RE: [CCDS Members] A Global New Deal [feedly]

….b..b...but -  when wages go up, prices go up – on rent, bread,

From: Members [mailto:members-bounces+normaha=pacbell.net@lists.cc-ds.org]  On Behalf Of John Case Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2016 3:18 PM To: Socialist Economics <socialist-economics@googlegroups.com> ; CCDS-Members <members@lists.cc-ds.org> ; mailto: jcase4218.lightanddark@blogger.com   Subject: [CCDS Members] A Global New Deal [feedly]

A Global New Deal https://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/a-global-new-deal/

A global New Deal      By Dave Anderson –

The two major parties will have to change, or they are likely to be

changed by voters who have had enough," the Reverend Jesse Jackson

said recently. He knows about the impact of grassroots discontent

because he ran an unexpectedly strong progressive populist campaign

for president in the Democratic primaries in the 1980s which was very

similar to Bernie Sanders' campaign.

Quite a few U.S. labor union leaders are alarmed at Trump's popularity

among too many workers. On May 9 and 10, Trump was a focus of concern

at an international conference in Washington D.C. on rising far right

populism in the U.S. and Europe. It was sponsored by the AFL-CIO (the

largest federation of unions in this country), Working America (the

federation's outreach arm to non-union workers) and the Friedrich

Ebert Stiflung (a German foundation associated with the Social

Democratic Party).

With Donald Trump as its presumptive nominee, the Republican Party is

changing to address the fears of economically insecure Americans with

a cynical and phony populism. If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic

nominee, how will she respond? Mainstream pundits (and most likely

rich donors) urge her to "pivot to the center" and focus on attracting

affluent Republican suburbanites who are leery of Trump.

Labor people came from France, Germany, Belgium, Canada, the

Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. The conference was a

response to the ascendancy of not only Trump in the U.S. but also the

National Democratic Party in Germany, the National Front in France,

the Golden Dawn in Greece and others.

"Too many politicians in the U.S. and Europe are exploiting our

differences and inciting hate and division," said Richard Trumka,

president of AFL-CIO. "…Political tactics that scapegoat hardworking

immigrants and refugees only serve to pit workers against one another,

while ignoring the corporate excess that created these problems."

Speakers placed a good deal of blame for the far right's rise on the

center left parties' embrace of "neo-liberalism," an ideology

pioneered by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Later, a cuddlier

version was offered by Bill Clinton's "Third Way" Democrats and Tony

Blair's "New Labour" in the U.K.

Damon Silvers, director of policy at the AFL-CIO, said: "Starting

around 1980 in the United States and the United Kingdom, and in the

1990s in the larger European Union, the idea that governments should

not act to help people in economic pain, or to right imbalances in

economic power, became gospel, not just among the right, but among

parties that identified themselves as the center-left.

"The idea was that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we were

going to have a market-based Utopia, where the problems that had

plagued market societies in the 20th century were no longer going to

exist. So the institutions and politics that had come into being to

address the injustices and instabilities of market societies could be

dismantled without fear of what would happen next. …

"But instead of ushering in a market-based era of growth and good

feeling, neo-liberalism brought back the economic pathologies of the

pre-New Deal era — runaway inequality and financial boom and bust

cycles on an epic scale. And politically, the neo-liberal consensus

opened the door to a monster that many had thought had been driven

permanently into the outer darkness of democratic politics—the racist,

authoritarian right."

Silvers warned that "we should have learned from the 1930s that if the

public is offered two choices — democracy and austerity, or

authoritarianism and jobs — a lot of people will choose

authoritarianism." Those who live in comfort rightly condemn such a

choice, he said, but anybody who wants to lead a democracy should

"make sure that democratic governance provides economic justice and

economic security."

Silvers said it is tempting to "bite our tongues and join in the

neo-liberal consensus in the hopes of gaining powerful allies against

right-wing authoritarianism from among the 1 percent. But this

approach will only feed the authoritarian right by proving the

argument they make to working people that 'the politicians don't care

about you.'"

Instead, Silvers said the labor movement must demand that politicians

and parties they support be advocates for ambitious policies which

produce broad-based economic growth driven by rising wages.

He insisted that the politicians support "a global New Deal — a plan

to get us out of global economic stagnation driven by downward

pressures on wages — and into a virtuous cycle of rising wages driving

investment that drives productivity."

To defeat Donald Trump, we need to confront his racism and sexism but

also offer a transformational vision of a more decent and caring

society.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed