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Javier Lpez

The aftershocks of the Great Recession are still being felt. The trail of suffering in the shape of unemployment and destruction of wealth has transformed the map-making of the western world, ending up by provoking a real geopolitical recession with an Anglo-American epicentre aka the cradle of global capitalism. Likewise, the coordinates of the political agenda are being modified; old conflicts are resurfacing, new cracks appearing. Once again, distribution of wealth, inequality and their effects are returning to the centre stage of public debate. Why is this?

We are reproducing the abnormal levels of inequality of the Gilded Age,precursor to the First World War and the following Great Depression. Fairness and social mobility are linked (The Great Gatsby Curve); in fact, if you want to live the American Dream, you should go to Scandinavia. Similarly, inequality in relation to income and between genders develops along parallel lines. Fairness acts as a social glue creating connections of mutual trust.

With inequality, there are various patterns of correlation that allow us to argue that fairer societies have better social results, as well as being healthier, more peaceful and cooperative (Wilkinson and Pickett). There is a correlation between inequality and infant mortality, life expectancy, unwanted pregnancies and rates of mental illness. Social vulnerability goes hand in hand with emotional fragility. In Spain, the OECD country after Cyprus where inequality has increased most, consumption of antidepressants has tripled in the last ten years.

One of the basic axioms of the dominant mode of thinking has been: inequality is the price to be paid for market efficiency. Until now. Endless academic literature links problems with growth to current levels of inequality. Its connection to secular stagnation has also come up, as inequality distorts demand, holds back family consumption levels and favours over-indebtedness. Therefore, it is worth recalling that an increase in salaries would activate the economy.

According to no less than the IMF, less inequality allows for a faster and more longer lasting growth (see here). All this invites us to transition to the following discourse: a move from growth for redistribution towards redistribution for growth. The left should take note. Only strategies of equal and balanced growth will guarantee recovery in the economies of industrialized countries.

At the same time inequality acts as a solvent for democracy. The decline of the middle class undermines the political order and damages traditional politics. The polarization of income outcomes contributes to political polarization and weakens support for inclusive democratic and economic institutions. Inequality undermines interpersonal trust and encourages the sensation of lack of control. These ingredients are the basis of the reactionary political cocktail that is battering the world.

In this way, the components of welfare that end up defining social class and socio-economic context are being reconfigured (State, family and labour market). We fall back on the family more and require more help from the State due to the lack of quality labour opportunities. Put simply, labour has ceased to be the main source of prosperity and stability: a historical breakdown of the utmost gravity, aggravated by aggressive labour reform, a weakening of collective bargaining, and the consolidation of precarious and poorly paid employment.

Yet when we most need the States help, it faces aggressive processes of fiscal consolidation. Austerity is a painful medicine; it has caused a massive increase in unemployment and a fall in adjusted salaries (2010-2015). At the same time, fiscal consolidation based on cutbacks in public spending exacerbates social stratification.

The fiscal rules institutionalized during the Eurozone crisis (Fiscal Compact) are a deflationary anchor that acts as a straitjacket. The dysfunctional design of the single currency is a machine that worsens divergences, incapable of dealing with asymmetrical shocks. Completing the institutions of monetary union and increasing the member states room for fiscal manoeuvring should be at the heart of any progressive European Project.

Market globalization and liberalization acts in this way. On the one hand, it has taken millions of people out of poverty in recent decades, especially in Asia, yet on the other hand a significant part of the middle classes and workers in the developed world do not feel any benefit (Milanovic). Therefore, the perverse logic of focusing on net profit must be accompanied by the logic of profit distribution.

The automation and digitalisation of the economy act in a similar way. Its clear that technological advances produce profit, but they also generate a strong skills bias in the labour market and renovate the typology of job positions. If public powers do not counteract, compensating and rebalancing the losers and winners, there will always be people prepared to smash machines with hammers or tempted to impose terrible commercial blockades.

This new clothing of inequality also brings with it the opening of new wounds that activate fears and identity crises. Generational and territorial gaps explain to a large extent recent European election results. The mechanisms of intergenerational solidarity are ceasing to function, and in the eyes of many young people the promise on which democracy is built has been broken: that the future is a desirable place to inhabit.

Jeremy Corbyn has achieved a spectacular increase in his electoral base, mobilizing young people and those who previously abstained with the pledge to restore that promise. He has managed to be seen as a politician who is honestly worried about the daily problems of many of them, indeed the majority. Quite a rara avis, and he has reintroduced the topic of socio-economic conflict into the electoral conversation.

