DBTrek wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 4:00 pm
BjornP wrote: ↑Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:43 pm
If the politician creating the tax is
not a Socialist, if the plan behind is
not to create a Socialist society, then the tax is not Socialist either. I hope you can see the logic. I suggest you take your own (bolded) advice to heart, then. You have been presented with enough evidence that it would be illogical to keep painting his stated and enacted policies as "Socialist".
So you believe Marcon's fuel tax is borne out of Green Conservatism and not the necessity to maintain funding for France's socialist policies and industries? Or to socially engineer the populace to abandon fossil fuel vehicles in favor of government-approved forms of transportation? Am I understanding that correctly?
I think Macron's fuel tax fits better in with Green Liberalism than Green Conservatism. Both Green Liberalism and Green Conservatism is pro-capitalist, though, so it makes no difference in regards to my purpose of showing you that this philosophy existed. I posted the link to Green Conservatism because I figured you'd needed something more right-wing than Liberalism to prove that one can be right-wing and environmentalist. Doesn't help that Conservatism in the US is called Liberalism everywhere else. At figured since the Green Conservatism article had a section about the US, it might make your understanding better of my point better.
France doesn't have any Socialist policies nor... (and are you serious?) industries. A "Socialist policy" is a meaningless term unless applied to a policy intended to usher in an actual Socialist society. If that is not the intent, it is not "Socialist". It can be any number of other things, clever things, stupid things. But just like you can't call a planned economy a "Capitalist" economy, it makes no sense to call a capitalist economy a Socialist one.
Generally, though, I don't think it boils down to Macron subscribing to a single ideology vs some other ideology. It's capitalism, Green Liberalism, pragmatism, globalization, keeping investors happy by lowering costs of labor and decreasing taxes, promoting more centralization which lots of international companies want because only having to deal with ONE agency (the EU, for example), to gain access to market of 500 million consumers, only having to lobby ONE office, is something companies have no problems with - even if national governments might. But Macron also comes across as an idealist, an EU federalist, with a highly top-down approach to governance.
Macron has no need to "socially engineer" the French people to want to abandon fossil fuels, didn't you read the articles posted? The French people, including the protestors, overwhelmingly support abandonding fossil fuels. What they oppose, is the
implementation, not the goal. Again, several articles telling as much have been posted here.
Fame is not flattery. Respect is not agreement.