Corporation Socialism

[Will Bouwman]

As I understand, we both agree that Bob's vote did count, even though he didn't get his way.

Of course. But the key issue is surely not whether or not that vote was part of the winning side, but whether Bob's been given any vote that could even potentially be on the winning side, ever. And, of course, Bob has none of the other democratic recourses I mentioned, in the case of the EU Commission.

So what's your point?

Well, given your struggles with comprehension, try reading this again. Slowly this time.

At a general election, Bob has the opportunity to vote for a candidate for member of parliament for his constituency. His preferred candidate may or may not win. Even if his choice of candidate does win, the party he or she is a member of may not win a majority and Bob ends up with a ruling party he did not want. Like it or not, Bob has been part of a democratic process that has elected a Prime Minister who, when the UK was in the EU, would have sat on the European Council, along with the elected heads of the other member states. Those democratically elected heads of state then get to nominate commissioners to head the various departments, much as the Prime Minister appoints his or her Cabinet with the voting public having no say in the matter. In the case of the EU, once upon a time, Bob could have voted for an MEP for his constituency and the nominated commissioners are then subject to the approval of the duly elected European Parliament. Having a vote doesn't mean you get to run the shop.

If by "the other democratic recourses I mentioned" you mean these:

...in a democratic polity, people have additional freedoms...to speak their minds, to influence other voters, to rally the public, to elicit the media, to petition the legal system for redress, to wait for term limits to expire, and if all else fails, to run for office against those they oppose.

you are simply wrong. Every citizen of the EU may, if they so wish, do any of the above. They may even aspire to becoming an EU commissioner, but their elevation to that position is dependent on their being appointed by democratically elected heads of state, and ratified by democratically elected members of the European Parliament. Your understanding that the EU Commission is unaccountable is no more or less true than that any democratically elected official is unaccountable for the duration of their office.

[Immanuel Can]

...you are simply wrong.

And I think you're wrong. So do the Lefties, apparently. Even they point out that the Commission is appointed, not elected. And a person who can only campaign in Newcastle is obviously going to have zero leverage...which is precisely why the EU is able to do what it does to its member countries.

So there we are. You think the EU is democratic, and obviously, it isn't. But if you think it is, how am I going to stop you?

Have a nice day.

[Will Bouwman]

...the Commission is appointed, not elected.

The issue is your assertion that the EU Commission in unaccountable. This in spite of the facts that:
EU commissioners are nominated by democratically elected heads of state.
Their nomination is ratified by democratically elected members of the European Parliament.
They are accountable to those same democratically elected members of the European Parliament and can be removed by them.

[Immanuel Can]

...the Commission is appointed, not elected.

The issue is your assertion that the EU Commission in unaccountable. This in spite of the facts that:
EU commissioners are nominated by democratically elected heads of state.

That's silly. If Bob elects a guy, and that guy then appoints somebody else, and the appointee isn't even accountable to either the parliamentarian who nominates him (but rather to the EU, if they decide to restrict him at all) or to Bob, or to the whole UK, that's not a democratic situation. And nobody whose even a little bit attentive is going to find any rationale even to think it is.

Sorry. You might want the EU to be seen as "democratic." But that's just not reality.

However, I've made my case, and you've made yours. You don't agree with me, and that's perfectly fine. You have that right. Like I say, there's not a lot more to be said about that. Have a happy New Year.

[Immanuel Can]

Returning to the subject of the thread, here's an article from The New Yorker -- not exactly a hub of reactionary rightism, to be sure. It draws on the recent scholarship by liberal sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, and is titled, "Have the Democrats Become the Party of the Elites?" The author summarizes the al-Gharbi's point in this way:

"In the past three decades, he argues, the Democratic Party has been transformed from the party of non-symbolic workers to the party of symbolic élites. This strikes him as a fateful misstep: If elections are about convincing voters that you’re on their side, then why associate your party with a group that most voters not only don’t identify with but actively resent?...

In al-Gharbi’s view, Clinton’s rhetoric and signature policies (financial deregulation, tech boosterism, NAFTA, welfare reform) reoriented the Democratic coalition around the workers that his Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, called “symbolic analysts”—yuppies in the New South, I.T. professionals in the Sun Belt, and so on—and away from the working class, both white and nonwhite. In the past decade, al-Gharbi contends, this trend accelerated, as symbolic capitalists adopted sharply more progressive views on a range of cultural issues, dragging their party with them."

