Opinion: Joe Biden And The Social Democratic Moment
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post, July 18, 2021.
We are living in a new social democratic moment.
Its true that parties calling themselves by that name are having, at best, mixed success in the polls and at ballot boxes. But President Biden is such a soothing figure that its easy to miss how much he and his policies reflect this fundamental transformation of politics. Sweeping change should not come as a surprise given the traumas the world has confronted since 2016. The rise of right-wing authoritarian parties, and especially of Donald Trump, brought on a crisis of democracy.
Political systems had barely absorbed that shock when the covid-19 outbreak required sudden, large-scale government action to combat the coronaviruss spread and prevent economic collapse. By placing a premium on competent public administration and traditional forms of expertise, the pandemic undermined upstart ultranationalist parties before they had a chance to consolidate their gains. Voters faced with life-or-death questions have been reluctant to entrust their fate to demagogues more skilled at stoking resentments than solving problems.
But the far-right surge also worked in tandem with the pandemics challenges to bring to a close the era of austerity and unconstrained globalized capitalism. The way opened for a new wave of government activism. Unprecedented, redistributive government spending across the wealthy countries prevented the pandemic downturn from becoming another Great Depression. At the same time, the seething social resentments that right-wing populists brought to the fore forced even the complacent to recognize the dislocations and injustices bred by rising inequality over the last half-century.
This shift toward interventionism has been reinforced by a climate crisis whose dangers are increasingly obvious to large majorities across the democratic world. All this has led to a resurgence of social democracys core idea: that market economies can thrive only when governments underwrite them with strong systems of social insurance, new paths to opportunity for those cast aside by capitalisms creative destruction, and updated rules to advance social goods that include family life, education, public health and the planet itself...
More,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/18/joe-biden-social-democratic-moment/
Uncle Joe
(58,417 posts)Thanks for the thread appalachiablue.
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)so well, to maintain healthy economies, societies and for the sake of the earth we have to work cooperatively and with effective government involvement, especially in these times.
With the urgency of currents threats, namely extremist political figures, the demise of democracy, the pandemic, climate change, income inequality and social breakdown there's no other path. It's existential. Many others see this as well as Dionne fortunately.
Uncle Joe
(58,417 posts)I'm going to check it out.
"Drawing explicitly on the American political philosopher Michael J. Sandels critique of meritocracy, and implicitly channeling Sen. Sherrod Browns (D-Ohio) emphasis on the dignity of work, Scholz sees dignity and respect as key both to making racially and ethnically diverse societies work, and to responding to the social distempers that have drawn voters to the far right."
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)that have drawn voters to the far right,' nails it.
-----
- What is distemper? distemper in dogs
Distemper is a highly contagious viral disease of domestic dogs and other animals such as ferrets, skunks, and raccoons. It is an incurable, often fatal, multisystemic (affecting multiple organs) disease that affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and central nervous systems. Distemper is caused by the canine distemper virus (CDV).
https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/distemper-in-dogs#:~:text=Distemper%20is%20a%20highly%20contagious,gastrointestinal%2C%20and%20central%20nervous%20systems.
wnylib
(21,606 posts)Smokey, died from distemper.
Once an animal has it, there is no cure. But there is a vaccine to prevent it.
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)about getting them the shots and keeping up with their health and welfare. I thought the way Dionne used the term was interesting, obviously.
wnylib
(21,606 posts)But I was only 6 years old when Smokey died. My father grew up on a farm, where cats lived in the barn, were not pets, and generally fended for themselves. He scoffed at the idea that a city pet needed shots. A couple years after Smokey's death, when we got a puppy, he had it vaccinated.
Celerity
(43,498 posts)to derange the health/order of
Report of Investigation of Public Relief in the District of Columbia.
Social Service Review
Volume 13, Number 4
Dec., 1939
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/632767
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)for humans and found Dionne's comments amusing, obviously. From the print and language I thought this article was older, but 1938.
Celerity
(43,498 posts)Bierce, of course, is best known for his superb short story
along with
The Seventy-Four Best Entries in The Devils Dictionary
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/10/25/best-bits-devils-dictionary/
In my village, we have an idiom. Whens last time you looked in on [X]?
X is always some acknowledged literary classic everybody reads early in life and then forgets. For example, Mores Utopia. I did read it, but I might as well not have. I was nineteen. Anyone today who had just read the back cover of a copy of Utopia would, in a knowledge contest, smoke me like a cheap cigar. About the books narrative I remember well, nothing.
Wait. They didnt think gold was valuable. I forget why. Their toilets were gold. Or the chains that they loaded prisoners with. Or something. Not toilets; chamberpots. And the narrator had some cross-eyed name like Holofernes Hwum-buppa-zipplebibble or something.
However! Suppose that I (prompted by shame) decided to engineer a little ol Utopia project. I pore over the book for a week and think, Huhthis is full of good stuff! At that point I would say to my neighbours, Hey, whens last time you looked in on Mores Utopia?
Were like this in my village. Humane. We know very well that to read a book is not to have read it. Forgetting and noncomprehension must be given their due. And more than their due.
Youre about to reread The Mayor of Casterbridge. Thats excellent. Then you can remind me what happens in it. You just opened Paradise Lost to a random page and found something surprising? Do tell. I promise to be equally surprised. Its been quite a while since I looked in on it.
All of which is to say it is especially frustrating to people from my village when critics or theorists write about literature with the assumption that the typical reader remembers everything. Or worse: that we not only remember everything but that we know where all the good stuff is in it.
