BC Ecosocialists

[rustled]

What does going left even mean and why should anyone care? I'd rather talk about the individual programs and how they might help or how they can be improved.

Sorry I missed your question, JLives - I must appear rude for not responding. Given the many carefully worded posts from fluffy and myself in the discussion preceding your question and the statement following your question, I've taken your question to be rhetorical. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know and I'll do my best to explain it in simpler terms - although fluffy and I are not necessarily seeing "going left" in the same way, so you might want to ask him, too.

Since you'd rather talk about the individual programs and how they might help or how they can be improved, I'll be interested to see your take on the BC Ecosocialists' platform in this regard.

[rustled]

There's a reason politicians love to "play hero" with "matters such as these" at election time. These are all "motherhood" issues that have greatest influence on kind people with good hearts and the best of intentions but limited experience with how applying idealistic solutions to complex problems actually works out in real life. It's unfortunate they are so often successful in convincing well-intentioned people to go along with them.

You don't think it fosters the idea that "how good we are doing" is equivalent to "how good I am doing" ?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I think I've been pretty clear that as someone with activist roots who has had to deal with social programming from several perspectives (including elected and appointed positions as well as the client side), I firmly believe we do need ideas and ideals and idealists, but that ideas and ideals and idealists alone cannot get us where we need to go.

I've asked you if you're able to flesh out how we'd meet the objectives of the BC Ecosocialists - or going more left, or however we wish to frame "correcting from having gone too far right" (paraphrasing, not direct quoting) - without expanding social programming, and I think examining a few specifics would be more productive than continuing to discuss the nebulous terminologies in play.

How might we meet some of the objectives of the BC Ecosocialists without expanding social programming?

[fluffy]

As I said, I think the Ecosocialists have good intentions, but their time-frame is likely too short to do anything but stir up trouble. I don't think they're a serious threat to the two front-running parties anyways, so discussion there would be fruitless.

As far as progress on the home front at present, a low impact starting point would be to look at taxation, squeezing a few more bucks out of high income earners and profitable corporations could cover the cost of continuing the program of increasing the minimum wage, and indexing that wage to the Consumer Price Index would help as well. This would also have the effect of narrowing the income gap which is the root of a lot more problems than people generally understand.

[hobbyguy]

The interesting thing about the Ecosocialists is that they do spark discussion. Politically, I think they are a dead duck, really just a fringe group. Their existence, however, does point out - as do all "fringe" groups - both the diversity of viewpoints that exist and potentially underlying issues for society that may be worth considering.

Back in the thread a bit an index was pointed out that attempts to quantify "quality of life". There are a number of those out there.

This is the one that I follow: https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=CAN,USA,DEU,GBR,AUS,FRA&filter=. The base index ranks each of the categories with a weighting of 1. You can do the exercise of changing the index weighting to suit your own worldview. With all of these indexes it is important to realize that context matters. Smaller countries geographically and countries with lower cultural diversity are easier to achieve consensus positions in, and therefore have options that larger and more diverse countries simply do not have. That doesn't mean that large diverse country like Canada can not benefit by looking at what works in in smaller and less diverse countries, but it does mean that a country like Canada face much more a "herding cats" set of issues.

In any comparison, context matters.

Just as an example: in the comparisons between countries on COVID response, one needs to filter thinking around nations with ease of foreign travel. Canada faces a lot of issues with the thousands of miles of land border we have where New Zealand simply does not. New Zealand is, by virtue of being an "island" nation far distant from neighbors, in a much better position to control its own destiny with regard to COVID.

I don't think the Ecosocialists will get very far, as they certainly don't seem to be interested in the balance required, compromises necessary, nor the hard work of continuous improvement/planning and implementation to make things actually happen. (That has always been a downfall for the NDP as well.)

The existence of the Ecosicialist does possibly point to the vanguard of a shift in BC politics. The BC Liberals are appearing to shift leftward, the BC NDP circling the same old for them, with the BC Greens now established as presence. The BC Conservatives seem to have little presence or momentum (but will always be there).

If nothing else, the Ecosocialists may be a data point in a shift.

[cyruslosco66]

The interesting thing about the Ecosocialists is that they do spark discussion. Politically, I think they are a dead duck, really just a fringe group. Their existence, however, does point out - as do all "fringe" groups - both the diversity of viewpoints that exist and potentially underlying issues for society that may be worth considering.

Back in the thread a bit an index was pointed out that attempts to quantify "quality of life". There are a number of those out there.

This is the one that I follow: https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=CAN,USA,DEU,GBR,AUS,FRA&filter=. The base index ranks each of the categories with a weighting of 1. You can do the exercise of changing the index weighting to suit your own worldview. With all of these indexes it is important to realize that context matters. Smaller countries geographically and countries with lower cultural diversity are easier to achieve consensus positions in, and therefore have options that larger and more diverse countries simply do not have. That doesn't mean that large diverse country like Canada can not benefit by looking at what works in in smaller and less diverse countries, but it does mean that a country like Canada face much more a "herding cats" set of issues.

In any comparison, context matters.

