That is what I wonder. Don’t know about you guys, but I feel like a European patriot, even though this maybe does not make sense to some.
Being a true European patriot means to me: caring about all of the freedoms we have, our social democracies, is to value the open pluralist societies we developed since WW2, wanting to protect what the reactionaries want to take away from us, stop those who want to lock us all up, back in the small closed-minded nation-states we all come from, which will ultimately lick the boots of either US or China/Russia.
They are well organized, but what is the organization, the movement that fights against this ongoing attack on our shared values and mode of existence?
The post-WW2 Europe is an oasis of bliss in a world which is on fire, and we are all under attack. How can we fight against this destruction from the inside as well as from the outside ?
Being a patriot is quite dumb if I may say so. And even dumber if you are a patriot for a imperialist and neoliberal organisation that even compared to a so-called liberal “democracy” is undemocratic. Instead of calling yourself a patriot you should read a book. And then call yourself something based on that. And please explain to me what freedoms one has in the EU. Freedom to pay insanely high rents? Freedom to have to chose to heat or eat? Freedom to be exploited by ones employer? I could go on like this forever. I would also like to know where the aforementioned is social and where there is democracy in the EU. And last but not least I would like to know in how far the EU is open. To my knowledge everywhere in the EU the marginalized are still marginalized.
Are you one of those “tankies” everyone is talking about here on Lemmy?
And how do you know whether I read “some books” or not? Could it maybe just be that I just don’t accept their conclusions, question the suggested alternative or the way to get there?
Do you think that either you become enlightened by reading them, or you must be dumb or the enemy?
And maybe that does say more about you thank about me?
Let’s better say what I do accept. I have read Marx and accept his analysis of dynamics of capital as correct, it’s hard not to see that it is spot-on. I accept the general paradigm that the foundation of all such dynamics is the underlying material conditions, i.e. wealth inequality, which leads to power inequality. He however never outlined a clear way out.
I read enough secondary literature about whatever people tried to build on Marx as ways out and have seen enough of evidence against “real existing socialism” and have first-hand family experience from this system. I know all the objections that it was state capitalism or whatever, but I am pessimistic about human nature.
Actual socialism emerging from a revolution and whatever leadership to stay uncorrupted instead of eventually seizing power seems very utopian and unlikely to me, just as utopian and naive as anarchists believe that self-organized structures will not degenerate back to capitalistic tribalism with a few extra steps that will just redistribute the power a little bit and new opportunists to win the next round.
You misunderstood my “European patriotism” (in quotes!), because I never said anything about loving or approving everything done by the organisation you criticize (EU). What I was talking about was the ethos of wanting to protect the least shitty system I see anywhere on earth right now, which is deployed most successfully around Europe-the-continent, the “real existing faulty bureaucratic democracy”.
You seem to be of the opinion that it needs to be dismantled and replaced by something else. The right extremists say the same. The problem is that it’s easy to call for destruction but it’s difficult to build. All I see is “we need to tear it down… And then we’ll somehow magically build something new from scratch”.
I am a software developer by profession. You know how this works? You have to work with shitty systems other people you despise built over decades. I wish I could throw it all into the garbage and just build from scratch. But unlike politics, where talk is cheap, here I can see and quantify how much fucking work it is both technically and socially. It’s just like wanting to “just build a different sky scraper” without understanding anything about engineering. You can try, and probably will end up with another flavor if ugly mess. You also need to (re)educate other developers, you need to convince people, and finally the users need to either not be bothered by your “improvements” and you cannot allow such a long down time or reconstruction phase because the outside world is not waiting for you to get your shit together.
Now, I think politics is exactly the same. Law is the code of society, and developers and users need to buy into different paradigms I.e. accept other values and standards and possibly form of organization. I don’t see any proposed alternative being even close to have a clear realistic path, except of a strong faith that “it somehow will work out”. I doubt that it works that way. History works incrementally, and complex systems become incrementally fucked up, does not matter where you start.
The radical left is losing against the fascists because the fascists learned how to incrementally win mind-share of the people and hide it’s radical nature, while the radical left is continuing to engage in black and white thinking and pushing regular people away.
That leads me to the hypothesis that the only way to fix the system is actually good people low-key moving up in power and tweaking it from the inside, that means the reverse direction of what is happening right now.
Then I believe we need “pro-social propaganda”, working in a subtle way like the capitalistic matrix, which means that you have to win back the media. If you have the media, you can win the hearts and minds of people.
