A bad agreement is worse than no agreement.

The implication is that they’re prepared realistically to walk away—which is not an empty statement.

BATNA — “best alternative to a negotiated solution” — is in fact something you need to teach students about in negotiation classes and such. It’s quite possible to get so wrapped up in wringing the most one can from the other side that one forgets to check if the deal is actually better than walking away. So, obvious, yes, but sometimes tautologies are good advice!

Likewise there’s nothing automatic about checking the other side’s interests against one’s offer. This is, after all, the very same EU that got Greece to agree to an arguably-worse-than-no-deal deal.

Another spin is to see “a bad deal” as standing for the EU opening position. Then “a bad deal is worse than no deal” is a way of saying “the EU’s offer is worse than hard Brexit,” except you don’t have to actually say that, and it sounds like you’re saying something obviously true.

I think the rhetorical force of the threat to walk away is roughly equivalent to a threat to take one’s ball and go home in a huff. So it sounds, to some, like powerful self-assertion. ‘I’m not going to play with you any more.’

But this is not the playground and that is not real autonomy, because you will wake up tomorrow and all the old, deep, and inescapable needs from the Continent will still be there, only much more expensive.

The missing bit in the dubious logic is the 2 year deadline. No agreement means that time arrives with no extension. So she’s claiming she’s willing to let that happen. Which is astounding for many reasons, not least the waste of the first 3 months on the election.

It’s true only because ‘bad agreement’ is being defined as ‘that agreement which is worse than no agreement’. There is some possible agreement which is so bad an agreement that it is worse than no agreement at all. It’s a tautology, so of course it’s true. Which doesn’t explain why people (May?) keep saying it, since it is empty of information content.

The alternative negotiating posture would be “we have to take whatever is offered”, which doesn’t play well. So the headline is equivalent to “please leave a little something on the table.” Obvs, I would have thought. Am I missing something?

This particular instance is up there with “national economies are like household economies so we can use all the same analogies”, but I’m interested whether MBA types and the kind of people who teach negotiation can spell out the difference between BATNA in situations where the relationship between parties is largely unaltered without a negotiated agreement and situations where the relationship changes at a specified time unless an agreement is reached.

(A simple example: an out-of-contract footballer negotiating terms to sign for a club is in a different position to a footballer with six months left on an existing contract before becoming a free agent.)

Sometimes the range of negotiating agreements is constrained in such a way that it is literally impossible for any agreement to be worse than no agreement. For example in Australian union bargaining a contract must be tested against something called the national award and on balance be found better for the workers than it (yes, this test may flawed see e.g. the Coles contract but the principle obtains) in order to come into legal force; if no contract is reached award conditions apply.

The Brexit negotiations seem to me to be of this type only the U.K. has less leverage than an Australian union since there’s no industrial action to take. So the slogan “a bad agreement is worse than no agreement” is a lie the Tories put out for the election, functionally equivalent to the less pithy “look we didn’t just commit a blunder of world historic proportions just so some public school boys could exercise their egos”.

I can imagine a lot of agreements worse than no agreement now that the DUP is involved.

Take one obvious example: the DUP insist on keeping freedom of movement between Eire and Northern Ireland, regardless of what it costs the rest of the UK. May has the choice: dump the DUP and ely on the goodwill of other parties, or give the EU whatever they want to keep that particular freedom of movement.

The alternative is actually ugly as well, because an actual hard border through the suburbs that straddle NI/Eire is going to go literally through people’s houses. Some kind of Berlin Wall scenario is pretty much inevitable if that border is to be hardened. The alternative, of a Canada/USA type “the border is somewhere about here, please don’t cross without going through the formalities” just seems unlikely.

I was going to mention BATNA, but it has already been mentioned several times. I teach a collective bargaining course. Although BATNA is fundamental to negotiations, no agreement can be very bad indeed.

I assign a reading to my bargaining course that includes lists of behaviors that successful negotiators avoid and behaviors that they use. Based on her campaigning and subsequent performance, May appears to have read those lists backward.

No deal would inflict a lot of short term balance to the UK economy, but some of it will likely fade away with time as the UK signs deals with other countries.

So no deal (a lot of pain today) might be better than a bad deal (less pain today but a disadvantageous position in time), depending on how much meat the EU wants to chew away from the UK.

It begs the question: What is a ‘bad’ agreement? –
and as a reminder: The ‘four freedoms’ of the European Union are the freedom of movement of goods, people, services and capital over borders – and so for every British Citizen who thinks that ‘the freedom of movements of people’ is ‘bad’ an agreement about the ‘the freedom of movements of people’ will be ‘bad’ – while for a – perhaps young British Erasmus Student who hangs currently in France – ‘the freedom of movements of people’ represent everything what Europe is actually ALL about: A tremendous admirable ‘Friendship and Peace Project’ on a Continent where once a everlasting Peace between the major countries was unimaginable.

And why is that fact so often forgotten?
-(in the heat of divisive passion?)

– and as another commenter mentioned Greece and brought up (the favorite?) Anglo-Saxon ‘money question’ – and that ‘the EU stomped hard on Greece to prevent the aura of inevitability/invincibility. from being questioned.

How much is it worth – and not in Pounds or Euros – to belong to the EU?!!

Or in other words: To be a part of such a tremendous cultural diverse group of countries -(the don’t even speak the same language!) – where it never seemed to be imaginable that they could come together? – and which came together anywhoo in a way – where for example they lifted the poorest countries in the group – like Greece – to nearly the same level as the richest countries – and then – when this ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’ process perhaps was done a bit too quickly – there have been repercussion – but still – with always finding agreements – instead of ‘no agreement’.

What is it worth to belong to EUROPE and not to be alone -(like Puerto Rico) when it comes to the dough and much much more important – when it comes to be ‘just the member of one European country’ or a EUROPEAN.

Or the last time I asked a Greek – he told me – He can’t even think about NOT being a EUROPEAN anymore or having ‘the Euro’ – whatever the struggle with Mr. Schäuble or his own idiots!

tremendously admirable group of countries which finally had put all of their

Collin Street @ 11 and nastywoman @ 24 come closest to ‘getting it’

The purpose of May’s tautologies is to say something that is unimpeachable to everyone inside the tory coalition, whilst surreptitiously occupying, for those who have ears to hear it (those to whom it is addressed), the rhetorical standpoint of the ‘harder’ kind of leave voter.

“Brexit means brexit” is apparently just an affirmation that the government will honour the outcome of the referendum: it is unobjectionable to all but ‘hard’ remainers. But, upon closer scrutiny, ‘brexit means brexit’ actually speaks, sotto voce, to the concerns of the person who wants a ‘full fat’ end to our european entanglements: ‘there will be no backsliding’ it says, ‘no creative interpretations, or haggling. You voted for unmediated, undliuted parliamentary sovereignty and an end to freedom of movement, and I will not compromise those objectives in the name of delivering rival goods, however appealing to the country as a whole, to other constituencies.’

Likewise, ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ appears to be an utterly contentless, and therefore unobjectionable formulation: BATNA, as other posters have put it. But its purpose is to allude to an implicit hierarchy of ‘goods’. ‘A compromise for the treasury, attractive in other respects, that fails to acknowledge what motivated your vote,’ it says, ‘will not do. You will get everything you voted for before I consider what I have left with which to try to minimise costs in other areas.’

@ chris y

“In that case arrangements will be made through NATO, which has nothing to do with the EU.”

Like I didn’t know that. You may think that NATO and the EU have nothing to do with each other, but if it ever comes to UK troops being put in danger to protect countries busy trying to punish the UK for asserting its independence, they will have everything to do with each other.

@27
My ‘Student’ example was just an example for a British Citizen who still believes in the probably most important freedom of the EU – ‘FOM’ – and I don’t think it was ‘FOM’ which has been disastrous for many working people in the UK who have seen their wages go down, housing costs go up, and public services come under pressure’.

It was failed policies of the UK government – who -(like the US) seemed to have cared very little for ‘their working people’ and instead used FOM to attract (not only) some of the richest Europeans to London.

And if a country on the one side profits such tremendously from nearly every rich Greek Oligarch -(supposedly there is a colony of 40 000 Greeks in London?) and we’re not even talking about the hundred of thousand French – and ‘Non European Richies’… you can’t seriously come to the conclusion that ‘Great Britain’ (London?) hasn’t profited much more than any other European country from POM?

And I completely agree with your point that Great Britains workers haven’t –
but instead of changing ‘policies’ and ‘politics’ in a way that also Great Britains workers would have profited – to say By, by to Europe how stupid is that?
-(as even the rich Greeks might have to return to Greece?)

“No deal” might have been a possible option before the election, but not now, with the DUP’s votes critical to the government.

The implication of “no deal” for NI is presumably either a hard border between NI and the Republic, or Irish reunification. The DUP is apparently against a hard border, and I presume they’d be really unhappy if irish reunification was proposed as a solution. So some kind of deal, at least concerning the land border between the UK and the EU that runs through the island of Ireland, loks inevitable.

Conservatives tend to depict liberals as surrender monkies. May is signaling that the EU will know full well she is willing to walk away and will therefore give her the better deal than a liberal who can be pushed around. None of this is about logic, it is about posture and toughness and a lack of public understanding about how a negotiation is conducted between sophisticated parties.

Remember Cheney and “We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.”? We didn’t negotiate with evil, the IAEA locks came off of the Yongbyon Nuclear Facility, and now N. Korea has the bomb. They certainly weren’t defeated. This failure of Bush 43 is not much discussed as we talk about how to deal with N. Korea. I have seen no reflection and reconsideration after this failure.

Sometimes it works politically to be obstreperous in a negotiation, even at the expense of the national interest.

This is a human problem, logical arguments work only with those of us who are willing to let logic temper passion. What we can do is teach our children well and hope persuasion over time does its slow work.

Why do people keep saying that a bad agreement is worse than no agreement?

A lot of what people routinely say makes no logical or objective sense. If you only notice that on rare occasions, you are not paying much attention. It is only exceptionally that an argument is made that aims at what could be called logical or evidentiary proof. Mostly, what is said is emotive and in political domains, is aimed at motivating loyalty to the group or the state. I think it would be better to think of argument, political and otherwise, to be hypnotic in nature and one way to draw a person into a receptive state is to propose a statement that leaves their conscious attention paralyzed at the juncture of some impossible to resolve dichotomy or dilemma, while any number of emotive propositions can be loaded directly into the unconscious mind.

I do not have any helpful citations for you, I am sorry to say. I would expect a political anthropologist might have a lot of useful stuff to say about how the psychological mechanisms behind this kind of transactional slogan or shibboleth fits into the general formation of political culture, shared values, coordinated action and so on. (Think of classic work like that of Mary Douglas.)

The most obvious anxieties that this senseless statement — “a bad agreement is worse than no agreement” — function for the moment to allay, relate to the problem of conceiving of the Brexit negotiations. As far as I know, no prominent commentators or politicians have come up with a crisp formulation of what is to be negotiated that summarizes succinctly and with passable accuracy what is, in detail, inevitably very complex.

