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Chaos in France after Macron refuses to name prime minister from leftwing coalition
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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I have just pointed out that both sides have extreme views that are dangerous.
What extreme views are coming from the left side?
The right side is fascism, the left side is plans to raise the monthly minimum wage, impose price ceilings on essential foods, electricity, gas and petrol, repeal Macron’s deeply unpopular decision to raise the retirement age to 64, and invest massively in the green transition and public services.
How are those 'exteme' and 'dangerous'?
Exactly those are the views you mentioned. All these are extremely expensive and financing all of them without the debt increase is practically impossible. Combine it with almost no relevant plans how to improve economy and you have got quite a dangerous situation. You cannot just spend money without earning it.
Raising the standard of living and improving the purchasing power of the individual DOES improve the economy because it enables more people to spend more on foods and services. They are financed by raising taxes on the ultra wealthy and corporations. The money is already earned, the difference it whether it gets pocketed and horded by executives or recirculated into the economy by improving the standard of living of the populace
Those ultra wealthy people and corporations are not that stupid. If they see they can exist and pay less in a different country, they will just move. Everyone will be happy apart from the country which rose the taxes.
Of course that rising living standards improves economy but not in a way where you just sponsor good housing for your whole population.
Not true, High Taxes Don't Make Rich People Move
Europe disagrees, infact they site that increasing access to good public housing is critical for the economy going forward
Well sure they don’t flee New York, California and other places where despite high taxes they can still make large amounts of money. Simply because most of development is there. If they can make 50k a month and pay 50% taxes in NY (just an example) compared to 10k and 10% taxes somewhere else (they would just stay).
However, this is not California/NY and you can easily check what high taxes do here. People register companies in Ireland and Cyprus, so they can pay the least taxes possible. Then, due to european union being european union, they can operate in their home country.
We've already established that taxes on the rich/corporations that are used to improve the standard of living of the citizens of the country does increase development and stimulate the economy. Do you have any sources to back up your views? Because so far they don't seem based on any real world data
This still works because you haven’t gone too far. You kept it at a reasonable rate where moving is less advantageous than paying higher taxes. At some point, this will shift.
Here are some examples:
Let the capitalists flee, easier than rounding them up. The workers will still be there, and the workers are the economy
Yes, let the capitalists flee, so there is no one to pay the taxes. That seems like a very wise plan.
In addition, every company needs just workers. Management, engineers and so on are practically useless.
This would surely work very well.
Hint: You can actually see how brilliantly it worked during 1940s-1990s in the countries under Warsaw pact.
lol managers and engineers aren't workers TIL
So essentially no one can leave then? First you say that capitalists should leave but workers stay. Then you say managers and engineers are workers…
So essentially you want everyone to stay?
I see you don't understand the most basic division between the working class and the owning class
You have no class consciousness.
I feel bad that I mocked you earlier, you don't have clear ideas about what capitalism is, what the working class is, or how our economic system is based on economic dictatorship by wealthier people over poorer people.
Socialism is about making the economy into a democracy, you don't want your private life or public life controlled by a dictator, why your work life? That's half your waking hours. You're living in a dictatorship for half the time you're conscious.
The workers should own what they produce, that includes management, it includes "skilled" labor and "unskilled" labor. It includes everyone but the shareholders and private owners who are a parasite.
First of all, I do not see how our lives are based on a dictatorship by wealthier people.
How do you then want to democratize the economy? Do you want companies to have a structure where everyone votes?
You know, there is a significant difference between a state and a company. When you dislike a company, you can very easily just move to another one, when you feel abused by your boss, you can change the job anytime. In most countries, we have no laws that prohibit you from changing your job. On the other hand, to get a citizenship in my country, you need to live here realistically for 8 years. What I am trying to say here is that even if a company has a terrible leadership, it’s not the end of the world. It will probably end bankrupt but people can still find a job somewhere else. On the other hand, incompetent leading of a state can impact life more seriously and most importantly an individual cannot change the situation easily.
