FV commenter Joe America is a bit tentative. He surmised: “Maybe a platform is different than an operating plan.” Well, I said it should be because a political platform is basically a manifesto.
But he had a follow through. “How can the party make a difference? I don’t see it, frankly, in this huge compilation of words.”
Exactly how certain manifestos articulated in the Liberal Party economic platform measure up for instance to those expressed in the Republican Party or Democratic Party platforms?
For example, here’s part of Republican Party’s platform on industrial relations in 2008:
Republicans believe that the employer-employee relationship of the future will be built upon employee empowerment and workplace flexibility.
• The Industrial Revolution treated people like machines; today’s economy must treat them as individuals. We recognize that work schedules should be more flexible when employers and employees are not negatively affected such as removing outdated distinctions between full time and part time, clockpunching and overtime. The federal government should set an example in that regard.
• The workplace must catch up with the way Americans live now. For increasing numbers of workers, especially those with children, the choice of working from home will be good for families, profitable for business, and energy efficient.
• All workers should have portability in their pension plans and their health insurance, giving them greater job mobility, financial independence, and security.
• Global competitiveness will increasingly require an entrepreneurial culture of cooperation and team work. Making the best talent part of our team is the rationale for the H-1B visa program, which needs updating to reflect our need for more leaders in science and technology while we take the necessary steps to create more of them in our own school systems. By complementing the U.S. work force with needed specialists from abroad, we can make sure American companies and their jobs remain here at home. Businesses and employees, working together, are best suited to addressing the challenges ahead. Empowering official Washington and the trial bar, as Democrats prefer, will only lead to more antagonistic relations (emphasis mine).
Individual-Based Unemployment Insurance and Training
Government can play an important role in addressing economic dislocations by modernizing its re-training and unemployment assistance programs. We must make these programs actually anticipate dislocations so that affected workers can get new skills quickly and return to the workforce. We advocate a seamless approach to helping employees stay on the job and advance through education. Workers should be able to direct a portion of their unemployment insurance into a tax free Lost Earnings Buffer Account that could be used for retraining or relocation. With financial incentives to return to work as soon as possible, this approach will also require strengthening community colleges and making them more accessible through Flexible Training Accounts.
Protecting Union Workers
We affirm both the right of individuals to voluntarily participate in labor organizations and bargain collectively and the right of states to enact Right-to-Work laws. But the nation’s labor laws, to a large extent formed out of conflicts several generations ago, should be modernized to make it easier for employers and employees to plan, execute, and profit together. To protect workers from misuse of their funds, we will conscientiously enforce federal law requiring financial reporting and transparency by labor unions. We advocate paycheck protection laws to guard the integrity of the political process and the security of workers’ earnings (emphasis mine).
Stopping the Assault on the Secret Ballot
The recent attempt by congressional Democrats to deny workers a secret ballot in union referenda is an assault, not only against a fundamental principle of labor law, but even more against the dignity and honor of the American work force. We oppose “card check” legislation, which deprives workers of their privacy and their right to vote, because it exposes workers to intimidation by union organizers.
The 2008 Democratic Party platform on the same subject is as follows:
Good Jobs with Good Pay
In the platform hearings, Americans expressed dismay that people who are willing to study and work cannot get a job that pays enough to live on in the current economy. Democrats are committed to an economic policy that produces good jobs with good pay and benefits. That is why we support the right to organize. We know that when unions are allowed to do their job of making sure that workers get their fair share, they pull people out of poverty and create a stronger middle class. We will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions and fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. We will restore pro-worker voices to the National Labor Relations Board and the National Mediation Board and we support overturning the NLRB’s and NMB’s many harmful decisions that undermine the collective bargaining rights of millions of workers. We will ensure that federal employees, including public safety officers who put their lives on the line every day, have the right to bargain collectively, and we will fix the broken bargaining process at the Federal Aviation Administration. We will fight to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so that workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods. We will continue to vigorously oppose “Right-to-Work” Laws and “paycheck protection” efforts whenever they are proposed. Suspending labor protections during national emergencies compounds the devastation from the emergency. We opposed suspension of Davis-Bacon following Hurricane Katrina, and we support broad application of Davis-Bacon worker protections to all federal projects. We will stop the abuse of privatization of government jobs. We will end the exploitative practice of employers wrongly misclassifying workers as independent contractors.