Many in Britain, and in the West in general, are living on the leeward side of elite betrayal cum incompetence. Structures in the EU framework were built up on slogans and promises that things would be better, and they have been better for some people, but for some other people the results have been unhappy. I think that experience, and the deep erosion of confidence and legitimacy it implies, has a lot to do with the emotive appeal of “a bad agreement is worse than no agreement”. The experience of people who feel aggrieved by the results of Britain’s membership in the EU is of complex agreements, where much good is promised on the level of slogan, and the consequences are more mixed, or perhaps we could say with understatement, unevenly distributed. And, when the bad consequences of elaborate agreements come, elite authority denies responsibility for or even the capacity to respond to the problems. “I am so sorry we cannot control immigration any longer — freedom! you know.”

So, to summarize, I think two sources of anxiety combine to make the formula “a bad agreement is worse than no agreement” soothing in a way. One is that there is, as yet, no very clear summary of what is being negotiated and with what aim, and the other is that a large part of the electorate that has favored Brexit does so out of dissatisfaction with the result of negotiating complex agreements in the past. Brexit is trying to undo complex agreements that have not lived up to their billing (at least for some people in their own judgment), and yet no one can explain what the new complex agreement will do or how it will be different, beyond the most diffuse handwaving (“soft Brexit” v “hard Brexit”).

Not understanding the nature of a complex agreement in prospect or trusting elite authority to negotiate one with responsibility to the electorate that asked them to break the old complex agreement, the possibility of “no agreement” is reassuring.

Obviously, it is not reassuring to people who recognize that “no agreement” is not a practical possibility. There is no null, no true vacuum in the realm of practical possibility that would not be chaos on steroids. It is possible to conjure alarm on the possibility of “no agreement” with the same hypnotic processes of rhetorical imagination. That doesn’t make such alarmist discourse any more or less sensible by the standards of logic or objective observation that the “no agreement is better than a bad agreement” slogan.

Dipper, the source of hilarity as usual, “but if it ever comes to UK troops being put in danger to protect countries busy trying to punish the UK for asserting its independence”.

The trouble is that independence cuts both ways. Presumably, the “punishment” here happens when sovereign states refuse to trade with the UK on the terms that it would like, which they have a perfect right to do, particularly after the UK has unilaterally ditched the previous arrangement.

= = = bruce wilder@6:45 pm: ‘Why do people keep saying that a bad agreement is worse than no agreement?’
A lot of what people routinely say makes no logical or objective sense. = = =

Hmmmm. Consider the Eastern Airlines example. A bad agreement would have been the Machinists accepting the very disadvantageous contract that Borman and Lorenzo offered. No agreement would be continuing the strike that ultimately destroyed the company putting 10s of thousands out of work.

It seems clear to me [1] that the Machinists, along with the Pilots and Flight Attendants who supported them, were perfectly well aware that continuing the strike would result in bankruptcy and/or dissolution of their employer, and that given the state of the industry at the time the majority of the machinists and flight attendants would never work for an airline again. It was worth it to them to pay that price [2] to drive Borman and Lorenzo out if the industry forever, which indeed happened.

So I’m afraid it is not so clear to me that the phrase under discussion is always and everywhere false or meaningless.

[1] classmates in my consensus/teamwork-oriented MBA program were horrified when I advanced this theory. I was the only one in the class of 80 with a labor union background
[2] the ground employees, reservation agents, etc had no say and paid the price as well

@Glen #33: I don’t know if I’m missing your point catastrophically, but no one, absolutely no one, thinks that ‘no deal’ means ‘not leaving the EU’; rather, it means ‘leaving the EU without any sort of new arrangement on terms of trade, tariffs, arrangements for U.K. citizens resident in Europe etc etc’. Which only pointy-headed loonies think would be anything other than a disaster. Hence, Harry’s bemusement.

Dipper: “But I don’t see that being allies in one sphere and independent states in another has any long-term future.”

This despite the fact that the UK and the US have been allies for about a hundred years while also being different states. Despite that UK and France have been allies for a hundred years despite being different states. Despite the fact that nearly every alliance in the world is made up of, well, different states. That’s why it’s called an ‘alliance’, rather than a ‘state’.

Also, too, the line about ‘past performance being no guarantee of future performance’ is apparently lost on you. If too many people move from Germany to the UK, and the UK becomes less attractive a destination, and Germany has room and infrastructure, some people will move from the UK to Germany. Unless some racist git puts an end to freedom of movement, that is.

chris y @ 29:The question of the Irish border would be critical whether or not the DUP was involved. … If you are suggesting that, had the DUP not been in a position to kick up a fuss about it, the British government would have ignored the issue in negotiations

Not at all. I’m suggesting that with the DUP involved they might try to close off “bad deal is worse than no deal” by demanding the the border remain open regardless of cost. Especially since that cost may well be that the mess at Calais moves to the NI border once that becomes the soft entry point to the UK. The Conservatives apparentyly seem to think that the Australian gambit will work for them “refugees, don’t come to the UK, it’s sodding awful here if you’re not an oligarch and we’re actively making it worse”.

Like Neville@44, my understanding of “no deal” is that it’s a hard border at every point.

Neville Morley,

The idea is that as some miracle better deal cannot be negotiated with the EU, and the deadline draws near, the terms will be shifted. “Withdrawing with no deal would be bad. It’s not what the voters wanted when they voted for Brexit. They were told that Britain would leave, but could of course negotiate a better deal that would still get Britain all the advantages, no, a more advantageous trade deal because we’re Britain, they need us more than we need them, and we could demand so much better if only we had leaders with spine. Britain could get all that by leaving, without the undesirable parts of EU membership, like letting in all those foreigners. Well, maybe such a deal might have been possible for us to extort from Europe, had we been left with a strong hand by a victory in 2017, but clearly the voters had changed their minds about Brexit. Their failure to give us a majority, when we campaigned for a majority explicitly to get a strong negotiating position, means that we have no choice but to rethink things as negotiations develop.” Then when end-stage is reached and the best that Europe offers is a bad deal, then no deal in the sense of no change in the status quo, no actual exit, will be the best deal available. Maybe the govt will feel it can hold a redo referendum at that point. Or it will simply not go through with exit, stay in the EU on its own initiative. They pretend the referendum is binding now because they don’t want to take responsibility for just ignoring it, but as the end game nears that may become the less dangerous path than leading Britain into exit with no deal.

@45
‘But that hasn’t got anything to do with the reality of FOM.’

The reality of FOM is that you can’t have every rich European moving to the UK – sucking in her – or mainly ‘his dough’ – and when it comes to the poorer immigrants you say: NO!

And the reality is – that you can’t do everything to become the Banking Capital of Europe – go ‘ALL IN’ into ‘Finance’ – sell your whole auto industry -(mainly to Germany) – then find out that it is very, very bad for your workers – then blame immigration for your voluntarily economical insanity – and – or come up with EC predictions on future populations.

As the one million refugees to Germany -(and the many these refugees probably will produce) – have proven that EC prediction on future populations always get adjusted in reality – and the Brexit might prove that the UK might lose so many bankers to the continent – and all the ‘service workers’ -(with their many children) – they need – that we much rather should rely on the current reality.

And I have for too many ‘British’ friends that I enjoy it if they shoot themselves in their own foot – especially if in the future London would be the ‘European’ London anymore it is right now…

This is a pretty good thread describing why taking a hard stance is a terrible approach to negotiating with the EU from someone who has actually represented the UK in negotiations with the EU in the past:
https://twitter.com/GuitarMoog/status/875807980041752577

Apparently, the UK’s opening moves have been amateur hour.

@Z 43

I’m not sure why you think that “many european countries are willing to accept a deal that is bad for them”, I think that what Dipper calls “punishment” is just unenlightened self interest:

1) the EU can offer the UK a deal that is only marginally better than no deal (a shitburger whith fries vs a shitburger), the UK is likely to sign it anyway;
2) even in case of no deal, if the UK economy thanks this is a competitor less, in the modern protectionist world this is a plus;
3) the britons would likely nix any deal that wasn’t directly disadvantageous for other EU countries (this is unobvious to the britons but obvious to the others, one can’t see one’s own protectionism) since they just rejected an accord where they had slightly better conditions than the others;
4) other EU countries can wait more than the UK can, so the pain is likely to be temporary while the gain might be permanent.

The problem is that negotiations between nations often are this kind of nasty power driven stuff, but we inhabitants of the rich world usually are on the strong side of negotiations and don’t see it, it just happens that britons (or brexiters) are going to see thing from the weak side for once.

@Moz of Yarramulla it isn’t just the £5,000 here which clearly should have been spent. You don’t know where the next incident, and the next £5,000 is going to come from. so you have to spend a lot of £5,000’s, and do a lot of retrospective work on all buildings, all transport.

We should do this. I’m just pointing out that doing this isn’t going to be cheap. And doing this at the same time as building an entire nation’s worth of infrastructure looks pretty much impossible. Where are the people to do this? Where are the inspectors?

@ Nastywoman. Round my way the only adjustment to reality of widespread EU immigration going on is massive building projects. I see no practical mechanism for adjustment, no natural mechanism that stops this happening. And the one thing that will guarantee financial jobs leaving the city is John McDonnell’s Financial Transaction Tax.

@ PavelA – 55. Yes I understand all that. Lots of EU countries are going to have much bigger problems with ageing population than the UK. The UK has a high birth rate itself driven by immigration (in 2015 25% of all children born were born to immigrant mothers). So the problem for the UK is not towns being swallowed up by nature – that is happening elsewhere in Europe – it is working out where to put 16 million people in an already overcrowded country.

Glen Tomkins
The UK can’t unilaterally decide not to proceed with withdrawal, because the text of the treaty provides no procedure for doing so. Notice under Article 50 has been given; according to the text of the treaty, that means that the UK ceases to be a member of the EU in two years from notice given. Article 50 does allow for the two-year deadline to be extended, but only by mutual agreement, not unilaterally. It might theoretically be possible for the UK to obtain the agreement of the EU to revoking the Article 50 notice, even though there’s no explicit provision for this, but it certainly won’t be possible to do it unilaterally. So what you’re suggesting amounts to this: that in two years time the UK might tell the EU ‘we’ve changed our mind, we don’t want to withdraw’, and hope that the EU will agree. The blog to which Pavel A has so helpfully linked has an article about how getting EU agreement would be overwhelmingly likely to have a hugely politically unwelcome cost imposed by the EU:
https://thegreatbritishmoronathon.wordpress.com/2016/08/27/27th-august-2016-the-red-herring-of-post-article-50-hope/
I would add to what’s argued there, with reference to your specific suggestion that the UK government cite the actions of the voters at the 2017 election as the reason for abandoning withdrawal. Politically speaking, that would be tantamount to the government saying to the voters: ‘It is your fault, not ours, that the UK has suffered this massive humiliation.’ No chance.

Another way of seeing ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ isn’t meaningless: compare it with ‘ no Brexit is better than a bad Brexit’…

Dipper: “…it is working out where to put 16 million people in an already overcrowded country.”

