NDP Premiers are sometimes scared by the challenge of spending when the cupuboards are supposedly bare. It happened to Bob Rae in Ontario, too. The entrenched bureaucracy of government is difficult to move even after a "change" election. When the first meetings with the Deputy Ministers goes "if we do what you are asking it will cost x and we don't have the money to do it" across all of the departments... you have to be very strong to be able to say "MAKE IT SO."
With respect, I think that sidesteps the issue, because it is still based in the notion that the NDP (and the left more generally) are actually Keynesians who are thwarted from achieving social justice goals, when they are not, and never have been.
Rae did try, then reversed himself over backlash. Prior to the 2015 election, CUPE's economist Toby Sanger analyzed governments (Conservative, Liberal and NDP provincially) and found that over decades, NDP governments were the most likely to run balanced budgets, but the context was important.
The distinction is between the brand and the actions, and they don't remotely match up. The reason the NDP have any progressive credibility is that far-right paleoconservatives constantly accuse them of being socialists and communists, when they enact the same policies.
That included the Saskatchewan NDP of the 1990s and the Manitoba NDP of the 2000s, and the BC NDP have all run "neoliberal" or fiscally conservative governments that cut corporate taxes, privatized and sold off services, while freezing social supports for over a decade, and while continually choosing resource projects over the environment and over Indigenous rights.
This is not new. Tommy Douglas ran for Premier of Saskatchewan and won in 1944 (after the Depression but before World War II was over) against the provincial Liberal government for running up debt (!). Saskatchewan then benefited from a sustained oil boom.
When a Keynesian economist told Jack Layton that to avoid a massive recession in 2008, the government needed a massive stimulus, Layton said he needed to start his own political party. Tom Mulcair, likewise, ran on a right-of-centre, pro-free-trade, pro-low taxes platform promising to cut during a downturn.
The current Manitoba NDP ran on austerity. Their promises are all four to eight years in the future, and they ran on cutting taxes (they did) and lifted PC advertising claiming Manitobans could get benefits of up to $5,000 in tax rebates.
But there is a deeper reason than this, which is that there is no economic difference between Marx and 19th century libertarians like Ricardo. Communism is state capitalism. You have businesses and companies and factories, with the surplus going to the state, instead of to individual capitalists.
And it has to be said, this is also true of so-called progressive economists, who are all still working in a fiscally conservative macro-economic framework, but it is also because of an ideological frame that has the same religious roots based in the idea that if people are poor or struggling, it's because they're doing something wrong and must be "corrected" or "punished" and that if people are successful, they must have done something right and should be praised and rewarded.
For the left in Canada, this comes directly from the Social Gospel roots of the NDP and CCF, especially of Methodism, which like so many sects was extremely convinced of its own virtue and, since it was a relgious denomination, not particularly open to criticism.
I can’t disagree with anything you have written! If I had thought about it for more than 10 seconds I might have written a different reply!
I most unhappy with the government in BC right now for a whole host of reasons. The so successfully ran to the Center that they made Kevin Falcon give up…
NDP Premiers are sometimes scared by the challenge of spending when the cupuboards are supposedly bare. It happened to Bob Rae in Ontario, too. The entrenched bureaucracy of government is difficult to move even after a "change" election. When the first meetings with the Deputy Ministers goes "if we do what you are asking it will cost x and we don't have the money to do it" across all of the departments... you have to be very strong to be able to say "MAKE IT SO."
With respect, I think that sidesteps the issue, because it is still based in the notion that the NDP (and the left more generally) are actually Keynesians who are thwarted from achieving social justice goals, when they are not, and never have been.
Rae did try, then reversed himself over backlash. Prior to the 2015 election, CUPE's economist Toby Sanger analyzed governments (Conservative, Liberal and NDP provincially) and found that over decades, NDP governments were the most likely to run balanced budgets, but the context was important.
The distinction is between the brand and the actions, and they don't remotely match up. The reason the NDP have any progressive credibility is that far-right paleoconservatives constantly accuse them of being socialists and communists, when they enact the same policies.
That included the Saskatchewan NDP of the 1990s and the Manitoba NDP of the 2000s, and the BC NDP have all run "neoliberal" or fiscally conservative governments that cut corporate taxes, privatized and sold off services, while freezing social supports for over a decade, and while continually choosing resource projects over the environment and over Indigenous rights.
This is not new. Tommy Douglas ran for Premier of Saskatchewan and won in 1944 (after the Depression but before World War II was over) against the provincial Liberal government for running up debt (!). Saskatchewan then benefited from a sustained oil boom.
When a Keynesian economist told Jack Layton that to avoid a massive recession in 2008, the government needed a massive stimulus, Layton said he needed to start his own political party. Tom Mulcair, likewise, ran on a right-of-centre, pro-free-trade, pro-low taxes platform promising to cut during a downturn.
The current Manitoba NDP ran on austerity. Their promises are all four to eight years in the future, and they ran on cutting taxes (they did) and lifted PC advertising claiming Manitobans could get benefits of up to $5,000 in tax rebates.
But there is a deeper reason than this, which is that there is no economic difference between Marx and 19th century libertarians like Ricardo. Communism is state capitalism. You have businesses and companies and factories, with the surplus going to the state, instead of to individual capitalists.
And it has to be said, this is also true of so-called progressive economists, who are all still working in a fiscally conservative macro-economic framework, but it is also because of an ideological frame that has the same religious roots based in the idea that if people are poor or struggling, it's because they're doing something wrong and must be "corrected" or "punished" and that if people are successful, they must have done something right and should be praised and rewarded.
For the left in Canada, this comes directly from the Social Gospel roots of the NDP and CCF, especially of Methodism, which like so many sects was extremely convinced of its own virtue and, since it was a relgious denomination, not particularly open to criticism.
I can’t disagree with anything you have written! If I had thought about it for more than 10 seconds I might have written a different reply!
I most unhappy with the government in BC right now for a whole host of reasons. The so successfully ran to the Center that they made Kevin Falcon give up…
Oh and by the way, happy labour day to you, too!