The Bush Administration Department of Labor has failed in its obligation to stand up and protect American workers. Our Department of Labor will restore and expand overtime rights for millions of Americans, and will actively enforce wage and hour laws. The Bush Administration is the only administration that has never voluntarily issued a significant final standard for workplace safety. Our Occupational Safety and Health Administration will adopt and enforce comprehensive safety standards. Right now, far too many workers – especially those in the construction and mining industries-risk their lives every day just by going to work.
In America, if someone is willing to work, he or she should be able to make ends meet and have the opportunity to prosper. To that end, we will raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation, and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit so that workers can support themselves and their families. We will modernize the unemployment insurance program to close gaps and extend benefits to the workers who now fall outside it (emphasis mine).
On the other hand, the programs of the Liberal Party on the matter in industrial relations are the following:
We believe that the market is the best basis for providing opportunity and prosperity. Government’s role should be to guarantee competition, through:
xxx
3. Ensuring that ownership is spread as widely as possible at all levels (including in the workplace itself). This implies a commitment to equity considerations, job ownership and to participation in decision-making at work (emphasis mine).
xxx
To meet these objectives, the Liberal Party shall undertake:
xxx
• Break up monopolies. We shall level the playing field through the dismantling of monopolies in public utilities, agricultural trade and energy generation and distribution, and by ensuring that business incentives apply to all except for the industries targeted for accelerated development.
• Launch an all-out mobilization of Filipino capital in support of a vigorous program of industrialization and employment creation.
• Promote the accelerated transformation of the economy into a modern and industrializing one by targeting the high value-added industries that will allow the country to catch up in the development process.
xxx
• Build partnership in industry. We will ensure that every employee has a right to participate in decision-making in their enterprise. We will set up a program for Industrial Partnership to help companies and their employees find the precise form of partnership which best suit them (emphasis mine).
xxx
• Share success in industry. We will legislate to establish the right of every private sector employee in a substantial company to have access to a share in ownership and/ or in the profit they help to create. We will encourage profit-related pay, employee share-ownership schemes and employee buy-outs. We will re-launch the Cooperative Development Authority. Strengthen the role of cooperatives, people’s organizations and other grass-roots organizations in community livelihood projects (emphasis mine).
xxx
• Encourage decentralized wage bargaining. Our plans to spread employee ownership and participation will encourage wages to be set according to the profitability of individual firms. We will encourage greater decentralization of wage bargaining at company level .
Again, since platforms are supposed to be manifestos, they are not crafted to operate like administrative or implementing regulations but rather lay down only the principles to carry them out.
Which one of the three platforms on such particular aspect of industrial relations (e.g., “industrial democracy”) do you think is transformative?
Popularity: 1% [?]
The ten commandments would be nice.
Manong Abe,
It isn’t fair to compare Post-industrial United States to Newly-industrializing (or Never industrializing?) Philippines.
To be fair to the Liberal Party, it is the only one that addresses the role of government in the economy directly (compared to the NPC and Nacionalista platforms online that is).
In Australia too, as Manong Benigs knows, IR is usually at the top of the issues discussed in elections.
An example of transformative leadership. Destroying the status quo… It was easy since in a state of economic collapse the unions and farmers mass movements supported a drastic change in the labor capital contradiction.
We should allow for a collapse to happen.
Also when it becomes necessary governments can renege on their debts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/opinion/03smith.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Roosevelt%20the%20great%20divider&st=cse
“Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and Congress enacted legislation nullifying clauses in private contracts stipulating payment in gold over the heated opposition of many of the nation’s wealthy. The Agricultural Adjustment Act setting production quotas and establishing price supports was adopted over the fierce opposition of the nation’s food processors. Establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps was fought tooth and nail by organized labor because of the corps’ modest wages. Social Security became law over the ideological objections of those who believed that government was best which governed least and that individuals should fend for themselves or rely on charity. And the authority of the government to set maximum hours and minimum wages, as well as the right of labor to bargain collectively, was established despite the vociferous opposition of American business.” Jean Edward Smith
yeah, right. throw the baby with the bathwater, right? destroy and create something else without regard to whether the replacement is better or worse. that’s the classic bolshevik’s prescription. btw, social security is living on borrowed time. it is practically bankrupt.