Last but not least you are saying that shareholders and private owners are parasites is not true at all. They give money to the company. Without that, you can have skilled employees but will they work for the sake of enjoying life in a democratic company? I highly doubt.
you really can't imagine anything else can you? this is what's called "capitalist realism"
I can. But pragmatically capitalism has been the best option so far.
Yes it appears to be your deity.
You really don't understand the alternatives, it's clear from this thread.
There is a difference between not understanding the alternatives and providing reasons why they are overall worse.
yes and all you've done is repeat slogans while not demonstrating that your understand the alternatives.
You're clueless about how a socialist economy can function (there are actually many different ways) and everything you say is through the lens of your current capitalist neoliberal life. You're imagining micro-adjustments that betray a complete lack of understanding and imagination.
I'm not going to convince you or get through to you so we can go our separate ways, but you're extremely confident for someone who really doesn't get it, and that's just unfortunate for your own sake
What exactly am I not getting about socialist economy?
The ones who disagree with socialism are usually told they just don’t understand it & that it has not been tried.
Reality is, it’s been tried and it always failed.
there's another slogan.....
Look at the variety of capitalist countries and how they differ, knowing what "capitalism" is helps you to understand which aspects of them relate to that and which aspects of them are political, cultural, social. I could easily point to terrible capitalist countries and say it just doesn't work, but there are degrees aren't there?
Also consider that democracy was tried, reverted to Empire, then wasn't tried again for over 1000 years. France tried it, reverted to Empire, then tried it again. In those gaps your argument would be used to deny attempting democracy.
Knowing what "socialism" means would help you to understand how it has been, hasn't been, and can be implemented. But you're drooling on yourself repeating things you've heard like "but I like my toothbrush"
You're doing yourself a disservice, and at least have the decency to keep your regurgitated opinions to yourself.
There is quite a difference between democracy and socialism. For example, while democracy did not work in France, there were several other countries that have proven democracy works. For example, Greece, Rome, or even United States. On the contrary, socialism has been in many countries and failed every single time, no matter the situation. Countries of Warsaw pact tried it and 30 years after it collapsed, the quality of life in these countries is still worse compared to the Western Europe. Similar with countries such as Israel, India, Great Britain, North Korea and many more that have tried socialist tendencies but eventually returned to capitalist economies.
Same for capitalism, there have been countries that became quite successful thanks to it such as Switzerland, Singapore or Ireland.
So you're judging historical democracies by their peaks and successes but you're judging socialist/communist countries by their low points and failures.
Russia went from a serfdom to a world superpower. It challenged the United States for decades despite losing millions of its population and being absolutely devastated in world war 2 whereas the USA was relatively unscathed.
These aren't good faith arguments. You make every argument working from your conclusion backwards.
That's not how modern monetary policy works, by the way. The US dollar has a ton of power worldwide for many reasons, so we determine what our money is worth, period. This is why every time the US government has spent money on "demand side" solutions (stimulus checks, etc.) they have provided nothing but upside.
This little trick that capitalists don't want you to know about: it's all bullshit. We owe nothing to nobody because those debts will never be paid (who would they even be paid to?).
There is zero practical reason (beyond "oh no, billionaires and multinational corporations need to pay taxes wahhh") that we cannot spend as much money as we like on every social program we like. Prove me wrong (or just read about "Modern Monetary Theory" as I'm not an economist).
Have you heard about what happened to greece?
For example, one third of population lived in poverty (in Greece) due to economic crisis. Is that not enough to take responsible money management seriously?
Greece doesn't have the largest economy in the world. Their currency isn't the Petrodollar like USD is. The world economy runs on USD. I don't think you understand just how much power and freedom that affords us with regards to spending. Not your fault because it's been hammered into us for decades by "fiscal conservatives." But the actual reality is that we have far more control over these things than those people want you to think.
The only way spending on social programs could ever possibly tank the US economy is if billionaires and corporations purposely did so out of spite, and desire to return to the times when they could get away with being robber barons (AKA right now). And unfortunately, it would probably work.
That said, even if you don't believe that Modern Monetary Theory is real (again, you should read about it from actual economists, not me), we could very easily take care of every person in this country, legal or not, if we even modestly reduced our "defense" budget, and properly taxed corporations and the uber-wealthy.