capitalist apologists assume away monopolies, Ordoliberalists have anti-trust laws; and where capitalist apologists assume that all goods and services are provided by private firms... Ordoliberalists want to privatize everything. Oh, and probably the best part is that those equations assume away government debt and action, so Ordoliberalists want to run zero deficits all the time. And then they ask the economy to regulate itself by having wages go up and down in response to shocks like they were widgets in a micro-economics 101 diagram.

So their vision of how the economy should be run is basically insane and having them inflict it on other countries is hugely damaging and basically the reason everything in Europe is fucked. Their prescription for an ailing Greek economy is to have the government sell off all their major assets, have wages drop like a stone across the country, and have the government cut spending until it isn't running a deficit. So... exactly what Greece was forced to do once German Ordoliberalists got the upper hand. Only, according to their stupid models it was actually supposed to create recovery in Greece instead of the other thing where it crashed the economy into the sun because it's fucking retarded.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

An older cousin of mine tried to argue with me that people in the military barely make more money than people working at minimum wage. I'm willing to believe there are people who believe all kind of crazy things about minimum wage.

http://www.militaryfactory.com/military_pay_scale.asp

In the US, the minimum pay is 1566.90 per month for an E-1. That works out to $18802.8 per year.

For comparison's sake, someone earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would earn $14,500 working 2000 hours in a year (40 hours a week for 50 weeks, 10 days of unpaid sick/vacation time)

You totally can massage the numbers either way by adding up all the benefits military personnel get ( housing and mess halls and medical treatment) or by dividing by the number of hours military are on duty (in extreme cases 168 hours per week).

But the big thing is that any enlisted is going to make e-3 within a couple years tops while is way too many minimum wage workers are going to still be earning minimum wage for a very long time.

[MGuy]

I know at the time and even now I didn't and don't know anyone who worked for minimum wage who also worked full time. When I was younger and worked at White Castle I know my manager worked full time at 8 hours a day so but she made more than minimum.

[DSMatticus]

I believe something like 2/3rds of minimum wage earners are part-time employees. And probably half of those are employees in an industry where working off the clock before and after your shift is standard practice, so in reality they are part-time employees in name - and pay - only. Yes, that's illegal, but it's a thing. We don't actually have unions who are in a position to sue over it, so the lawsuits don't happen.

[erik]

I think more commonly you just get multiple part time jobs at minimum wage and wind up working way over 40 a week but with zero overtime.

[DSMatticus]

Ehh... only something like 5% of the workforce holds two jobs, and counter-intuitively those typically aren't minimum wage earners. There's a tentative correlation between states with lots of moonlighters and seasonal agricultural industries, so it looks a lot like a niche thing. In the general sense, lots of low-paying part time jobs are in the service industry, where your schedule will be inconsistent and erratic. Trying to pick up a second job just means forcing your bosses to schedule around you every single week, which they will get sick of real fast. Meanwhile, an average of one new Subway franchise is found to be violating wage and hour laws every single day - back in 2010, and that number has gone up every single year since. Between the franchise model (in which the franchisor takes no responsibility for employer misconduct at individual franchises) and the total lack of unions (which means calling bullshit on all the unpaid labor you're doing requires lawyering up on your own, have fun paying for that on minimum wage oh wait nevermind your boss fired you for giving him shit have fun paying for that unemployed), the system is completely broken. It is designed so that the buck stops as far as down the ladder as possible, and any attempts to hunt the buck will be done naked and alone.

This is seriously a real thing. Unpaid labor is the norm. If you work in the service industry at a major franchise, you are going to do unpaid labor and you aren't going to be able to do shit about it. It's actually going through the courts right now whether or not we should start classifying franchises as joint employers, which is to say should the franchising corporation be responsible for the conduct of its franchises with respect to working conditions. That would be a small improvement, but don't hold your breath.

[nockermensch]

Thanks for the explanations regarding Ordoliberalism, they tell indeed a different story than the one I heard. My friends were mostly impressed by a system that, some argue (they couldn't tell me the sources), implemented capitalistic competition, but collected taxes and did social welfare with them.

Their awe probably has less to do with this system's merits and more with Brazil being so incredibly behind in such arcane concepts as "basic human dignity" that the media here cried and still cries Communism! when the Worker's Party Government gave food security to 40 millions of people. The junta currently in power already announced their plans to cut this program in 75%, so that 30 million people can go back to starving to death, just as God and nature intended.

[Schleiermacher]

Thanks for the explanations regarding Ordoliberalism, they tell indeed a different story than the one I heard. My friends were mostly impressed by a system that, some argue (they couldn't tell me the sources), implemented capitalistic competition, but collected taxes and did social welfare with them.