At the same time, urban/rural cleavages operate powerfully in the political conflict. Diverse urban centres integrated into the global value chain versus a periphery either rural or suffering from deindustrialisation (Guilluy). A breeding ground for Rousseau-istic resentment and identity withdrawal. A new logic emerges from all this globalism versus nationalism/nativism which crosses traditional political conflicts. And all this cannot be understood without one factor: inequality.

This new logic, between defending open and closed societies, has landed on territorial fault lines. Le Pen only managed to garner one in ten votes in Paris. Trump, 4% in Washington DC, theBrexiteers,one in four ballot papers in inner London. Emmanuel Macron skilfully positioned himself as an opposing party in the conflict, becoming the new strong man in a Europe lacking directional signposts.

But the risk provoked by the activation of this axis of conflict is looming in France: a left in total breakdown. To repair the progressive electoral base, it is necessary to put into practice a program of redistribution against inequality. The recipes of the twentieth century have been as follows: Keynesian management of economic policies of demand, state industrial planning, preservation of collective bargaining, fiscal redistribution through taxes and a system of social welfare. This road map remains valid but must adapt to multiple changes: the peculiarities of the Eurozone, an economy and market that is internationally integrated and changes in social structures.

We have to construct a new tax framework of public regulatory spending which redistributes in the most efficient way and inspires a fairer predistribution. And all this must be done tending to the vectors of transformation represented by urban concentration, ageing of the population and climate change. The leverage to rebuild the social contract should be the political threats that torment Europe, just as in the glorious thirty years (1945-1975); without threat, there can be no agreement. Because inequality explains, at least in part, the fracturing of the pillars that have held up the developed world: economic growth, middle classes, liberal democracy and the American order (Lizoain).

Like every Herculean task, the fight against inequality demands a narrative that supports it and gives it shape. A new narrative of equality in defence of economic growth, protection of democracy and the deepest sense of freedom: autonomy and dignity.

This post originally appeared in Spanish in the CTXT contexto y accin blog.

Javier Lpez has been a Spanish Member of the European Parliament since 2014. He is the holder of the Spanish Socialist delegation in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly of the European Parliament.

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Democracy Without Glue - Social Europe

"Morning Joe" is in mourning. The deceased is the Republican Party of balanced budgets and international restraint.

MSNBC host and former Congressman Joe Scarborough announced last week that he was leaving the Republican Party. In an impassioned piece for The Washington Post, Scarborough cited Donald TrumpDonald TrumpTrumps attack on one class of immigrants wont make America great Fox News personality: GOP healthcare plan says ideology is less important than victory' Mar-a-Lago asks to hire more foreign workers MOREs actions and Republican Party leaderships silence as the basis of his decision:

The wreckage visited of this man will break the Republican Party into pieces and lead to the election of independent thinkers no longer tethered to the tired dogmas of the polarized past. When that day mercifully arrives, the two-party duopoly that has strangled American politics for almost two centuries will finally come to an end. And Washington just may begin to work again.

Welcome to the (anti-) party, Scarborough! You are joining the roughly 45 percent of Americans who are abandoningthe Democratic and Republican Parties or never joined them in the first place. Not only are our ranks growing, but political scientists and pollsters are finally acknowledging that independents are not apathetic fence-sitters but engaged Americans concerned about how the parties and partisanship are ruining our country.

But if Ive learned anything about American politics in my 20 years as an independent activist and advocate for electoral reform, its that nothing automatically leads to anything. There are no straight lines in politics. Change is not inevitable. The parties work hard to muffle the impact of this exodus towards independence. Independent voters might comprise 45 percent of the country, but the parties still make the rules.

And heres rule No. 1: Independent voters must accept that they are second-class citizens in our democracy.

Joe Scarborough announces he's leaving Republican party: report https://t.co/Uw0cLwKAsZ pic.twitter.com/iZX5riu5DP

Independent voters in many states cannot register to vote as independents they must choose from derogatory voter registration language like unenrolled or decline to state. Independent voters are not allowed to serve as poll workers in states like New York its a job only Democrats and Republicans can apply for. Independent candidates are locked out of participating in the presidential debates and have to gather many more signatures than party candidates to have their names appear on the ballot.

Independents in dozens of states pay taxes for primary elections that they are barred from. The two forms of gerrymandering that dominate our country partisan gerrymandering and bi-partisan gerrymandering share a common commitment to protecting the parties at the expense of the voters, especially independents. The Federal Election Commission is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans which guarantees deadlock instead of two Democrats, two Republicans, and two independents, which the current statute allows for and would produce functional oversight of the electoral process. Local and state boards of elections are run by Democratic and Republican appointees.