Interesting the Republican Party promoted the work-at-home or telecommuting setup for employees. The Democrats don’t say it; I expected better. I voted Roco in that presidential election because I was told he supported telecommuting. I hope Noynoy takes that stance too. Why in all of hell do you need to leave your home just to work?
Or rather, anyone supporting the work-at-home stance takes some favor from me.
From where I stand, I have clear doubts whether indeed Noynoy will file his candidacy to run for president.
In fact, if the polling circuits will run a survey, its results might even preempt Noynoy’s plan only to revert back to giving the ‘torch’ back to Mar.
It bears watching what would really happen next.
Abe: You may it sound like this is how it should be done :
I disagree. Paragraph after paragraph of “principles and manifestos” may be good enough for you, but not for me. I want the principles and manifestos AND I want the action plan.
Read again, and you will find in the 2008-USA-elections platforms from the Republican and Democratic parties both the underlying themes (big-government: more regulations versus small-government:less regulations), the issues faced by 2008-USA-voters (jobs going to temporary-visa’ed Indians, Chinese, Filipinos; health insurance; pensions; job-training and unemployment insurance) and specific items that are actionable in the first two years of the new administration.
UP n, on the contrary, I ask you to read again and ponder a bit more given Noynoy’s no-frills and unnerving diagnosis: Matindi ang kabulukang bumablot sa ating lipunan.
“unnerving diagnosis”? just another hyperbolic generalization a/k/a “motherhood statement”. name one society in the world that has no problems. or, maybe, the request should be directed at noynoy, right?
btw, kung “matindi ang kabulukan”, kaya ba niya na linisin at pabanguhin? bukod sa salita, may maipapakita ba siya na kakayahan? aba’y hindi ito parang tae na dadakutin mo lang o susumpitin ng hose.
am with you UP n grande:
drive the message hard – have enough of the “elect first think later, rally/coup/impeach laterer” mentality of the vacuous.
A no-frills and unnerving diagnosis such as “Matindi ang kabulukang bumablot sa ating lipunan” is whooped in the butt by a more insightful roadmap, such as the one provided by Nick Perlas:
That’s clear roadmap – totally unlike a bozo wrapped in empty platitudes.
“We believe that the market is the best basis for providing opportunity and prosperity. Government’s role should be to guarantee competition, through:
…Launch an all-out mobilization of Filipino capital in support of a vigorous program of industrialization and employment creation.”
Quite frankly, here is where our limitations lie. Filipino capital is concentrated to a few and they don’t have enough of it. That is why, I would rather go with a party who espouses opening up to foreign capital, if the main thrust of the economic program is to create competition and maximize job creation. If we stick to perpertuating an Oligopy type market system, job creation will stay limited and the middle and lower class will continue to choke furthering the economic divide of the rich and poor.
It is about time for this structural economic change to happen in the Philippines as we are being left behind by our neighbooring countries who had earlier liberalized their markets to foreign capital. We should seek a political party that would repeal the 60/40 investment rule favoring Filipino capital and dismantle this Oligopolistic set up where a few families of less than 5% control 80% of the economy. We should stay leary of political parties that claim to be nationalistic but hide under the skirts this Oligoposlitic private local industry. What’s the difference between the local Chinese Taipans and Basque origin mestizos who control our private industry and than of foreign corporations? Very little, I’d say except for financial muscle. If job creation is top of the agenda, I’d put my bet on foreign capital to even the level field.
Filipino capital is concentrated to a few and they don’t have enough of it. That is why, I would rather go with a party who espouses opening up to foreign capital, if the main thrust of the economic program is to create competition and maximize job creation. – Tagamana
Everyone knows that “Filipino capital is concentrated to a few” but do they have enough of it?
What are we hearing from some people in the know like former Trade and Industry Secretary Cesar Purisima: “If we can convince rich Filipinos to have faith in the economy and invest their money in the country then private domestic sources alone could finance a critical mass of projects that will be necessary to jumpstart and sustain the country’s economic development.”
And how can an economic program that welcomes competition (and eventually job creation and income generation) be pursued if as WB economist Bocchi reports in his paper, bank lendings are basically intra-conglomerate, shutting out “outsiders” or “unconnected” start-ups and small businessmen?
