The YouTube personality Gad Saad is interviewed on political correctness, especially in universities, in the video below.
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http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/
ReplyDeletePerfect example of the three-fold problem in America:
Delete(1) the economic catastrophe of neoliberalism, with low wage economy, mass unemployment or underemployment
(2) harmful effects of mass immigration on the poor (e.g., “I applied for a job at Tyson Chicken. They only hire Mexicans because they work cheap.”)
(3) the vicious elite, cultural leftist narrative that poor white working class people are the scum of the earth.
The point where the article goes wrong is when Trump is portrayed as some extreme libertarian-type.
On the contrary, he is calling for Big Government and protectionism. He has said “no” to social security privatisation. He humiliated the neoconservatives and rejected their imperial project. He actually was in favour of universal health care for many years.
Finally the author says
“Immigrants and refugees are not my enemy.”
Correct. But open borders and legal and illegal mass immigration still do badly harm the interests of poor people.
By touting "the harmful effects of mass immigration on the poor" in isolation, you make it sound like Immigrants Took R Jobs is nothing more than a case of one group of "alien" poor benefiting at the expense of the local poor. The problem is, this leaves out who really benefits from a race to the bottom on wages (hint: not anyone in the working class).
DeleteIn this way, I fear you're effectively supporting a narrative that narrowly turns workers against one another, displacing class antagonisms onto nationality or even ethnicity. That's really, really worrying, especially once you realize where stoking the fires of nationalist-chauvinism among the masses has historically led.
Anonymous@September 10, 2016 at 1:56 AM
DeleteNo, Anonymous, the truth is the precise opposite of your ridiculous charges.
In truth, it is the unhinged advocates of mass immigration and open borders who are "stoking the fires of nationalist-chauvinism among the masses" -- these leftists and conservatives should take moral responsibility for the failure of their policies and the rise of a new extreme nationalism.
Those who are calling for a sane limit to immigration are those who will defuse the turn to nationalist-chauvinism.
You may have missed my point. On one hand you very rightly decry (in your (3) above) the narrative that depicts the "white working class" poorly (though I don't agree that this is a tendency of the "left" per se), but then you treat the aforementioned national/ethnic tensions within almost as though it is a natural outcome, which seems to me to be a softer way of presenting the same argument. You'll obviously agree that workers are not inherently stupid or antisocial, though, which leaves open the question of why this is a natural, expected outcome. And then we have to get into matters like who's forging the dominant narratives and to what ends, which also brings us back to the folks who own everything and benefit from the race to the bottom.
DeleteBut you have a tendency (not saying it's intentional, but I've seen it happen a few times) to leave the latter party out of your own framing. This is why I worry that left-nationalist politics, while unequivocally preferable in all cases to right-nationalist politics, treads lightly on a similar road.
"You'll obviously agree that workers are not inherently stupid or antisocial, though, which leaves open the question of why this is a natural, expected outcome."
DeleteIt is a natural outcome because more and more people now have a normal and natural desire to limit immigration and reject open borders, because they see the harmful economic, social and cultural consequences of these policies.
If the mainstream left and right pay no attention to these concerns, people will vote for the populist right parties as the only alternative.
"It is a natural outcome because more and more people now have a normal and natural desire"
DeleteWait, it's natural because... it's natural?
I'm starting to think I may have been misreading you. Care to go into a bit more detail on this?
You're nit-picking over a minor poorly-worded sentence.
DeleteChange the sentence to:
"It is an outcome not remotely surprising because more and more people are now being forced to openly express a normal and natural desire to limit immigration and reject open borders, because they see the harmful economic, social and cultural consequences of these policies."
Reasons why open borders and mass immigration are wrong on left-wing principles:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/11/open-borders-within-and-into-europe-is.html
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2016/03/mass-immigration-is-last-fraud-of.html
Also, most people wish to preserve their national cultures and countries as majority homelands for their people:
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2016/08/tibet-versus-sweden-simple-test.html
--------
If you are incapable of empathising or understanding the feelings of ordinary people, especially working class people, then what are you even doing on the left?
"It is an outcome not remotely surprising because more and more people are now being forced to openly express a normal and natural desire to limit immigration and reject open borders, because they see the harmful economic, social and cultural consequences of these policies."
DeleteYeah, it was more the second "normal and natural" I was trying to discuss. I appreciate that you're mentioning Dean Baker, though; I think he's pretty successful at framing it. Discourse on "homeland" (or "fatherland" or the like) I find much more suspect, especially in this global political climate.
If I had to summarize my point: I hope the left can do more to center class over the nation-state, though not because of any revulsion to the latter. It's more to stake out a more distinctively leftist territory (with less danger of being conflated with the populist right, which I'm sure you saw many centrists trying to do to Lexiters during Brexit), and to promote solidarity across more comprehensive lines.
That's about the sum of it. It's not a question of failure to empathize; it's about the most fundamental aspect of what constitutes the left, which is egalitarianism. Even if people happened to have been born within different political boundaries.
That's about it. Cheers.
Anonymous
Deleteif you want the working class prosper you will not solve it by making poor unskiled labour to flood developed countries actually you will just destroy the conditions of working class in developed world while not creating prosperty in the developed world at all.
if you want the working class to flourish and be stronger you should encourage third world countries embrace good developementalist policies like the ones list hamilton and ha joon chang recommended.
and for that you need stronger nationstates not destroying the nationstates by flooding them with mass immigration.
and also an international clearing union.
Daniel here is correct. If this immigration problem isn't solved, then the whole class focus loses its purpose. You'd have a permanent advocacy for the poorest immigrants fresh off the boat, while ignoring the deteriorating conditions of the working class and of the immigrants who are already in the process of integrating in society and the economy. Everybody would be worse off.
DeleteHowever, I shall have to disagree with him on countries implementing developmentalist policies. It is definitely not a universal solution. Some countries will be better at this, while others will fail.
Thats why international clearing union will give countries to develop without hitting balance of payment constraint.
DeleteThis is seriously stupid. You should engage with actual feminists on YT. The entire "sjw" thing is just cherry picked screen shots (many being satire) of 13 year old kids on Tumblr. The rest of the stuff is anecdotal tales. There are plenty of feminists who are against post modernism and even assuming they use it as a methodology, one could still come to the same conclusions using another method.
ReplyDeleteYou should try people who actually understand feminism such as this video: https://youtu.be/dUM9Me6y8ME
OR try this one between Sargon and an actual feminist: https://youtu.be/eZEe4PSLCoY