Just as an example: in the comparisons between countries on COVID response, one needs to filter thinking around nations with ease of foreign travel. Canada faces a lot of issues with the thousands of miles of land border we have where New Zealand simply does not. New Zealand is, by virtue of being an "island" nation far distant from neighbors, in a much better position to control its own destiny with regard to COVID.

I don't think the Ecosocialists will get very far, as they certainly don't seem to be interested in the balance required, compromises necessary, nor the hard work of continuous improvement/planning and implementation to make things actually happen. (That has always been a downfall for the NDP as well.)

The existence of the Ecosicialist does possibly point to the vanguard of a shift in BC politics. The BC Liberals are appearing to shift leftward, the BC NDP circling the same old for them, with the BC Greens now established as presence. The BC Conservatives seem to have little presence or momentum (but will always be there).

If nothing else, the Ecosocialists may be a data point in a shift.

Progressives have already knocked off lots of establishment old socks already in usa and we will be doing the same here . Already peple loke peter julien have forced the fed libs to form policy around people such as cerb , funding for students , funding for disability etc, etc . Anyone thinking progressives are just a data point is in for some hard sad times as their world is eliminated .


The ndp is now running several progressives and it looks like most of them will win . once horgan is tossed out the party it will be clear sailing .

[rustled]

As I said, I think the Ecosocialists have good intentions, but their time-frame is likely too short to do anything but stir up trouble. I don't think they're a serious threat to the two front-running parties anyways, so discussion there would be fruitless.

As far as progress on the home front at present, a low impact starting point would be to look at taxation, squeezing a few more bucks out of high income earners and profitable corporations could cover the cost of continuing the program of increasing the minimum wage, and indexing that wage to the Consumer Price Index would help as well. This would also have the effect of narrowing the income gap which is the root of a lot more problems than people generally understand.

So clearly, this IS about expanding social programs, and yet you wrote this:

I don't "reject it as a likely consequence", I reject it completely until you present a case that supports your claim that this is a forgone conclusion. This whole "expanding social programs" is all your idea, don't try to lay it off on me.

It seems to me you are so completely fixated on a specific course of action, you refuse to even consider the most likely unintended consequences of that course of action.

The BC Ecosocialists and others with progressive social agendas always count on this sort of willful blindness, and as I've pointed out time and again the worst consequences are almost always felt by those who most need the social programs that are jeopardized when the cost of these programs becomes unsustainable.

[fluffy]

\The BC Ecosocialists and others with progressive social agendas always count on this sort of willful blindness, and as I've pointed out time and again the worst consequences are almost always felt by those who most need the social programs that are jeopardized when the cost of these programs becomes unsustainable.

Not if we approach the change slowly. We are dealing with a situation that has been fifty years in the making and throughout that it has those at the lower end of the income scale that have borne the consequences. It's stupid to think it can be corrected in a few short terms of government so your "worst consequences" are certainly not a foregone conclusion, but progress however slow comes from continuous movement towards equality. The biggest obstacles will be those unable to put societal needs as a whole above their own, and those who wish to perpetuate the status quo of a privileged few.

[rustled]

\The BC Ecosocialists and others with progressive social agendas always count on this sort of willful blindness, and as I've pointed out time and again the worst consequences are almost always felt by those who most need the social programs that are jeopardized when the cost of these programs becomes unsustainable.

Not if we approach the change slowly. We are dealing with a situation that has been fifty years in the making and throughout that it has those at the lower end of the income scale that have borne the consequences.

For the past fifty years we've been moving toward more social programming, further left.

It's stupid to think it can be corrected in a few short terms of government so your "worst consequences" are certainly not a foregone conclusion, but progress however slow comes from continuous movement towards equality.

It's stupid to insist a correction must be made without a) explaining why we need a course correction when we have been moving toward more and more social programming, and b) being able to articulate what that correction looks like.

What DOES the equality you're championing look like?

How DOES your vision of equality differ from socialism?

So far, you have chosen not to answer these questions and instead returned to speaking in clichés which have no basis in fact. To me, this either shows you're not able to explain or you're unwilling to admit what you are championing is, in fact, true socialism.

[The biggest obstacles will be those unable to put societal needs as a whole above their own, and those who wish to perpetuate the status quo of a privileged few.

You seem to want others to believe the world is currently being run solely to suit Ebenezer Scrooge types, and that only the wealthy have a good quality of life. I'd suggest constantly telling everyone they are being oppressed and deserve more more more is a much bigger problem for society today than the realities we live with on a daily basis.

If we truly want improvement, we need to deal with the elitist corruption that's allowed the federal Liberals and NDP to wreak havoc with our economy.

BC has done a good job over the past five decades of balancing out social programming and the strong economy we need to sustain that economy. However you want to term your "more equality" agenda, tipping BC's scales toward more social programming - as you want us to do - will result in the pendulum swings which hurt those who most need social programming.

I can tell you as someone with a family member who relies on social programming out of absolute necessity, the BC Liberals made a massive shift in improving the PWD system in this province in a way that did nothing to damage the economic side of the scale. While the BC NDP have built on that improvement, they are now poised to place too much weight on the social programming side of the scale. We don't yet know what the inevitable pendulum swing's backlash will look like, but we know for sure it won't hurt you first.

And we know for certain the BC Ecosocialist agenda will place a far heavier load on the social programming side of the scale, with too little regard for the economy side. If we support sustainability in social programming, we must support a strong economy.

[fluffy]

Do you actually think the BC Ecosocialists have a chance of gaining a single seat in the province ? As a poster mentioned above, it's a faint and distant possibility that this will happen, but the fact that there is a far left party in the running says something doesn't it ? Perfect equality is unattainable in a market economy, you'd need to move to a true form of socialism for that and that is simply not going to happen in BC or Canada. But that's not to say that the degree of inequality we have today is acceptable.

You say that social programs have been on the rise for decades, I can certainly see that. The rise of corporate strength and the subsequent abandonment of any form of social contract between employer and employee has led to a steadily increasing income gap with more and more families and individuals falling off the low end of the curve. The working class family disappears while jobs are shipped out of the country and more and more wealth ends up in that hands of fewer and fewer. If you are so unwilling to accept that this is even an issue that needs dealing with then you my friend, are not part of the solution.

[rustled]

Do you actually think the BC Ecosocialists have a chance of gaining a single seat in the province ?

No.

As a poster mentioned above, it's a faint and distant possibility that this will happen, but the fact that there is a far left party in the running says something doesn't it ? Perfect equality is unattainable in a market economy, you'd need to move to a true form of socialism for that and that is simply not going to happen in BC or Canada.

Thank goodness. Because until you're able to show us where this has led to a significant, lasting improvement in the quality of lives of those living it, I'd rather we don't experiment with it here.

But that's not to say that the degree of inequality we have today is acceptable.

You've yet to articulate anything other than clichés to support this statement. There's no measurable in it, no context - it's an idea, an ideal, a belief, an opinion. Nothing more.

You say that social programs have been on the rise for decades, I can certainly see that.

I'm glad you're able to see it. But if you are able to see it, why have you been insisting we've been going too far the other way?

The rise of corporate strength and the subsequent abandonment of any form of social contract between employer and employee has led to a steadily increasing income gap with more and more families and individuals falling off the low end of the curve.

This is a generalization, an oversimplification, a cliché. Again: There's no measurable in it, no context - it's an idea, an ideal, a belief, an opinion. Another statement made to support a pre-conceived determination - nothing more.

The working class family disappears while jobs are shipped out of the country and more and more wealth ends up in that hands of fewer and fewer.

There are complex reasons for the problems facing the working class family, yet you believe the best remedy - the first one we should turn to, perhaps the only one we should attempt - is forced wealth redistribution.

If you read again what you posted, you'll see one obvious step to take prior to wealth redistribution.

If you read without bias the cycle I've referred to, you'll see another obvious step to take prior to resorting to forced wealth redistribution. And you'll also see why both of these steps must be prioritized over forced wealth redistribution. The questions in the link I provided earlier are a terrific starting point for opening up our minds to the bigger picture.

If you are so unwilling to accept that this is even an issue that needs dealing with then you my friend, are not part of the solution.

And there it is - the accusation of moral inferiority. The assumption of moral superiority. The desperate belief that because you have the greater good in mind, whatever you support doing for the greater good surely must be the correct thing to do, and therefore those who do not agree with you are surely part of "the problem" and therefore surely must be made to change their minds. Never a moment to spend wondering whether or not you actually have the correct end of the stick before imposing your moral judgement on those with whom you disagree.

This has always been a fundamental tenet of puritanical thinking - enough blind faith in an ideal which allows the believer to ignore reality and all harms done, to the point its adherents become every bit as inhumane as those they believe they are countering. If we are truly intent on supporting the greater good, we must question everything. Including the pre-determined beliefs about inequality and the necessity of wealth redistribution we may hold too dear to see their flaws.

While realists are fully prepared to consider what happens when we tilt the scales too far in the economy's favour at the expense of social programs, I see in you an absolute refusal to consider any of the consequences of doing the opposite. It seems to me that like the BC Ecosocialists, you firmly believe you have selected the sole path to the greater good - putting a thumb firmly on the side of the social programming scale. The assumption of being correct allows you to argue for this path forward with no real regard for the natural consequences for anyone, while refusing to consider the inevitable pain caused by tilting the scales too far in either direction.

We don't yet know what the inevitable pendulum swing's backlash will look like, but we know for sure it won't hurt you first.

[fluffy]

We appear to have reached an impasse. See ya.

[rustled]

We appear to have reached an impasse. See ya.

Well, this seems to tell me your mind is completely made up, you've done all the research you're willing to do on this topic, and there's nothing more for you to consider.

If so, this would align well with the BC Ecosocialists' agenda and others who presume to have the moral high ground and continue to excuse the negative consequences of their actions and the agendas they support with "oh, well, it was for the greater good".

Those of us who take a "first, do no harm" approach will continue to be concerned about the consequences of our own actions, and about the consequences of actions taken by those we support with our votes.