The UK isn’t in the top 50 most crowded countries in the world. The UK isn’t even the most crowded country in Europe; Belgium is. The UK is only just more crowded than is Germany or Italy. If you mean London, London isn’t even in the top 10 most crowded cities in Europe. Maybe you should explain what ‘overcrowded’ means to you, and give examples of places which are and are not, in your view, overcrowded.

@ Layman 64

from googling, population densities of Belgium = 337/sq km, Germany = 233, UK = 267, Netherlands = 393, but England = 413. With an extra 10 million it goes to 490 / sq km.

The growth is mainly in the SE of England up to the midlands. http://www.citymetric.com/business/britains-fastest-growing-cities-are-all-south-and-its-shrinking-ones-all-north-1323

Overcrowded means the population exceeds the ability of the available infrastructure to support it. In my area I see tremendous pressure on housing, services, roads, schools, and I don’t see any serious plan to do anything about it. In my area, government will build thousands more houses, and realises it should build another hospital, but that isn’t anywhere on the horizon, and provision is getting increasingly difficult. Note 1 in 4 babies born in the UK are from immigrant mothers, so over time, if that remains, 1 in four schools is for children of immigrants, and as we don’t carry a large stock of spare teachers, nurses, we have to bring all those in too. Whilst that has upsides and downsides, I don’t see any evidence that once we have done all that we are a better richer place, and quite a lot of evidence that when we have done that we are much worse off as simply I don’t believe that the work that is driving this inward rush is generating sufficient funds to pay for the associated infrastructure and costs.

Britain had two options:
A: remain
B: exit

Now that it chose B in referendum, the alternatives break down further along the lines of what sort of deal Britain can get negotiating exit:
A: remain
B: exit
1) with a good deal
2) with a bad deal
3) with no deal

My point is that a politician who favors A at this point would be happy that B2 and B3 are having an argument. An electorate that voted for B, largely based on the idea that B1 was possible, is being treated to a public argument that takes for granted that B1 is not possible, that the only choices now are B2 or B3, bad or worse. Let the electorate stew in that a bit, and have the impossibility of B1 further driven home repeatedly by the course of the negotiations with the EU, and A looks better and better. B2 and B3 beat each other up, B1 has been shown to have never been possible, and at the end of the day, only A is left standing.

Maybe you can’t be for A openly right now, especially if you’re a Tory and this whole mess is your fault because your party decided to deal with its Eurosceptic wing and the threat from UKIP with the cunning plan of holding a referendum which Remain was going to win easily. You can only spring A as the best solution after a season in which the referendum has receded in public memory, to be replaced by the daily spectacle of B2 and B3 beating each other up, and the negotiations with the EU making clear that B1 is not an option. At that point, whether you believe that no deal is better than a bad deal, or any deal, even a bad one, is better than no deal, the status quo, remaining in the EU with no need for any sort of exit deal, is going to look like the best deal.

MisterMr
“No deal would inflict a lot of short term balance to the UK economy, but some of it will likely fade away with time as the UK signs deals with other countries.”

Only a little. If there was a hard Brexit, then the UK joins the world negotiating ‘olympics’ as a smaller player. Given a choice between negotiating a deal with the US, EU or China, the UK comes in at fourth of lower. And these deals take several years to a decade for experienced groups to negotiate.

@Dipper, you can reasonably believe that ‘overcrowded p’ England needs an influx of teachers, nurses, builders, plumbers, etc; or you can reasonably believe that no one else should be allowed into ‘overcrowded’ England; but believing both at the same time strikes me as a problem. Also, too, now you’re talking about England rather than the UK? What’s next, Engexit?

Barry,

And why would any of the 27 blackball the UK staying in the EU in March 2019? Don’t they all have trade and tariff arrangements, and citizens/corporations with business deals or residing in the UK for whom the UK leaving with no deal is going to be a disaster?

Isn’t Remain still a possible outcome? Has anything irrevocable already happened? Will anything irrevocable happen before March 2019?

@Dipper, if you’re at full employment, but have insufficient teachers, nurses, etc, then immigrants aren’t stealing any jobs, they’re boosting the economy by filling needed jobs. And if you’re at full employment while jobs go unfilled, then immigrants aren’t depressing wages; and if wages are depressed, they are being depressed by something other than immigration. I know it’s annoying, but you should make some effort at consistency.

Thanks, Layman, for handling the troll fumigation

Layman

If the UK woke up tomorrow and said “…about this Brexit, never mind, we aren’t doing it”, I find it hard to imagine that the EU wouldn’t breathe a collective sigh of relief and agree without delay to pretend it never happened.

Perhaps so. But what do you think are the chances of the UK government doing that tomorrow, Tuesday 20 June? In any case, I was responding to Glen Tomkins, who was positing a different scenario, where the UK seeks to cancel its withdrawal as the deadline approaches, so presumably after nearly the full two years allowed by Article 50. The actual physical conduct of the negotiations will involve financial costs and consume people’s time; that’s only a small factor, but it is a factor, and there are bigger ones. The EU as an organisation, and government and non-government agencies across the EU, will also devote money and effort over the negotiating period drawing up budgets and generally making plans for an EU without the UK. There will be uncertainty; people will experience stress and make difficult psychological adjustments. When I imagine the scenario in 2019, towards the end of a period like that, I find it difficult to believe that the EU will accept without question a decision by the UK government to cancel the withdrawal, with two years work going down the drain. It seems to me overwhelmingly likely that, if they are willing to agree at all, they will impose a cost: the UK has to reimburse the EU for the full cost of conducting the negotiations? the UK has to pay for the cost of all the redrawing of plans that has to be done? the UK has to sacrifice all special exemptions previously conceded by the EU? the UK has to join the Euro? If the EU is prepared to agree at all (and I think the UK would be foolish to count on it as a certainty), there will almost certainly be a price to be paid, probably a humiliating one.

Glen Tomkins

… [W]hy can’t the British govt just stop the withdrawal process, and the status quo continues uninterrupted? Does Article 50 have some provision that a referendum trumps an act of Parliament, that Britain has to hold another referendum and have Remain win, or Britain must be ejected?

Have you read Article 50? If you haven’t, you really should: it’s not long. Here’s a specifically relevant portion of it:

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

The UK government gave the notification referred to in paragraph 2 on 29 March 2017 (did you know that?), creating a deadline of 29 March 2019. There are three explicit procedural possibilities under paragraph 3.
A. The EU and the UK reach agreement (before or on the deadline) on terms of withdrawal, with the agreement itself defining when it comes into force, a date which could be before, on, or after 29 March 2019: but on that date, the UK ceases to be a member of the EU.
B. An agreement is reached, with the unanimous approval of the EU member countries, to extend the deadline past 29 March 2019.
C. No agreement is reached by the deadline on the terms of withdrawal (A) and no agreement is reached to extend the deadline (B), so the UK ceases to be a member of the EU from the deadline of 29 March 2019.

There is no explicitly defined procedure for the UK to revoke its notification of withdrawal, but I imagine that it could be done if there was unanimous agreement on the part of the (other) EU member countries. Why would you think that is likely? If the UK seeks to revoke its notification of withdrawal, but the EU refuses to accept the revocation, pointing to the explicit terms of the treaty as saying that the UK ceases to be an EU member from 29 March 2019, what do you expect would happen?

Notice that Dipper 06.17.17 at 9:49 pm has managed to turn the Grenfell Tower fire – a horrific mass killing caused by criminal neglect on the part of British authorities and businesses – into an argument against the EU and immigration. One really wonders what he wouldn’t stoop to – next he’ll blame the fire on “EU over-regulation”. He’s a hopeless troll. Layman 06.18.17 at 7:29 pm, good rebuttal but what for? “I know it’s annoying” but why do you continue trying to engage with trolls when experience shows it’s pointless.

@ Layman (and by association, engels)

“And if you’re at full employment while jobs go unfilled, then immigrants aren’t depressing wages; and if wages are depressed, they are being depressed by something other than immigration.”

Blissex has made a much better comment than I can make here: https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/brexit-are-we-facing-a-workforce-crunch/#comment-29167. To quote his closing paragraph: “… can be summarized accurately as “Nowadays it is hard to find cheaper help”, which has been and will always be what business and property owners say.”

To summarise your view, what happened to tradesmen in the UK was that something caused their labour rates to drop sharply, and then lots of skilled tradesmen from Eastern Europe spontaneously arrived to take advantage of the new lower rates. I think CT is jumping the shark here.

– and about the ‘overcrowding’ issue – and especially in certain ‘Metropolitan Centers’ –
(the Germans call them ‘Schwarmstädte’ = Swarming Cities)
It’s a problem without a doubt – but mainly because the ‘swarming’ mainly leads to exploding rents- and real estate prices and thus all kind of stress for the cities infrastructure and administrations. But then to blame this problem on immigrants -(or the poor) – who can’t afford to live in these ‘cool centers’ anymore – and sooner or later might be ‘totally banned’ – like the homeless from Time Square – is as self defeating as choosing an idiot who even can’t manage a high school – to solve the problem.

In reality you need experienced -(and very ‘bipartisan’ – to use a silly US expression) – City Planners who come up with all kind of constructive resolutions – from ‘redirecting the swarms’ to smaller cities -(with all kind of incentives) like in Germany.

Dipper, the UK will be screwed by leaving the EU because there is no way for the UK to leave the EU without suffering, because the EU is good for the UK. Literally the only way that the UK could be better off out of the EU than in is if the EU member states gave it all the privileges of EU membership without any of the costs. To do that would definitely not be “a viable basis for any kind of union.” No, the UK has three choices: stay in the EU; leave the EU but keep most of its benefits and drawbacks, but lose the ability to control the content of either; or leave the EU without its benefits and drawbacks, which would be a disaster because the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

It just so happens that the UK has failed to manage the drawbacks of EU membership in the way some other states have, because the UK is run by a clique of idiots who think burning people alive in their homes is good policy. But that’s not the EU’s fault – it’s the Tories’.

If the UK seeks to revoke its notification of withdrawal, but the EU refuses to accept the revocation, pointing to the explicit terms of the treaty as saying that the UK ceases to be an EU member from 29 March 2019, what do you expect would happen?

Well, there’s a requirement that the country has to comply with its own constitutional processes; problems here would void the notice and thus the initiation of the exit process: since it’s the country that determines its own constitutional framework, you only have to “fool” your own judges and pretty much any pretext will suffice.

But this doesn’t work for the UK, because of the structure of the UK’s constitutional framework.

lol.

Continental: “Layman 06.18.17 at 7:29 pm, good rebuttal but what for?”

Stupid ideas and lies need rebutting. The failure to rebut stupid ideas and lies – ignoring them, in effect – helps stupid ideas and lies to spread and prosper. It has always been so. I don’t really grasp the point of insisting that we ignore people who spout stupid ideas and lies, or why it’s better to just ignore the proponents of stupid ideas and lies as ‘trolls’. There doesn’t seem to be any limit to comments here, so no one is harmed by rebutting stupid ideas and lies, and perhaps someone is dissuaded from believing the stupid ideas and lies that would otherwise pass without comment. In any event, if rebutting stupid ideas and lies is a waste of time, complaining about those who rebut stupid and ideas and lies must be doubly so.

