Economic inequality being one of the biggest drivers of democratic back sliding. Shitty part is that authoritarian doesn’t really offer anything better.
The wealthiest people of this world have created a world that’s tearing itself apart. And their only hedge is the thought that we will all be too busy killing each other that we forget completely about them. Hence these megalomaniacs that appear as distraction to keep us fighting each other.
Guillotine has entered the chat
Guillotine, the one thing the rich fear.
You’d almost think they don’t with the way they’ve been carrying on lately
It’s been awhile since they last saw it.
Maybe we should bring it back, just saying.
I’d rather chop off their bank accounts, stock holdings, political contributions, exploitive labor practices, and monopolies.
It will take years for some counties to figure this out and then suddenly, there is a run for Italian made piano string. In other despot run counties, Christmas Eve will be seen as somewhat of a bummer to a defiant couple staring down the barrel of a gun.
Economic inequality being one of the biggest drivers of democratic back sliding.
Shitty part is that authoritarian doesn’t really offer anything better.Hey! Let’s solve “economic inequality” with more statism! That’s not authoritarian at all!
Obviously, wanting to reduce the monopolical privileges of politicians, public spending and taxes (robbery), erradicating the central bank, increasing work flexibility and advocating for individual rights and liberty is fascist af. Believe me, guys!
Saying taxes are theft has to be the most brain dead take. Even if your government is corrupt, its not the fault of taxation.
With the levels of corruption in Argentina taxes are pretty much just a way to give money to politicians.
It doesn’t matter. That is an issue with the politicians not taxation. If you were to abolish taxes you’d also have to figure out a way to run your society without money because you won’t be paying for shit without them.
Taxes are mostly to control the flow of money and to give a currency legitimacy (if you need dollars to pay taxes, you likely will want to earn in dollars).
Governments that control their own supply of money can print and use money freely.
They don’t use the money from taxes to fund anything, that wouldn’t make sense.
Programs and agencies are funded NOW, while taxes are collected later.
If there is inflation, the state can just raise taxes. If there is no economic activity (deflation), just increase spending.
Orthodox economists, classical liberals, are fucking dumb and live in dreamland.
Case in point, there are countries that collect very little to no taxes. Like Saudi Arabia, formerly Libya, North Korea etc. They still have/had extensive government programs.
Business taxes – including corporate income tax and self-employed income tax at a standard rate of 20% on business profits; VAT-registered businesses also pay VAT at a standard rate of 15%
Withholding taxes (WHT) – payable by non-residents on income made in Saudi Arabia, at a rate of between 5% and 20%
Real estate transaction tax (RETT) – effective from October 2020, this is payable on property transactions at a rate of 5%
White land tax (WLT) – payable by owners of urban vacant land designated for commercial or residential use at an annual rate of 2.5% of market value.
Social security contributions – paid by Saudi employees at the rate of up to 10% of their salary, with the employer also contributing up to 12%
Zakat – a kind of charitable tax that is linked to the Islamic faith and contributes towards those in need, charged at 2.5% on the net worth of all Saudi nationals and businesses.There are a shit ton of taxes in Saudi Arabia. Because they need it to pay for shit.
Ok I was wrong in one of the examples. It’s indeed very hard to find countries that don’t tax at all, as it’s an important tool to control and maintain currency legitimacy.
But that doesn’t invalidate what I said at all.
Taxes are not used to fund the government. The government literally prints money. They are the ones that do it. They can do it whenever they want. They can also borrow almost infinitely unlike regular people. The government doesn’t need to “earn” money to spend it like people.
They own and control money, the currency as a whole.
Just read on the origins of money (“Debt the first 5000 years” for example) if you want to understand this more. I’m not a professional explainer so I might fuck things up.
But yeah, if a government spends too much but has no revenue (from national companies, taxes etc.) their currency can lose legitimacy. But if a country like the US has their whole currency backed by all countries in the world needing to hold huge reserves of it for international trade, the spending can reach astronomical levels before the currency starts to lose legitimacy.
It’s easier to be replaced by the Yen than to spend too much… Which is why politicians keep raising spending by hundreds of billions every year. But they never need to raise more taxes… Just complaint about the debt when they’re the opposition. Which keeps rising without any negative effect.
Idk man, like I said I’m not a professional explainer. You can read more on this or see some videos. Like it’s not such a fringe topic, I’m not being an edgy contrarian.
Let’s solve “economic inequality” with more statism!
I can vote the State, I can’t vote the CEO.
