If you think that article's relevant to the conversation then you've misunderstood the conversation
Peterson, Harris, etc....
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
If you think that article's relevant to the conversation then you've misunderstood the conversation
I'm not entire sure what you mean by "affluent decades". If I go with what I think you mean the increased standards of living were mostly the result of long term technological advances that have nothing to do with Reagan or Thatcher policies. The Space Race created a lot of foundational technologies and other things like the government-university ARPANET project are the foundation for the entire internet and the trillions of world wide business associated. These things were building for a long time and would have happened even if Democrats/Labour won instead of the right-wing Reagan and Thatcher. All they really did was stand by while Volcker and the monetary policy tweaks fixed the inflation problems and the oil crisis abated. It was more luck of timing that made them seem more prescient than they were. Even the collapse of the USSR had less to do with Reagan than popular myth as it was the long term economic warfare strategy of the US since 1950s to use economic leverage and in general it was the Soviets reliance on natural resources and failure to develop a robust internal economy that meant they would always collapse around this time period.
So nothing about Reagan or Thatcher were actually responsible for any of the technological advancements realized in the 90s/00s. These were all long term developments that were happening when Reagan was still spying on alleged Hollywood communists at the Screen Actors Guild. To get into the details, the history of Silicon Valley shows the combination of factors that were responsible for these 'affluent decades;.
The other flaw with reducing something to an "affluent decade" was already mentioned and that is inequality. Reagan and Thatcher policies directly accelerated inequality and essentially severed as wealth re-distribution from the bottom to the tippity top.
https://scienceleadership.org/blog/reaganomics_and_the_people
Then you have the stagnation in economic mobility which is a very troublesome factor over time as it creates a de facto aristocracy or plutocracy more accurately.
But inequality is just one measure. There are a host of other factors that been intentionally eroded for the average working and middle class: job security, retirement security, protection from losing life savings due to medical emergency, etc. Just a short sample:
- Even the Insured Often Can't Afford Their Medical Bills
- Fed survey: 40 percent of adults can't cover a $400 emergency expense
- Americans’ Confidence in Their Ability to Pay for Health Care Is Falling
Yes, Some Companies Are Cutting Hours In Response To ‘Obamacare’
So while people are technically employed its harder to find a single job that will even hire full time because of the burden. All this started with Reagan (and Thatcher in the UK) to shift the countries further to the right. Here is a great art from 1990 that is still relevant :
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/17/magazine/a-capital-offense-reagan-s-america.htmlNew York Times 1990 said:
Oh I can't leave out the S+L scandal too often forgotten (along with Iran-Contra that isn't as relevant here to econ)
NY Times Aug 23 said:
Really Reagan and Thatcher began a wealth grab by the richest pursuing policies solely intended to benefit the richest individuals and most powerful corporations.
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the point is isn't not a decades long thing
the red scare/McCarthyism and communism has been a bigger smear than any soft or snowflake accusations for economic leftists
terrorism and destroying the fabric of society has been a bigger smear for social campaigners, LGBT people for example were painted as being inherently sick until the 90s
you've bought into a ben shapiro meme that picked up a few years ago
it's the peterson thread
oof
You're still arguing a different point. Would you say the majority of young, politically active people on the left now would say that they're fed up of their representatives being too nice for too long? Not that they were saying it decades ago, but that as they assess things now, they think part of the problem is that the people that are supposed to represent them didn't represent them well, in part because of a lack of backbone?
And yes I know there are many people on the left that view many of their representatives as warmongers, thieves, idiots and many other things. Different people have different opinions even in that specific group. But if you were to take a stab at the consensus, do you think there is a consensus that being "too nice" - or whatever synonym you want to put in there - is an issue of their representatives?
It might sound unbelievable to you but I've not heard Ben Shapiro speak, and don't frequent twitter, so the idea of me buying into this meme only makes sense in your own head. That's what I mean about the bubble. I have listened to different people with different political perspectives talk about "the other side", and I'm aware that some get passed down through some of the people in this thread...but believe it or not I'm able to form my own thoughts too. You're not unique in that sense.
no, the argument against them is that they are corrupt and beholden to their funders and why the left has championed people who don't accept corporate money
the two most popular left wingers are Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. Neither is particularly fiery or rude. they're both life long campaigners with leftist economic credentials and their personality has little to do with their success - probably hindering it per polls
Fair point. Well if you think that the general approach of left wing young people is similar to how Jeremy Corbyn acts, all I can say is I wholeheartedly disagree. I think we'd be in a better place if people were able to follow his lead in many ways, rather than championing his cause while talking to people the way you do.