That's not exactly a new invention. But here in Norway, we call it social democracy.

[Username17]

So anyway, the votes are in for Austria and the Nazi lost to the Green. So now Austria has a Green President instead of an Austrian painter for its Fuhrer.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

well, at least some people have a modicum of common sense . .

[Schleiermacher]

Are the Austrian Greens the same kind of slightly centre-leaning ecoliberals that you get elsewhere in Europe (as modified for the local Overton Window) or are they something more unusual?

[erik]

Ehh... only something like 5% of the workforce holds two jobs, and counter-intuitively those typically aren't minimum wage earners.

Hrm. I actually don't know what my preconceptions were founded on. Heck, my wife works only one part time job (though not minimum wage) and last year she got shafted on unpaid hours (only 15 of them, but still, that's like a week unpaid for her). A few of my coworkers work multiple jobs, but they're making above minimum wage at full time in their first job and the seconds are just extra money gigs for weekends or after hours. So really even my anecdotal experience lines up with what you were saying. Closest I have is me, where my job is all at one employer but cobbled from several different roles which were initially pitched to me as making a full time job by combining part time ones (ophthalmic scribe, ophthalmic technician, ophthalmic surgical technician, EMR technician/coder, IT, muscle). Employee reviews are hard since nobody knows what to call my job, but it's way more interesting than being a cardiac tech ever was.

[Username17]

Are the Austrian Greens the same kind of slightly centre-leaning ecoliberals that you get elsewhere in Europe (as modified for the local Overton Window) or are they something more unusual?

Basically yes. They are socially liberal and promote minority rights and feminism, and have strong opinions about environmental issues (these strong opinions vary as the issues of the day change, the party got its start in the early 80s from the anti-nuclear movement, while obviously today the big villain of environmentalism is coal). On other economic issues, they are center-leftists. Their support comes from mostly educated urban liberal types, and they do better with women than men. So it's basically the prius democrats from the United States.

Best story of Die Grunen: they showed up to parliament wearing sneakers and jeans and built a literal man of straw to be their parliamentary leader when told that they were required to name their leader.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Basically yes. They are socially liberal and promote minority rights and feminism, and have strong opinions about environmental issues (these strong opinions vary as the issues of the day change, the party got its start in the early 80s from the anti-nuclear movement, while obviously today the big villain of environmentalism is coal). On other economic issues, they are center-leftists. Their support comes from mostly educated urban liberal types, and they do better with women than men. So it's basically the prius democrats from the United States.

This sounds like every Greens party I know. What's the American Greens party like?

Best story of Die Grunen: they showed up to parliament wearing sneakers and jeans and built a literal man of straw to be their parliamentary leader when told that they were required to name their leader.

This is the best thing ever.

[Username17]

What's the American Greens party like?

The people who would be Greens in America are Democrats, because it's a two party system and all interest groups who want to be actually represented need to get into one of the two tents. So the literal Green party is composed of clueless anti-establishment hippies who don't understand how the system works, environmentalist protest voters who want to "send a message," and a small cadre of left wing gamblers who are keeping the flame alive of an extra party on the left in case the Democratic Party crashes and burns like the Whigs and they are ready to step up and fill the void with instant shots at the presidency and shit. There are a few parties like that on the Left and Right (Peace and Freedom and Working Families on the Left; Reform, American Independent, and Libertarian on the Right).

Right now, Gary Johnson's chances of leading a major party by having the per se Republicans fall apart after this election cycle and letting the Libertarian Party become the defacto national party of right wing sentiment are looking way better than I would have thought. A year ago I would have said that the chances of that happening were less than one percent. But now I'd say it's more like one in six.

-Username17

[Parthenon]

So I went to a debate on the Brexit referendum from a left wing perspective. Very left wing, so there was a lot of talk about worker solidarity and advertising an event called Marxism about lots of debates. One table in the corner was selling books on Trotsky, Marx etc.

And there was a lot of talk about the idea that the left wing view should be to leave the EU. Aside from the talk about the European Central Bank forcing austerity and fucking over Greece being part of the central tenets of the EU, the EU court often being on the side of businesses over worker rights, etc, one main argument was that the UK should leave the EU because it will heavily damage the conservative party to such an extent that either they will be forced to hold a new election, or that they will be weak enough that the government will be moved to the left and things can be made better.

It involved such ideas as that NATO doesn't stop Russia landgrabbing parts of the EU and instead worker solidarity and people on the ground will stop it. And NATO should be gotten rid of because it is terrible and involved with bombing other countries for no reason.