@59

>Experts: International trade agreements are very difficult and complicated.
>Dipper: Let the imbeciles have a go at it then!

The experts who negotiated on behalf of the UK got the UK a large number of very special concessions (rivalling Norway). May will walk away with considerably less. As for why we’re “in this mess”, there are a few reasons: people didn’t know what the EU was (highest google search the day after the referendum), people were lied to by Johnson, Farage and the DUP about what the EU was and how it worked, xenophobia, Tory austerity policies that failed to redistribute the wealth generated by EU trade agreements. Seems like the problem wasn’t really the EU, was it?

On a side note, if you’re a capitalist, you should believe that “overpopulation” will solve itself via the same mechanisms of FoM. If the UK were truly unable to build accommodations for 16 million people (even though there is nothing to suggest that that is the case), accommodation prices would skyrocket. At the same time, the under-utilization of housing in Germany would drop housing costs there and immigrants will preferentially move to Germany via the same mechanism of FoM.

I guess it’s also worth noting that the Netherlands have the highest pop. density in Europe (413/km^2) and aren’t suffering significantly because of it. Frankly neither is Japan. Given the ability of human beings to build taller structures, higher pop densities are simply not an issue. As for where the money will come from… well, it could be the actual immigrants themselves, or it could be acquired by actually… you know… taxing the rich. Tory austerity policies are pretty much the prime mover behind why the UK-EU relationship failed.

J-D,

Is there anything in Article 50 that says that a member can’t withdraw its notification? If it can submit the notification, why can’t it withdraw it? Even if the rule the EU decides to adopt for withdrawal of notification (because this possibility is not mentioned explicitly in Article 50, it has to come up with a procedure) is that all member nations must agree, why wouldn’t all members agree? Won’t they be hurt as well by UK withdrawal?

And if, at the end of the day, the fact that withdrawal of notification is not mentioned in Art 50 is taken as an irremediable bar on formally allowing notification to be withdrawn, why would the EU not settle on letting the UK effectively withdraw notification by this simple process: a formal withdrawal from the EU combined with a formal entry of the UK into the EU under exactly the same terms as the status quo? They both are embodied in the same document, with notional withdrawal and notional re-entry taking place in the same instant, so, effectively, no change in the status quo ante Brexit referendum.

This isn’t like that episode of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk got the computer to blow a fuse by telling it to divide some number by zero. That doesn’t even work with computers. Laws are designed to guide human actions along certain paths. Since no law can anticipate all future possibilities, of course all legal systems allow for flexible interpretations or changes in the law as situations arise. If both the UK and the EU end up wanting the UK to remain, they will find a way to do that, and finding a legal mechanism to accomplish that will not be a problem at all.

– and with all the conflicting and confusing scenarios – there still will be ‘an agreement’ – as 100 percent sure – as there WAS an agreement and a compromise – when a majority of all Anglo-American economists predicted NO agreement in Greece and an end of the Euro and ‘the European Sky Is Falling’.

These NON European Believers all got fooled by their disbelieve of the fact – that there ALWAYS is – was and has been ‘an agreement’ in the EU – as it is the (‘great’) nature of
this very ‘creative construct’ – the EU.

And from a non ‘European perspective it might be as difficult to understand as so called ‘coherent’ explanations of a incoherent world – but that’s the beauty of it…

Or not?

For the British government to withdraw Brexit would be perceived as a humiliating retreat and a considerable loss of face. It would be perceived as a big success for the EU and pro-EU leaders. So yes I agree that if Britain did ask, the 27 members would probably be happy to consent. They would be stupid not to. However the fact remains that legally a single member state could veto. Why would they? Well maybe some third rate leader would love to tell the British: “you said you wanted out, you called us all kinds of names, you did immense damage to our institutions in the process, now you are out and that’s it, or at least you have to pay some price (maybe symbolic, like a Walk to Canossa), before we let you come back”. It would be very ungenerous and certainly not an example of far-sighted statesmanship but then, where do you find these qualities nowadays (or at any time in the past)?

Continental @99

Let me make sure I understand. Rebutting stupid ideas draws attention to them, but complaints about rebutting stupid ideas doesn’t. Rebutting stupid ideas doesn’t eradicate those ideas, but (somehow) not rebutting them does. CT is a small forum, so it probably isn’t necessary to rebut those stupid ideas because few will see them; but rebutting them will cause them to spread. Responding to stupid ideas degrades the quality of the debate on CT because you are somehow forced to read the responses; apparently you’re able to ignore the stupid ideas themselves, but not the responses to them. Responding to stupid ideas derails the thread, but complaining about responses to stupid ideas does not derail the thread. Dipper is allowed to post his stupid ideas here because of those who respond to him – the moderators have nothing to do with it, even though they could stop him from derailing the conversation if they thought he was doing that.

Can I suggest that you ignore me as you successfully ignore Dipper? Or is it necessary that you work your will on me in order to correct this wrong state of affairs?

Wundering in particular how this will play out for financial service exports. As they are in large parts payments for nothing usefull in return, lowering them would be a huge net positive for the EU after Brexit.

The neoliberal EU may not be a benign set of institutions.

That is the subtext of worrying over the negotiations: objectively, the EU has a much stronger negotiating position, is a more powerful entity, has the great advantage (in negotiations) of having an impossible formal internal decision-making process, and is deeply committed to its 4 freedoms as an unquestionable moral good.

Britain can meekly submit and not much changes, beyond the devastation wrought against the credibility of British political institutions (what credibility you may well ask).

I do not think you have to be deeply euroskeptic, though to question whether the EU is benign, and if you do question that then it is easy to imagine great peril in the possibility that there is no willingness on the EU side to see an agreement that does not punish Britain. People talk as if “soft Brexit” is a choice Britain can make unilaterally, and the EU won’t load up that submission with humiliations or delays that make it impossible to execute.

If I were inclined to polemics, I might suggest the neoliberal EU acts as if its aim is to destroy democratic political institutions on the nation-state level. They want Macron. Low voter turnout in a ceremonial vote, where there is no policy alternative, no socialism and no populism, just an authoritarian centrism. I do not think many deliberately intend to circumvent or destroy democracy as an overall strategy, it just works out that way as neoliberals march onward. I have some hope that exposing “what is really going on” might inhibit the EU, since democratic norms still have considerable ideological hold across Europe, but I think the only real hope for Britain is a catastrophic failure of the Eurozone that fatally undermines the EU and neoliberals. In that event, the narrative changes and Brexit looks lucky (even if still not smart). But, making Brexit into a catastrophic failure while the EU shuffles on down the road seems too much like a continuation of the neoliberal program by other means and therefore among the likely outcomes. Not because the stupid Tories bumble it, but because their EU counterparts have their own agenda and that agenda is not entirely nice even if no one admits it.

@99
‘even after the Trump experience, we collectively really haven’t learned anything.’

I don’t know who is ‘we’? – as not only in France – but in every European Country the Right-Wing finally got what it deserved –
They are ‘OUT’!

Collin: “problems here would void the notice” Either I’m getting you wrong or you are getting Art. 50 wrong. The notice of withdrawal *has been given* and can’t be voided ex post.

Please never become a lawyer.

[if the purported art 50 notice didn’t comply with the art 50 notice requirements, then the process was never properly started — void ab initio — and the consequences of delivering an art 50 notice never happen, because the required art 50 notice was never delivered, only a document that falsely purported to be same. Once the falseness is discovered the whole process unravels. But this doesn’t help the UK, because the UK doesn’t have a constitutional court that can declare the notice invalid.]

Dipper 06.19.17 at 7:26 pm
“@ Continental – “lies that people like Dipper are offering” – can you point me to a lie I’ve put on here please?”

‘Full employment’, unless wages are rising rapidly.

I remember the late 1990’s in the USA,where we were likely at full employment. I’ve heard zero from the UK which matches that.

Dipper
As I mentioned before, I am not trying to make a case that the EU is a good thing. I don’t feel equipped to make a judgement on that question. What I have been trying to do is explain why some of the arguments you have been making are not good arguments. There may be excellent arguments against the EU; they are not the ones you are making.

It is true that most or all countries currently attempt to maintain significant barriers against inflows of population from other countries. If everybody is doing something, it is possible that it is a good idea and they all have good reasons for their choice; but it is also possible that it is a bad idea and they all have bad reasons for their choice. (Similarly, if most people believe that the inflow of people from elsewhere in the EU has driven down wages in the UK, caused a housing crisis, and resulted in inadequate standards of public service, they may be right or they may be wrong; sometimes what everybody believes is true, and sometimes it isn’t.) In the late nineteenth century, or so I think I recall reading, most or all countries did not attempt to maintain significant barriers against inflows of population from other countries; right now, most or all countries do not attempt to maintain significant barriers against large flows of population from one part of the country to another; do you have some reason to suppose those were/are bad choices?

The reason that UK representatives in EU negotiations have not succeeded in arranging more barriers against the influx of people to the UK from other parts of the EU is because they were not attempting to do so, and that is because they were never instructed to do so, and that is because it would have been contrary to basic principles of the EU, well-known when the UK joined and since. If it’s a failure, it’s a failure implicit in the original decision to join the EU, and it’s not evidence of the inadequacy of UK negotiators. This does not mean — and I have made this point before — that the testimony of people with that experience must be accepted; only that the specific argument you made for rejecting it is not a good argument.

Apparently this problem is not a problem. No need to do any calculations on jobs, numbers, costs of anything. Instead we have economists who tell us this is all good.

I don’t know which economists you’re referring to, but I would be prepared to hazard a guess that they have done calculations, because that’s what economists typically do. Of course their calculations may be misleading — I know that happens sometimes, maybe even often — but it would be inconsistent to complain about the absence of calculations and then to refuse to consider the calculations that have been done. If you have specific reasons to doubt the reliability of specific calculations, that’s different.

Glen Tomkins and also Pro Bono

The text of Article 50 is not the only thing that will influence how people behave, but it is one of the things that will influence how people behave. I am aware (and I think I have mentioned it before) that there is nothing in the text that explicitly forbids a revocation of a notice of withdrawal; but there is also nothing in the text that explicitly allows for it. If there was a specific procedure set out for revoking a notice of withdrawal, it could be invoked; since there isn’t, that makes it harder. The way I figure it, if the UK wants to revokes its notice of withdrawal, it will have to request the agreement of the EU, as an act of grace: do you figure it differently?

As I think I’ve also mentioned before, one of the other things that would influence how people would behave is how much time has passed, and how much energy has been consumed in negotiations (and also in preparations for the post-withdrawal situation). There is a difference between, on the one hand, a situation where one spouse says to another ‘I want a divorce!’ and then turns round the next day and says ‘Just kidding!’ and, on the other hand, a situation where one spouse says to another ‘I want a divorce’, initiates a process of months of back-and-forth lawyers’ letters, and then turns round and says ‘I don’t want a divorce after all’. Any sensible estimate of the likely behaviour of the spouse has to take into account this difference. It may not be rational for people to allow sunk costs to influence their decisions, but, rational or not, people do it.