this isn't a leftist thing, it's an internet thing, people don't give a shit about civility on forums when they think the worlds on fire
this might be part of the bubbles you're talking about, you only see left and centre-left internet and you're ascribing particular behaviours that everyone does but the right wing ones get banned from where you go
I'm not entire sure what you mean by "affluent decades". If I go with what I think you mean the increased standards of living were mostly the result of long term technological advances that have nothing to do with Reagan or Thatcher policies. The Space Race created a lot of foundational technologies and other things like the government-university ARPANET project are the foundation for the entire internet and the trillions of world wide business associated. These things were building for a long time and would have happened even if Democrats/Labour won instead of the right-wing Reagan and Thatcher. All they really did was stand by while Volcker and the monetary policy tweaks fixed the inflation problems and the oil crisis abated. It was more luck of timing that made them seem more prescient than they were. Even the collapse of the USSR had less to do with Reagan than popular myth as it was the long term economic warfare strategy of the US since 1950s to use economic leverage and in general it was the Soviets reliance on natural resources and failure to develop a robust internal economy that meant they would always collapse around this time period.
So nothing about Reagan or Thatcher were actually responsible for any of the technological advancements realized in the 90s/00s. These were all long term developments that were happening when Reagan was still spying on alleged Hollywood communists at the Screen Actors Guild. To get into the details, the history of Silicon Valley shows the combination of factors that were responsible for these 'affluent decades;.
The other flaw with reducing something to an "affluent decade" was already mentioned and that is inequality. Reagan and Thatcher policies directly accelerated inequality and essentially severed as wealth re-distribution from the bottom to the tippity top.
https://scienceleadership.org/blog/reaganomics_and_the_people
Then you have the stagnation in economic mobility which is a very troublesome factor over time as it creates a de facto aristocracy or plutocracy more accurately.
But inequality is just one measure. There are a host of other factors that been intentionally eroded for the average working and middle class: job security, retirement security, protection from losing life savings due to medical emergency, etc. Just a short sample:
Then we have:
- Even the Insured Often Can't Afford Their Medical Bills
- Fed survey: 40 percent of adults can't cover a $400 emergency expense
- Americans’ Confidence in Their Ability to Pay for Health Care Is Falling
Yes, Some Companies Are Cutting Hours In Response To ‘Obamacare’
So while people are technically employed its harder to find a single job that will even hire full time because of the burden. All this started with Reagan (and Thatcher in the UK) to shift the countries further to the right. Here is a great art from 1990 that is still relevant :
https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/17/magazine/a-capital-offense-reagan-s-america.html
Oh I can't leave out the S+L scandal too often forgotten (along with Iran-Contra that isn't as relevant here to econ)
Really Reagan and Thatcher began a wealth grab by the richest pursuing policies solely intended to benefit the richest individuals and most powerful corporations.
To be clear I’m absolutely not trying to give Reagan/Thatcher any credit for the boom of the 90s/00s. 100% in agreement with you that it was almost entirely down to factors outside their control. In fact that’s the main point I’ve been arguing over the last couple of pages. Societal change isn’t really driven by politics.
Similarly, you could argue that the growth in inequality isn’t politically driven per se. Just a long term consequence of a combination of capitalism and industrialisation/technological advances. Is there a political solution to all of this? Can Corbyn et al somehow put the genie back in the bottle and make the world a better, fairer place? I honestly don’t think so. Time will tell.
Yes, right wing people do it too. I wasn't arguing otherwise. The conversation is about how the left have changed. The fact the right do it too isn't particularly notable because they didn't have the reputation of being nice in the first place, not because they're not doing it.
So the initial point you made a big issue about wasn't something we significantly disagree on, isn't in any way a big issue, and was mostly caused by a misunderstanding. I find that happens a lot. I'm not sure how you don't see that to be wasted energy.
Well, I don't think we will ever achieve a perfect world or perfect fairness but that isn't a reason to not try. It's definitely possible to make the system more fair though and that is a goal worth fighting for. I can't really speak about the UK though as all the Brexit stuff I haven't followed nearly well enough to comment.
Lefties are only ‘nice’ if you buy into the ‘liberals always lose’ narrative driven by the right in an attempt to cast anyone remotely distasteful to them as weak, impotent and cowardly.
