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I agree, "far right" is a misleading label in some ways. Legolas Send a noteboard - 11/05/2015 09:29:56 PM

View original postI also don't consider them properly "far right" because in the cheap euphemisms of journalism that just means "they remind us of Nazis", which of course isn't fair to the right because the Nazis were just a race/nation-based form of the socializing Left that had a few conservative characteristics because it chose to base its mythology on the unique characteristics of the country (i.e., its traditions).

I don't think it's quite accurate to call the Nazis a form of "the socializing Left" (nor did people see it that way at the time - remember who the allied parties were who helped the Nazis to power, or where the Nazis found their strongest sympathizers abroad). That kind of reasoning only works if you use the strongly exaggerated American view of "left" equalling big and powerful government, and "right" equalling small government and libertarianism. It's a little more complex than that. Spain and Latin-America provided plenty of examples of police state governments who were unambiguously right-wing, even if you dispute that label for Nazism and Fascism.

But there can be little dispute that almost all of the "far right" parties have economic policies which, on a strict left-right scale, might best be described as centrist (some right of centre, others even left) - but more accurate would be to just call them populist. But those parties' views on immigration and other issues are still radical enough that the "far right" label makes sense even if it's incomplete. "Populist right" is arguably a better one, but that glosses over the part of their ideology which most strongly defines them, in the eyes of their opponents but often also in their own eyes.

View original postHaving said that, the problem is that when you have even a moderately socialist state (or "social democracy" if you prefer the term), the more foreigners you get coming in to "leech off" the ridiculous level of largesse given out by the state, the higher the level of resentment will build. Throw in the absurdly high level of youth unemployment that almost every EU member-state is seeing and you have a recipe for disaster that the technocrats can't appreciate, understand or properly measure. Populists may or may not survive in power, but they will disrupt the unaccountable way in which the EU is being run, which may ultimately be a good thing.

If they can make the EU more accountable to its citizens, that will definitely be a good thing.
View original postAs for Greece, Italy, Spain and the rest, if you honestly think they're going to have any success with deep structural reforms you clearly have far less concerns about a populist revolution than even I do. No, the hypocrisy of offering generous benefits on early retirement that don't end up being so generous due to relentless currency devaluation is the way they need to continue doing things to avoid offending people. Everyone's used to it and they muddle along with that sort of a system. Either that or a dictator comes in to completely gut the system and build on the ruins of what has come before (and likely a lot of bodies, too).

I don't think it's news to either of us that I tend to be more optimistic than you. Everybody knows that their double-track employment system is the main reason for the high youth unemployment you mentioned - nobody wants to take a chance on a youngster if they're then stuck with him or her for life. So that really has to be the first priority. Reforming pension benefits is definitely not easy, but slowly but surely it will have to happen. You seem to be saying that countries should base their long-term economic policy on the premise that their citizens are too stupid to understand the concept of inflation - I'm a little less cynical than that.

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