On dismantling “Oligopolistic set up” here’s one manifesto in the economic program on how the Liberal Party will proceed to tackle it:
I am not sure if you are disputing my point or concurring to it. On one hand you quote Sec. Purisima who says that…”If we can convince rich Filipinos…then private domestic sources alone could finance a critical mass of projects…” Hello, these rich Filipinos are exactly the Oligarchs! On the other hand, you quote WB economist Bocchi who says “…bank lendings are basically intra-conglomerate, shutting out “outsiders” or “unconnected” start-ups and small businessmen?” Exactly my point, these oligarchs who own the conglomerates and banks basically lend people’s money to themselves. To break up these oligopolies and monopolies, what we need if the financial muscle of foreign capital, not only will they provide more competition, they will also uplift the standards of products/services offered to the consumers.
To me it all boils down to the lesser of two evil masters. One master, the local oligarchs, who have two objectives: profit and containtment of wealth amongst themselves. The other master, the foreign investors, has only profit motivation. I choose the latter because it will create more jobs in a more level playing field.
Platform is like a contract between us (voters) and the candidate.
The candidate has to perform and accomplish the contract (platform).
Once he or she is elected.
It will also be a measure of his performance in office. If he or she
delivered or not.
We dont want unclear promises. We want all detailed and understood. How you can better things for us ? If you promise the moon. Put it in your platform. We know that you have to have your head examined.
Hyden, I’m not really familiar with a political party that has brandished specific policies (i.e., drafts of actual legislation,”all detailed” with implementing plans) during a political campaign. Are you?
Abe: Political campaign Obama Summer-Fall-2008 was very clear that he will make the Executive Decision (if elected president) for a timetable-driven withdrawal from Iraq. Obama Summer-Fall-2008 was also talking about health-care reform, the very same reform that he is trying to push thru Congress. Obama summer-fall-2008 was clear enough about a rationalization of the income-tax-code which will NOT have tax-increases for $250,000-per-year income and below.
And the cut-and-paste you did for the 2008 Democratic Platform has these details : (i) to vigorously oppose “Right-to-Work” Laws; (ii) raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation, and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Republican platform mentions (i) onscientiously enforce federal law requiring financial reporting and transparency by labor unions; (ii) secret ballot in union referenda; (iii) Workers should be able to direct a portion of their unemployment insurance into a tax free Lost Earnings Buffer Account.
——————-
You can say “too many details”, just give me the slogans, but your own cut-and-paste shows that candidates can give both slogans and details.
A little bit, Sir. I live in the corporate world.
Corporate politics is somewhat the same as national politics.
I do what I can to inform our people, based on my
experiences and education.
Abe,
Good discussion, indeed. Thanks. Just a few observations, as this interests me a lot.
First, you see the
bipartisan venom in the Democratic Platform when it states: “The Bush Administration Department of Labor has failed in its obligation to stand up and protect American workers.” As a hopelessly idealistic political purist, I hate this stuff. And the Republicans do it too, for sure. That whole accusatory paragraph could have been left out, continuing with the next factual statement: “In America, if someone is willing to work, he or she should be able to make ends meet and have the opportunity to prosper. To that end, we will raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation, and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit so that workers can support themselves and their families.”This disrespectful bickering will be the undoing of the American dream as politicians work to score points instead of working to debate and discuss principles and how best to serve citizens.
Second, I agree with UP n, there has to be more than bland promises at some point. I can understand a platform being a statement of ideology, for example, Republicans stating that small government and free markets best determine economic good times for all, and Democrats stating that government assistance and closely regulated free markets determine economic good times for all. But the Candidate had sure better get to the action plan specifics. Population growth rate reduced to X%; average personal income growth to P XX,XXX; ending of fee-based taxes by 12/31/2011, funding of Global Warming initiative at P 10 billion. Numbers and dates. Priorities.
Oh, I’m sure we will see plenty of the childish: “Nyah Nyah, I can do it better than you can.”
Or “Liberals are un-Filipino” . . .
It seems to be part and parcel of a general regression of society brought on by sound bites that sell.
Joe
errata: second para, first line: bipartisan = partisan
Joe Am, UP n,
There’s no question that should you examine what’s written more closely, articulated in all three platforms mentioned above are political ideologies expressed in general terms as well as political objectives stated in more or less specific fashion. UP n has attempted to cite examples of the latter form, some rather spoken about during the campaign, but as to the Liberal Party platform itself, the following detailed program could be cited in the same way:
The main focus of the blog piece however is to point out that the LP platform has dared to take a very strong and conspicuous stand on some highly sensitive socio-economic issues such as the promotion of “industrial democracy” (or the idea that postulates for example that workers may co-own the enterprise, elect the management via a democracy in the workplace and have a say not just in matters of wages and benefits, but also as far as maybe in deciding product pricing and organizational design) which not even the Democratic Party under Obama would touch with a ten foot pole without being called un-American.
Having read the LP platform outlined in their website only once, my impression too was that it was very daring – outlining the role of government in the economy in so great a detail. A I observed, it looked like it was written by a political economist.
Having seen the platforms of the NPC and the Nacionalist Party, I will say the LP platform is more transformative. Having looked at Noynoy Aquino’s legislative profile, his bills also fit the party ideology.
Now whether they have the political will to enforce all this, that is the question.
Having seen the platforms of the NPC and the Nacionalist Party, I will say the LP platform is more transformative. Having looked at Noynoy Aquino’s legislative profile, his bills also fit the party ideology. – sparks
sparks, I think a PDI commentary proceeds from the same line of thought:
For all its talk, the LP platform has produced nothing but TRAPOs and oligarchs.
Its candidates are oligarchs – the very scions of hacienderos who maintain the rent capture regime to the detriment of the vacuous who can’t see they are being fried in their own lards.
The LP platform is a perfect example of how platforms can be examined and compared to its track record prior to Martial Law, and even after martial law.
The LP stalwarts and LP left overs are TRAPOs who will say anything even sell their mothers just to win an election.
abe, do you know what happened to all those legislative “initiatives” of noynoy? it’s one thing to propose or introduce (anyone can hire bill writers), it’s another thing to steer them to final enactment. it’s what separates real leaders from just plain “warm bodies”.
Bencard, try doing your homework and know who are the enemies of reforms in the senate.
BongV, as far as I know the LP platform cited above is of fairly recent vintage.
Everyone above talks about the ideological divide between the Republicans and Democrats..
Which side of the aisle increased payroll taxes and benefits under Medicare?
It was Ronald Reagan and W.
All Presidents from both sides of the aisle since Democrats passed the law allowing the the Federal government to borrow from the social security trust fund surplus to fund government expenditures (funding war the Vietnam war started it)have been borrowing from the surplus trust fund.
Why was the Wagner Act (right to collective bargaining) never fully implemented in the U.S? The de-industrialization of the North East after the war years to the Southern states and off shore where civil and labor rights were weak destroyed the industrial labor union movement in the U.S. The natural evolutionary shift to a post industrial society to a service based economy also had a lot to do with the shift. The New Deal was made possible only the massive support of unions in the private sector. FDR knew that he had to make radical changes to the wealth distribution and pricing mechanism of markets to save capitalism. In 1946 they even made it mandatory for the government to guarantee full employment.
The differences between countries are basically the differences in societal development based on the economic stage of development.
The U.S. can very well run deficits (Debts) like Japan that can run over 100% of GDP since they borrow in their own currency or from their own people. Government and capitalist allocate resources jointly.
It is actually a de facto form of socialism controlled for and by the capitalists. It allows their government to maintain social stability. The U.S. is actually already being run by a de facto one party government. Hence you have the fringe left and the vociferous fringe right in the limelight. Not too many unions left and small family farms.
Guys like Bencard who is a card carrying member of the wacko crowd does not even know the facts about social security in the U.S. Payroll taxes will be adjusted upward and the ceiling removed on rates based on maximum incomes as the demographic problem can only be adjusted by increasing the labor participation rate and increasing immigration.
The medicare problem is caused by the rapid increase in health care costs run primarily through the private sector. The socialized medicine in Japan, U.K. and Canada at half the cost clearly shows the flaw in non-intervention of the state in the vital sector.
Meanwhile in the Philippines partisan politics is still based on the competition between families. How can you discuss policies and platforms in a society still deeply rooted in familist cultures.
