> On Mar 26, 2018, at 8:02 AM, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
>
>
> In recent years, it seems more like that capitalist democracies are oscillating between a neoliberal pole and populist-nationalist-fascist pole.
>
> The social democratic pole seems to have largely disappeared in most of the capitalist democracies as the old center-left parties embraced neoliberalism.
It’s been this way since the 80’s, which produced Reagan and Thatcher. However, in the aftermath of the financial crisis and ensuing austerity and increased class polarization we’ve also seen somewhat of a social democratic revival over the past decade around Corbyn, Sanders, the DSA, Syriza, Podemos, Melanchon, etc.
Unfortunately, more of the popular discontent has flowed to the far right parties to date, and Syriza and Podemos have characteristically not been able to resolve the classic social democratic contradiction of trying to simultaneously meet the needs of their base while governing, when in office, as “the executive committee for administering the affairs of the entire bourgeoisie.” It will be interesting to see how much of this fundamental constraint operates on a Corbyn government if it should come to that.
In any case, neoliberalism is not quite the fashion within the elite that it was before the financial crash. You might even say there’s been a ruling class crisis of confidence about the neoliberal ideology and economic mechanisms used to prevent and recover from crises, to maintain social peace, and to secure the political legitimacy of the system and its traditional governing parties. The bourgeoisie’s favoured economists and financial commentators these days are more inclined to pay tribute to Keynes and Minsky than to genuflect to Friedman and Greenspan.
>
>
> Jim Farmelant
> http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
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>
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com>
> To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Confusing the Symptom with the Illness
> Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 09:40:26 -0500
>
> Sure. As always, capitalist democracies oscillates between its poles,
> namely a fascist pole and a social-democratic pole.
>
> But it's worth thinking about why Trump instead of some other option. It's
> even way more thinking about, and worrying about, the range of
> possibilities of forces that Trump can merge and the directions he can lead
> alliances. It's annoying Marxist hardtalk to pretend he presents the same
> politics and governance as, say, Obama.
>
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Cox, Carrol <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Proposition for Contemplation
>>
>> Trump is not the problem; he is a symptom of the problem.
>>
>> What social/political/economic conditions _led_ to Trump? Focusing on
>> Trump will only guarantee a new Trump around the corner.
>>
>> Carrol
>>
>> ___________________________________
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>>
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