L'Economist risponde a Brunik

[brunik]

Visto che le teste d'Uovo di questo forum non si sono degnate di rispondermi sul problema della destra che fa cose di sinistra e della sinistra che fa cose di destra, posto questo articolo di ieri dell'Economist che si pone lo stesso mio problema (un po' in ritardo rispetto a me, ma meglio tardi che mai).

Cosa cacchio succede?

La risposte che dà l'Economist pare questa, se non ho capito male: non c'entra un cacchio la destra. Questo si chiama POPULISMO.
Lo testimonia il fatto che gli xenofobi sono andati al governo insieme alla destra cavalcando la paura dell'immigrazione.

Il futuro non è per niente roseo, con i populisti xenofobi ai posti di comando. Questi qua non sanno far niente: solo parlare e dire alla gente le cose che vuol sentirsi dire. Uso del cervello zero.

Charlemagne

Left, right, left

Sep 26th 2002
From The Economist print edition

Why political taboos are being broken in Europe

THE Germans invented the word Zeitgeist, but anyone hoping that their latest election would confirm a new “spirit of the age” in Europe will have been disappointed. In the past year or so, a clear trend seemed visible. Left-wing governments were ousted by the right in Italy, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal and Norway. Germany looked like the next and biggest domino to fall. But though Gerhard Schröder's “red-Green” coalition wobbled, it refused to topple. Just the week before Mr Schröder's victory, Sweden's Social Democrats also bucked the trend, easily winning another stint in office. Now Austria's Social Democrats have a chance of regaining power later this year. So much for Europe's inexorable move to the right.

The broader truth, however, is that on the big economic and social issues facing Europe the differences between centre-right and centre-left—between Christian democracy and social democracy—are pretty paltry. Certainly the right is still closer to business, the left to the trade unions. But the resulting differences in policy have more to do with nuance than deep philosophy. In Germany, for example, Edmund Stoiber on the right proposed a top rate of income tax of 40%, while Mr Schröder wants to bring it down to 42%. Mr Stoiber said the state should consume no more than 40% of GDP, Mr Schröder stuck to his own favourite number, 42%. Economists and businessmen may clamour for a drastic revamp of Germany's generous welfare state and for decisive moves to tackle public pensions, but neither candidate was prepared to risk suggesting anything daring. As Mr Stoiber drily remarked, he had not noticed anyone demonstrating for a radical overhaul of social security.

What is true of Germany is true of the rest of Europe. Italy's Silvio Berlusconi admires Margaret Thatcher but has done nothing to tackle Italy's pensions problem and little to free up the labour market. France's new centre-right government has moved cautiously to mitigate the worst effects of its Socialist predecessor's introduction of a 35-hour week but is committed to an extensive welfare state and shows no desire to take on the unions.

Faced with such tiny differences between left and right on the big issues of social and economic management, voters tend to plump for the most appealing personalities. One big reason why Mr Schröder and Sweden's Goran Persson won while Lionel Jospin, a French socialist, lost is that the winning pair are highly effective politicians while Mr Jospin came across as dull and stiff. Tony Blair's mastery of British politics relies at least as much on his personality—and his Schröder-like sense of what people want to hear—as on any particular policies.

It was Mr Blair who made the last real attempt to define a new pan-European (and indeed transatlantic) political Zeitgeist. When the centre-left held sway on both sides of the ocean, he earnestly pushed forward his big idea—“the third way”. Mr Schröder tried briefly to echo him with cosy talk of a “new middle”. But the whole Blairite philosophy was too vague to catch on and much of the European left disliked what little it understood of it, assuming it was code for a kind of soft-edged Thatcherism. Mr Blair has now almost given up talking about the third way. In a recent interview in Prospect, a British magazine, he was reduced to claiming that “in parts of Latin America [the third way] is seen as a ground-breaking moment.” (They speak of little else in the queues outside Argentina's banks.)

