Given how much American liberals draw comparisons to the state of certain laws and policies in certain European countries (especially business/economic, like higher minimum wages, socialized medicine, mandatory sick time, but even including stickier stuff like gun laws), this is something that kind of interests me.
American conservatives oppose virtually all of what I mention above, thinking (correct me if I’m wrong) that such policies suck away jobs, steal money from hard working people to give to people who won’t take responsibility for their own actions, and so on. But again, I may be wrong.
Conservatives, what do you think of such countries, and the policies similar to the ones they enact, and the people who like that state of affairs? Europeans, what you think of people who look at these policies and think you’re going about things entirely the wrong way, giving too much power to the government and giving too much to lazy bums who suck at its teat (heck, you may even agree; I’m open to that possibility)?
I’ve always been interested in this dynamic; I see too few conservatives, for example, trying to rebut when liberals bring this kind of thing up in the various health care system or minimum wage debates or what have you, and I’d like to hear more about it.
This doesn’t exactly answer your question, but I think you bring up a very interesting issue. The American economic system leans much more conservative then, say, the German economic system, but both seem to work okay. I think we can do a better job to improve the plight of the poor, and I’m less familiar with the German system but from the limited things I know perhaps they could make it easier to start a small business, but both are keeping a major country and economic power going.
This just counters the common belief that there’s only one way to have a successful and functional economy.
From my experience in German college, many of my friends who follow American politics think the entire right-wing is completely crazy, particularly when it comes to things like health care and welfare. Not to say that we haven’t had some noteworthy opposition to the most recent expansion to the welfare state, but HARTZ IV is a fair bit more extreme than anything in the US.
I’m in a permanent state of amazement at how business in the US managed to reduce workers rights and benefits to this level.
Capitalism is two things above all else; it’s amoral, and it’s relentless. Put in terms of popular culture, capitalism is the Borg in Star Trek
The only way to control business is to not let business buy political influence. That’s the struggle we are continuing to have in Europe but which has already been lost in the US. As a general proposition, US Conservatives don’t just ‘represent’ business they are owned by business.
I think conservatives in Europe and conservatives in the US are dealing with different issues.
Strictly economic issues are, I think, an example where the issues are fairly related. In those cases, I tend to look at the rather anemic recovery of the economy in Europe compared to the US and see it as a justification for conservative thought in general - the US attitude towards employment-at-will leads to greater flexibility in firing, and therefore the US can recover from unemployment faster because hiring is less of a commitment and they are therefore less reluctant.
So as far as I agree with them, I feel kind of a sense of solidarity as I do with US conservatives with whom I partially but not completely agree. An older example is the late Margaret Thatcher - I admired her very much, especially in her battle against the sclerotic unions in the UK of the early 80s.
Social issues like abortion and gay marriage I care little about, so maybe that affects my attitudes.
What conservative parties in Europe? For example, my understanding is that the party called Conservatives in Great Britain would be roughly comparable in its views to moderate Democrats in the United States.
The way I look at it is republicans are 90% compliant with business demands by most means necessary while democrats are like somewhat unwilling hostages who sometime favor their captors interests and sometimes not. Both sides do their captors interests but one is more enthusiastic than the other.
How did Europe prevent the capture of the state by monied interests?
Prime Minister Clement Attlee supposedly described the Republican Party as “a little bit like our Conservative Party. And they have a Democratic Party, which is also like our Conservative Party”
Commentator Mark Steyn said that most Western nations have the same two parties: the slightly left of center party (Labour in Britain, Socialists in France, Social Democrats in Germany, Liberals in Canada) and the Slightly Right of the Slightly Left of Center Party (Tories, Gaulists, Christian Democrats, Progressive Conservatives).
These parties agree on 99% of everything, and spedn more time colluding to destroy other political parties than fighting each other. Labourites and Tories in England hate the ULIP far more than they hate each other. Socialists and Gaulists hate Marine LePen far more than they hate each other. And Sweden’s major parties have essentially teamed up to make sure nationalist parties never get any power.
I’ve posted this a couple of times, but here’s the policies of our right-wing Conservative Party (which heads the current Government coalition led by Prime Minister David Cameron):
for strict gun control (no weapons for home defence; beat police unarmed)
for gay marriage
for abortion
for nationalised medicine (paid for by taxation)
for teaching evolution as proven
There is simply no equivalent of the Republican party in the UK.