It is possible that the EU would agree to a request now from the UK to cancel the notice of withdrawal, and it is even possible–although less likely–that the same agreement could be obtained in 2019. But it would be foolish to count on that option definitely being available, and it would be even more foolish to count on it being available without a heavy cost, or penalty. If you wake up in 2019 and find you’re the Prime Minister of the UK, by all means ask to cancel the withdrawal notice — what have you got to lose? But it would be a gambler’s last throw, and counting on it in advance would be a reckless gamble. If what you intend to suggest is that trying to cancel the notice of withdrawal could be the last desperate chance for the UK, I wouldn’t be arguing with you this way, but that doesn’t seem to be what you’re suggesting.

As well as asking whether the EU would agree to this kind of request, it seems reasonable to ask whether the UK government would make it. This government? For Theresa May to announce that particular change of mind, now or in 2019, would be to accept, for her and for the whole Conservative Party, a massive humiliation. How does that seem plausible? Or are we hypothesising a scenario where there’s a change of government between now and 2019 — but what scenario is that?

@
‘can you point me to a lie I’ve put on here please?’

‘Without control over our borders, something the EU insists we cannot have as long as we remain in it, there is literally nothing stopping millions of people coming here.’

Yes there is – and you know there is.

All you have to do is give rich tax evaders from all over the world the same ‘treatment’ as for example France and Germany and much more of ‘the millions’ will – instead of moving to London – move to Paris or Berlin!

faustusnotes 113

“In 6 months May is going to front the British people to tell them …”

In 6 months May will be in the House of Lords bar, cursing Brexit and all its works over a warm gin and tonic.

J-D

I am aware (and I think I have mentioned it before) that there is nothing in the text that explicitly forbids a revocation of a notice of withdrawal; but there is also nothing in the text that explicitly allows for it.

This is the EU. If the UK wants to cancel brexit, the particulars of that text won’t matter. This really isn’t comparable to returning a plastic trash can bought by mistake to an online retailer.

Val, heh, yes, that’s indeed funny.

P.S. I have no intention of continuing this subthread. If we disagree, so be it.

and @117

‘Does make me laugh a bit to see people from the UK and the US condemning the EU as neoliberal.’

It’s hilarious – as a sometimes as ‘neoliberal’ condemned European Politician like Macron might be considered by US conservatives as a ‘Socialistic Extremist’ – and what did another commenter here write: If by ‘right-wing’ you mean (also) the mainstream right-wing, which would be the usual interpretation, then I don’t see how they can be considered to be ‘out’, given the number of countries where they are currently the ruling parties.’ – which makes one wonder which European countries we are talking about?

Continental

Third, I don’t know what’s wrong with the term “trolls”

What’s right with it? What do you suppose is the effect on the discussion of your introducing that term into it?

J-D: since both main parties say they will go ahead with Brexit, it’s hard to see how a UK government is going to change track.

If the polls turn against Brexit as the terms become clearer, and if there’s another general election, and if one of the parties decides to run against Brexit, and if that party wins, then the question will become relevant. That’s a lot of ifs.

“One essay in particular, “The Economic Conditions of Interstate Federalism,” offers a glimpse of what Hayek would have considered a desirable and successful economic federation. Written in 1939, this text is striking not only for the author’s optimism at a time of darkness, but also for the prescience of its observations. Notions familiar to anyone who is acquainted with today’s EU, such as the “free movement of men, goods and capital,” and the emergence of a “single market,” are dealt with extensively in the essay.

“In it, Hayek argues that political integration necessitates economic integration in the form of free internal trade, since protectionist barriers will tend to lead to frictions between regions and end up undermining political federation. He posits that economic integration will serve to promote peace among the constituent states and eliminate incentives for protection. He concludes that economic links through international institutions are not only desirable but a requisite development for true liberalism to be restored: “the abrogation of national sovereignties and the creation of an effective international order of law is a necessary complement and the logical consummation of the liberal programme.”

“Reading Hayek’s essay, one is left with little doubt that he would have found much to like in the European Union as we know it today. …”

https://iea.org.uk/blog/hayek-would-have-voted-to-remain

Nastywoman
I think they possibly mean countries like Germany where the ‘right wing’ ‘neoliberal’ Angela Merkel and the CDU are in power – a country that has working conditions that Americans can only dream of!

CT is so funny sometimes, American ‘lefties’ in particular. I mean it’s actually sad, because if they stopped ‘making the perfect the enemy of the good’, they probably wouldn’t have got Donald Trump. Fortunately the rest of the world seems to think it’s all a bit funny now, but I feel sorry for the sensible Americans.

@ 129
‘Taking action to get rid of the world’s rich from London will do nothing to prevent lots of other people coming here from other countries in the EU.’

Are you really sure?
And I didn’t suggest to get rid of ‘the rich from London’ – you need them – in order that ‘the lots of other people coming from other countries in the EU -(attention cynicism!) can ‘serve’ them.

And this is what you don’t seem to understand:
It’s kind of a ‘package deal’ -(like the EU)
And if you welcome the rich from all over Europe – you also might have to take millions of the not so rich – as they really come in ‘a package’ – as the one can’t do without the others -(as everybody knows) – but I understand that this fact is sometimes hard to understand and so probably – you didn’t ‘lie’ – you are just a bit confused like so many of Great Britains ‘Brexiters’?

and @132
“Reading Hayek’s essay, one is left with little doubt that he would have found much to like in the European Union as we know it today. …”

Like – as a ‘vegetarian’ – the most infamous Monster of history could discredit contemporary vegetarians?

And just joking – but seriously – do you know – that for example – a lot of European Crazy and sometimes even fascistic right- wingers adopted a lot of the ‘social’ programs of the so called ‘Left European Parties’ but that didn’t make them less fascistic or less crazy – and for sure it didn’t turn the European Left into ‘Trumps’!

@126

Nobody in America regards Joe Lieberman as a socialist extremist. Why would they think that about Macron?

It would be interesting to see a side by side comparison of Macron’s platform with say Bernie Sanders’. Which is objectively more progressive? That the rather conventional social democrat Sanders counts as a “socialist” or even “revolutionary” in the US context simply reflects the backwardness of the US.

The term neoliberalism can nowadays be applied to almost any mainstream politician. I’m afraid that the habit of part of the left of using it as a swear word in order to signify one’s own purported radicalism has mostly had the effect of making illiberalism more respectable (think of figures like Zizek).

Dipper

It all depends what you mean by overcrowded. I think not having the infrastructure to support an increase in population is a good definition and I see that all over. So does the EU. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/22/no-end-sight-britains-housing-crisis-warns-brussels/.

I haven’t been “owned” by J-D I just cannot see the point in arguing until we end up at the point that all the planet is either maximally occupied (someone is standing there) or else completely empty (no-one is standing there). Perhaps if we were to have this conversation sat in a car on the M25, or a motorway round Manchester, or sat in our local A&E, it might have some more significance.

The European Commission reports that there is a ‘housing crisis’ in the UK, but they seem to be suggesting that this should be thought of as a problem of not enough houses, not a problem of too many people; they are suggesting that what is needed is to increase the number of houses, not to decrease the number of people; I would be prepared to hazard a guess that they are suggesting (indirectly) that the UK is not lacking in the physical capacity to build more houses, but rather lacking in the political will, or perhaps the sense, to do what is needed to build more houses.

Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westphalia) has a total area of about thirty-four thousand square kilometres. That is a significant fraction of the area of Germany and would be a significant fraction of the area of the UK. For the sake of comparison, the total area of South East England, Greater London, and the East of England (as officially defined for statistical purposes) is about forty thousand square kilometres; the total area of North East England, North West England, and Yorkshire and the Humber (as officially defined for statistical purposes) is about thirty-eight thousand square kilometres. If it is possible now for Nordrhein-Westfalen to cope with a population density of 517 people a square kilometre, it should be possible for a similarly sized area of the UK to cope with a similar population density (if it ever in fact rises that high) — given sufficient political will. If the political will is lacking, I don’t think that’s the fault of the EU. (I suppose somebody might argue that the UK needs to leave the EU because its political system and/or its politicians are not up to meeting the demands that membership requires, but I don’t think that’s your argument.)

The UK has apparently no spare workers …

I am not sure what the basis for that assertion is, given the reported unemployment rate of 4.6%.

Val said:

Does make me laugh a bit to see people from the UK and the US condemning the EU as neoliberal.

If being from the US makes the neoliberalism my fault, am I required to single-handedly put an end to it, or shall I emigrate to some land without it, or is some other option on offer?

The EU has some neoliberal principles built into its foundation which are not-so-fundamental in the US. The US neoliberals have not yet been able to treat, say,
Mississippi/Florida/Louisiana/Alabama/Tennessee the way the EU treated Portugual/Ireland/Italy/Greece/Spain. But they’re working on getting us there.

That said, the UK got one of the better deals in the EU – since they got to keep their sovereign Sovereigns and they have more border control than most. In my visits within the EU, crossing the UK border always involved inspection by Immigration and Customs officials. In my limited experience, I got the idea that the UK has more-self-controlled borders than the other EU member nations. Dipp Pom whinging is laughable.

“…while the Great Depression saw the consensus around monetary policy – the gold standard – and economic policy – laissez faire – challenged and then superseded by more interventionist approaches.” https://iea.org.uk/blog/hayek-would-have-voted-to-remain

Yes, the problem with the Great Depression was the inexplicable victory of evil ideas over sound economics and moral politics. The wrong thinking came out of nowhere, just like the Great War. I have little doubt that there’s every chance Hayek would have approved a European project that could have brought back something so closely resembling the British Empire before the People’s Budget. Those were good time. Even the common people weren’t so tall and fat!

Mae West told us a hard man was good to find, but hard money is even gooder.

When you’re pleased with an outcome, suggesting that you’re settling for it is disingenuous, and criticizing others for not likewise “settling” for what you view as an entirely reasonable end state is even more so. Liberal centerism is a goal in and of itself, not merely a “pragmatic compromise” between extremes. You do your credibility no favors by feigning ignorance on this point, and you earn yourself no friends by treating people who do not share your project as amusingly deluded children. Ofc, I doubt you’re trying to win anyone over, as your contributions to this thread so far look entirely to be derailment into a virtue signalling subthread amongst your choirmates.

If the EU is fundamentally neoliberal then you must reject it and prefer Brexit, engels, no?

J-D 06.20.17 at 8:39 am bruce wilder is obviously accusing me of something . . . I would love some clarification, but have little hope of obtaining it.

What I am saying is that you frequently act as if clarity is the last thing you want. Instead, you parse all the meaning out of someone else’s comment, miring the thread in useless verbiage.

On “Another Open Thread . . .”, beginning around here, you can see an example of your modus operandi — one in which I have no hand or stake. Someone offered you a famous example of how Hillary Clinton used identity politics rhetorically. The famous catchphrase from her 2016 stump speech has often been quoted, “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow — and I will, if they deserve it, if they pose a systemic risk, I will — would that end racism?” Like a lot of political rhetoric, including the “a bad agreement is worse than no agreement” phrase that has been the subject of this OP and thread, it manages to communicate something emotionally without making a coherent argument.