Noynoy is the man to change this all??? Highly unlikely as the man looks to be entirely clueless about the need for the state to become the primary driver to change the status quo. There is no room any longer for a middle ground.
Here in the Philippines you cannot socialize the surplus tuyo….. You need an effective state to intervene massively in the economy. That would naturally be premised with a state that has the resources to begin with. We need the right kind of wickedness to create wealth.
My take on this is to let market forces take over completely. Let us give free rein to the wealth makers of all types. Let us then wait for the market to overextend itself.
The country desperately needs a Libertarian framework.. We are after all more an informal economy than a formal one.
yeah, bright boy, all who don’t agree with your ideas are “wacko, right? you are watching too much oberman and maddow and pick up some tabloidish, leftist-looney epithets like a good gaya-gaya pinoy does. btw, i must compliment you for your brilliance at lifting data from wikipedia, punk.
Bencard,
I’m not in a fighting mood today, but do wish to say that your views do fall into the “extreme” position. Centrists would consider it wacko, as they would the loony left, as you call them. Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher do not represent mainstream American.
Regarding your borderline unpatriotic characterizations of Mr. Obama, I would offer the comments of two non-political educators:
Associated Press
The notion that he’s moving the government to the left “is laughable, it’s utterly laughable,” said Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar at the Brookings Institution. Mann said the decision to keep Bernanke and Gates “doesn’t buy him a thing with Republicans but was a sign of good judgment in both cases” because Bernanke and Gates were doing good jobs.
. . .
“The effort to portray Obama as dangerously leftist just doesn’t have any traction,” said Stephen Cimbala, a political science professor at Penn State. “I think if they want to pick up seats in 2010 and get back up off the floor where Bush left them, they’re going to have to find a way to go beyond the very narrow core Republican base and reach out to moderates. The case they have to make against Obama is a case about competency and performance. Not about ideology.”
_________
Joe
i thought you’re not in a fighting mood, man. what kind of double-speak is that? so it’s “unpatriotic” to characterize your idol for what he is, huh? remember when your kind used to accuse bush of every kind of crimes in the book? what about how, you (a foreigner), use disrespectful language on president arroyo? who cares what mann and cimbala say. they are just 2 men with opinion. let mann keep laughing to his heart’s content.
as to bernanke and gates, two trees don’t make a forest make. their being used for “doing good jobs” is not sufficient to cover up and sugar-coat a sinister agenda. keep watching, joe-am, and learn.
Bencard,
Yes, I was inconsistent with my remarks, agreed. Oops.
Obama has kept on more than two Republicans. The FDIC head is Republican, and three or four other top administrators. Gates and Bernake, of course, have crucial Obama-administration-success-defining jobs as head of defense and the Fed. They are not “sinister” appointments; they are key appointments. You discard the neutral views of two educators in favor of remaining in your very tight, very negative, ideological iron box.
“Sinister” suggests evil. We know you think the left-wing press is evil, and the loony leftist commie liberals are downright unAmerican. You see the devil behind ever statement or issue with which you disagree. You leave no room for dignified debate or respect for opposing views. You label them, always unkindly.
That is why people tend to call your views wacko. They are so out of touch with reality or common decency that they appear . . . ummmm, way out of the norm.
Joe
J_ag: The differences between countries are basically the differences in societal development based on the economic stage of development.
ABE: I agree. The Rostovian model acknowledges this phenomenon, which is why I’ve once looked quite closely at Rostow’s prescription for economic takeoff (the non-communist way, of course). A relevant blog entry of mine for example noted the following:
J_ag: (The political economy of the US) is actually a de facto form of socialism controlled for and by the capitalists. It allows their government to maintain social stability. The U.S. is actually already being run by a de facto one party government. Hence you have the fringe left and the vociferous fringe right in the limelight. Not too many unions left and small family farms.
ABE: “Guys like Bencard” will probably have a better shot at having a handle on your (excellent) insights if maybe you say instead that despite all the market rhetoric, the US economy is also a “planned” economy or the segment of its economy that’s somehow globally competitive are those that are nannied by the state, e.g., corporate agriculture, high-technology industry, and pharmaceuticals, which get massive subsidy from taxpayer money.
J_ag: Meanwhile in the Philippines partisan politics is still based on the competition between families. How can you discuss policies and platforms in a society still deeply rooted in familist cultures.