The left hasn’t changed all that much, it just got buried for a little while when the mass’s attention were focused on social instead of economic issues. We had communist backed labour strikes in the US in 1910s, suffrage movement, labour movement in the 20s/30s, the whole Red Scare/McCarthyism, Civil Rights movement, Vietnam protests, in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Whenever people are mobilized, like they are now, civility isn’t really high on the list.
the left never had this reputation - the "so much for the tolerant left" thing is very recent phenomenon and historical revisionism unless you're mistaking "soft on crime/defence" as snowflakery because that's a different thing. The snowflake criticism started after the recent recession as a response to internet posts about political correctness. Tony Blairs shift to centrism wasn't because the popular culture was paining labour as "too nice" it's because they were painting Labour as communists.
The Brexit stuff is a bit like the Trump stuff. Far left and far right united (paradoxically) to shake up the status quo. Shaking things up is easy though. Actually making peoples lives better is the tricky bit.
I'm not talking about snowflakes. I'm aware that is a right wing meme and think it's ridiculous in all but a few scenarios. If you interpret everything through that prism you'll only ever misunderstand the majority of people, because the majority of people don't exist in that world.
I think that's true to an extent but it is notable that you left out examples of that in the 80s and 90s, which is the period that to my understanding informs the thinking of this particular perception. Not that weren't any of them, but they're more difficult to bring to mind than you examples you raised - and perceptions are influenced by that.
No doubt there was nothing nice about people on the left during the Vietnam war protests and civil rights movement. Between then and now I think there have been fewer of those moments, and the moments have less prolonged.
Whether this perception is a consensus is not something I know enough about. The fact that it makes it into comedy sketches filled with self declared democrats and liberals suggests it's more than just right wing people pushing an agenda though. It might be wrong, but it's not only coming from one direction. And it's not directed at liberal snowflakes but elected senators.
The 80s saw a lot of strikes and union busting. The 80s and 90s also saw the AIDS epidemic, during which the left was accused of trying to spread disease by campaigning for gay rights*. The 00s saw 9/11 and subsequent legislation like the patriot act and wars in the middle east, people who opposed this were being called traitors and terrorists.
*Jordan Peterson still does this, often talking about the dangers of promiscuity.
*Jordan Peterson still does this, often talking about the dangers of promiscuity.
Why did some on the far left support Brexit? I can't see how that aligns really
They just want to tear the whole thing down and build a socialist utopia from scratch. Brexit could be perceived as the start of that process. I’d imagine that’s the rationale for Corbyn being so complicit in a process initiated to appease the far right of the Tory party anyway.
This is a variation on a very orthodox Marxist view of things...
Well that’s reassuring! I’m still a lefty at heart, evidently. Was worried I was getting all gammon in my middle age.
But the problem is (at least partly) about a lot more than income and income inequality alone. Materially I'm much more well-off than my parents would've been at my own age. Undoubtedly so. But whereas they were able to find themselves on a mostly upward trajectory (albeit admittedly by working hard) that's not necessarily going to be the same for me.
Job security is a big issue. I might earn a decent amount of money, but having a job you can reasonably hold down consistently is much more difficult now, if not nigh-on next to impossible. Switching jobs multiple times in your career has basically become a given...which is good if you can make it work, but a massively stress-filled, anxiety-inducing process if you can't. Especially in a time where you may be expected to travel on a whim based on your career. And that's before we get to pensions. Or automation, which will further reduce the number of jobs available. Or being able to buy a house, which is much, much more difficult for people in the past irrespective of your income, unless you're rich as feck. And then there's the fact that with industry largely being decimated, often necessarily so due to capitalistic demand, more and more mid-sized towns are often dying on their arses with most young talent being pulled to the city since that's where all the decent jobs tend to be.
That's not to say that all of these problems are necessarily unique, or that previous generations didn't face problems of the same magnitude even if said problems were different in nature. The previous couple of generations lived under the constant threat of imminent nuclear war. They didn't have certain scientific advancements we have now which make it much easier to treat certain health issues and which make connecting with people a simpler process. But by the same token that doesn't strike me as a reason to ignore today's problems, or to sniff at them. It's the same sort of logic which saw United fans bizarrely accepting our various slumps under Moyes/LVG/Mourinho under some distorted logic that we were due a bad period, and that being able to take it without expecting better even though we were obviously capable of better somehow made you a better supporter. Nah, feck that. I'm cynical as feck and tend to distrust people of all political persuasions like yourself, but I don't think that's a reason to dismiss a lot of the genuine anger that's being expressed at the moment, or to somehow argue that everything's alright. If there are genuine solutions on offer they need to be enacted, and if leftists need to kind of be dicks about that to make people realise what's needed then that's fair. And I say that as someone who finds the approach of some leftists on here extraordinarily counterproductive at times.