Rather than try in good faith to understand the point the commenter, who introduced it as an example of hypocritical use of identity politics to undermine the case for economic reform, you parsed away obsessively and relentlessly until you did not have to acknowledge anything that had been said. It was all sliced and diced and completely mysterious.

I cannot imagine that anyone wants to engage with that.

Ogden Wernstrom and engels
You seem to think that the EU has more power than the states that compose it and yet it’s obviously an association or federation that’s pretty easy to get out of (cf Australia and I guess America let alone the ‘United Kingdom’).

I accept that pragmatically a group has more power than an individual, but if a federation of states has power derived from individual states that can effectively withdraw any time they like, how can you argue that its principles are more powerful than those of the individual states that compose it?

The so called left ‘We can’t support Remain because the EU is too neoliberal’ like the ‘We can’t support Hillary Clinton in the US election because she’s too neoliberal’ movement, are both truly weird. It’s like not just ignoring the elephant in the room, but knowing the elephant is there and inviting it to stomp on you.

Yes Dipper it depends on your definition of overcrowded. You clearly define overcrowded as the U.K. – you said so yourself – but it has been pointed out to you that he U.K. Is way less overcrowded than many places with better infrastructure.

You suggest we discuss this on the m25. How about we discuss it in rush hour on a Tokyo subway train? Then you can see what overcrowded really is – and marvel simultaneously at how bubsome strange magic (what could it be!?) the trains have air conditioning, mobile phone reception and clean seats (not that you’ll get to sit on one). Why do you think overcrowded tube trains have none of these things? Is it maybe something other than the pressure of people? What could it be?

Collin Street
It seems to me that the two statements ‘The only way for the Article 50 notice to be made void [as distinct from cancelled by agreement] is for a UK court to make such a ruling’ and ‘There is no way that a UK court is going to rule that the Article 50 notice is void’, if taken together, add up to the conclusion that ‘There is no way the Article 50 notice is going to be made void’. (Again, I am referring here solely to the narrower notion of the notice being declared void in a legal sense, not the broader notion of its somehow being cancelled or revoked.)

@146
‘The US neoliberals have not yet been able to treat, say,
Mississippi/Florida/Louisiana/Alabama/Tennessee the way the EU treated Portugual/Ireland/Italy/Greece/Spain. But they’re working on getting us there.’

Not really – as the EU in just 8 years -(with the introduction of the Euro) lifted the poorest European States Greece and Portugal out of – what a lot in Greece and Portugal called ‘poverty’ – and the the fact that US gambling with housing put an end to this EU economical miracle in 2008 – and then the other European countries who haven’t grow that fast put a break on it don’t change the fact that the ZS neoliberal probably never will put Mississippi/Louisiana/ or Alabama on the standard of living Portugal and Greece still enjoys!

bruce wilder @ 103

Actually I interpret Clinton’s remarks differently than you. This could mean either:

– being a woman and a feminist like Clinton I am an easy target for “identity politics” and can’t see the objective truth that is blindingly obvious to the ‘reasonable man’ of enlightenment thought such as yourself

– you are interpreting her remarks in the way that suits your perspective but that may not be what she was trying to say.

“I think Obama was tantamount to another Reagan, but the parallax view allowed him to be labeled the “most-socialist” President ever.”

As long as gems like this count as political wisdom among US leftists, abandon all hope for sanity. (I suggest no more mutual feeding.)

@J-D @Glen Tomkins. There is a lot of disagreement about whether unilateral withdrawal of A50 is possible. The Dutch government claim it isn’t and that everyone would need to agree, but the Germans think it might be and that the ECJ would have to rule. In the absence of express provision, I think the Germans are right, and that nobody can predict the outcome with any certainty.

Engels lots of EU countries including Germany have nationalized businesses in the last 10 years.

@167
‘So when you elect someone to crush the unions and roll back sociall security, you are electing a neoliberal, because that’s what neoliberal ideology is about.’

But, but, but nobody -(that I know) – in France has elected anybody to ‘crush some unions’ or ‘to roll back social security’.

The French have NOT elected an idiot or a crazy or probably fascistic right winger -(like some voters in some other countries we perhaps should not name?)

And now Macron probably will try to do what somebody like Schröder did in Germany – still giving the workers a social net an American only can dream about –
Still giving the workers working conditions an American only can dream about –
Still making sure that the workers have payable health care -(without deductions)
Still making sure that every worker has five to seven weeks of payed vacations each year – BUT – perhaps ‘adjusting’ such truly ‘comfortable’ working conditions – to some a bit lesser ‘comfortable working conditions in competing in EU countries?

You know – in order that workers in Germany wouldn’t be able to complain: -(what they never would do!) – but, but, but those French workers – work so much less than we do – we want to move to France… and love Macron BE-cause he will be much, much nicer than Schröder – the ‘neoliberal’ a… hole ever was!

Thank you so much MFB (currently @167) for the very welcome historical and social context your comment provides (with a small corrective, I don’t think it is accurate to claim that France has had an effective social security system for over a century; 70 years would seem more accurate).

Personally, I think one can believe without contradictions the following statements (and I even find most them quite obvious by now).
-The UK has adopted among the harshest neoliberal policies of the developed Western world. In particular, they are harsher than those of the EU as a whole, so leaving the EU is a move towards harsher neoliberal policies that endangers the political and social fabric of the UK.
-The EU was more neoliberal in the late 90s than it is now, partly because of the shift of the balance of power in favor of Germany, partly because of historical contingencies (like the small matter of the ongoing crisis).
-The EU, as administrative and judicial entity, has been and remains one of the most neoliberal institution in world history; much more so than the UK or the US as administrative and judicial entity.
-Even in terms of actual policies, the EU is quite extremely neoliberal compared to many European countries (this is arguably so for all of the original 6 members for instance). To the extent its policies are not (anymore) pure neoliberalism, what it is is far from being congenial to the political and social fabric of said countries and endangers their social and political orders.
-Soft neoliberal politicians (like Emmanuel Macron, or a putative Hillary Clinton) and institutions (like the currently existing EU) support policies which have repeatedly proved to favor affluent, educated, dynamic professionals at the expenses of the poor and the uneducated and which are arguably hardly compatible with acutely necessary mitigation of climate disruption and environmental destruction; so should be actively politically opposed by people with egalitarian and ecological dispositions.
-Even ranked solely according to this narrow metric, they are vastly preferable to nativist reactionary political forces like Trump, Brexit or a putative Marine Le Pen.

Continental 06.21.17 at 7:55 am:

(I suggest no more mutual feeding.)

Success means getting in the last word?

Layman @ 173
“If I read her right (?), Val suggests that it’s easy, or even possible, for a US state to leave the Union”

No you read me wrong, I was saying the opposite. I was saying it’s relatively easy for states to leave the EU, compared with eg Australia, the US and UK, where it’s very difficult. That was the point. Maybe you’re not familiar with “cf”? It means “compared with” in case you’re not.

I think Z (#174) gets it just about right.

FaustusNotes, that’s why I said ‘question mark’.

bruce wilder

This is a point that is frequently missed, and just as frequently willfully elided. The ostensible raison d’être of liberal centerism is to tack to a position defined as being between “purists” on the left and the right, so a great deal of centerist speech is by necessity and design used to express regret that while it may be possible to adopt “extreme” stances they do not advocate, and that they would in principle like to do so, it’s just not practical. If your entire ideological posture revolves around underscoring your willingness to pragmatically compromise your principles in the interest of consistently advancing your agenda, you will of course make a great many statements of desire and principle that have no bearing on how you govern.

And yet we’re expected to take this rhetoric at face value, while we are simultaneously expected to understandingly accept that their actual governance is not a reflection of what they want to do, even as they do it over and over and over, and deride anyone who threatens their power as childish and naive for actually wanting to do what they claim to want to do.

Honestly, there are times when I feel like this argument is fundamentally hopeless because the two sides operate according to incompatible metaethical systems, with virtue ethicists in the center and consequentialists on the left.

And, if novakant thinks Sweden has escaped neoliberalism, he’s been badly misinformed.

A good thing then that I didn’t say that and used a comparative – and yes, Sweden is much less neoliberal than the US, and Finland even less so. And they manage to exist within the overbearing, undemocratic, neoliberal EU alongside, for the time being, a country like the UK, which is much more neoliberal than they are. Which goes to show that even if the EU has a neoliberal bent at the moment, it does allow for a great variance within its borders.

Nobody has shown that the EU is necessarily a neoliberal entity – that’s just nonsense, indeed even in its current state it tends to protect the rights of individuals much more than and often against the fierce opposition of national governments who have a tendency to bow down to corporate interests and to curtail the rights of their citizens wherever they can.

bruce wilder

I am saying, this is what Philip Mirowski was talking about.

That should be enlightening to people familiar with the work of Philip Mirowski, but not to people who aren’t. If somebody is only interested in communicating with the former category, opacity to the latter category is predictable.

@183
‘When I use the term, “neoliberal”…’

Yeah – that’s the great thing about our century – everybody has a right to her or his own definition –
It’s why I define the EU as: ‘didiwadidi’!

I just want to point out that “neo-liberalism” is not a single thing, but a multi-headed hydra with many contributing strands. So to say the Germany is somehow not neo-liberal, as if it were merely an anglo phenomenon, is seriously misguided. In fact, “Ordo-Liberalismus” from Euken and Erhard, early members of the Mont Pelerin Society, is one of the founding strand of the shape-shifting doctrine, and the infantile Kantianism of Merkel/Schaeuble is among the purist re-emergences of the original set of doctrines/tendencies.

bruce wilder 06.21.17 at 5:21 pm: “I think she was targeting you, and she hit the target. I think both your positive regard for her and your expression of hostility to me was what she was trying to generate and she succeeded.”

I just think it’s worth pointing out that Val – who this is addressed to – wasn’t expressing any hostility to Bruce when she said “you are interpreting her remarks in the way that suits your perspective but that may not be what she was trying to say”. That is a pretty polite objection. It seems that Bruce (who btw hasn’t responded in substance to any of the objections raised by other commenters regarding the Clinton quote) can’t handle that level of criticism without taking it personally.

Yeah maybe he’s right, maybe Hillary Clinton gave that speech expressly in order to generate hostility towards bruce wilder.

novakant, I’m possibly making a fool of myself with this comment (I’m not exactly sure what you mean @175) but in the many years I have been reading your perceptive comments on CT, it seems to me the risk is well worth the try, even if I have only the slightest chance to communicate my position.

Funny how all these countries that are way, way less neoliberal than the US/UK manage to do their thing within the EU : Not only Germany and France, but also Denmark, Sweden and Finland!