The classic approach of the left only works in a society where the majority is in such distress that they are open to extreme changes and have nothing to lose. But the system we are in is a system of “good enough”.
So I don’t believe in the tactics of the radical left and I don’t believe in the existence of a solid plan, there is at most a “concept of a plan”, in the words of a well-known dictator. I doubt the practical experience and competence of radical left thinkers and intellectuals, who have never worked inside a complex system such as academia or a company and have a simplistic idea of “change management” for social, bureaucratic and technical structures. Being able to organize some demonstration or violent resistance to break something does not necessarily correlate with the ability to build something better in its place and might not justify possible damage done in between.
So what is the way forward? I have no idea. But that is why I hope for some genuine and smartly executed “reformist” movement and would not expect any good outcomes from naive “revolutionary” ambitions. The revolutionary left is ultimately also a collection of populist movements, in the sense of promising simple answers to complex problems.
What does that make me ideologically? No idea. I don’t care about labels. Call it “pragmatic realistic left” or whatever.
Fight hunger, fight drug addiction, fight the destruction of the European values. This doesn’t work. Those are not targets. If you want to destroy something then you have to pinpoint a target that can be destroyed. “Destruction of the European values” is not a target.
However, do you really want to destroy something or don’t you rather want to build something?
It doesn’t come with the thrill of fear, but uniting people to build something is more sustainable.
In any case, take a close look and check if the oasis is not already burning or even spreading fire all over the world.
If you choose construction, make sure that the values you are going to implement are consistent and operational. Progressive means nothing but promising everybody that the world will develop according to the progess they envision. That won’t happen. There can only be one direction.
My personal opinion is that Pluralism makes it difficult to unite people. People follow their leaders. If the idea would be enough, this post would explode, there would be discussions until people agreed on what to do and then do it. In a pluralist society you have to convince all leaders, and they have to agree to get active at the same time.
So start with finding the leaders and let them convince their communities.
Good Points in general. But where did you read about me wanting to destroy something? The only thing I actively think we need to destroy is fascism and imbalance of power, which is slowly corrupting everything like mold.
Pluralistic democracy in that regard is a more abstract concept than a concrete agenda and it is hard to unite people for such an abstract value. This value should only be a proxy value for other concrete outcomes/values, ideally. But let’s turn it around. Only because it’s free and democratic does not guarantee it is effective and doing good. But without it, there will be no chance for good outcomes.
I agree with your general message, it probably would be better to have a cause “for” something good and not against something bad. Only sadly it seems that in practice people are easier to unite against something or out of fear of something.
You have to destroy something when you ‘fight against this destruction’. But you can’t fight abstract things, not even Fascism or imbalance.
Yes, people are easier to unite against something. The famous outside attacker. But how to fight fascism if it promises to fulfill what people want? People have to see that democracy is better. Maybe fight corruption, so that democracy can be at its best?
Long term? Education: a broadly based, liberal education that makes the shared values understood and appreciated by most people, on the basis of good evidence, morality and reason. Without this, if everyone is taught and believes different, conflicting ideas, then there are no shared values to defend. Many organizations are involved but most significant are families, schools, colleges, universities, religious organizations and the media.
Short term? Justice, law and order that balances personal and collective interests. Without this, people will live in fear and desperation with immediate survival concerns being a priority over getting or giving a good education or making any personal sacrifice for the benefit of society. Also, sufficient resources for everyone so that no one is living in desperation and insecurity. This requires, among other things, preventing extremes of inequality of wealth and power. Not the elimination of inequality, but limiting and moderating it so that tyranny and jealous desperation are avoided. Again there are many organizations involved but most significant are the legislatures, courts, police and military.
Transparency and oversight are required for all these organizations, to ensure they are doing what they should, and freedom of thought and communication so that their behaviour, virtues and faults can be discovered, communicated, discussed and controlled. Whistleblowers and protections for them, and the media.
Push for more european countries to pass proportional representation to strengthen their state stability and democracy.
The countries that have some form of pr are coloured:
Propotional representation? As in party lists? How much country needs it to be marked?
Most countries use party lists, some mixed member proportional and Ireland uses the single transferable vote.
I’m not sure I understand your question. I would say every country should receive some form of pr as democracies are more fair and peaceful.
