How has nationalization and the government controlling the means of production been abandoned? Have you seen what Russia and China are up to?
The history of the 19th and 20th century has seen a continuous movement towards welfare and labor reforms, which are broadly “leftist” (or at least a part of the liberal project—the neoreaction types will agree). In other words, what the heck are you talking about?
Nationalization etc have been abandoned by the parties of the left in western democracies. Putin acts for Putin. China is state CAPITALISM.
The past 100 years have seen a trend towards labour reform. The past 30 years have seen capitalist economics accepted by everyone. Free market economics was imposed on Russia in the 90s, as the obvious choice of system. Because of prevailing inequalities, that led to the oligarchs. Putns threats of nationalization are part of a power struggle with them.
Edit: do you think western countries could have the kind of capitalism they one have with an unreformsd labour market of downtrodden serfs, bonded for life to a single overlord? Much labor reform came about because capitalism was evolving to a form where employers needed an educated and flexible workforce. Some reforms were pushed by government, but much just had to happen, because you can’t plug Jethro the serf into the job done by Josh the freelance web designer.
you: “The economics of the left have been abandoned.”
me: “What do you mean by ’economics of the left?”
you: “Nationalization, the government controlling the means of production, etc.”
me: “What about Russia, China, etc?”
you: “Russia is actually not a true Scotsman, and I am going to apply the label ‘capitalism’ to China in such a way that it trumps the fact that a huge amount of economic capacity activity there is directly controlled by the state, many many firms are nationalized, or effectively nationalized, etc.”
re: edit: 19th-20th century reforms are a very complicated subject, I don’t think you can give a good analysis in one paragraph. Reforms in Russia went very differently from reforms in the Ottoman empire, which went very differently from reforms in Hapsburg Austria, and so on.
For example, Russia abolished the serfs because they noted that their army was pathetic during the Crimean war, and they wanted to have an army that is competitive with the West. And of course the process wasn’t even complete until 1907, which is amazing if you think about it because it implies Russia was part-feudal into the 20th century.
One view on the current Crimean crisis is that Russia is still playing conceptual catchup with the West. When the West was living in the 19th century, Russia was living in the 16th. Now that the West is living in the 21st century, Russia is living in the 19th. At any rate, Russia’s trajectory has very little in common with, for instance, England’s trajectory. England started on the path of restricting the power of the King back during the Magna Carta days. Russia is still not fully on board with this being a good idea today, 8 centuries later.
You can’t just talk about “labor reform [unqualified].”
Russia also had free market economics imposed on it in the nineties, in line with pretty much everyone seeing it as the only option. So much for relentless leftwardsness.
How has nationalization and the government controlling the means of production been abandoned? Have you seen what Russia and China are up to?
The history of the 19th and 20th century has seen a continuous movement towards welfare and labor reforms, which are broadly “leftist” (or at least a part of the liberal project—the neoreaction types will agree). In other words, what the heck are you talking about?
Nationalization etc have been abandoned by the parties of the left in western democracies. Putin acts for Putin. China is state CAPITALISM.
The past 100 years have seen a trend towards labour reform. The past 30 years have seen capitalist economics accepted by everyone. Free market economics was imposed on Russia in the 90s, as the obvious choice of system. Because of prevailing inequalities, that led to the oligarchs. Putns threats of nationalization are part of a power struggle with them.
Edit: do you think western countries could have the kind of capitalism they one have with an unreformsd labour market of downtrodden serfs, bonded for life to a single overlord? Much labor reform came about because capitalism was evolving to a form where employers needed an educated and flexible workforce. Some reforms were pushed by government, but much just had to happen, because you can’t plug Jethro the serf into the job done by Josh the freelance web designer.
Here is how this conversation played out:
you: “The economics of the left have been abandoned.”
me: “What do you mean by ’economics of the left?”
you: “Nationalization, the government controlling the means of production, etc.”
me: “What about Russia, China, etc?”
you: “Russia is actually not a true Scotsman, and I am going to apply the label ‘capitalism’ to China in such a way that it trumps the fact that a huge amount of economic capacity activity there is directly controlled by the state, many many firms are nationalized, or effectively nationalized, etc.”
re: edit: 19th-20th century reforms are a very complicated subject, I don’t think you can give a good analysis in one paragraph. Reforms in Russia went very differently from reforms in the Ottoman empire, which went very differently from reforms in Hapsburg Austria, and so on.
For example, Russia abolished the serfs because they noted that their army was pathetic during the Crimean war, and they wanted to have an army that is competitive with the West. And of course the process wasn’t even complete until 1907, which is amazing if you think about it because it implies Russia was part-feudal into the 20th century.
One view on the current Crimean crisis is that Russia is still playing conceptual catchup with the West. When the West was living in the 19th century, Russia was living in the 16th. Now that the West is living in the 21st century, Russia is living in the 19th. At any rate, Russia’s trajectory has very little in common with, for instance, England’s trajectory. England started on the path of restricting the power of the King back during the Magna Carta days. Russia is still not fully on board with this being a good idea today, 8 centuries later.
You can’t just talk about “labor reform [unqualified].”
Russia also had free market economics imposed on it in the nineties, in line with pretty much everyone seeing it as the only option. So much for relentless leftwardsness.
Your “huge amount” is less than the everything the Chinese government used to control.
Edit: if China had been mostly ccapitalist 50 years ago, you could say it had moved to the left. But 50 years ago, it was under Mao....