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
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
While I am skeptical about the PSOE (and about Podemos Unidos, to be honest) I think the situation is not as bad a Prof. Mitchell makes it look.
ReplyDeletePodemos Unidos and the Basque and Catalan nationalists are not part of a governing coalition with PSOE. The PSOE government is a minority government. The Cabinet is entirely PSOE.
Pablo Iglesias, from Podemos Unidos, tried to convince Sánchez to form a coalition, but Sánchez refused.
Podemos Unidos and the nationalists did support Pedro Sánchez's no confidence vote on Mariano Rajoy's government, only that. In exchange Sánchez gave Podemos Unidos what Prof. Mitchell said. The Catalan insisted on the new austerity package, which is precisely what Sánchez gave them.
Unless I'm very mistaken, neither the nationalists nor Podemos Unidos have pledged support for any other PSOE initiative.
My understanding (and that may be just wishful thinking) is that the Sánchez government is supposed to be only a kind of caretaker and general elections should follow in the near future.
So, what's crucial is not what the current Sánchez government intends to do, but: (1) whether Podemos could win a general election? and (2) if it did, could it actually dismiss the Brussels-imposed austerity, even if it wanted to?