European Right Wing

[a completely inoffensive name]

People are too doom and gloom. Barring a complete bubble surrounding the political elites, the solution to increased automation will be more artificial demand.
There are already markets where large percentage of labor is only sustained by large government subsidies.
Ideally, the goal would be to begin shrinking population to start equalizing supply of labor with the real demand provided by the market. This has already been happening, as growing Western populations are entirely the result of immigration at this point.

[Husar]

Ideally, the goal would be to begin shrinking population to start equalizing supply of labor with the real demand provided by the market.

Not sure what you mean with that, a shrinking population also lowers the demand for products, which reduces the demand for labor even further and makes the entire economy shrink. How is that ideal to fight the job loss through automation?

[Montmorency]

There are already markets where large percentage of labor is only sustained by large government subsidies.

These markets are externally sustained by the markets that aren't such.

We're talking about ecosystem collapse here.

[Pannonian]

Labour would save the NHS – but the NHS won’t save Labour
‘Rinse and repeat’ has let Ukip exploit an existential crisis for which all elements of the party must take responsibility

What Labour first needs to understand is which of its voters are defecting to Ukip. Ian Warren, the pollster who conducts focus groups of Labour-to-Ukip defectors, identifies two groups. One is blue-collar working households; relatively politically engaged; over 40; white; non-graduates; and from the Midlands, northern England or Wales. They are socially conservative on defence, social security and immigration.

The other group includes deprived, disaffected voters from similar communities. They’re typically under 40; either private renters or council tenants; often in insecure work; they are less likely to vote unless motivated to do so. Neither would ever vote Tory. Like Corbynistas, they generally prefer pre-Blair Labour to what happened next; but their social conservatism distinguishes them.

Identity trumps leftwing economic populism. “The only reason they’re staying with us is some sense of tribal loyalty which is being eroded with every passing day,” Warren says. Both groups feel the left treats them with contempt. “They see Labour as being cosmopolitan and distant from them, with nothing to say to their concerns, and looking down at them,” pollster James Morris says.

Virtually exactly what anti-Clintonites said in the US about the Democrats. That is what the European Left should beware. Predictably, the comments at the bottom go straight to counter accusations against "Blairites".

NB. Owen Jones was one of the founders of Corbynism, going back to the days when they attended the same demonstrations (since the 1980s IIRC). He's been writing for a few months that Labour's leadership, namely Corbyn's team, doesn't engage with the British voters (and been accused of being a Blairite traitor as a result).

[LittleGrizzly]

I'd suggest the cosmopolitan Labour they see as distant from them is the result of New Labour, in fact your little bit even suggests they preferred Labour pre-Blair, so they in fact don't like New Labour but prefer what Labour used to represent, which Corbyn is much closer to...

Of course that still doesn't suggest they are bringing the voters back, but then your angle with this, of Corbyn is bad and New Labour is good makes even less sense, It was New Labour that originally turned these voters away, from the very thing you quoted it seems less New Labour style leadership is more likely to attract them back.

I notice you failed to answer my question regarding May.

Would you have backed her in the Labour leadership election?

After all you keep battering me with how unelectable Corbyn is, whilst completely ignoring the fact his rival in the leadership election was also unelectable.

So would you have gone for May as Labour leader? (in a hypothetical where she holds the same views but happens to be a Labour MP)

Or are you one of these militants who would rather lose but secure millions of votes for your viewpoint?

[Pannonian]

I'd suggest the cosmopolitan Labour they see as distant from them is the result of New Labour, in fact your little bit even suggests they preferred Labour pre-Blair, so they in fact don't like New Labour but prefer what Labour used to represent, which Corbyn is much closer to...

Of course that still doesn't suggest they are bringing the voters back, but then your angle with this, of Corbyn is bad and New Labour is good makes even less sense, It was New Labour that originally turned these voters away, from the very thing you quoted it seems less New Labour style leadership is more likely to attract them back.

I notice you failed to answer my question regarding May.

Would you have backed her in the Labour leadership election?

After all you keep battering me with how unelectable Corbyn is, whilst completely ignoring the fact his rival in the leadership election was also unelectable.

So would you have gone for May as Labour leader? (in a hypothetical where she holds the same views but happens to be a Labour MP)

Or are you one of these militants who would rather lose but secure millions of votes for your viewpoint?

I favoured Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour leadership election. If nothing else, she had a track record of competence in government (having been one of the architects of Sure Start, which is as close as a project comes to my ideological line). She's concretely done far more for the less well off than Corbyn has in twice the time spent in politics.

[LittleGrizzly]

So you, like Corbyn supporters, are one of those militants who would rather lose an election but back the candidate you like....

Interesting stuff, next time you criticise Corbyn supporters for their ideological purity over realistic chances of winning an election it might be worth keeping in mind you are just as guilty of it as they are.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Not sure what you mean with that, a shrinking population also lowers the demand for products, which reduces the demand for labor even further and makes the entire economy shrink. How is that ideal to fight the job loss through automation?

