Socialism

[TheReal_ND]

[BjornP]

How are the politics of academia in Denmark? Do they have these Liberal vs. Conservative culture wars? Is traditional Danish culture from history disparaged by your elite as racist or evil?

No culture wars, no. The "white male privilege"/victimhood culture BS has unfortunately made its way to Copenhagen University, where a costume party where someone had dressed as a stereotypical Mexican in a sombrero and some student group made an issue out of it citing "white privilege". However, there aren't bans in play there, and both general public, most academia (at the other universities), nearly all the major newspapers on the left and right, think it's ridiculous as well.

It's not really a liberal vs. conservative culture war here in the same way it is with you guys, since here it's not just conservatives rejecting the SJW talking points. Those who espouse those PC/SJW ideas, are generally found on our political center-left, that is Social Liberals. It's being rejected by those further on the left, though. Socialists here have argued that by focusing so much on racializing poverty (as in portraying only non-whites as poor and oppressed, and whites as rich and powerful oppressors) the SJW's are betraying the fight against capitalisms exploitation of the working class - and that that is why the Socialist left in Europe have lost so many of the working class voters.

As for disparaging culture... again, Social Liberals, specifically those party members referred to as "culture radicals" are a non-Socialist cultural movement, you'd probably call them progressives. They're the political party with the next-highest concentration of republicans (as in anti-monarchists) after the Communists in the Unity List (most Danes are monarchists, and regard it as part of our history and shared heritage). It is the "culture radicals" who tend to dismiss old customs as "provincial" and outdated, or our drinking culture as "non-inclusive" (regarding Muslims). Aside from being anti-monarchist, they're also generally dismissive (but not in a youtube atheist sort of way) of religion. Most Danish progressives are anti-circumcision (both genders), yet the Social Liberal party didn't favor the proposed male circumcision ban (which failed). Several Danish Conservatives voted for the ban alongside the Socialist People's Party. They don't portray tradition as outright "evil", though. There isn't the same... dualistic (?) tendency towards black and white, good and evil, with only two sides competing. And you are expected to show some respect to even the ones you disagree with, that's a tradition that's still generally upheld.

But still, neither Danish progressives generally or the Social Liberal party specifically, they're not really The elite. They're just an elite. They get teased for being "The Politiken Segment" (Politiken being the newspaper that's been culture radical/progressive for over a century). And they don't go on twitter campaigns trying to get people fired, or anything like that. Debate culture is historically relatively calm and accepting of political diversity. Yet. There is historically still a live and let live culture between even the most hardline Communist on the left and the most hardline Classical Liberal or Libertarian on the right.

When I studied, which is nearing about a decade ago, alot of professors and lecturers in the Department of History were some shade of red, Socialist, one Marxist, and the lone odd man out Conservative. The only time you'd learn their political affiliation would be during lunch break if you struck up a conversation. There was no one would bat an eye at a professor having a political viewpoint or making a political joke. The academic atmosphere between students and professors has long been informal, and there was room for professors having their quirks - as long as they also taught what was expected they'd teach. There were no parents complaining - aside from that being social suicide, the leadership wouldn't give a crap if some parent complained. The expectation was, and so far largely still is, that since most students begin university at 18+, they are adults, and should be expected to be treated as such.

[heydaralon]

How are the politics of academia in Denmark? Do they have these Liberal vs. Conservative culture wars? Is traditional Danish culture from history disparaged by your elite as racist or evil?

No culture wars, no. The "white male privilege"/victimhood culture BS has unfortunately made its way to Copenhagen University, where a costume party where someone had dressed as a stereotypical Mexican in a sombrero and some student group made an issue out of it citing "white privilege". However, there aren't bans in play there, and both general public, most academia (at the other universities), nearly all the major newspapers on the left and right, think it's ridiculous as well.

It's not really a liberal vs. conservative culture war here in the same way it is with you guys, since here it's not just conservatives rejecting the SJW talking points. Those who espouse those PC/SJW ideas, are generally found on our political center-left, that is Social Liberals. It's being rejected by those further on the left, though. Socialists here have argued that by focusing so much on racializing poverty (as in portraying only non-whites as poor and oppressed, and whites as rich and powerful oppressors) the SJW's are betraying the fight against capitalisms exploitation of the working class - and that that is why the Socialist left in Europe have lost so many of the working class voters.

As for disparaging culture... again, Social Liberals, specifically those party members referred to as "culture radicals" are a non-Socialist cultural movement, you'd probably call them progressives. They're the political party with the next-highest concentration of republicans (as in anti-monarchists) after the Communists in the Unity List (most Danes are monarchists, and regard it as part of our history and shared heritage). It is the "culture radicals" who tend to dismiss old customs as "provincial" and outdated, or our drinking culture as "non-inclusive" (regarding Muslims). Aside from being anti-monarchist, they're also generally dismissive (but not in a youtube atheist sort of way) of religion. Most Danish progressives are anti-circumcision (both genders), yet the Social Liberal party didn't favor the proposed male circumcision ban (which failed). Several Danish Conservatives voted for the ban alongside the Socialist People's Party. They don't portray tradition as outright "evil", though. There isn't the same... dualistic (?) tendency towards black and white, good and evil, with only two sides competing. And you are expected to show some respect to even the ones you disagree with, that's a tradition that's still generally upheld.