First of all, I see no contradiction in believing that EU policies are less neoliberal than those of the US/UK and more neoliberal than those of Germany, France or Denmark, so that UK can do its own thing and be pushed by the EU to move towards less neoliberalism while France or Sweden can do they own thing but be pushed by the EU towards more neoliberalism. Note also that the EU is much less neoliberal than it was 20 years ago, and what it is now is quite compatible with German and Danish socio-economical systems (it is a lot less clear it is compatible with the French system, and Sweden and Finland are increasingly going their separate ways) but anyway the influence of the EU is not so much a question of neoliberal vs. not-neoliberal anymore.

But most importantly, to paraphrase MFB, the thing with Germany, France, Sweden and the UK is that they are, well, different countries. At the ideological height of the European construction (in the second half of the 70s and the 80s), the prevalent ideology was that of an ever converging system of states and people guided by an institutional framework, and in fairness there was some plausibility to it as regions, societies and peoples who had been bitterly divided since the Reformation at least were at the time indeed moving closer and becoming increasingly hard to distinguish. This converging interim proved however to be short-lived and European societies core indicators and correlated fundamental properties started to diverge again, sometimes to an extent that is hard to fully grasp. The power of such diverging core trends is incomparably stronger than the institutional mandate to converge (with an institutional framework than could and can only envision two modes: ever greater integration or brutal separation) so essentially all European societies find themselves in considerable stress; as has been clearly visible at least since 2008 for the periphery but is increasingly obvious for the German core, not only in terms of the political expression of its impatience at the periphery (why won’t they just converge already?).

So yes, within a de facto (if not de jure) less and less neoliberal EU, separate countries keep doing their own thing: the Rome treaty and its avatars have not remade Greeks, French, Englishmen, Swedes and Germans in an abstract (neoliberal) people. Doing one’s own thing within the EU is not, however, quite a possibility in the long term. At least 3 European societies have been destroyed and one severely disrupted by the contradiction already. Whether others will overcome it remains to be seen.

That Clinton quote is clearly about priorities. Sanders put a lot of emphasis on reining in Wall Street and breaking up big banks. Clinton’s speech is an appeal to people who may agree with the intention but who feel that other issues are as or more important, including racism and sexism. That’s what happens in politics, voters support candidates who speak to their perceived priorities. To say that safeguarding reproductive rights for example has a higher priority for me than say fighting for single payer healthcare is totally legitimate and doesn’t imply that the speaker is against single payer.

The trick with the talk about “identity politics” is that the speaker assumes his set of priorities (usually economic) to take, well, priority over all others, denying legitimacy to those others. These supposedly left “anti-identitarians” turn reality on its head exactly like the right-wingers. They claim that “identity politics” marginalizes the “working class”, whereas in reality it is them who deny legitimacy to the concerns of women and minorities.

The bruce wilder brand of economic populism has helped Trump get elected because that leftist fraction decided that women’s and minority rights, racism and sexism were not high enough on their priority list to vote for a “neoliberal” against a fascist. They helped defeat liberalism so we could get illiberal capitalism instead of neoliberal capitalism. But it’s all the fault of “identity politics”.

@173

If by 2016 Hillary Clinton hadn’t already come to the view that the big banks need to be broken up because they pose a systemic risk to the US and indeed the global economy, then what possible event could cause her to do so?

Note that the administration she was part of pursued policies that led to further consolidation of the banking industry and that one of the (presumably non-racist) effects of this was to dramatically reduce the number of black-owned banks. To the best of my knowledge, she has never criticised the Obama administration for those policies, as opposed to its insufficient zeal for overthrowing the Assad regime.

@Chris Bertram, 168,

Is there much doubt that the ECJ wouldn’t let the British govt withdraw notification? Is it even certain that the ECJ would take the case, and not simply tell any plaintiff that this isn’t a justiciable matter? The European Council then, by consensus, gets to just let Brexit disappear by accepting withdrawal of notification.

The limit here, it seems to me, is the British govt. It has to withdraw notification. Europe isn’t going to bail the UK out of the mess it got itself into. Right now withdrawal is a poison chalice in UK politics, but after a year and a half of negotiations with Europe show that a bad deal or no deal are the only two options available, those two cups will look even more toxic, and the govt might choose to withdraw the notification.

Nastywoman@183: before 1973 at the earliest, the Danes, Dutch, Belgians and French must have been terrified that the British, unconstrained by any European links, might have invaded their coasts whenever their Government wished.

Or are you underestimating the peace-imposing effect of common membership of NATO? At least up to the point when France pulled out …

Katsue: “If by 2016 Hillary Clinton hadn’t already come to the view that the big banks need to be broken up because they pose a systemic risk to the US and indeed the global economy, then what possible event could cause her to do so?”

Is that your way of saying ‘Gosh, you folks are right, that quote from Hillary doesn’t actually say what it claimed I said, and maybe she didn’t actually mean what I said she meant’? Because if so, I think you need to work on it a bit.

@195
‘have you ever heard of the stability and growth pact? Or the Euro? Or Greece?’

Yes! –
I have family in Greece – spend a lot of vacations there and mostly pay with the Euro -(if I#m not in the US) – and I’m very well aware of ‘the stability and growth pact’ – as for years I had such a pact with my American grandfather.

But what does all of this have to do with the facts – that an agreement between the UK and the EU – like the many agreement the EU before agreed on would be a very good thing – and that there is a pretty precise definition of ‘neoliberalism’ even Z can’t change?

@173 Layman 06.21.17 at 11:47 am:

Ogden Wernstrom equates Obama’s politics to those of Reagan (!), a claim which can only be made by ignoring the politics of both men.

Maybe “tantamount” didn’t convey my meaning well. Maybe I should spell out the constraints. On a one-dimensional left-right axis, only a small portion of that axis is visible in the US. The currently-visible portion would have Reagan’s image and Obama’s image far apart; in the bigger picture, they’re pretty close together. I give little attention to the rhetoric of both men – they were far apart in much of what they said…which is a big part “politics”…but I did not intend to equate their politics. I find their actions are close to each other on that imaginary axis.

As far as actions go, Obama was not-so-left as the right-wing noise machine makes him out to be. Over time, I hope that his rhetoric will have as much positive effect as Reagan’s has had negative effect.

I have to spell out so many constraints on my statement that I should not have expected anyone to get my meaning in the first place. The more-moderate Nixon might have been a better comparison, but “Nixon” carries almost as much baggage as “Hitler”.

Maybe my view of Obama was tainted by Obama’s very first Executive Order, 13489, in which he copied someone else’s work – that is, Reagan’s E.O., 12667. It is not quite word-for-word. When I recognized the homage to Reagan, I probably started noticing the similarities and ignoring the differences between these two Presidents.

Both authorized “legalization” of some class of undocumented immigrants, and both stepped-up immigration enforcement. (Don’t ask me to place these on the left-right axis. In the long run, I can’t tell if keeping foreign laborers away is left-wing solidarity with workers or right-wing nationalism. Maybe one’s stance on this issue is a signaling device that changes over time.)

Obama’s de-escalation of the War On Drugs consisted of supporting Congress’ bill to reduce crack sentences, and commuting the drug-related sentences of some fraction of a percent of those imprisoned by that “War” – notable exceptions to Obama’s other actions related to drug policy – for example, a $2 billions shot-in-the-arm for Byrne Grants, which were established by the Reagan-era Anti-Drug Abuse Act. The Ogden Memorandum (no relation) backed down enforcement against state-legal medical marijuana, but the Administration made a severe amendment to the policy about 20 months later. Obama spoke out against the federal prohibition on funding needle-exchange programs, and left that prohibition in his budget proposal. (I think later proposals dropped that provision.)

Reading what I just wrote, I need another disclaimer: I do not intend this to be a leftist-purity argument against Obama. I may be what-passes-as-left-in-the-US, but I am also a gradualist, and Obama was really good at making any progress gradual. A slightly-left-of-center movement is better than no movement.

@166 Continental 06.21.17 at 7:55 am:

As long as gems like this count as political wisdom among US leftists, abandon all hope for sanity.

At last night’s meeting of what-passes-for-the-left-in-the-USofA, it was agreed that Continental does not have the power to appoint me as our spokesperson. Plus, I would decline the nomination and hide behind a shrubbery. Also, many of us would prefer that lack-of-sanity be covered by single-payer, while others prefer that sanity not be put on a pedestal in the first place.

@Chris Bertram,

I have to say that the Germans have a better name for what I call withdrawal of notification. Ruecknahme sounds so much more adult than takesy-backsy, but more compact than the unwieldy “withdrawal of notification”, so the Germans have it.

But whatever you call it, this opinion prepared for the Bundestag seems to say that takesy-backsy is probably permitted by Art 50, in that the Treaty of Lisbon would not have to be renegotiated to permit it. But it isn’t mentioned as a specific right of a member country that put in a notification, so perhaps the Council or the ECJ could use that failure to explicitly grant the right of Ruecknahme as an excuse to not permit the UK a takesy-backsy.

My question is this. Does it seem likely that there a majority on the ECJ or the Council that would vote against UK Ruecknahme? Perhaps they could, this passage you quote suggests that maybe they could, but the passage doesn’t suggest that Art 50 says that they have to deny permission to withdraw the notification. If they don’t have to, why would they?

Orange Watch 06.22.17 at 5:56 pm: Have I been unclear? Par 1: Having different political priorities within the progressive movement is totally legitimate. Par 2: I criticize a fraction of the left that denies the legitimacy of those who don’t share their priorities.
No, I don’t find a dissonance between those paragraphs.

nastywoman:

But what does all of this have to do with the facts … and that there is a pretty precise definition of ‘neoliberalism’ even Z can’t change?

Well, there’s the OED online definition, which is “Relating to or denoting a modified form of liberalism tending to favour free-market capitalism.” Or are you thinking of another definition?

And how does Z’s definition differ from the one you cite?

Continental (currently @ 192 and 193!)

Thanks for the support but I was kind of mocking bruce by calling him a reasonable man of the enlightenment who was in possession of the objective truth.

It wasn’t Hillary Clinton who made me do it though, it was reading bruce’s comments over a few years!

The adorable part is that he then responded by doing the same thing again, only this time expressing the hope that I too might eventually become a reasonable man who could see the objective truth also.

I have pretty much given up getting angry about this stuff, but as you suggest, it is not funny that some people think race and gender don’t matter – especially just after the guy who shot Philandro Castile six times got acquitted.

Anyway OT, so now back to the regular scheduled programming I suppose (sigh).

nastywoman @209 Stay tuned for more ‘agreements’!

In that nice spirit of conciliation, I would like to ask you the following question: do you substantially agree with the following statement (a small variation of one I made upthread), with the emphasis on institutional framework absolutely crucial (so whether the actual executive policies of the EU reflect the political system in question is quite immaterial to the claim)?