Comments?

[Immanuel Can]

Another one, from an article titled, "No Free Ride for Bezos Socialism." Bezos, for those who have been living under a rock, is the owner of Amazon, one of the largest and richest multinational corporations in the world. So what would he ever want with Socialism? The article explains it very simply:

"Workers at Amazon and Walmart who would not be able to live on what those companies pay are able to make ends meet thanks to food stamps and other poverty programs. Amazon is not a company hurting for profits; it could afford to pay its workers better. But why should a company pay more to its employees when it can offload the expense onto taxpayers instead? In a perfect world for Jeff Bezos and the Walton family, they would pay their workers absolutely nothing, and the public would foot the bill for 100 percent of the workforce. But since the United States has not yet reached that point, the owners of Amazon and Walmart will take what they can get in the meantime, with a workforce subsidized by whatever programs happen to be available. Needless to say, one should not expect lobbyists for these companies to be at the forefront of efforts to trim down the welfare state."

In other words, big business can use Socialism-for-the-masses to trim down their labour costs and enforce consumption of their goods. Paying wages and benefits, or securing social welfare become problems for the public, through taxation. Smaller, privately owned businesses can no longer compete, and are absorbed. The Bezoses of the world get to effectively monopolize, set prices, and avoid all the responsibility of a labour force or any social responsibility.

And Socialism is how they'll get to do it.

[Will Bouwman]

...the Commission is appointed, not elected.

The issue is your assertion that the EU Commission in unaccountable. This in spite of the facts that:
EU commissioners are nominated by democratically elected heads of state.

That's silly. If Bob elects a guy, and that guy then appoints somebody else, and the appointee isn't even accountable to either the parliamentarian who nominates him (but rather to the EU, if they decide to restrict him at all) or to Bob, or to the whole UK, that's not a democratic situation. And nobody whose even a little bit attentive is going to find any rationale even to think it is.

Anybody who is even a little bit attentive will not have missed these facts:

Their nomination is ratified by democratically elected members of the European Parliament.
They are accountable to those same democratically elected members of the European Parliament and can be removed by them.

[Immanuel Can]

The issue is your assertion that the EU Commission in unaccountable. This in spite of the facts that:
EU commissioners are nominated by democratically elected heads of state.

That's silly. If Bob elects a guy, and that guy then appoints somebody else, and the appointee isn't even accountable to either the parliamentarian who nominates him (but rather to the EU, if they decide to restrict him at all) or to Bob, or to the whole UK, that's not a democratic situation. And nobody whose even a little bit attentive is going to find any rationale even to think it is.

Anybody who is even a little bit attentive will not have missed these facts:

Their nomination is ratified by democratically elected members of the European Parliament.
They are accountable to those same democratically elected members of the European Parliament and can be removed by them.

They'll also know this: Bob has absolutely no control of what the EU Parliament decides, and less than zero about what its appointed commissars do. And the EU Parliament has no reason to prefer the interests of Bob to those of Bonn, Barcelona, Bern or Brussels.

[Impenitent]

That's silly. If Bob elects a guy, and that guy then appoints somebody else, and the appointee isn't even accountable to either the parliamentarian who nominates him (but rather to the EU, if they decide to restrict him at all) or to Bob, or to the whole UK, that's not a democratic situation. And nobody whose even a little bit attentive is going to find any rationale even to think it is.

Anybody who is even a little bit attentive will not have missed these facts:

Their nomination is ratified by democratically elected members of the European Parliament.
They are accountable to those same democratically elected members of the European Parliament and can be removed by them.

They'll also know this: Bob has absolutely no control of what the EU Parliament decides, and less than zero about what its appointed commissars do. And the EU Parliament has no reason to prefer the interests of Bob to those of Bonn, Barcelona, Bern or Brussels.

Bob, Bonn, Barcelona, Bern and Brussels are no Bozos

EU clown shoes?

(for some reason I feel like a bad poet)

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

Anybody who is even a little bit attentive will not have missed these facts:

They'll also know this: Bob has absolutely no control of what the EU Parliament decides, and less than zero about what its appointed commissars do. And the EU Parliament has no reason to prefer the interests of Bob to those of Bonn, Barcelona, Bern or Brussels.