We do need to elect independent thinkers no longer tethered to tired dogmas, as Scarborough suggests. That is true. And we need to free independent voters from the iron maiden of partisan election laws and practices that keep them from fully participating.

Want to fix American politics? Open up the primaries https://t.co/Cq85lfcmAg

Implementing open primaries is where I start. Its simple and popular. Let all voters vote in all elections. Dont make party membership a condition for participation. Dont let the parties private, non-government organizations decide who can and cannot vote in publicly funded elections. If we can break down this barrier, the American people will be better positioned to take on the dozens of other ways the parties hold on to old dogmas and insulate themselves from independent voices, from change and from progress.

My hope is that Scarborough takes his independence seriously and uses his location in the media to publicize the growing chorus of voices calling for the full enfranchisement of independent voters. While just five years ago the conversation about reform was limited to money in politics, there is a surge of new leaders and organizations who recognize that the party control of the process itself must be disrupted. There are hundreds of articulate, passionate, committed and accomplished independent leaders and reformers working around the clock to reform our political system. The country needs more opportunities to hear from them!

Dont mourn Joe. Join the fight to unleash the power of independents.

John Opdycke is president of Open Primaries, a national election-reform group.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

Originally posted here:
Independent voters have second-class status in American ... - The Hill - The Hill (blog)

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates saysPresident Trump's comments rippingAttorney General Jeff SessionsJeff Sessions8 things you might have missed in latest Trump interview Trump has confidencein Sessions, White House says Your income paid for welfare fraud from sea to shining sea MORE's recusal from the Russia probeis a violation of the Justice Department's independence.

"POTUS attack on Russia recusal reveals yet again his violation of the essential independence of DOJ, a bedrock principle of our democracy," Yates tweeted Thursday.

POTUS attack on Russia recusal reveals yet again his violation of the essential independence of DOJ, a bedrock principle of our democracy.

"Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else," Trump said.

Sessions recused himself from the federal investigation into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow inMarch, after it was revealed that he failed to disclose to the Senate two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while he was a surrogate for Trump's campaign.

Trump abruptly fired Yates earlier this year for refusing to defend in court his original executive order restricting entry to the U.S. for refugees and people from certain Muslim-majority countries.

The former acting attorney general has slammed the Trump administration before for ignoring legal and political norms, saying its behavior should be "alarming to us as a country."

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Sally Yates: Trump attack on Sessions violates 'bedrock principle of our democracy' - The Hill (blog)

Donald Trumps reaction to the news that he is being investigated for possible obstruction of justice was to send out a twitter message claiming that: You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history led by some very bad and conflicted people!

Bad and conflicted people?? Trump is being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a man who served honorably as Director of the FBI under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He is an extremely capable, independent, and ethical public servant.

Among Trumps many problems is his fragile ego, his propensity to shoot from the hip, and his inability to keep his mouth shut (or twitter off!) He created this situation by speaking and tweeting evidence of his wish to obstruct the FBIinvestigation into possiblecollusion between his campaign and the Russians.

It appears that Trump is trying to create a false justification for ordering Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mr. Mueller as independent counsel. Perhaps he thinks he would then be able to order Rosenstein to appoint someone who is loyal to his highness.

Trump is a very immature and unstable person who has the power to seriously undermine our democracy. So far, Congressional Republicans are allowing him to act more and more like a spoiled child who cannot tolerate any restrictions on his behavior. When will they finally wake up to the fact that he is behaving like an autocratic dictator, not the president of a democracy?

Virginia Washburn

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A danger to our democracy - Harborcountry News

Buchanan has developed a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich. It is reshaping politics. Illustration: Sbastien Thibault

Its the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half century. To read Nancy MacLeans new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Rights Stealth Plan for America, is to see what was previously invisible.

The history professors work on the subject began by accident. In 2013 she stumbled across a deserted clapboard house on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia. It was stuffed with the unsorted archives of a man who had died that year whose name is probably unfamiliar to you: James McGill Buchanan. She says the first thing she picked up was a stack of confidential letters concerning millions of dollars transferred to the university by the billionaire Charles Koch.

Her discoveries in that house of horrors reveal how Buchanan, in collaboration with business tycoons and the institutes they founded, developed a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich. The programme is now reshaping politics, and not just in the US.