Obviously, wanting to reduce the monopolical privileges of politicians
That’s the citizens job, not his. Milei just wants to reduce the privileges of those disagreeing, at no point would Milei want to reduce the privileges that allows him to unilaterally reduce the political privileges of those opposed to him. Let him actually put forward something that actually indicates that HE wants less power and we’ll talk about this aspect.
public spending and taxes
Again it’s the citizens that dictate that. I can vote for people wanting to build something in the State, not a CEO that wants to build a highway for the goodwill of mankind.
erradicating the central bank
Nobody wants to be the “bad guy”. Many nations are suffering the fate of too long supportive monetary policy without fiscal policy to follow. Same can be said about the USA. They rode too high and too far on quantitative easing at some point the party ends and nobody likes being “that guy”. Again, that’s mostly on the backs of the capricious voters who don’t like mild inconveniences so they hold out for major ramifications. And why? There’s way less disposable income in the hands of the many. So literally any inconvenience is a massive blow to their way of life. And it shouldn’t be a hard guess for you to figure out why so many in the public have so little.
increasing work flexibility and advocating for individual rights and liberty
Every “work flexibility” I’ve ever seen pitched is just code for turning people into wage slaves. Sort of how like the UK got a lot of “trade flexibility” with Brexit. Once I’ve seen a working example that didn’t actually fuck everyday citizens over, we’ll talk.
As for individual rights and selling organs. I’m actually cool with that. There’s quite a list of incredibly wealthy people I’d like to exercise those rights on.
fascist af
It’s just that every time I’ve seen someone purpose breaking the system to make it better, they just want to break the system so that they can profit. I literally expect nothing less from Milei. This is the age of grift, why should anyone believe any one who pitches “I swear, I’ll build something better, just first give me the power to destroy every protection you have first.” Sure buddy, sure you will.
I can vote the State, I can’t vote the CEO.
You vote for certain politicians, other people vote for other politicians, and whoever wins, the tyranny of majority will emerge. The success of the CEO is dependent of supply and demand, if there are no monopolical privileges. (I discussed this in another reply).
That’s the citizens job, not his.
Following your logic, the citizens voting him is a perfect clue of this, am I right? Otherwise, I agree with you about what Milei will do with his powers. I don’t trust 100% any politician, even him, but he’s the only one who explicitly showed that, like donating each month his salary (funded by taxes) and not funding certain political campaigns.
Again it’s the citizens that dictate that. I can vote for people wanting to build something in the State, not a CEO that wants to build a highway for the goodwill of mankind.
Citizens has no direct influence in the process of decision politicians make. The CEO (at exception of lobbyists) wanting to build a highway is: using his own factors of production achieved by social-cooperation (capital, land, technology and workers) and his desire of providing it emerges by supply and demand, by competence in a free-market setting and the economic calculation of consumers in a system of prices.
Nobody wants to be the “bad guy”
Sorry, but I don’t get what you’re trying to tell me here. Read about the Austrian Business Cycle Theory.
Every “work flexibility” I’ve ever seen pitched is just code for turning people into wage slaves.
Leaving aside the exact policies of Milei about this (as I’d prefer no policy at all), any governmental intervention in labor markets will cause unemployment among less productive workers. The term “slave” is not valid because those workers voluntary agreed, in a contract, the amount of money they’d get to do certain job.
“Wages represent the discounted productivity of labor in satisfying consumer demand. Demand for consumer goods translates into demand for workers.”
It’s just that every time I’ve seen someone purpose breaking the system to make it better, they just want to break the system so that they can profit.
Fair enough. Distrust in politicians is perfectly logic and ethical, but accusing him of fascist? It does not make any sense.
the tyranny of majority will emerge
Which is why in most democracies there are inalienable rights and due process.
The success of the CEO is dependent of supply and demand, if there are no monopolical privileges
Unless they are a monopoly. Which most societies have established rules to prevent. Outside of those rules, we’ve seen time and time again such form. Capitalism doesn’t have an inbuilt mechanism that prevents a single person owning everything, that tends to be the problem we run into often.
Following your logic, the citizens voting him is a perfect clue of this, am I right?
He’s allowed to follow the process to remove the process. That doesn’t mean that’s a good choice. But yeah, you can absolutely use that logic to follow to that end. That’s the nice thing about democracy it’s flexible enough to become a ship we built to wreck. And voters are empowered enough to sink themselves if they so wish. So I question what freedom is not present currently that you lament the lack of?
but he’s the only one who explicitly showed that, like donating each month his salary (funded by taxes) and not funding certain political campaigns
Yeah, that’s not the altruism that it looks like. He’s ultimately picking who is getting that money of his. He’s picking which campaigns to not find funding. That’s the point, not the money part the power part. The money part is one thing, the power part is something that one would be ill advised to lose sight of.