Bob, Bonn, Barcelona, Bern and Brussels are no Bozos

EU clown shoes?

(for some reason I feel like a bad poet)

-Imp

Well, the bozos are colluding with the Bezoses.

Socialism is lining up with Big Business...and if they win, guess who gets to lose?

[Will Bouwman]

If Bob elects a guy, and that guy then appoints somebody else, and the appointee isn't even accountable to either the parliamentarian who nominates him (but rather to the EU, if they decide to restrict him at all) or to Bob, or to the whole UK, that's not a democratic situation. And nobody whose even a little bit attentive is going to find any rationale even to think it is.

Anybody who is even a little bit attentive will not have missed these facts:

Their nomination is ratified by democratically elected members of the European Parliament.
They are accountable to those same democratically elected members of the European Parliament and can be removed by them.

They'll also know this: Bob has absolutely no control of what the EU Parliament decides, and less than zero about what its appointed commissars do.

That is because, unlike when the UK was a member of the EU, Bob can no longer vote for the Members of the European Parliament to whom the commissioners were accountable. You don't mean 'commissars'.

And the EU Parliament has no reason to prefer the interests of Bob to those of Bonn, Barcelona, Bern or Brussels.

You don't seem to understand that in order to rub along, human beings need to negotiate. That inevitably demands compromise. Only spoilt brats and despotic thugs always get their own way.

[Immanuel Can]

You don't mean 'commissars'.

Indeed I do.

And the EU Parliament has no reason to prefer the interests of Bob to those of Bonn, Barcelona, Bern or Brussels.

You don't seem to understand that in order to rub along, human beings need to negotiate.

And you are very, very silly. Of course I do. I just know what a "democracy" is, and apparently, you don't.

But we have settled all this: you imagine that the EU is democratic, and the facts show it's nothing of the kind. I've accepted that's what you think, and there's an end of it, so far as I'm concerned with it.

[Will Bouwman]

You don't mean 'commissars'.

Indeed I do.

Then you don't know what commissar means.

And the EU Parliament has no reason to prefer the interests of Bob to those of Bonn, Barcelona, Bern or Brussels.

You don't seem to understand that in order to rub along, human beings need to negotiate.

And you are very, very silly. Of course I do. I just know what a "democracy" is, and apparently, you don't.

Well, as the voice of wisdom, perhaps you could enlighten me.

But we have settled all this: you imagine that the EU is democratic, and the facts show it's nothing of the kind.

Is it not a fact that the EU Commission is accountable to the democratically elected Parliament? What fact can you point to that demonstrates the EU is not democratic?

I've accepted that's what you think, and there's an end of it, so far as I'm concerned with it.

So do you only interact with people that you don't accept they think what they write?

[Immanuel Can]

What fact can you point to that demonstrates the EU is not democratic?

I'll put it simply: when the people about whom the decisions are being made cannot even potentially vote in or out the people who are making those decisions, that's not democratic.

You appear to have a rather different conception of what "democratic" means. In my view, it's a confused one. But that may be deliberate, on your part. Who knows? Either way, I've said what needs to be said on that point.

I've accepted that's what you think, and there's an end of it, so far as I'm concerned with it.

So do you only interact with people that you don't accept they think what they write?

That's a little silly. I've come to expect such comments from you. I find them tedious and disingenuous.

However, I accept your right to your opinion, whether I regard it be well-founded or not. You can be obdurate, obstreperous, or oblivious, or inauthentic, irrational or facetious, if you wish. You can have different definitions of "democratic," if you wish. You may plug for the EU, collectivism, socialism, globalism and even outright totalitarianism, if you wish. They're by no means mutually exclusive, of course.

In my view, you have a right to be wrong. And once, in my estimation, a sound argument against your position has been offered, and you've refused to recognize it, you still have a right to carry on like that, as well.

But the argument's over then. After that, debate's not interesting.

[Will Bouwman]

What fact can you point to that demonstrates the EU is not democratic?

I'll put it simply: when the people about whom the decisions are being made cannot even potentially vote in or out the people who are making those decisions, that's not democratic.

That is your interpretation, not a fact. Let me rephrase this:

Is it not a fact that the EU Commission is accountable to the democratically elected Parliament?

Do you understand that it is a fact that the EU Commission is accountable to the democratically elected European Parliament?