So, yeah. I get what you're saying. A lot of things have improved for a lot of people. But that might not keep on happening, and if it doesn't then the slide might be fairly grim as opposed to a mild one, especially if you factor in things like climate change. I don't begrudge anyone who's passionate enough to actually want that to be addressed.
Another very good post. You make some excellent points and the fear/uncertainty about the future is certainly tangible. I definitely get that and can't blame people for turning to activism (online or whatever) if that's the only way they feel they can try to secure a better future.
Of course, me being me, I can't turn down an opportunity to bang my "social media is bad mmkay" drum. Because I wonder if all the bad stuff you mention above (lack of job security, pensions, automation of factories etc etc) become a much bigger issue than they really are because people are so immersed in social media? When I was starting out my working life if someone lost their job, or had to relocate at short notice, or can't find affordable accommodation the only people who knew about these dramas would be friends and family. Nowadays we're constantly exposed to tweets, facebook posts and online think-pieces about how incredibly hard life is for young people. In case someone posts a load of stats about how hard life is, I get that these are all real issues but - as you say - there were real - albeit different - challenges faced by previous generations maybe avoided the hyperbole that surrounds them today. For example, we're constantly reminded how hard it is to be a home-owner these days but can you imagine how hard it would be to make ends meet if mortgage interest rates started getting as high as 19% or 20%? That's something my old man had to deal with when he was in his 20s.
Unfortunately, human nature means we're far more interested in horror stories than good news. So nobody wants to hear about how brilliant it is to be able to order whatever food you want, whenever you want it, to watch whatever movie you want, whenever you want, to be able to occasionally work from home instead of slogging into an office every single day, to not have to wear a suit to your job every day, to not be exposed to passive cigarette smoke at your place of work, to buy cheap airline tickets at a moment's notice and all the other mundane improvements in day to day life that previous generations would have been fecking blown away by if they ever got to enjoy them.
Anyhoo. Not sure where I'm going with this, so I'll just conclude by getting back on topic and reminding everyone that Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson are tiresome bell-ends.
I was told a stat indicating that HPV is now or soon will be the cause of more throat/mouth cancer than smoking.
I haven't verified said stat.
Such intellect, much wow
hes a grifter. they all are.
He lies to sell products because he gets paid to advertise them. He has a similar level of integrity to Alex Jones.
He's an intellectual fraud and the living embodiment of an internet troll.
I was listening to the Waking Up podcast a couple of months ago, Sam was speaking to Niall Ferguson who made what I thought was a really interesting point that I hadnt heard before. He was comparing the politics of today and the impact of social media with politics in the first half of the 19th Century and technological advances in printing presses. So in 1830 you have the first penny press newspapers which bring newspapers to the mass market and an explosion in political leaflets advocating all sorts of novel opinions. And then in 1848 you had political meltdown across Europe.
Really interesting similarities.
I think I listened to that same podcast. Ferguson is an interesting dude. Although I suspect his opinions will not go down well with many regular posters in this thread!
Funnily enough, I was listening to another podcast recently where I discovered an interesting dude whose views will be far more palatable to our resident marxists. He’s a Scottish writer/poet/hip hop artist called Loki (aka Darren McGarvey) Sometimes it feels like all the most interesting people on Youtube/Twitter/Podcasts etc are right wing conservatives so listening to him was a refreshing change. It’s an episode of Russel Brand’s Under The Skin podcast called “Class and Class War in The Age of Populism”. Well worth a listen.
Best exception for me is Mark Blyth. And Yanis Varoufakis of course.
I really struggle with Russel Brand though.
Yeah, I can't take him either. It was even worse than usual in this podcast because Loki was coming out with some great stuff but Brand kept talking over him and incorrectly paraphrasing what he was saying. I would pay good money for someone to edit the episode with all the Brand bits taken out.
Never heard of Mark Blyth. Will seek him out.
Pogue Mahone go on Chapo.
I have no idea what this means. Google just refers me to a Mexican hit man.
ChapoTrapHouse, it’s a subreddit.
snipe his ass
@Pogue Mahone have you checked out three arrows on YouTube?
It's a podcast.
Aha. Will check it out. I don't really get American politics, which might be a problem. Worth a crack though.