Buchanan was strongly influenced by both the neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and the property supremacism of John C Calhoun, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that freedom consists of the absolute right to use your property (including your slaves) however you may wish; any institution that impinges on this right is an agent of oppression, exploiting men of property on behalf of the undeserving masses.

James Buchanan brought these influences together to create what he called public choice theory. He argued that a society could not be considered free unless every citizen has the right to veto its decisions. What he meant by this was that no one should be taxed against their will. But the rich were being exploited by people who use their votes to demand money that others have earned, through involuntary taxes to support public spending and welfare. Allowing workers to form trade unions and imposing graduated income taxes were forms of differential or discriminatory legislation against the owners of capital.

Any clash between freedom (allowing the rich to do as they wish) and democracy should be resolved in favour of freedom. In his book The Limits of Liberty, he noted that despotism may be the only organisational alternative to the political structure that we observe. Despotism in defence of freedom.

His prescription was a constitutional revolution: creating irrevocable restraints to limit democratic choice. Sponsored throughout his working life by wealthy foundations, billionaires and corporations, he developed a theoretical account of what this constitutional revolution would look like, and a strategy for implementing it.

He explained how attempts to desegregate schooling in the American south could be frustrated by setting up a network of state-sponsored private schools. It was he who first proposed privatising universities, and imposing full tuition fees on students: his original purpose was to crush student activism. He urged privatisation of social security and many other functions of the state. He sought to break the links between people and government, and demolish trust in public institutions. He aimed, in short, to save capitalism from democracy.

In 1980, he was able to put the programme into action. He was invited to Chile, where he helped the Pinochet dictatorship write a new constitution, which, partly through the clever devices Buchanan proposed, has proved impossible to reverse entirely. Amid the torture and killings, he advised the government to extend programmes of privatisation, austerity, monetary restraint, deregulation and the destruction of trade unions: a package that helped trigger economic collapse in 1982.

None of this troubled the Swedish Academy, which through his devotee at Stockholm University Assar Lindbeck in 1986 awarded James Buchanan the Nobel memorial prize for economics. It is one of several decisions that have turned this prize toxic.

But his power really began to be felt when Koch, currently the seventh richest man in the US, decided that Buchanan held the key to the transformation he sought. Koch saw even such ideologues as Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan as sellouts, as they sought to improve the efficiency of government rather than destroy it altogether. But Buchanan took it all the way.

MacLean says that Charles Koch poured millions into Buchanans work at George Mason University, whose law and economics departments look as much like corporate-funded thinktanks as they do academic faculties. He employed the economist to select the revolutionary cadre that would implement his programme (Murray Rothbard, at the Cato Institute that Koch founded, had urged the billionaire to study Lenins techniques and apply them to the libertarian cause). Between them, they began to develop a programme for changing the rules.

The papers Nancy MacLean discovered show that Buchanan saw stealth as crucial. He told his collaborators that conspiratorial secrecy is at all times essential. Instead of revealing their ultimate destination, they would proceed by incremental steps. For example, in seeking to destroy the social security system, they would claim to be saving it, arguing that it would fail without a series of radical reforms. (The same argument is used by those attacking the NHS). Gradually they would build a counter-intelligentsia, allied to a vast network of political power that would become the new establishment.

Through the network of thinktanks that Koch and other billionaires have sponsored, through their transformation of the Republican party, and the hundreds of millions they have poured into state congressional and judicial races, through the mass colonisation of Trumps administration by members of this network and lethally effective campaigns against everything from public health to action on climate change, it would be fair to say that Buchanans vision is maturing in the US.

But not just there. Reading this book felt like a demisting of the window through which I see British politics. The bonfire of regulations highlighted by the Grenfell Tower disaster, the destruction of state architecture through austerity, the budgeting rules, the dismantling of public services, tuition fees and the control of schools: all these measures follow Buchanans programme to the letter. I wonder how many people are aware that David Camerons free schools project stands in a tradition designed to hamper racial desegregation in the American south.

In one respect, Buchanan was right: there is an inherent conflict between what he called economic freedom and political liberty. Complete freedom for billionaires means poverty, insecurity, pollution and collapsing public services for everyone else. Because we will not vote for this, it can be delivered only through deception and authoritarian control. The choice we face is between unfettered capitalism and democracy. You cannot have both.

Buchanans programme is a prescription for totalitarian capitalism. And his disciples have only begun to implement it. But at least, thanks to MacLeans discoveries, we can now apprehend the agenda. One of the first rules of politics is, know your enemy. Were getting there.

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A despot in disguise: one man's mission to rip up democracy - The Guardian