“There is an implicit and very specific political and economical system embedded in the institutional framework of the EU in a scale and manner totally incomparable with the way a specific political system is built in the national institutional framework of (e.g) the US, Australia, Japan, the UK or France”

If you do, then we can move on to attempt a precise characterization of said specific political system, perhaps find a common term we can agree on, and discuss the historical articulation of this ideal system (in the philosophical sense) with the actual exercise of political power etc. If you don’t, then on that topic at least, there is as of now probably not enough common ground between us to interact fruitfully, which is of course perfectly fine. (But especially in that latter case, I should say that, with the caveat that my understanding of English is often quite limited, I understood your comment 206 as implying in a derogatory way I had attempted to change the definition of neoliberalism, something I don’t believe to have done myself-on the contrary I expressed my conviction that terms weren’t as important as cultural believes, a position you apparently share to some extent. If what I understood was indeed what you intended to convey, I would appreciate it greatly if you would agree to substantiate your claim or refrain from such insinuations on my opinions in the future.)

Also, sorry for this belated answer but MisterMr @56

The problem is that negotiations between nations often are this kind of nasty power driven stuff, but we inhabitants of the rich world usually are on the strong side of negotiations and don’t see it, it just happens that britons (or brexiters) are going to see thing from the weak side for once.

I completely agree with your framing. It’s just that I find this power driven business quite detestably punitive, and as you say nasty, when it is targeted at developing countries (especially former colonies) and in truth, I can’t say I like it that much either even when a rich and powerful country (who essentially begged for it) is on the receiving end.

@196

As you say, priorities are important in politics, and Hillary Clinton clearly indicated in that comment that breaking up the big banks was not one of her priorities because it wouldn’t end sexism or racism. I’m glad we’re in agreement as to what she meant.

@221
‘It’s pretty clear here that “neoliberalism ” has come to mean “anything I don’t like” in the mind of our local socialists.’

As somebody who has been identified by his US relatives as ‘a flaming socialist’ I probably should agree?
Or not?
But I absolutely agree with the satirical comment about –
”A beast so subtle it can create economic conditions as varied as Sweden, France and the U.K., a political ideology that – though it continues to stand undefined – has managed to manipulate the economic development of economies and states as diverse as Australia, the USA and Poland.”

And Z@218 – ‘in that nice spirit of conciliation – in no way I was implying in a derogatory way that you had attempted to change the definition of neoliberalism.
-(as indeed we seem to agree on certain ‘terms’) I just quoted the definition of ‘neoliberalism’ from Wikipedia in order to find out if the EU – indeed is ‘neoliberal’ or not – and as the definition definitely said: ‘NOT’ I tried to make fun of everybody who gave a different impression.
But as I always express my conviction too – that terms aren’t as important as cultural believes, – and I have to accept that my US relatives define me as a ‘flaming socialist’ – I probably should give up any efforts to remind anybody about the existence of pretty well agreed on definitions of terms?

As there is always a ”Theresa May in this world – who tells EU leaders that – she will guarantee the rights of 3m EU migrants living in UK”. But then – supposedly – if such a EU immigrant hasn’t lived at least for five years in Great Britain – she will NOT guarantee it.

Which is a great example how even such terms as: ‘Guaranteeing the rights of somebody’ can be defined in all kind of different ways…?

Oh my?!

Continental@212

Tragically, no, you have not been the least unclear. That’s the problem.

Par 1: Having different political priorities within the progressive movement is totally legitimate.

This is not what you said. You said that we must assume statements of priorities must be assumed to be truly about priorities, not rejecting the legitimacy of that which is not a priority.

Par 2: I criticize a fraction of the left that denies the legitimacy of those who don’t share their priorities.

Also not what you said. Here, you said that when anti-identitarians speak of priorities, they are not speaking of priorities, but rather mutually exclusive calls to action, of which only that titled a priority can be viewed as legitimate.

So yes, cognitive dissonance. “Good faith for me, but not for thee.”

With regard to the above quoted Hillary-speak, I think we ought to be cautious about supposing there was any “meaning” there at all, in the sense of declarative assertion, proposition or logical argument. Like the OP’s “bad agreement is worse than no agreement”, it was rhetoric whose surface senselessness contributes to its rhetorical power. That is one reason I object to parsing it to death, while selectively denying that we can usefully invoke well-known context, as is J-D’s wont. I think the rhetoric functioned as a manipulation. She juxtaposed two essentially unrelated issues in a statement akin to a non-sequitur to suggest ideas and associations to her audience, in particular to suggest some undefined tribalist opposition between prioritizing bank reform and combating racism and sexism. For what it is worth, I have seen that infamous quote cited as a signal that Clinton was more interested in identifying with the fight against “horizontal inequality” than issues of class war, and it may be that it is best understood against that background. It would be hard to understand how the quote could work to rouse an audience, without there being some pre-existing controversy and division of opinion — without the culture created beforehand by the frames of “identity politics”. Otherwise, people would just stand around scratching their heads and wondering, “yeah, so what? one thing has little to with the other, there is no inherent conflict or trade-off. if anything, breaking up the power of big banks might indirectly aid the cause of reducing economic discrimination on account of sex or race”

J-D’s justification for ignoring context and background is that he just does not know. Few of us know much in some deep and fathomless sense, but it seems to me he just manufactures his ignorance for convenience. Above in replying to Katsue, he argues he doesn’t feel well enough informed to take a view on Clinton’s stance on breaking up the big banks. It is literally true that we cannot know speculatively and counterfactually whether there might be some future event that would lead Clinton to advocate a policy of breaking up the big banks. So, why go there (to an imagined future) to look for information? — there can be no fact there! It is a formula for being stubbornly obtuse. There is a history and not much excuse at this late date for not knowing at least its bare outlines. That history is a context for judging the “meaning” such as it is, of Hillary’s declared willingness in this instance of rhetoric to break up the banks, if they deserve it. Katsue’s judgment, invoking that history, is hardly a stretch and it does not further the conversation to insist otherwise.

I do not use “neoliberalism” as a label for everything I dislike. I use it for a style of discourse on political economy common to a set of related but somewhat diverse ideologies, a style that invokes neoclassical economics for authority and advocates for “markets” as the standard good and universal solution to public policy problems. As other commenters have noted, neoliberalism differs from classical liberalism in that neoliberalism is willing to erect elaborate state apparatus to enable their market solutions. Obamacare is neoliberal in that it attempted to address problems in health care by creating elaborate “markets” in health insurance.

There are plenty of people who favor neoliberalism, though many now deny the label as pejorative. Tough, I say. Some, like Brad DeLong, do not deny the label and can explain their rationales in positive terms, which I would accept as accurate, even if I have different normative preferences. So, “neoliberalism” does not live only in my subjective assessments.

As a norm for CT commentary, I do not see how attacking “neoliberal” as meaningless furthers the conversation. It is a term in common use and references a lot of recent political history and policy controversy in ways that make connections to a larger discourse.

That said, using “neoliberal” as a hybrid quantity-quality and rank ordering countries is not helpful. That pretty much erases meaning as effectively as blanket denials that there was any meaning to begin with.

I really do not think dyspepsia and bad attitude are enough for a decent conversation here. We should be trying to understand each other and such parts of the world’s larger discourse as interest the OP’ers, not dividing into teams and using obtuseness as a weapon.

Katsue
No, not ‘clearly indicated’; there is no such clear indication; if there were, there would be general agreement on that interpretation, and clearly there isn’t. I continue to find your interpretation unpersuasive, and I’m not the only one.

I’ve introduced this definition from David Harvey and my own further expansion of it before here, and I think people thought it was reasonable, so I’m introducing it again.

Neoliberalism has been described by David Harvey (2007) as:
“a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade”

Neoliberalism has been characterised by governments restricting welfare benefits and introducing private sector principles to publicly funded and government provided services, for example through: changing governance structures from direct government provision to government owned but arm’s-length corporations; funding non-government organisations to provide services; or selling publicly owned organisations off to for-profit corporations (privatisation). This movement has also been described as “economic rationalism” in Australia or as “neoclassical economics”, however neoliberalism is a widely used term.

Phil #25

I too remember the person who said “We don’t want a deal: we want to LEAVE”. And I agree that May is dog-whistling to this sort of person. The problem is that, in the referendum campaign, there was a promise of getting a good deal through negotiations. The idea appears to be to quietly forget this.

@230
‘We should be trying to understand each other and such parts of the world’s larger discourse as interest the OP’ers, not dividing into teams and using obtuseness as a weapon.’

That’s one the first things you will be told when you study ‘linguistics’ -(and probably a lot of other ‘fields’) in Germany. And to make such parts of the world’s larger discourse ‘easier’ – about the basic ‘terms’ – you always will be reminded to stick to already defined and widely known definition of certain terms – as it is far too ‘obtusing’ -(is that a ‘term’?)

And so I completely agree – that as a norm for CT commentary, I do not see how attacking the known definition of “neoliberal” furthers the conversation. It is a term in common use and references a lot of recent political history and policy controversy in ways that make connections to a larger discourse.
(like ‘Kantianism’ for example!)

and @ 235 Mario –
I’m in Germany too – and my ballot in Baden-Württemberg helped to elect a so called ‘Green’ Minsterpräsident there – and as I like to read programs of political parties I was pretty satisfied with the (non) ‘neoliberal’ program to the Greens in Germany and considered the fact that such policies and politics could come true – to such a yuuuge extend a yuuge ‘win for democracy’ – compared to the loss in my other ‘homeland’ the US.

And so – contrary to your believe – I believe that your vote in Germany always will be counted as support for the non-mockery of a democracy.

06.23.17 at 10:03 pm

Val: “The so called left ‘We can’t support Remain because the EU is too neoliberal’ like the ‘We can’t support Hillary Clinton in the US election because she’s too neoliberal’ movement, are both truly weird.”

Mario: “Well, leave and Trump cause a lot of volatility, of which, perhaps, something good may come eventually, in a distant future. Luck permitting. ”

‘Volatility’ here means ‘the rich loot, the right oppresses, while screwing things up’.

“Leave, as well as Trump, have something of “throw the dice again” to them. Remain and Clinton, in contrast, both are a little like choosing certain death, because you know in full certainty that choosing that option is another large step towards the final entrenchment of neoliberalism.”

‘…choosing certain death…’ is simply a lie.

I guess other people have made the point before me but it’s worth saying again – if anyone practised “identity politics” it was Trump, because he dog whistled to men and whites like mad. But let’s call it what it is – racism and sexism. And let’s not call anti-racism and anti-sexism identity politics, because it’s not – it’s anti-racism and anti-sexism.

Anyway sorry I know this is a thread about the British elections and I will try not to talk about the US election any more.

@235
“Well, leave and Trump cause a lot of volatility, of which, perhaps, something good may come eventually, in a distant future. Luck permitting. Leave, as well as Trump, have something of “throw the dice again” to them.”

Accelerationism has a terrible historical record. Please don’t make the (serious) case for accelerationism with the concept of “luck” as the only explanatory device for how things will get better.

“Remain and Clinton, in contrast, both are a little like choosing certain death, because you know in full certainty that choosing that option is another large step towards the final entrenchment of neoliberalism.”

This is not true. I’m sure that capitalism seemed overwhelmingly entrenched in the Gilded Age, and yet the welfare state and other types of socialism and communism emerged as counterbalances. There is no such thing as obvious historical determinism. If there’s anything to be learned from “The End of History” it’s that it never was and never will be the end of history (until climate change wipes us out, of course).