Topik za prave levičare

Mór Thököly wrote:
 Svet se prosto posle nezapamcene tehnoloske prednosti zapada - niveliše. EU zapravo pomaze da se taj proces uspori.

Летећи Полип wrote:

Mór Thököly wrote:
 Svet se prosto posle nezapamcene tehnoloske prednosti zapada - niveliše. EU zapravo pomaze da se taj proces uspori.

Obrni, okreni, to je onda opet Festung Europa.

Mór Thököly wrote:Problem je u samoj recenici. Problem je kako su od analize voting patterna u EU dosli do globalizacije. Ine samo oni, masa autora to trpa zajedno. Kad je istina zapravo u dobroj meri suprotna - EU cuva, u nekoj meri, ali cuva od globalizacije.

https://www.eurointelligence.com/

If the EU fails, this is how

No one statistic ever tells a complete story, but this one comes a long way: In the 2020, year one of the pandemic, the number of start-ups in the US rose by 24%. In Germany they fell by 11%. In absolute numbers, the US has five times Germany's GDP, but nine times as many start-ups.

When we discuss European politics, we talk about EU governance, fiscal and monetary policy, immigration and EU enlargement. What Europe's multiple crisis have in common is that they are driven to a large extent by a lack of innovation, and the resulting lack of productivity growth. Stagnant societies close themselves off to change. They oppose integration and open immigration policies. Lack of innovation and over-reliance on old technology is the reason why German foreign policy is trapped in neo-mercantilism. If your current account surplus accounts for 8% of GDP, what else can you do? You have insufficient degrees of freedom left to pursue other political goals.

Earlier this week, we noted a German commentator questioning whether the Greens had even thought about the demise of the old industries that would be accelerated if their programme was implemented. The Green transition would mean that entire industrial segments are in danger of disappearing.

A reader wrote in this week making the point that the EU's planned carbon-border adjustment mechanism would cause disproportional damage to existing industries. Recent physical disruption in global supply chains is only a foretaste of what is to come.

These objections are real. The ideal strategic response should have started a decade ago with a policy to encourage diversification and the development of new industries as old industries die. Virulent creative destruction is disruptive, but would give societies room to compensate the losers, and move forward.

This strategy requires massive investment. It requires a rediscovery of entrepreneurship, and with it a reinvention of an education system that is currently designed to feed industrial employment, as is the case in Germany, or to support elite structures, which is what has been happening in France and the UK. The various plagiarism scandals in Germany are in one respect a sign that society places an excessive value on academic titles, and mostly useless publications. The value of a good education should be in what it teaches, not in the honours it confers. In this sense, we should look at plagiarism scandals as a metric of how far away we are from that reality.

It is arguable that a Schumpeterian process of creative destruction, while ideal in theory, is not attainable in practice given where Europe is right now. It cannot be delivered by the state, or by existing private sector companies. It is too disruptive for European tastes.

The alternative strategy consists of ultra-long adjustment periods, like Germany's infamous 2038 exit date from coal. One politician we see as a typical representative of that strand of thinking is Peter Altmaier, the German economics minister. He is not a climate-change sceptic, but a target-sceptic. He wants to give industry more time to adjust. He is, of course, in favour of Nord Stream 2, because of the energy security it brings.

Where we think this strategy will fail in practice is an over-optimistic take on what extra time can do. The idea of electric cars is hardly new. The German car industry bet the house on diesel technology, and its criminal extension, the software cheating devices. It is somewhat naive to think that a five-year delay in the phasing out of fuel-driven cars would give the diesel boys time to reinvent themselves.

The default position - the one that happens when nothing else happens - is increased dependence: on US technology companies; on Chinese inward investment; and on Russia gas. We might call it non-creative destruction. That result is a gradual impoverishment, more inequality, and rising political discontent and fragmentation. Foreign policy will become even more mercantilist. Nationalism will rise and support for European integration will fall. It cannot conceivably prosper in an environment of technological backwardness. Forget about the conference on the future of Europe. A struggling inward-looking Europe will not move in one or the other direction.

There are signs of hope. The BioNTech vaccine was a rare success in a sea of EU vaccine development failures. If Europe could replicate that success in other areas - like environmental and agricultural technologies, alternative food production, water treatment, robotics and new production technologies, the 21st century would have finally arrived. Europe has slept through the digital revolution, AI, and electric cars. But there are many other exciting 21st-century technological developments to be exploited. The mistake the EU and member states are most likely to make is to rely on existing companies, rather than encourage new ones. We should remember that all of the Big Four are newcomers. The electrical giants of the 1960s are nowhere. The European car companies will not be the leaders in electric cars. Success and failure will depend on new entrepreneurs, not old ones. The real opposites are not the left and the right, industry and union, but old companies and new ones.

As of now, the EU is still living in an extended 20th century, led by 20th century political figures like Angela Merkel, and Ursula von der Leyen. Politicians cannot on their own produce creative destruction, but they can set conditions for it to flourish. They have not done so. The EU is an entrepreneurial wasteland. Ireland and the Netherlands are business-friendly, in the sense that they have loopholes for large American corporates. But unlike the US itself, neither is particular friendly towards young entrepreneurs.

If European integration fails, this is why and how. It won't be because of Viktor Orbán, or austerity, or policy errors committed by central bankers. It will be because Europe continues to live in the past.

but old companies and new ones.

Marcus Parrish

23 hours ago (edited)

The more comfy our medium sized tbh boy gets the more the doom becomes realized. This is the hollowing out in real time folks and we love to see it. Matt has resolved to take all the best deals and I can’t blame him. The tradeoff is the quickening of the visceral horror. As a wise man once said, this is the rebirthening of a nation and world

Ben S

19 hours ago

OK so. Matt says it was Stalin trying to cover his ass after ww2 and save his own power as the reason he didn't push further into Europe and just topple capitalism. But then he points out the obvious reason that Moscow (let's not do great man of history Bs) didn't pursue that avenue, the USSR was too weak after the war to "finish the fight" or whatever. If war had continued or broken out in the immediate aftermath of the war the Soviets would probably have lost. Not trying to simp for Stalin but I dot see how that's his fault. Are you really asking the ussr to have sacrificed another 20 million people because western communists failed to have their own revolutions?
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Mark Devine

21 hours ago

The ceiling fan above his head: opening sequence from Apocalypse Now. Matt in his hotel room waiting for a knock on the door and his chopper back into the shit.

Peters recently spoke to Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson about his work on cash bail, how leftists can talk about violent crime without compromising on criminal punishment reform, and how he tries to “work within the system” while staying accountable to the left political movement.

Bleeding Blitva wrote:https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/08/meet-the-democratic-socialist-holding-barack-obamas-old-state-senate-seat

Peters recently spoke to Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson about his work on cash bail, how leftists can talk about violent crime without compromising on criminal punishment reform, and how he tries to “work within the system” while staying accountable to the left political movement.

CA o realpolitici, najavili seriju ovakvih intervjua s lijevim političarima