Oh, and that the 2.4 million EU immigrants working and living here won't actually be kicked out and the 2.2 million brits wouldn't be kicked back in because of reasons and that it would be too bad to consider so it wouldn't actually happen. And as long as the left works hard together it won't happen.

And that leaving the EU would actually increase free movement of people. Because of reasons. I'm not sure I understood those reasons at all, but they were talking as if they had them.

It was actually pointed out a couple of times that there is no actual next step after leaving the EU towards something better, and that while in theory a Brexit could be coopted by the left theres nothing actually there to stop the right taking over. But that wasn't actually answered properly.

I'm probably slightly exaggerating it and missing some out, but it seemed very weird to me.

[MGuy]

Did they speak on how they plan on keeping the Right from gaining anymore popularity? (Not sure what the 'right' is in the EU)

[DSMatticus]

Here is the problem. The fascists aren't going to disappear because they lose a referendum. Their momentum isn't going to be reversed because they lose a referendum. They are going to keep being there, and they are probably going to continue being the single fastest growing political force in Europe. Right now, we are on the road to fascism. Eventually they will have a large enough bloc of support to win the referendum and the elections outright, and then we will get the worst-possible case EU exit.

The goal is to prevent that - the part where they grow into an unstoppable force and they get everything they want and it's as terrible as it could be. So, why are they growing so fucking fast? Part of it is straight-up racism. There are immigrants and refuges and those people are the wrong people fuck the EU. But a lot of it is also the general perception that the EU is an incompetent, undemocratic clusterfuck and the fascists are pretty much the only ones promising to tear it down. To some extent, we really can cut the fascists back to their racist authoritarian roots by doing something about the EU's blatant mismanagement.

So, what the fuck can we do?

1) Well, in a perfect world we would create the United States of Europe - a powerful, democratic federal government that isn't just German conservatives wrecking Europe for fun and profit. I hate to be the one to tell you, but this isn't happening. People have been trying this for fifty years, and it's failed. People tried this when the EU was actually fucking popular, and it failed. We are not going to succeed now.

2) We could tear it all down and retreat it into our respective corners. No immigrants! No refuges! Walls on the borders! Every man for himself! Maybe war if you piss me off! This is bad. This is very bad. This is total economic collapse in Europe/Cold War 2/World War 3 bad. This is what the fascists will do.

3) We can tear it all down while the people in charge still see some value in renegotiating treaties to preserve the peace and economy of Europe. In some cases, we are literally already too late. The EU has two undemocratic fascist-in-all-but-name governments. It is entirely possible that the next UK government will be a Johnson-Farage coalition. Austria came this close to electing a fascist president, and that bodes very poorly for their next elections. I'm sorry to say but in the fight against fascism we have already lost several battles and are poised to lose several more. There might not be a happy ending for the people of Poland or Hungary, and there are others riding the razor's edge right now. But this does in fact address one of the grievances that is driving people into the arms of fascism, and does open up any progressive government that manages to get elected to pursue the monetary and fiscal strategies they need to prove their worth to the voters. As opposed to what happened to Syriza, which is that despite being correct they still ended up the laughing stock of Europe.

I am obviously all for #3. Every other solution I've seen is some variety of "stick your head in the sand and wait for the fascists to go away (they won't)" or "pray for a sudden leftist turn across the entirety of Europe (the sudden turn appears to be going the other way)". To me, it's pretty fucking simple. Accept the damage that has already been done and contain the source before it spreads. The longer we just hope things will get magically better the worse they will in fact actually get.

[Username17]

The fascists aren't going to disappear because they lose a referendum. Their momentum isn't going to be reversed because they lose a referendum.

But equally similarly, giving them everything they want now isn't going to make them go away or slow down their momentum at all. Giving them everything they want is giving them everything they want! There is no part where tearing down the international agreements gives us new international agreements that are better. If we get any replacements at all, they will be worse. They will be worse because they will be negotiated at a point where the Hard Right just won a very large, very public victory and has unprecedented influence over negotiations from both sides of every table.

2) We could tear it all down and retreat it into our respective corners.

3) We can tear it all down while the people in charge still see some value in renegotiating treaties to preserve the peace and economy of Europe.

Your option 3 looks exactly like option 2, because they are the same option. If you give in to the hard right's demands to tear it down, then it will be the hard right negotiating with itself to determine what the state of international agreements look like. That is how parliamentary democracy works. Winners write the treaties, not losers.

-Username17

[maglag]

The longer we just hope things will get magically better the worse they will in fact actually get.

That's fucking hilarious, considering that your plan still is:
1-Tear down the EU. Aka what the fascists want.
2-???????????????????????????????????
3-Magically everything gets better!