Noynoy is the man to change this all??? Highly unlikely as the man looks to be entirely clueless about the need for the state to become the primary driver to change the status quo. There is no room any longer for a middle ground.
Here in the Philippines you cannot socialize the surplus tuyo … You need an effective state to intervene massively in the economy. That would naturally be premised with a state that has the resources to begin with. We need the right kind of wickedness to create wealth.
ABE: I’ve been grappling with these things myself considering that before Mar’s announcement (to withdraw from the presidential race in favor of Noynoy), I’d thought Mar is the man. This Wharton graduate and NY investment banker seems to see the same things as you do – that we “need an effective state” to intervene in the economy (because this was how the French, the English, the Germans, the Americans and the Japanese had done it to reach their level of economic development).
So, the gist of the three-day Mar/Noynoy dialogue could have run like this (o boy, we sure hoped we’ve been privy to it) :
abe, by its constitution and the basic principles it lives by, the u.s. government can only interfere with, or “plan”, the national economy to the extent that the majority of the people and/or states allow for such interference. the federal government has but limited powers that are specified in the constitution. anything not so specified (other than those implied, necessary, or inherent for the proper exercise of the specific powers) belongs to each state.
the u.s. governmental set up is so unique that it is almost impossible for a particular group or ideology, e.g., communism or socialism, to dominate the national thought or system of governance. it’s always “we the people” who determine our destiny. obama, reid and pelosi, and their ilks, are waking up to this reality. congressmen and senators are finding out they just simply can’t toe the party line. they have to listen to “we the people” for their own survival.
btw, re noynoy, your “teleserye” script forgot to factor in the fact that a president doesn’t have absolute power such that he could not govern without having to compromise with various competing interests.
is he up to it without becoming a dictator?
Thus the agit-prop campaign to change the material conditions of the economy in order to change the outlying superstructure of culture – knowlesge, attitudes, practices, beliefs.
Without a group that will constantly advocate such changes – then, one condones the Philippine society to a semi-feudal social structure which deprives a large part of the population of basic human conveniences.
It ensures the perception among Filipinos that subhuman living conventions are the norm instead of the exception. Though it works because most Filipinos will fight to the death, their freedom to live a subhuman condition. Which works to the advantage of the elite.
Which boils down – if one were from the elite – shall he follow the path of least resistance – and keep on exploiting the vacuous bozos who gladly bendover for the elite’s benedictions – or be an agent of change.
you need the right kind of voters that can elect the right kind of wickedness. until such time, oh la la ocho ocho ocho ocho otra vez.
by its constitution and the basic principles it lives by, the u.s. government can only interfere with, or “plan”, the national economy to the extent that the majority of the people and/or states allow for such interference.
Which constitution?
the federal government has but limited powers that are specified in the constitution. anything not so specified (other than those implied, necessary, or inherent for the proper exercise of the specific powers) belongs to each state.
if BongV is looking for examples of “motherhood statement,” he just got one there
NOW THIS: the u.s. governmental set up is so unique that it is almost impossible for a particular group or ideology, e.g., communism, socialism, or capitalism to dominate the national thought or system of governance. it’s always “people of great power” who determine our destiny.
of late however, “we the people” have asserted the sovereign will to elect an agent of change and “renaissance man” in Barack Obama. But some extremists remain in denial, preferring to ignore the voice of the people and blindly toe the party line.
and dear madame president, please always remember that a president doesn’t have absolute power such that she could not govern without having to compromise with various competing interests.
good imitation of a certain “karlpopper” who used to mimic my words and syntax to express himself, abe. are you sure you’re not him?
Ben, there’s certainly more to the mimicry than words and syntax.
Who is karlpopper?
Is there a political party in the Philippines whose members religiously sticks to its platforms? Or a political party that requires its members to at least believe in its expressed ideology? Is there an ideological divide between different political parties in the Philippines? IMO, most of the members of these political parties are members of the ruling oligarchs whose only ideology and platform is to keep their families’ wealth and influence. Kaya nga kabi-kabila ang lipatan at balimbingan ng mga miyembro ng iba’t-ibang partido. I hope to see a political party whose members, elected to appointed to government positions govern and legislate according to their party’s ideology.