Bill Mitchell — Left-liberals and neoliberals really should not be in the same party

This week’s theme seems to be the about how the so-called progressive side of the economic and political debate keeps kicking ‘own goals’ (given a lot of this is happening in Britain where they play soccer) or finding creative ways to ‘face plant’ (moving to Europe where there is more snow). Over the other side of the Atlantic, as America approaches its mid-term elections, so-called progressive forces who give solace to the New Democrats, aka Neoliberal Democrats are railing against fiscal deficits and demanding that the left-liberals in the Democratic Party be pushed out and that the voters be urged to elect candidates who will impose austerity by cutting welfare and health expenditure and more. And then we have progressive think tanks pumping out stuff about banking that you would only find in a mainstream macroeconomic textbook. This is the state of play on the progressive side of politics. The demise of social democratic political movements is continuing and it is because they have become corrupted from within by neoliberals. And then we had a little demonstration in London yesterday of the way in which the British Labour Fiscal Rule will bring the Party grief. The Tories are just warming up on that one....

The left-liberal voters in the US, have figured that out. Send a message by either not voting or voting third party. The Democratic establishment is poised to lose a portion of its base if it doesn't wake up. The straw that broke the camel's back was sabotaging Bernie Sanders to give Hillary Clinton the nomination.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Left-liberals and neoliberals really should not be in the same party
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Luke Brinker — Connecticut’s crucial lesson: Democrats can win when they listen to progressives

Dannel Malloy waged a fiercely economic populist campaign against a tough opponent -- and he won.…

…Malloy signed both paid sick leave and the minimum wage increase into law despite encountering opposition among more moderate Democrats in the state legislature, particularly on the former.

“When we passed paid sick days, when we passed the minimum wage increase, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “We had a lot of opposition from more moderate Democrats. In Connecticut, there are strong Democratic majorities in both chambers, but you get a lot of opposition from moderate, corporate Democrats. So if they had won the day on those issues, we’d probably be preparing for Gov. Foley right now, because Malloy would have been without these strong economic justice issues to run a campaign on.”

Salon
Connecticut’s crucial lesson: Democrats can win when they listen to progressives

Luke Brinker

Bill Mitchell — When you’ve got friends like this – Part 11

I received two E-mails yesterday informing me that at the upcoming NSW State Labor Conference (this weekend) the delegates would be asked to vote for the inclusion of a Federal Job Guarantee, along the lines that I have been working on since 1978 (more or less), in Labor Party policy. For readers abroad, the Labor Party is the major federal opposition party at present having lost government in 2013. It began life as the political arm of the trade union movement. Anyway, that was a pleasing development I thought. A little later, I received an E-mail and a follow up telephone call telling me that the same conference, the delegates would be asked to vote on a motion put forward by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, which is the strongest ‘left-wing’ union in Australia, that says that the ALP “should be focused on maintaining government solvency” and maintaining “low and stable Deficit to GDP ratios” and ensure the “tax base is adequate to fund Labor’s priorities”. Then I read a news report from the UK from earlier in the year about the Labour Party’s commitment in the upcoming election to shore up its “fiscal credibility” by eliminating the fiscal deficit with the leader Ed Miliband claiming that “When we come to office … there won’t be lots of real money to spend, things will be difficult”. Bloody hell! This is progressive politics – neo-liberal Groupthink style. At least there are a few truly progressive people who see that a federal Job Guarantee is the way forward as a first step.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
When you’ve got friends like this – Part 11
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia