Getting back to Piketty’s theories, it looks like he’s just been given a perfect example of his theories playing out in what is currently Spain.
Here, the centre-left PSOE might be unable to form a government, because they refuse to work with the left wing populists in Podemos, and instead want to form a coalition with the right-wing and fiercely anti-autonomist Citizens party.
In the film METROPOLIS, the liberal is represented by Freder, the carefree son of a wealthy capitalist who one day learns of the harsh conditions of the workers toiling below the city and becomes sympathetic to their plight. In the end, after quelling a labor uprising that jeopardizes the machines that fuel the entire system, Freder acts as the mediator (heart) between the capitalists (head) and laborers (hands) – allowing the system of exploitation to persist.
(Another great commentary on this is the really funny short-lived sitcom Better Off Ted, about an affable and moral middle management type who works for a cartoonishly evil super-conglomerate. The comedy derives from Ted trying to sustain the company by insulating it from its own corporate malpractice and evil initiatives).
Reagan and Thatcher (or even Carter and Clinton, if you prefer) were merely evangelical avatars of a larger plutocrat agenda that was backed by Milton Friedman’s neo-cloassical economics orthodoxy. Remember that Friedman’s ideas were first tested out in Pinochet’s Chile; where inflation was 200% in the early 70s prior to Pinochet’s installation. The “Miracle of Chile” became the blueprint for rolling out the neoclassical agenda globally and the specter of runaway inflation (the stagflation of the 70s was still fresh in peoples minds) became the rebuttal to traditional Keynesian approaches to economic stabilization.
The names change: Reaganomics, Thatcherism, Supply-Side Economics, Trickle-down Economics, Austerity etc – but it’s all the same flavor of shit sandwich and both sides have been complicit in doubling down on it. In the 90s, those ideas started to be codified into bad policies like NAFTA and the establishment of the EU monetary union. The latter, for instance, eliminated the monetary and fiscal sovereignty of a large proportion of the 1st world’s governments, so they couldn’t spend themselves out of recession if they wanted to (so much for MMT).
These are people with agency. They’re not puppets. They made choices, from a variety of choices open to them as political leaders. Calling them “evangelic avatars” lets them off the hook far too much, in my opinion. It’s true that others created the intellectual discourse to made it possible, but at the end of the day, they implemented those policies (in some cases with Congress/Parliament, sometimes without). You can also say that the conservative parties they represented also enabled them.
And if you’ll read my posts upthread, you’ll see I’m very much putting the into a longer historical context, not just assuming that it was entirely novel.
Fair point. Although, to be perfectly honest, I’m not convinced Reagan was much more than a puppet, frankly. He was important to the rise of neoliberalism as a figurehead, mostly; a familiar face Americans trusted at a time when their trust in government was failing and he’d been a competent shill for oligarchs for decades already (in the 60s he was recruited to record propaganda about the evils of universal healthcare).* I may have overstated the matter in regards to Thatcher; not being from the UK I can’t speak very intelligently about that – but I had always assumed that she played a similar role among Brits. Which is not to absolve either of them; I think they believed in what they were doing. My point was just that the movement was bigger than them and just the Right in general.
*To the point, Reagan’s still kinda beloved. He’s remembered a lot more fondly by than Thather is by Brits.
Given that he had a hard right view point well before he ran for president the first time, I don’t think I agree. Even if most of his presidency included him already succumbing to Alzheimer’s, that most certainly wasn’t the case when he ran in 76. I’m sure back then, and even in the 80 election, he had a hand in shaping his platforms to a decent degree. All presidencies (and Prime Ministerships) are collectively enacted, and presidents have varying levels of involvement in crafting policies, from those who are hands off and give out broad statements about policy to those who are interested in the nitty-gritty details.
I’m sure some of the Brits here can speak to this better (@anon73430903 has a wonderful grasp of British politics), but Thatcher was very much fighting against her own party in many cases. As a woman, she had to struggle, and as such was very tough. She also had a strong sense of what she wanted to accomplish. Of the 2, she was more instrumental in shaping policy, in part because so much of how their system works is from the government down to parliament. PM sets the agenda, and parliament is there to debate and implement, and finally the Queen signs… (again, the Brits will set me right). In the US, the executive can push for a particular agenda, but Congress is able to pass what they want to pass.
Not by me… or Killer Mike.
I agree, but I’d argue that they were two figures who had a great deal of power in getting it implemented and they were active participants in that.
As @anon61221983 suggests, Thatcher was no figurehead. There were some shady characters encouraging her (Keith Joseph comes to mind and I’d need to refresh my memory with some googling to name others) and she hardly invented that stuff herself, but she was instrumental and was a true believer and activist - she loved the economics of it and was a fervent ‘public bad/private good, low tax, let the people spend their own money’ advocate, and hell-bent on reducing the size of the state. Yes, Reagan may have been more of a figurehead - in fact I think Thatcher found him useful to her cause too, to some extent, as a figurehead. When the two of them presented a ‘partnership/united front’ it was often easy to suspect she was the one wearing the trousers, so to speak.
And (for Reagan) I think everything that was done “in his name” during his two terms were very much in line with his political philosophy while he was perfectly of sound mind. I doubt he would have done much different if he had been perfectly cognizant during those 8 years.
For better or worse, coming from a Corbyn supporter, he is a polarising character. Any new referendum with Corbyn unequivocally supporting Remain would very quickly become a referendum about how much you dislike Corbyn.
Just like the last one based on yet more lies and distractions.
Corbyn is better off staying neutral on this.
Perhaps so, but the only way out of this mess is a Labour government calling for a second referendum. If Corbyn can’t do at least that as PM, he needs to step down from the leadership.
Luckily, that’s exactly what their position now is.
However, they’re so bitterly divided, that it’s taken until now to get any position at all agreed.
More generally, it actually now appears as if the UK parties have distinct positions on Brexit that people could vote on in an election. The lib Dems are fire revoke A50 and remain, Labour are for a confirmatory referendum, the tories are for intimidating the EU into giving us unicorns, the Brexit party want no deal with anyone, ever, and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists want to man the lifeboats and escape this long, drawn out political nightmare.
To bring all of this back round to the main topic again, the UK was one of the places that exemplified Piketty’s thesis of an ever narrowing of political differences into two culturally distinct wings of dull grey managerialist capitalism, until the underlying issues broke forth into the current chaos.
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