/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>2864138
because developmentalist national liberalism is a policy position while most of people's ideological sympathy comes from underlying emotions. e.g. if i'm weirdly homoerotic about the military and don't like foreigners then i'd like my country to be rich enough to support such a military and with enough industry that we don't need imports or immigration. if, on the contrary, i want everyone to be equal and for there to be no exploitation, i also want the country to be rich enough to support such a comprehensive system of social welfare (including education health etc) and want to find a way to avoid being exposed to the destabilising effects of international markets. the policy positions are superficially similar until you dig deeper into whether our industry should be making jet fighters or tractors.
(here's also where we'll find things get weird, since some communists are clearly on the "watches USSR military aesthetics compilations and wants there to be big tank parades again" types.)

particularly unhelpfully, the aesthetic that appeals to most people (mass factory work c.1960s) is basically gone. even if you on-shore industry, you won't bring back a mass industrial workforce because the whole point of industry is that it's easy to automate. the most likely future for developmental liberalism would be for the state to build massive infrastructure projects but to interfere even less in the economy as a whole, e.g. more like high-investment neoliberalism. (which runs into the problem that most people hate markets for being deeply counterintuitive and always think "something must be done [by the state]" when a problem appears.)

First of all, stop doing Great Man Theory. Nehru and Nasser as individuals are irrelevant.

To understand Indias development path from 1950s to early 1990s, you need to understand that it was based on collaboration between middle class and wealthy farmers, large private capitalists (Tata/Birla), and gigantic state monopolies. All three of these groups had a common interest in suppressing the development of normal competitive capitalism because it would weaken their monopolies, disrupt their ability to siphon off tax money, and shut down incompetent government companies.

So under the false guise of "socialism" they set up a political economy that deliberately hampered the development of private companies and markets, while protecting the large state monopolies, a select few large private companies, and maintained the political and economic dominance of agriculture which benefited the wealthy peasants.

This system persisted until foreign reserves were finally depleted due to excessive imports and insufficient domestic production. That forced the govt to finally adopt a more liberalized capitalist economy.

So nothing about the "Nehruvian system" is desirable. It was a capitalist system based on deliberately strangling the economy to benefit a small sliver of society. It was even worse than neoliberal capitalism which at least causes some economic growth.

>>2864138
>So why do today's ideological arguments not reflect this? Why is everyone cosplaying as a fascist or a communist when their policy positions remain fundamentally liberal?
The ghosts of the 20th century larp on the minds of people

>>2864138
>Why is liberalism constantly disparaged
Honestly, because people are LARPers.
They may disparage Liberalism, but the vast majority of them enjoy the fruits of Liberalism and don't realize it yet until those fruits are yanked out of their hands.

"Ideology that actually works but leaves people restless" doesn't hit the same as "ideology that's controversial and could potentially solve all my problems".

>>2864138
>>2864151
>>2864160
The problem with developmentalism is that, ever since the rate of profit began to decline in industrial capitalism, finance capital and financial speculation have increasingly dominated—a trend consolidated by neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus. With the socialist bloc no longer posing a threat and the working class weakened, the bourgeoisie no longer needs to make concessions; instead, it can intensify capital accumulation, thereby eroding the welfare state.

The forces required to forge a conciliatory agreement between the national bourgeoisie and labor do not exist today; consequently, any attempt at such an agreement would be futile, as the entire bourgeoisie has been absorbed into joint-stock companies focused on financial market speculation. Financialization means that any funds available to this bourgeoisie for domestic investment will simply be used to purchase more shares on the market.

Instead of fantasizing about an agreement with the national bourgeoisie, one should employ state capitalism—utilizing state-owned enterprises directly—to hasten the arrival of a revolutionary situation, foster the creation and maintenance of cooperatives, and develop "dual power" through popular councils. All of this serves to facilitate the socialization of the economy.

Neoliberalism offers no benefits. Monopoly capitalism actually makes it easier to socialize the economy and allows for better economic direction, helping to counter the blackmail tactics employed by international imperialist capitalism.

>>2864690
I used to sympathise with this view but I've come to see it as a set of just-so stories: industry didn't go anywhere. The UK, the number-one case for deindustrialisation, still produces more value in manufactured goods than it did in the 1970s/80s. Its output has shrunk as a proportion but not in absolute terms, and on a global scale much of this just comes from moving industry around (which on the whole has been a good thing. 1.5 billion Chinese getting to middle-income level is a world historic miracle, not some tragedy just because it means nobody makes toy cars in Britain anymore.)

The claim that the welfare state has been eroded should be qualified. Welfare structures have been enshittified, sure, but absolute spending levels have generally trended upwards. Attempts at cost control have mostly failed. As regards domestic investment: this varies from country to country, but the single largest importer of investment capital in the world is the United States. The current AI fad would illustrate that it's not just shares either: A lot of investment is being thrown at physical infrastructure in the form of datacenters etc. (whether you think this is a good idea or not is a different question.)

I'm sceptical of state-capitalist developmentalism as an approach for most countries. The problem is that since state capacity has generally been weakened and the competence of government officials has generally declined, their ability to "beat the market" is weaker than ever. The best realistic scenario I can see is the decentralisation of power to a more local level so that (a) it's easier for leftists to obtain it and (b) each area can experiment and see what works in their specific circumstances or make the trade-offs they desire, and other areas can learn from their experiences.

I think we're going to look back on Neoliberalism, like Keynesianism, as having some beautiful elements that deserved to succeed. As we head for an era of arbitrary prejudice, warmongering, and social protection for capitalists but not for workers, the idea that we were all going to live in a borderless low-tax free trade utopia is going to look more and more appealing in hindsight. I think where neoliberals went wrong was to get side-tracked on tax cuts instead of doubling down on deregulation and privatisation, leaving the main role of the state being to administer income taxes with negative bands (e.g. zero-extra-admin-cost welfare) for the poor. Which is to be expected because most of their advocates were sociopaths, even if their ideas had a lot of truth in them and a certain respect for human dignity in the abstract.