tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post1579203318900195431..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: The Reckless Ending of Self-IsolationPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-85960581719074167922022-02-10T17:21:50.387+00:002022-02-10T17:21:50.387+00:00It is possible to be a tedious shitposter and supp...It is possible to be a tedious shitposter and support quality blogging at the same time. Don't let the grown-ups tell you otherwise.<br /><br />I support this site through Patreon. You should too.Shai Masothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00452453462950704943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-83220866419043644012022-02-09T23:45:42.355+00:002022-02-09T23:45:42.355+00:00«it looks like the government's biopolitical s...«<i>it looks like the government's biopolitical strategy has proven a complete success</i>»<br /><br />As I keep saying the government's policies are not really the government's as such: they are those of the thatcherite right-wing, and therefore they are mostly shared by the "opposition" parties (and most "Washington Consensus" european governing parties). Indeed while the details and timelines differ, Sturgeon's SNP in Scotland and Starmer's New, New Labour in Wales have adopted similar policies with similar outcomes to Johnson's Conservatives in England, that is their biopolitical strategies have all met with complete propaganda success.<br /><br />Despite his personal demonization on trivialities by endless "two minutes of hate" attacks by "whig" right-wing media hacks, Johnson's government, while a bit nastier than most thatcherite/reaganite ones, in the UK, the EU or elsewhere, has policies and outcomes not too different from those in similar countries. If Johnson were replaced by a more reliable, more dignified thatcherite, be that Sunak or Starmer etc., things would not change that much. For an obvious example consider how much policies and outcomes changed between Trump and Biden in the USA, other than in style and media propaganda.Blissexnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-40981687534151096742022-02-09T23:45:19.631+00:002022-02-09T23:45:19.631+00:00«Don't expect the state to do you any favours,...«<i>Don't expect the state to do you any favours, you're on your own. [...] so those city-located workers can start spending again, fuelling retail business growth, more rents, and more investment opportunities for asset-rich interests.</i>»<br /><br />Our blogger writes this glaring contradiction, as he uses a typical clichè of "leftoids", the claim that right-wing governments are against state intervention and support. But while may have been remotely the case with victorian liberalism, with the current thatcherite neoliberalism right-wing governing parties (whether New Labour, Conservative, or LibDems) intervene massively in the political economy to support rentier interests, from the 2008 hundreds of billions gifted to City interests and the "forbearance" on busted loans to property speculators, to the 0.5% and 1.5% interest rates currently charged to City and residential property rentiers when the RPI is around 7-8%.<br /><br />«<i>Making sure the subordination of wage labour to capital returns to as it was prior to Covid. Taking away the legal requirement to self-isolate turns the clock back to the bad old days when employers demanded their staff to be in work come what may, regardless of illness and health status.</i>»<br /><br />The right-wing still does a bit of putting down the servant classes, but our blogger seems still persuaded, noddy-marxist style, that the employment relationship is still central to Conservative, New New Labour, LibDem policy attitudes. While right-wingers still of course want workers to be cheaper and more disposable, many workers, especially the lower paid, suffer far more from rentier extraction than from employer oppression, paying often 50-70% of their after-tax income in rent.<br /><br />«<i>This is, or should be, a ready made issue for the left. The struggle for decent sick pay and the right to be ill and not have to work for the duration is elementary labour movement politics.</i>»<br /><br />But it is indeed central to the social-democratic centre-left, see the Corbyn period.<br /><br />«<i>Unfortunately, because the labour movement collectively and the Labour leadership in particular didn't or outright refused to rise to the moment</i>»<br /><br />There is a big difference between the labour (lower case "l") movement and leadership and the (New, New) Labour Party and its leadership, whose goal has been quite explicitly stated to represent the interests of affluent "aspirational" tory voters, and of socially conservative ones in particular.Blissexnoreply@blogger.com