Citizens has no direct influence in the process of decision politicians make
They’re not made to. Citizens have oversight and challenge on the wisdom of representatives. It would be unwise to have 500,000 peoples’ hands on the steering wheel. There’s no one direction we would be going in then.
The term “slave” is not valid because those workers voluntary agreed, in a contract, the amount of money they’d get to do certain job
When the choice is “go hungry” or “work” that’s hardly voluntary. You will find it hard to convince me otherwise.
but accusing him of fascist? It does not make any sense.
If you read though my comments, at no point did I indicate him as fascist. Authoritarian, yes. He’s looking to consolidate power to himself to enact change unilaterally, that’s authoritarian. Not every authoritarian is fascist but it is important to understand the fertile ground such leaves for the future. Lenin didn’t invent Stalin but he sure opened the door. And that’s something to consider.
If taxes are robbery then using public infrastructure like roads without paying taxes is also theft.
Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone. The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts. Your taxes pay for roads and public transit which are used to get people to work to create wealth for a community. It turns out the thing that makes humans great is community and banding together. Taxes are a formal way of doing that.
Now, we need equitable taxes, but that would involve taxing the rich proportionally. This is economically sound because wealth doesn’t trickle down and the mega wealthy are, well, mega wealthy because they hoard wealth. That money would be better spent creating better roads, better public transit, better education, or in short, a better community. The prospect of a better community only upsets those who are not members of the community, because their insane wealth puts them in a different class, and those who think defending that class will somehow get them privilege. The only privilege we need is a better community.
Taxes exist because public goods are actually good, and benefit everyone.
Taxes raise money for transfers to special interests and public employees. Why would you trust an oligarchy of politicians (the State) to decide which goods are useful “for a community” and which don’t?
In contrast to private businesses that supply the goods that consumers voluntarily want to buy, public officials lack of the capacity to pick data as to what people truly demand, much less how to go about meeting those demands economically. They don’t have direct feedback of what every individual in the community want; they don’t pass the test of economic rationality.
If the Monopoly of Violence can’t act economically, they have no other choice but respond to interest groups, so tax money will necessarily end up with narrow interest groups rather than the provision of “public goods”
The sum of the parts is greater than the individual parts.
The end does not justify the means. The mere existence of taxation is detrimental (and antithetical) to the very source of economic growth, that is, voluntary exchange.
Goods like education and roads, for example, are goods like any other: they can be supplied by markets and markets alone.
The only privilege we need is a better community.
A better community will be formed if it’s achieved by voluntary means. Moral obligation is not the same as legal obligation. How can individuals be virtuous? By letting them act freely.
Why would you trust an oligarchy of politicians (the State) to decide which goods are useful “for a community” and which don’t?
Because we voted for them. We didn’t vote for the board of directors of private companies. There’s plenty of waste and corruption in private enterprise. It’s not voluntary if they lie cheat and steal just like bad politicians.
Because we voted for them.
The fraud of representative democracy. What about those who didn’t vote them (the tyranny of the majority)? We, the common citizens, have really any power if our vote is secret?
The rights and obligations of a contractual act are generated by explicit consent of both members. This does not happen when we our vote is completely secret, without our names and surnames. Politicians are free to impose their monopolical powers, even if we don’t choose them.
“Representative democracy is the illusion of universal participation in the use of institutional coercion."
We didn’t vote for the board of directors of private companies.
Because we shouldn’t. Except for the lobbyists, they are using their private property and their factors of production achieved by social-cooperation.
There’s plenty of waste and corruption in private enterprise. It’s not voluntary if they lie cheat and steal just like bad politicians.
The only difference is that, in a free-market setting, they wouldn’t have any monopolical privileges to mantain their economical power and reputation in the market, as their permanence is dependent of supply and demand.
The only difference is that, in a free-market setting, they wouldn’t have any monopolical privileges
You cant have a free market without a government enforcing anti monopoly laws.
You cant have a free market without a government enforcing anti monopoly laws.
A free market is not free at all if the government is stepping in any voluntary exchange.
The existence of “anti-monopoly” laws has caused more harm than good by protecting particular competitors, not competition. In fact, monopolies can only survive through government-grant privileges, for gaining legal rights to be a preferred producer is the only way to maintain a monopoly in a free-market setting.
“A market society needs no antitrust policy at all; indeed, the state is the very source of the remaining monopolies we see in education, law, courts, and other areas.”