I think you’re right that the ability of businesses to hire and fire at will is a key to a functional labor market. However, you should also note that Denmark, for example, has extremely generous unemployment benefits to go along with the at-will employment environment. I recall from a Planet Money podcast on the subject a few years ago that unemployment benefits extend for 4 years there. And, along with free or cheap education and free healthcare, provide a more-than-poverty-level existence. To pay for those benefits, Denmark also has very high tax rates, and government spending is something like 50% of GDP. But income inequality is very low. By any standard, except for labor market flexibility, Denmark is far to the left of the “liberal” US Democratic party.
Another factor in the anemic recovery of the Eurozone is the fact that they have monetary union without fiscal union, and monetary policy is driven by the debt-phobic-to-the-point-of-pathology Germans. An argument can be made that fiscal austerity has been a large contributor to Eurozone economic problems since the financial collapse. Keynesianism, and all. (Not that a lot of problems of the European South aren’t self-inflicted, mind you, but sunk costs are sunk costs.)
I wish I could find some poll results I saw that compared the attitudes toward taxation and government spending of the two major parties in the US and the UK. Tories and Democrats were nearly identical. Labour was definitely to the left, but not by a huge amount compared to those two, and Republicans were far more to the right than Labour was to the left.
It’s kind of a truism, but Democrats are center-right by European standards. Republicans are very far right wing (on most issues–I think they are substantially less xenophobic than the nationalist right parties in Europe).
Right-wing populist parties in Europe are generally not in favor of free-market capitalism, or decreasing the power of the state. They believe in the power of the state, they just have different ideas about what to use the power of the state for.
In Europe free-market capitalism is generally called “liberal”, not a conservative. That doesn’t mean left-wing parties are in favor of free market economics either. No right-wing party in Europe would be in favor of doing away with universal health care or old-age pensions or cutting taxes on international corporations.
… because there are no votes in it; populations haven’t been indoctrinated by lobbyists and a bribed political class, nor is the issue so wrapped in a national flag by vested interests it confounds the self-interest of the people.
Crazy what happens when you give the people a choice and unfettered information.
At least as regards Canada, this is wrong. First, there are three parties, the Conservatives (no longer Progressive either in name or policies), the leftish NDP which is now the official opposition, but likely to fall to its accustomed third place in the next election, and the centrist Liberals. The Progressive Conservatives crashed to 2 seats in a disastrous election in the 90s and the empty hull was taken over by an Alberta (aka “North Texas”) party called reform and renamed Conservatives. They now govern and, while they are intelligent enough not to try to end medicare, they are trying to starve it.
However, there are serious limits on fund-raising by parties. SCOTUS has taken the aphorism “Money talks” and decided that then it cannot be regulated any more than speech can. There is another difference: I don’t see anything about lobbyists in Canada. I am sure there are people who attempt to influence government policy, but they don’t seem to play as big a role. And of course, the Canadian constitution does not put guns above people.
It’s because alot of people vote on single issues, against their best interest. “Useful idiots”.
Things like tribalism, racism, religion, abortion, etc. are immediate quantifiable issues that sway votes. Long term affects of unraveling the power of labor are more nuanced and can’t be comprehended by the majority of the right wing rubes. There have been many polls conducted showing that most of the basic positions of the Dem party are supported by the majority, yet the Reps are still viable. Why is that? I am certain that if the US was less multi-cultural then its politics and business laws would be more liberal.
Citizens United was a big deal, and is the driver in the back rooms of the Republican party. They only use the rubes to get there. Unlimited in campaigns from the groups with the most $ and most to gain, to spread BS and make the rubes feel threatened by ‘others’, is the order of the day. The problem I see with this, and you allude to above, is that this is not sustainable long term. If rights and income of labor and the middle class continue to be driven downward, which is an inherent trait of capitalism, then something eventually has to give.
the one further to the right tends to agree with American proposals in international policies and disagree with them in about everything else,
the one further to the left tends to claim that the US is Bad but also likes to copy American public policies, specially with regards to education.
In any party, economists tend to sound as if they believe that our economic structure, the kinds of companies we have, etc. etc. are either American or German.
More than that, it varies depending on the month, the party, the exact location, how far from the next elections we are…