But still, neither Danish progressives generally or the Social Liberal party specifically, they're not really The elite. They're just an elite. They get teased for being "The Politiken Segment" (Politiken being the newspaper that's been culture radical/progressive for over a century). And they don't go on twitter campaigns trying to get people fired, or anything like that. Debate culture is historically relatively calm and accepting of political diversity. Yet. There is historically still a live and let live culture between even the most hardline Communist on the left and the most hardline Classical Liberal or Libertarian on the right.

When I studied, which is nearing about a decade ago, alot of professors and lecturers in the Department of History were some shade of red, Socialist, one Marxist, and the lone odd man out Conservative. The only time you'd learn their political affiliation would be during lunch break if you struck up a conversation. There was no one would bat an eye at a professor having a political viewpoint or making a political joke. The academic atmosphere between students and professors has long been informal, and there was room for professors having their quirks - as long as they also taught what was expected they'd teach. There were no parents complaining - aside from that being social suicide, the leadership wouldn't give a crap if some parent complained. The expectation was, and so far largely still is, that since most students begin university at 18+, they are adults, and should be expected to be treated as such.

Sounds exponentially better than the situation in the US. How fucked up is that? Your marxists are more reasonable in practice than our Progressives are. When you mentioned Social Suicide, do you mean that complaining and snowflake mentality leads to mockery from your peers? If so, that also sounds awesome... I wish we had those cultural norms in place here.

[TheReal_ND]

Nordic Resistance Movement is still banned tho. Everyone agrees nazis are evil.

[BjornP]

Nordic Resistance Movement is still banned tho. Everyone agrees nazis are evil.

Don't think so. They held a demonstration here in Aalborg just last year.

[TheReal_ND]

Nah only in finnland. Still the point is that they will be if Denmark ever deems them a threat. How they are allowed to operate in Sweden alone is beyond me.

[BjornP]

Nuke: Heh, "a threat"? Sure, if they're stupid and bloodthirsty enough to start setting fire to houses with immigrants in them like some Swedish Nazis once did (before Nordic Resistance Movement's time, I think), then sure, they might get banned. Otherwise... meh, they're not the first Nazi party or organisation, here. No reason for anyone to care about them.

HD:

When you mentioned Social Suicide, do you mean that complaining and snowflake mentality leads to mockery from your peers?

Sorry for neglecting to answer this question. Yes, and it will extend both the poor kid whose parents treat a kid who might be able and willing to be more independent, but helicopter parenting also gets mocked with parents shamed by other parents (though not by name, unless some helicopter parent turned her name and person into a public figure by publishing some pro-helicopter parenting article, book, etc). Even if newspapers, especially tabloids, they love those sorts of "Whiny curling parent" stories when they pop up (curling parent is our term for helicopter parent, because they "sweep" all challenges aside for their kid), even if they don't publish the names of some mother who keeps calling their child's teachers at off hours to complain about stupid things, they will usually write what town and school is in question. Gossip picks up at the local level, and soon the town, or neighbourhood will snicker behind that parent's back in the grocery store.

And not just school, btw. Three or four years ago there was a story from the interest organization that represents Danish employers. They reported an annoying... dunno if it can be called trend since there were only a handful of cases nationally, but it had happened in different parts of the country, but young people (above age 18, dunno the max. age) had taken to take their parents with them for job interviews. And we're not talking disabled people who needed someone as support, but kids who let their parents answer questions posed to the young job applicant about their qualifications were, what hours they could work, basic stuff like that. The employers organization (think of it like a lobby group + national chamber of commerce type of thing) went out and promised that no one who took their mommy with them to their own job interview would never get a job. Think that pretty much killed that emerging practise in its infancy right there.

[Fife]

For those interested, here's a good breakdown of the illiteracy of the Green New Deal's confiscatory marginal tax rate plans.

There's a good discussion of the problem with “interpersonal utility comparisons” and considering marginal utility as ordinal rather than cardinal.

Paul Krugman's Conversion to a 70-Percent Income Tax

Krugman justifies confiscatory levels of taxation by claiming that the policy would create overall net positive levels of utility for society, a positive social welfare function. His logical chain goes as follows: (1) there are only a small number of people with very high incomes and taxing their upper levels of income at high rates results in a small loss of social utility; (2) the income confiscated from wealthy people then is distributed to lower-income people, and the utility that they gain from the extra income is greater than the social utility lost by the highly-taxed rich; (3) therefore, society overall gains by such a tax policy.

However, if one (correctly) rejects measures of cardinal utility, the only other choice would be employing Pareto Criteria in which a move that makes anyone worse off is not welfare-enhancing. (Not surprisingly, Murray Rothbard strongly stood behind Pareto Optimality.)

[brewster]

For those interested, here's a good breakdown of the illiteracy of the Green New Deal's confiscatory marginal tax rate plans.

Are you really going to be the oligarchy's sucker and argue that someone making over $10m YEARLY would be greatly damaged by parting with 70% of whatever they make above that? I'll make your day by harking back to Obama's "you didn't make that" speech. Anyone making that kind of money owes a lot to the society that gave them the infrastructure and opportunities to be able to do it. $10m/yr is far beyond "fuck you" money, never having to worry about money again, it's making far beyond most people's "fuck you" lifetime number every year. At that income money isn't what it buys you, it's just tokens in your big race against the other oligarchs. So if everyone is getting taxed at that same rate, the race is still a level playing field and counts, right?

Why object to taxing megamillionaires when we are running a trillion dollar deficit? Getting rid of every bleeding heart liberal social program there is will not put a dent in that deficit. Trump's tax cut has come nowhere close to replacing the lost revenue via growth, as most economists predicted. There's gotta be a limit to this ideology!

[Fife]

Federal revenue isn't a problem.