Whens last you looked in on W. H. Audens preface to Shakespeares sonnets? Heres a vexing bit:
On going through the hundred and fifty-four of them, I find forty-nine which seem to me excellent throughout, a good number of the rest have one or two memorable lines, but there are also several which I can only read out of a sense of duty.
Every time I think of this passage, I GET SO ANGRY. Im like, Why, why, and why-why-why do you mention having picked out the forty-nine best, and then not tell us which ones you mean? What, you think Im going to go through all 154 of those jumping-jack-doing, nine-dimension hieroglyphs, on the outside chance I can spontaneously regenerate your list?
To quote Gloucester in King Lear: Give me the letter, Sir!
❧
I am about to come to the point. Auden had done the work on the sonnets, and then withheld the results. This was evil, but that was a different time. The point is, Im not going to do that to you. Get ready for this. I, unlike you, have read every word of Ambrose Bierces The Devils Dictionary (1906)and read it recently. And it gets better. I, at the cost of an ocean of labour, have cherry-picked the seventy-four best bits out of the approximately three thousand billion trillion entries, and I am going to give you those seventy-four: yours, free of charge, to judge and find wanting.
I wish to note, before the presentation, that in assembling this set I looked at no other. I would have looked, if H. L. Mencken, who was a great admirer of Bierce, had made one. But as far as I can see, he did not. Also, it bears mentioning that my original selection contained around 250 entries, was winnowed to 100, and then further winnowed to 74.
So what do you think, Subhuti? Whens last you looked in on The Devils Dictionary? Here, allow me, like a good neighbour, to refresh you.
snip
Stuart G
(38,445 posts)appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)major points about the dire issues we face and the positive way forward.
It can't be stated enough, and it's got history, 1929.
Stuart G
(38,445 posts)When I was teaching U.S. History, I usually got up to the Great Depression & WWII, but not much further.
The Stock Market Crash in 1929 was so important in World History.. How many know what happened
& the result: positive and negative. I wonder 25 percent? 30 percent? More ...or Less?
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)from their parents who lived through it. Mine told me, and I make sure younger ones are aware of the circumstances and the history absolutely.
But as to now, broadly, I don't know if younger people are familiar with the 1929 Financial Crash and the Great Depression and the impacts on the US, the world and Germany, the 2nd most affected country.
America and and much of the world have been operating on the dominant Free Market- Reaganomics ideology for quite a while.
With the lack of regard for history now (focus on tech and STEM), and the liberal arts and humanities especially here, it's a challenge. Add in the rise of ultra conservatism and nationalism in many places and widespread hate propaganda, misinformation and ignorance. In the last several years it was disturbing to see surveys showing how many young people and adults in the US, Europe and Canada didn't know the basics of the Holocaust.
But, Americans, esp. the young ones should know that FDR saved capitalism, as he said.
Also know that in 1933 we got Roosevelt. And that in 1933 Germany got Hitler. Like the experts on fascism have been warning, in the last few years there are disturbing similarities to the far right unrest and movements of the late 1920s and 1930s. The threats to democracy, the economy, the environment and social stability are that serious now. I think quite a lot of the young do realize part of the issues, notably income inequality and climate change, fortunately.
wnylib
(21,606 posts)and grandparents. I do not believe that younger generations know much about it at all.
OldBaldy1701E
(5,157 posts)Is to admit that unfettered capitalism is not the greatest thing ever invented. Those who are at the top of this socioeconomic model will never admit this. It would undermine their very existence. It would undermine this country's modus operandi. The US will never admit that we are anything but gods walking the earth. To do so would end the real 'Big Lie'.
wnylib
(21,606 posts)sets the stage for a return to feudalism and the power of a few wealthy "lords" to control the nation and pass on their power and wealth to chosen inheritors, usually but not always, their biological descendants.
It is the antithesis of a free market. It is the antithesis of democracy and civil rights.
Capitalism needs regulations to prevent monopolies, fraudulent and manipulative market practices, and the establishment of corporate lords.
OldBaldy1701E
(5,157 posts)But, The simple fact remains that, until about 40 years ago, one could survive without diving into the cesspool of capitalism. Those days are long gone. Now, we have no choice. If we want to survive in any way, we have to play this rigged game. This was all planned out by the oligarchs who refuse to allow a single person the opportunity to do anything other than make those same oligarchs rich. Our society exist only for the wealthy. The rest of us are incidental. As you stated, it is the antithesis of a real democracy. Capitalism needs to be regulated, but it also needs to be removed as the only way to survive in life. (And, this also will never happen as things currently stand.)
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)capitalism and feudal power, rule.
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)aspect, the attitude of the superiority of the system and America. During the 80s and 90s I watched a friend who was working in high finance transform in the atmosphere of money and power and all the negatives that go with it. Gordon Gekko. If questioned about the ethics and behavior, they would justify it with 'I grew up poor.' It was quite sad actually and even with the 2008 financial crash they remained committed to the ruthless culture and lifestyle.
OldBaldy1701E
(5,157 posts)I cannot even dwell on it anymore. I have watched many people figuratively rip out their own souls and sell them for a chance at profit. As a Trekkie, let me direct you to anything you can read about the race called 'Ferengi'. They were created as a way to comment on our own society. And, the writers are spot on, if a bit timid in their parody. The propaganda is strong and it is backed up by the fact that there is no other way to survive. They have control of society. To change this mindset, we have to change society to something more equitable and just. (Like that is going to happen. To be honest, I hear Nero tuning up that violin every single day.)
appalachiablue
(41,171 posts)although I wasn't a Star Trek follower or regular TV viewer I knew many who appreciated the series. Nero indeed if major changes don't take place. The decline of democracy would be crushing and we're already in a system of near outright oligarchic control, scary.