Stop being so based.
1st-world leftists are going to downvote you.
I don’t believe that demand is solely driven by voluntary consumer choice. On the contrary, demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing. It’s driven by making cheap products that don’t last and encouraging a throwaway culture. It’s driven by planned obselesence.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary. People who live in food deserts don’t have choice.
If the thing you want is not popular with the masses then the capitalists have no incentive to make it. Endless growth and all that…
demand is manufactured by misleading and manipulative advertising and marketing.
It’s driven by planned obselesence.Consumer products develop through experimentation. Consumer preferences also change and develop gradually through time. To meet them requires entrepreneurial judgment.
Nor is buying essential items like food and utilities voluntary.
Aside from a few innate demands concerning hunger and temperature, consumer preferences emerge as a result of interaction between many individuals.
Each consumer regulates the consumer products he consumes by spending money. There is no good substitute for the market process concerning the development and dissemination of consumer goods.
The problem is when crooks privatize these things they steal billions of dollars worth of taxpayer money. Yes Argentina is messed up, but it’s because of corruption. Privatization or socialization, both will fail because of corruption.
Like, private school or public school, they both fail if the principal is stealing money, this isn’t a leftist/rightist issue.
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Touch some grass, please.
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I’m really meant it. Saying an argumentum ad hominem is pretty childish for my taste.
💤
There are no borders, individual rights or liberties without taxes. You become a subject to whatever country’s citizens pay enough taxes to take you over and use your resources and labor for their benefit.
I cant believe an actually informed comment exists on this thread, everytime Milei pops on here its an Article calling him fascist and everyone on the comments agreeing to it
Get more of your friends on Lemmy and Kbin then lol
I… dont see how that’s related? Informed opinions dont have/dont need to be from my friends
But I have invited some friends to Lemmy, sure.
It’s no surprise the ratcheting rightward of global politics is coinciding with increased war and violent conflict, they fuel each other. Peace is bad for the fascist so I’d be very wary if I was Argentine.
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both being historically parties of the Left
do you have any clue what you’re talking about? the Bullrich/Macri (Juntos por el Cambio) party are centre right to mainstream right wing.
Yes, by Argentinian standards. That is not much, taking into account the left bias that Argentinian politics have at the moment. By most standards, Juntos por el Cambio are a social-democrat solution. That is pretty much left in most countries.
En materia de Defensa y Seguridad Bullrich hace gala de su “mano dura”. “Estamos camino al narcoestado”, concluye en el documento. Promete que las Fuerzas Armadas darán “apoyo logístico” a las fuerzas federales en zonas críticas como Rosario y el Conurbano.
Yeah, asking the army to step in to apply the “hard hand” against crime is a left wing idea.
So is selling off an entire body of water to private hands.
Kirchnerism isn’t the left. Centre right isn’t the left. There is a left wing party in argentina, and they got … 2%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Argentine_general_election#Primary_elections
Myriam Bregman Nicolás del Caño Workers’ Left Front (FIT) 709,611 2.70
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Worldwide I am seeing more of these leaders now.
I don’t know what’s happening in the rest of the world, but here there is a big problem of representation. The higher politics discuss things that have nothing to do with the problems of the Argentines. We were for ages a middle class country, now more than 40% of our population is living in poverty… and most of them dont have a job cause if they get one, they could lose their universal income*… things are bad, and we all know that it could (and will) be much worse.
This dude, milei, started talking about simple solutions to problems that the higher politics refused to abord for decades and the gross of the population most likely took the bait. Now the whole arc, and I mean, far left to far right is quoting his proposals as their own… and the people isn’t stupid**.
The political arc tried to stop milei first by not accepting his growing electoral base, then by saying that he can’t do shit without a majority on both chambers and finally by citing things that make absolutely no sense for the population: schoolshootings, an organ market, taking down the public Healthcare and education systems, bring back the junta… it simply doesn’tmake sense and if it does, people just dont care. So at the end, they only made things worse.
A month ago, a social worker told me an anecdote: he asked a villero (lower end of society) who was he voting for, the villero answer “milei”, so he told him that with milei, he won’t eat. The villero responded: “I don’t eat now, but with milei, you won’t eat too.”
There is a big chunk of the population that wants to see the country burn in the most literal sense of that phrase… and if milei wins, we will most likely be on that path.
We are fucked up.
*it is universal only if you vote for the ruling party and don’t have a formal job
**the people is stupid
It’s the same thing as trump in the US, they just say things angry people want to hear, and they get elected and end up being the selfserving lying pieces of shit they always were. The difference in Argentina is all the choices are lying pieces of shit. Yeah Milei sucks but so does Kirchner and Fernandez.