No, as the automation trend continues the ability of poor to lower middle groups to maintain standards of living will decline. There are already people taking it at face value that millennials as a generation will not attain the same level of relative wealth of baby boomers.
As automation continues, more will be left out and you are going to see people slip back into sustenance level of existence unless government programs start becoming the handouts Republicans label them as. They will not be contributing to the economy as they currently do.

EDIT: Let me be clear. Trump won the Rust Belt because entire communities are collapsing out there. It has been a slow death, but you are seeing people buy into dangerous ideas because of how bad it is.

[Brenus]

Not completely in the subject but:
The 2 last Presidents of France are now out of the race (1 pushed, the other, err, pushed). Times are changing...
For better?
We shall see...

[Husar]

No, as the automation trend continues the ability of poor to lower middle groups to maintain standards of living will decline. There are already people taking it at face value that millennials as a generation will not attain the same level of relative wealth of baby boomers.
As automation continues, more will be left out and you are going to see people slip back into sustenance level of existence unless government programs start becoming the handouts Republicans label them as. They will not be contributing to the economy as they currently do.

EDIT: Let me be clear. Trump won the Rust Belt because entire communities are collapsing out there. It has been a slow death, but you are seeing people buy into dangerous ideas because of how bad it is.

That's a given, but not relevant to the "ideal solution" you proposed that I was commenting on.
You said it would be ideal to shrink the population to combat job loss through automation and my point was that it would not help, we'd automate fewer people out of work, but we'd still put them out of work.

Your point above is perfectly correct, but is merely the factual basis of our argument. The pay for jobs that require a degree already seems to go down as more people have a degree and jobs that don't require one get automated. It's a typical example of wealth being relative and the mechanics of trickle up. People are successively bled out until they reach the lowest possible level of subsistence by government help or even homelessness. Then the next higher ones get degraded while the billionaire class accumulates all the wealth. Modern turbo capitalism at work.

[Montmorency]

You said it would be ideal to shrink the population to combat job loss through automation and my point was that it would not help, we'd automate fewer people out of work, but we'd still put them out of work.

If elements of society and economy don't scale linearly with population, you might find around a certain threshold absolute minimums required for some services and maintenance, or at least minimal demand attrition. Also, you might see something similar with a population drop and a resistance in production loss. Finding a confluence for these could be a part of a "De-growth" ideology.

The biggest problem is that it requires extensive management and control somewhere along the line, and is an even bigger political challenge than global warming in terms of being constrained by what other countries in the world are doing about it. Even more so, since raw population is a fundamental source of comparative state power unless you take it to a vision like a self-sustaining dystopian arcology surrounded by savages with shotguns.

[Husar]

If elements of society and economy don't scale linearly with population, you might find around a certain threshold absolute minimums required for some services and maintenance, or at least minimal demand attrition. Also, you might see something similar with a population drop and a resistance in production loss. Finding a confluence for these could be a part of a "De-growth" ideology.

But then you're working against all economical principles and will likely spawn a lot of other side effects, such as very high prices that make some businessses not viable anymore at all. You may also limit the amount of specialization that is possible within a group until you end up with 5 people per village trying to grow enough food every year.
If you keep an economy similar to what we have, the problem is not really solved IMO.

The biggest problem is that it requires extensive management and control somewhere along the line, and is an even bigger political challenge than global warming in terms of being constrained by what other countries in the world are doing about it. Even more so, since raw population is a fundamental source of comparative state power unless you take it to a vision like a self-sustaining dystopian arcology surrounded by savages with shotguns.

Yes, it goes against all incentives. I don't even disagree that shrinking the planet's population would be a good thing because it would allow us to live within the means of what the planet provides without destroying it in the process, it just doesn't solve the problem of unemployment through automation by itself, I think there are far better concepts and they could even be combined. The problem with population growth and country competitiveness can obviously be solved by ending competition between countries, i.e. EU integration and finally OWG.
A lot of people hate the idea though because they'd rather continue to advance their own lives at the expense of others, the chance for which is provided by competition. And given that their countries have a headstart in the competition, they obviously think it is great and should stay that way.

[Montmorency]

such as very high prices that make some businessses not viable anymore at all.

If you keep an economy similar to what we have, the problem is not really solved IMO.

Yes, as I said it would be a totally different system with heavy management from the center(s). Business viability for consumers won't be part of the picture.

Yes, it goes against all incentives.

One possible scenario: something like it would emerge by new incentives if the current economies break down and can't sustain their own characteristics any longer. A relatively-small centers of population and administration from which authority and force emanate, then areas around the cores for populations receiving a variety of security accommodations and organized more flexibly than the cores - where much of the production will go on, in some cases toward self-sustainability. Beyond these would be the periphery wherein large-scale organization does not exist, and where the cores perform their resource extraction. The global situation would remain in flux partly due to the fact that these assemblages won't form a OWG and will continue to compete against each other. In fact, it might even make imperialism or neo-feudalism more sustainable.