Category Archives: Political Economy

America Is Moving Leftwards

Democrats, Donald Trump, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Economy, Politics, Republicans

We know the Democrats are rapidly radicalizing, but what about Republicans? What about the country as a whole?

Well, according to The Economist, “AMERICANS ARE more in favour of ‘big-government’ policies today than at any point in the last 68 years. That is the conclusion of James Stimson, a political scientist, who has analysed long-running polls from the Universities of Chicago and Michigan to come up with annual estimates of the ‘public mood.'”

The magazine blames—you guessed it—“Donald Trump’s presidency,” rather than demographic changes over the corresponding decades.

Mr Stimson estimates that the last time America was feeling this left-wing was in 1961, when the civil-rights movement was full-steam ahead and Alan Shepard became the first American to be launched into outer space.

Public opinion is contradictory: many more Americans describe themselves as conservative than as liberal; yet Americans prefer left-leaning policies to right-leaning ones, even when these are accompanied by the promise of higher taxes. Mr Stimson’s data show a steady leftward shift in Americans’ views on the scope of government since 1952. And according to data from the Policy Agendas Project, an academic research group, the public also holds views that are more tolerant than ever on social issues like same-sex marriage; worries more about the environment; and is more enthusiastic about immigration and giving a helping hand to African-Americans.

MORE.

In Venezuela, There Is No Disagreement About SOCIALISM

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Neoconservatism, Political Economy, Socialism

This may come as news to the doctrinaire democrats (lower case “d”) who doggedly conflate the will of the people with liberty:

The Venezuelan mobs fighting against the forces of Nicolás Maduro are not fighting for “freedom,” as we classical liberals think of it; they are not fighting against socialism.

In Juan Guaidó, Venezuelans are simply looking for a better, kinder socialist.

Guaidó is a member of the Socialist International. Guaidó is a member of the Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party, which has been an official member of the Socialist International since 2014.

MORE.

You mean you didn’t know that the Guaidó the US wants to go to war for is a socialist?

AGAIN: The masses as a rule, in the US and abroad, want more stuff, not less of it. If we quit the Disneyfied view of the world’s quarrels; perhaps we Americans will be less inclined to intervene in battles not our own.

One can only hope.

Global Support For Globalism As Opposed To Populism

Democracy, Globalism, IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Political Economy, The West, UN

The Economist has cause to celebrate:

“Majority of World Population Supports Globalism, Survey Finds.”

It would appear that, “The global public favors cooperation between nations, thinks immigration is a good thing and believes climate scientists, according to a poll of 10,000 people in every region of the world.”

The key likely lies in the term “global public.”

These policies mentioned benefit the world’s poor and the poor are in a majority of billions.

Democratic governments are meant to advance the welfare of their citizens, chiefly, but they don’t.

Created by democratic governments, globalist organizations give billions of poor a lien on the assets (including the patrimony) of their citizens. These globalist orgs do so through unrepresentative global organizations-–UN, EU, WTO, IMF, WB, OECD, UN-Habitat, on and on.

In democracies (and their international offshoots), everything is up for grabs. In exchange for power, wealth is forcibly distributed by taking from one and giving to the other—from rich to poor; from North to South.

Democracy is when everything is up for grabs without constitutional limits. Globalism is an extension of that—what can we smart citizens of the world do with your funds and patrimony, little peon. Globalism is democracy on a global scale.

 

Trashing Populism: Dim-Bulb Academic Vs. Deplorables

IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Populism

The NEW COLUMN, “Trashing Populism: Dim-Bulb Academic Vs. Deplorables,” exposes populism-bashing elites like Kevin D. Williamson, formerly of National Review, who said this about about Deplorables: “The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die”:

An excerpt:

To say that academic elites don’t like ordinary folks is to state the obvious.

To them, Lanford, Illinois—the fictional, archetypal, working-class town, made famous by Roseanne and Dan Conner—is not to be listened to, but tamed.

A well-functioning democracy depends on it.

Taming Fishtown—Charles Murray’s version of Landford—is the thread that seems to run through  a new book, “The People vs. Democracy,” by one Yascha Mounk.

You guessed it. Mr. Mounk is not an American from the prairies; he’s a German academic, ensconced at Harvard, and sitting in judgment of American and European populism.

If only he were capable of advancing a decent argument.

“The number of countries that can plausibly be described as democracies is shrinking,” laments Mounk (“Populism and the Elites,” The Economist, March 17, 2018):

“Strongmen are in power in several countries that once looked as if they were democratizing … The United States—the engine room of democratization for most of the post-war period—has a president who taunted his opponent with chants of ‘lock her up’ and refused to say if he would accept the result of the election if it went against him.”

Elites ensconced in the academy are likely selected into these mummified institutions for a certain kind of ignorance about political theory or philosophy.

Plainly put, a chant, “lock her up,” is speech, nothing more. This Trump-rally chant might be impolite and impolitic, but on the facts, it’s not evidence of a “strongman.”

Notice how, deconstructed, nearly every utterance emitted by the technocratic and academic elites turns out to be empty assertion?

Even the subtitle of the book under discussion is sloppy political theory: “Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It” implies that democracy is the be-all and end-all of liberty. Quite the opposite.

America’s Constitution-makers did everything in their power (except, sadly, heed the Anti-Federalists) to thwart a dispensation wherein everything is up for grabs by government, in the name of the people. …

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN IS “Trashing Populism: Dim-Bulb Academic Vs. Deplorables.” It’s available also on WND.com, Constitution.com, the Unz Review, and others.