But while a welfarist consensus may still hold sway across the European Union, consensus politics are fraying around the edges in other ways. The most striking recent trend has been the rise of populist parties openly hostile to immigration. When Austria's People's Party became the first such party to join a governing coalition, there was outrage across the EU. But the rise of politicians making similar appeals elsewhere in other EU countries has muted the outcry. The Pim Fortuyn list in the Netherlands and Umberto Bossi's Northern League in Italy have both joined governing coalitions after campaigns that highlighted the supposedly bad effects of immigration. The new centre-right Danish government relies on the votes of an anti-immigration party. As Bertel Haarder, Denmark's immigration minister, points out, there may be a connection between addiction to welfarism and hostility to immigrants. Partly because of high minimum wages and welfare benefits, there are very few jobs for unskilled immigrants: around 60% of them in Denmark have no job. So they are easily stigmatised as free-loading parasites.

Mainstream politicians have reacted in different ways to the rise of anti-immigration parties. In France the National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen won close to 20% of the votes in the presidential election but remains firmly beyond the pale. The new French government has nonetheless begun to toughen both rhetoric and actions against illegal immigrants. All across the EU, asylum-seekers are getting a frostier welcome.



Vox populi, a pox on civility?
The rise of anti-immigration populists has demonstrated the political potential of voicing sentiments often heard in the street but rarely in parliamentary chambers. Mr Schröder's campaign was a variation on this theme. Struggling in the polls, he decided to express the anti-Americanism that is a strong current of public opinion in Germany and the rest of the EU. Warning against “adventures” in Iraq and carping at the American economic model was just a mild version of commonplace feelings. Mr Schröder's supporters took the hint—and helped him cling on to power. However, as with the immigration debate elsewhere in Europe, once a political taboo is broken it is hard to control the consequences. German relations with America have nose-dived. And new and queasy-making sentiments are popping out of the closet at home, such as the ill-fated comparison between George Bush and Hitler allegedly made by Mr Schröder's justice minister. Sometimes taboos are there for a reason.

[LosVonRom (POL)]

Voi volete andare al governo nascondendo i problemi alla gente e con la scusa dell'euro massacrarli di tasse e di regole idiote.

Se i populisti sono quelli che si pigliano revolverate per aver osato far riflettere sui costi di un certo tipo di società allora viva i populisti.

L'uso del cervello infatti consiglierebbe di mostrare lo scenario di un mondo piatto e omologato, dove le differenze sono viste come uno spauracchio (non quelle degli altri naturalmente ) e oltretutto senza informare la gente su quali sono gli svantaggi
di un immigrazione massiccia e le scelte alternative (troppo difficili per dei geni dell'economia e della politica) .

Ma le scelte alternative non fanno parte del linguaggio usato dalle grandi menti lungimiranti del mondo progressista, accecato dal proprio narcisismo pseudointellettuale, e così preso a guardare il mondo da un attico in centro dal quale il mondo è così bello e rassicurante.

[Dario]

Originally posted by LosVonRom
Voi volete andare al governo....

Non sapendo a chi è indirizzato quel Voi, non ho capito un tubo del tuo post. Ti dispiace chiarirmelo? Grazie e scusami.

[brunik]

Originally posted by Dario
Non sapendo a chi è indirizzato quel Voi, non ho capito un tubo del tuo post. Ti dispiace chiarirmelo? Grazie e scusami.

Mi hai tolto le parole di bocca, stavo per scrivere anch'io che non si capisce niente di quello che scrive lo pseudo-intellettuale della lega. Loro cervelloni che hanno capito tutto usano un linguaggio strano e astratto che noi gente del popolo non conosciamo.

Penso di aver capito che ha paura degli immigrati e che è convinto che la Bossi-Fini sarebbe la "scelta alternativa" che bloccherà l'immigrazione, ma non ne sono sicuro.

Ad ogni modo non deve aver compreso il significato nè dell'articolo del populista Economist (forse perchè in inglese) nè del mio commento (forse perchè in italiano).