Fix wealth inequality. Rich people accumulate so much money that there’s hardly any left for average people. Rich people hoard assets like houses and increase their prices and the cost of living. As long as we don’t fix this, things will get worse. As long as politicians don’t fix this other parties will get more popular no matter what they offer.
Migrants are just scapegoats. They have no lobby, they are easy to blame. They are one piece in a bigger equation. They are used as a ruse to distract from bigger problems. If the housing market was functional it could handle the influx of Ukranian refugees and the way smaller number of refugees from countries like Afghanistan or regions like Africa.
If countries had funds from wealth and inheritance taxes they could fund a working administration, faster justice systems, working infrastructure and so on. It would be absolutely beautiful and I cannot say why there isn’t a bigger movement for that solution.
It’s not about taxing 100.000€ in stock, or you inheriting your mum’s cottage, but about taxing people who have been living off intergenerational wealth for decades without ever working at all.
Facotries, houses and even companies can not be easily moved. Even something like a bank needs employees, with certain skills and those have value. You usually can not just move those to another country, unless something really drastic happens.
The other part is to organize. Something like the minimum company tax is a really good starting point. Most large countries have relativly high taxes anyway. The only reason tax heavens work is, because they have a tiny population and the few hundret jobs created by the paperwork are enough to support them. They could easily be bullied into having normal taxes.
Also keep in mind the EU has 1/5 of the global economy by itself.
USA has 6,5% tax on capital EU 20%.
We attract capital because we offer stability.
Taxing the shit out of their made investments does not offer stability. They’d stop putting in new investments.
We’d have decay.
USA is the capital of the world when it comes to capitalism. A world ETF market weighted gives you 60% USA. That’s massive.
We pay for using that capital. We pay rent, we pay for groceries, we pay for gas. Everytime we pay something, somebody makes money. Tax them.
Why would they invest in your apartment if they have to pay taxes on it? Unless they can charge the tax to you as well.
You’re going to need the public to build your apartment. And sadly, in Singapore where this is the case, rent is ridiculously high.
Capital can’t flee. The money is all bound in assets. How you gonna move the houses out of Europe?
China doesn’t allow me to own 100M USD worth of assets and live abroad without paying any tax. Why do we?
You do pay taxes in the EU if you own assets in the EU.
China taxes quite a lot less than the EU I’m sure. Otherwise nobody would have built their factories there.
Edit: China taxes capital more it seems
In the European Union (EU), the share of labour taxes (including social contributions) in total tax revenues expanded in 2023 to 51.2%, while the share of capital tax revenues remained unchanged at 21.9%. This indicates that labour taxes contribute significantly more to the EU’s total tax revenue compared to capital taxes.
In China, the effective tax rate (ETR) on capital rose from 10% to 30% between 1995 and 2018, while labour taxation also saw a slow but steady rise. However, specific figures on the proportion of tax revenue from capital versus labour in China are not provided in the search results.
For more detailed and precise information, it would be beneficial to consult the latest reports from organizations such as the OECD or national tax authorities.
https://www.beursgorilla.nl/Index-Koers/150176326/CHINA-Shanghai-Composite.aspx
But as you can see, the stock market since then has been quite dull
Edit2:
In the United States, corporate income taxes accounted for 6.5% of total U.S. tax revenue in 2022. This figure represents the portion of total tax revenue derived from taxing corporate profits, which is a form of capital income.
For more detailed and precise information, it would be beneficial to consult the latest reports from organizations such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or the U.S. Treasury.
And the SP500 has been the desire of the world. The USA is 60% of a world ETF
I agree with you a 100% on the wealth issue. Though the number of migrants from the middle east is and will be more problematic for a small country like Austria.
Therefore you need to tackle both problems at once. I’m tired of people ignoring the fact. No country wants to become Libanon 2.0.
Yes to all but for completeness you probably want to spell out this important effect of wealth inequality. The wealth consolidated at the top buys state power which then helps distribute even more wealth to the top. As long as this feedback loop is allowed to run, none of the other proposed solutions would help. For example, education is amended to teach people to support the feedback loop, not break it.
What could solving this look in practice? Actively participate in your union, unionize, vote for economic left parties that support unionization and breaking the wealth inequality loop.
Nobody is really trying to stop the oligarchs and their lobbies, it’s the only real political taboo that remains. People watch the right rising and it’s being shown as if that was coming out of nowhere and too unregulated capitalism wasn’t the main driver of the issue. The occasional article points out that billionaires should not have so much power or even exist, but these are drowned in the noise of the media.
