Neoliberal Centrism is how the Fascists will gain power

It took just a year and a half to go from this...

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...to this.

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The ruling elite never saw Macron's fall from grace coming, but then they never do.
They completely ignored a staggering 16 million who either abstained or handed in a spoiled ballot (Macron only got 20 million votes).
Even before Macron was elected, Jacobin has this headline.
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And sure enough, Le Pen is now running neck and neck with Macron.

The Ipsos Sopra-Steria poll published on Monday showed Mr Macron’s La Republique en Marche (LREM) movement with 23 percent of voting intentions, while Mrs Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) — formerly the Front National — was seen winning 21 percent of the French vote. The French daily Le Monde, which commissioned the survey, said the poll showed that France’s “political landscape is surprisingly divided,” with centrist and far-right movements obliterating traditional left- and right-wing parties.
...Some 36 percent of those polled said that they would be voting in the parliamentary election to express their opposition to Mr Macron and his government, whose liberal economic policies are seen as favouring the urban elite over the rural poor.

So what were those "liberal economic policies seen as favouring the urban elite"?
It's a recipe that you should be familiar with.
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At the same time, there is another neoliberal centrist falling from grace in Canada.

Earlier this week, Canada’s undeniably gorgeous, halo-bound Liberal prime minister, Justin Trudeau – proud feminist, defender of minority rights, advocate for transparency, inclusivity and decency, and prince of the one-armed push-up – was morally eviscerated over four-hours of astonishing testimony by his own former attorney general and justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould – a woman of great integrity and a rare Indigenous Canadian cabinet minister.

To recap, Wilson-Raybould was demoted to the position of veterans affairs minister in a cabinet shuffle earlier this year. Shortly thereafter, reports emerged that she and her staff had been subjected to a “sustained” campaign by the prime minister’s office over the handling of corruption charges against SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based engineering giant accused of bribing Libyan officials. It happens to be a large employer in Quebec, Trudeau’s home state – the prime minister’s office made sure to remind her of that, the job losses such charges might cause and the fact that it was an election year. There was a string of increasingly irate calls, texts and emails. Still, Wilson-Raybould held her ground. The prime minister lost the battle. Then she was demoted.

Trudeau has fallen behind in the polls for the first time, but that was mostly before this corruption scandal.
What happened before the scandal was this.
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The is more than one historical precedent for anti-worker, neoliberalism leading to a far-right political takeover.

The Nazis only won 32 Reichstag seats in the election of May 1924, and just 12 in 1928. Five years after the hyperinflation the Nazis were a political party without a future.
  They were circling the drain of history, polling at less than 3%. They were an afterthought.

 So what happened?
Germany embraced a conservative economic policy of austerity through the finance expert Heinrich Brüning.
   Brüning's austerity policies were repeatedly opposed and defeated in parliament by the socialists and communists (an event that was considered a "failure of parliament" by conservatives), which led to pushing the austerity measures through by presidential decrees (Brüning called it "authoritative democracy").

  These austerity measures included:
* rolling back salaries to 1927 levels
* hiking interest rates
* dramatically increasing taxes on labor
* gutting unemployment and pension benefits

 Except for interest rates, this is a list of what Germany has currently imposed on southern Europe.

 Most German capitalists and landowners originally supported the conservative experiment more from the belief that conservatives would best serve their interests rather than any particular liking for Brüning. As more of the working and middle classes turned against Brüning, however, more of the capitalists and landowners declared themselves in favour of his opponents Hitler and Hugenberg. By late 1931, the conservative movement was dead and Hindenburg and the Reichswehr had begun to contemplate dropping Brüning in favour of accommodating Hugenberg and Hitler.

      What happened was center-right and center-left parties backed austerity measures that crushed the life out of the middle class. The Social Democrats in particular undermined their own supporters.
   When workers turned to any extremist party who could stop them, one that also hated communists and socialists, the conservatives jumped on board.

 As Paul Krugman has pointed out, “the 1923 hyperinflation didn’t bring Hitler to power; it was the Brüning deflation” of the early-1930s.

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boriscleto's picture

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

snoopydawg's picture

@CB

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As depressing as it is, sadly you pretty much nailed it. Just hope there is more than us paying attention.

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@Snode
"Where are all the Democrats? I hope you’re all aware we’re all Eisenhower Republicans. We’re Eisenhower Republicans here, and we are fighting the Reagan Republicans. We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn’t that great?"
- President Clinton

link

So in short, left-neoliberalism is a left-wing approach to economic policy that tries to remedy economic injustice by 1) constructing a laissez-faire capitalist system, 2) using tax-and-transfer programs to directly redistribute income, and 3) using government regulation to fix market failures. As with all views, many criticisms are levied against left-neoliberalism. The two most prominent criticisms center around left-neoliberalism’s lack of a theory of politics and its inability to account for non-welfare harms.

Left-neoliberalism’s dim view of unions puts the theory at odds with the working class’ primary political agent, organized labor. Critics suggest that this anti-union position creates practicality problems for the view. The only way to achieve the left-neoliberal policy agenda is to mobilize enough electoral heft behind it. But one of the most significant left-wing electoral and lobbying actors in the United States is organized labor. So many left-neoliberals find themselves in an impossible political situation: they want to get rid of unions while also pursuing a policy agenda that will have basically no chance of passing if union political organizing no longer exists.

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ggersh's picture

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

jobu's picture

Watching the Sanders Institutes Gathering roundtable I am somewhat encouraged that there are good people recognizing and organizing in response to the rise of straight diesel fascism in Europe and throughout the world.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4757NVsUp3c]

Conversely, watching Steve Bannon at the Oxford Union, I am borderline terrified. He is very capably using the language of progressive populism and harnessing it to right wing populism as he did for Trump in 2016.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AtOw-xyMo8]

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The Aspie Corner's picture

We have nothing to vote for. No meaningful way to fight back. Too many are perfectly fine with this shit, including being perfectly fine with 'President' Dipshit. Fuck the pigs and their decay.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Neoliberal centrism is fascism hiding behind a smiley face. It is using social justice to appeal to people's better instincts and make them invested in fascism. (it is a small step from "Do the right thing" to "Do what I say is the right thing or else!") So all we have is a choice between brands of fascism. Corbyn and Sanders are trying, but they are the exceptions, not the rule, and they are fighting uphill.

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On to Biden since 1973