Scratch the surface “nonalignment” of a centrist and you’ll find a political ideology that’s perfectly fine with right-wing authoritarianism as long as it doesn’t affect them personally
Because of the misdirection that exists around “left and right” wing politics.
There is really only one relevant axis when it come to right and left wing. Pro-capitalism and anti-capitalism.
The center and the extreme right both seek to protect capital at all costs. One believes “decorum” and “the structures of power” are necessary to maintain capitalism, one believes an extreme restructuring of power is necessary to “save” capitalism.
They disagree with the means, but they agree with the ends.
And the center will always give way to the extreme right when things get hairy enough. They fear losing some power, but they fear most losing ALL power…
The center and the extreme right both seek to protect capital at all costs. One believes “decorum” and “the structures of power” are necessary to maintain capitalism, one believes an extreme restructuring of power is necessary to “save” capitalism.
And the reason they want to keep captalism is because they want to keep their privileged position because they are afraid they will lose something. Which isn’t really true, we have less money than the richer people in the US but also a lot less worry because we have labour rights, free or cheap healthcare, much lower crime etc. And cost of living scales with income anyway. I would never want to work in the US where I can be fired “at will”, can go bankrupt when I have a medical issue and have a much higher chance of getting murdered than anywhere else in the western world.
Also, if we go full capitalist, the Chinese will beat us at this for sure because their government cares absolutely nothing about their citizens and they can always hollow out their society’s rights more to compete. They pretend to be communist but they’re actually ultra-capitalist. But they can do the race to the bottom much much better than we can.
What we should go for is an ethical society that balances the interests of capital with society, environment etc, which we are much better at than any other major power. It’s our strength. Unfortunately these guys are breaking these efforts down, sowing discord, and undermining our stability for their own personal gain.
The problem is what do we do about it. I’ve started blocking all the ex-friends who have been infected by extreme-right propaganda but in my country 24% voted for this trash in the last election, it’s ridiculous.
I think the whole movement has been enabled by the central right because they have been undermining welfare for decades while framing the left as being lazy and just wanting to take everyone else’s money. It makes people’s lives much less secure and this insecurity is what breeds the extreme-right anger.
Your lack of political awareness is part of the problem.
The neoliberal project was a direct response to the fall of the USSR. Europe only enjoyed social welfare for so long by being right next to the USSR.
As colonies of the US empire, Europe was allowed privileges to contrast and compare against the USSR.
After the USSR fell, social welfare fell. Neoliberalism kicked in.
There was no real left in Europe after WW2 and the Marshall Plan. Only social democrats, which really are right-wing since they defend capitalism.
China is far far ahead when it comes to developing society for the people. The government there is spending trillions investing in infrastructure, health, education, housing.
They are allowing all the big housing developers go bust and buying up their assets and capital. They recently declared housing to be a human right and started decommodifying it.
You can check any major city in China nowadays and they all have much better quality of life than any comparable city. That meaning major metropolises in developing countries (so places like São Paulo, Buenos Aires, México City, Johannesburg, Jakarta etc.). Housing is much cheaper in China, salaries are higher, cost of living is lower…
China is indeed out-capitalisming the west, but they are doing so by being socialists.
The joke that China is winning the international capitalism game because at least all their ruling party has read Marx is… probably true lol.
There was no real left in Europe after WW2 and the Marshall Plan. Only social democrats, which really are right-wing since they defend capitalism.
Well France is pretty left, even still :P We’re all pretty jealous of their worker rights. My own country the Netherlands was socialist too but the neoliberals indeed kicked in and screwed everything up. Which then turned the worker demography to anger and now they are massively voting for the fascists. As if that will help… But yes especially Holland is very beholden to the US. England too. But the rest of Europe not as much.
I don’t see a big American-led conspiracy here though. I think the worker community just got so rich they became conservative. And started wanting more and more and looking towards the glamour of the US (while completely ignoring the huge problems in their society among those who are not so lucky to ‘make it’).
China is far far ahead when it comes to developing society for the people. The government there is spending trillions investing in infrastructure, health, education, housing.
Society for those who don’t step out of line even a little though. There’s a big difference in caring about your population and just making sure your worker cattle is fed enough not to stir trouble. They have had a huge scare with the mass protests of their draconic covid measures which had the potential to really get out of hand. They are super afraid of this, after all revolution is how they got to power themselves.
They recently declared housing to be a human right and started decommodifying it.
Meh if they’d care about human rights they’d actually respect them. If you see how they treated people during covid with zero respect for individual rights, how they treat the Uyghurs, what they did during the olympics. Mass surveillance is rampant. You can’t say anything that steps on the CCP’s toes or you get silenced (look at what happened to Naomi Wu). I agree they do manage some things better but their society is not one I want to live in or even consider visiting.
Decommodifying housing is good though, I agree. In Europe only Vienna really does that with a great public housing programme and it works really well. Holland used to do this too but things are really messed up now after 3 decades of neoliberal regime.
You can check any major city in China nowadays and they all have much better quality of life than any comparable city. That meaning major metropolises in developing countries (so places like São Paulo, Buenos Aires, México City, Johannesburg, Jakarta etc.). Housing is much cheaper in China, salaries are higher, cost of living is lower…
All those places are incredibly unsafe and have huge income inequality. You can’t call those socialist :) I have been around the world a lot and lived in different places. These don’t offer welfare for the poor.
I mean Johannesburg is where they sell car-mounted flamethrowers to fend off carjackers. São Paulo where the police don’t even dare to follow suspects into the favelas. Mexico with its cartels that have actual armies. Socialist paradises they are not.
China is doing better because they are not really a developing country anymore. They have much more money than any of those because we’ve moved all our factories there.
The one developing country that I do look up to is Cuba. They have the second-highest amount of doctors per capita in the world, after a middle-eastern country, I forget which. Despite their authoritarian regime (and all the boycots from the US for no reason at all) people seem to do pretty well. I hope to visit it some time to see if things are really as good there on the ground.
Some parties have been very clever to exploit the current situation (spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt) to their advantage.
It’s very likely that they will ascend to a dominant position in the EU institutions and consolidate their hegemony further.
Good luck to all Europeans! 🥂
Thanks, we’ll need it.
That’s because it’s a slightly less paranoid extension of the same moral and political philosophy: protect the social primacy of privilege. The difference is just that centrists feel more secure in protecting it by offering concessions within their ability to do so without impacting their personal comfort significantly, whereas conservatives openly defend it like rabid dogs. Or I guess, like territorial homo sapiens.
The end result is very different, but the belief system we have to tackle is essentially the same. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Memorable name for a punk band, terrible basis for a society.
So is the US’s.
I feel this has been worse since von der Leyen stepped in. But maybe I just feel that way because she is in the spotlight way more than Juncker ever was.