“Legalize sale of human organs”
Oh boy, I definitely don’t see where that could go wrong.
China is suspected of doing this as well. Some people after being jailed in trumped up charges of practicing an unauthorized form of mindfulness, just vanish.
You mean Falun Gong? These people have been making up bs about china for over 25 years now. They are a cult.
They also own the far right nut job “news” epoch times
No, absolutely not Also does not give the right for China to harass interrogate torture and eventually harvest their organs.
Yes it doesn’t. Which is why they don’t do it. It’s made up nonsense by a far-right cult.
Fun fact: Argentina is pretty much the capitol of the world when it comes to creating zero day software exploits.
That is a fun, hoverer sightly depressing, fact!
Why is that, and how come they’re so good at it?
Exactly how it came about I’m not sure, I heard it in a Darknet Diaries episode, which probably covers some of the detail. There are conferences where people sell zero day exploits to governments or whoever.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A foul-mouthed, far-right populist who has been described as a cross between Boris Johnson and the killer doll Chucky is in pole position to become president of South America’s second-largest economy as Argentina chooses its next leader on Sunday against a backdrop of anti-establishment fury and economic disarray.
Election-eve polls suggest Javier Milei, a charismatic and wild-haired political outsider who found fame pontificating on television chat shows about monetary policy and sex, could sneak a first-round win, although a November runoff is likely.
At his final campaign event in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, the 53-year-old “anarcho-capitalist” addressed a packed 15,000-capacity stadium from a stage adorned with a banner proclaiming him “The Only Solution” to Argentina’s economic malaise.
In suburban Buenos Aires, Milei’s Peronist rival, the finance minister Sergio Massa, asked factory workers for support despite the slump his government has overseen, with 40% of Argentina’s 47 million citizens living in poverty amid triple-digit inflation.
The third main contender, the conservative former security minister Patricia Bullrich, denounced Milei’s “bad and dangerous” ideas, which include abolishing the central bank, loosening gun laws and even legalizing the sale of human organs.
The prospect of an Argentinian amalgam of Bolsonaro and Trump taking power has horrified progressive voters and also, apparently, Pope Francis, whom Milei has bad-mouthed as a “lefty son of a bitch”.
The original article contains 961 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
argentina has been a corrupt country for a long long time
And people think that voting for him will fix it. The man is an upstart, came out of nowhere and people weren’t expecting him to win any nomination. However my dad called it, Argentina went really fucking hard with leftist politics to the point of absurdism and now the pendulum is swinging the other way.
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I have no clue what you’re trying to say
Argentina has above 100% annual inflation at the moment, right?
Yes. And going far right will not change that.
I never said that…
Lemmy, much like Reddit is extreme far left mostly, they’ll jump at throats for as little/as much as you did here…
Oh yeah reddit is definetly extreme far left for sure Idk what your overton window is but I dont wanna have it if you think reddit is far left
Do ypu realize being leftist is pretty coherent when using free and aopen source software, right?
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I think it’s toned more towards the fact that Free Market’s incentive (which is a right trait) would be money and thus Closed Source where as Common Good would be the left incentive not necessarily centralized, Like a Libertarian Left
Yeah that makes sense For Lemmy but its not a shared trait with Reddit so it might not be the cause
But the next guy that still has any chance running against him is literally the current Economy Minister.
It is still better than neoliberalism.
Haha it happened to you!
This guy looks like Argentinian Ebenezer Scrooge. Libertarian humbug!
I know it’s a stupid superficial thing, but wtf is going on with this guy’s hair?
He auditioning to be an Austin Powers movie villain.
He’s trying ri evoke the image of argentinean “founding fathers” there’s a lot of memes of him with old school military uniforms. Argentina was some time ago one of the most economically important countries on the world and with that memes and that image they are trying to connect him with that history.
Of course he is.
I don’t think the hair is much of an issue as his mutton chops
His teeth caught my eye first. Smile and count how many teeth you can see. Now double that and this guy’s still got you beat.
I know an old man who is a trump supporter, conspiracy theorists, flat earther, reptilian Illuminati believer.
Even he agrees that Miley is a nutjob unfit for being president.
Is that The Hoff?
It’s Zardoz.
Looks more like Jim Jones to me
The bad guy from Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold
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Independent journalism, I see.
You can just read the Economist article, or any number of other publications for balance. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2023/09/07/meet-javier-milei-the-frontrunner-to-be-argentinas-next-president
