Austerity is common to both liberals and conservatives as both support the primacy of business over workers. More workers on the street increases the willingness of the workforce to work for less or do shittier jobs at someone else’s business. The economic lib-con difference tends to be in degree (and lately competence), not in priorities.
Is it austerity when the Liberals ballooned spending past their own fiscal guardrails, where Freeland wrote a letter condemning Trudeau, and now Carney ran an even bigger deficit?
Austerity rarely means reduced total spending. Rather it usually shifts money from going to the working people and into large private business owners. Any talk about concern for the size of deficit and budget is usually bullshit. Look who’s getting more of that spending and who’s getting less. That’s what it’s almost always about.
I don’t have percentage number. I do however have an ideal percentage unemployment - really fucking low - as that gives workers some bargaining power to get higher wages and better working conditions. And for me the government should play a role of an employer to regulate the labour market, like it has done in the pre-neoliberal era. Removing workers from well paid jobs during 6.5% unemployment adds more people to the unemployed pool, competing for the same private sector jobs, lowering wages for everyone. This is what the layoff part of the austerity measure does. It lowers wages across the board. In other words it favours the interest of business owners, by having them pay lower wages and therefore collecting higher profits.
If on the other hand the private sector is short on workers and need these people, I think firms should up their wages to attract them.
Austerity is common to both liberals and conservatives as both support the primacy of business over workers. More workers on the street increases the willingness of the workforce to work for less or do shittier jobs at someone else’s business. The economic lib-con difference tends to be in degree (and lately competence), not in priorities.
Is it austerity when the Liberals ballooned spending past their own fiscal guardrails, where Freeland wrote a letter condemning Trudeau, and now Carney ran an even bigger deficit?
Austerity rarely means reduced total spending. Rather it usually shifts money from going to the working people and into large private business owners. Any talk about concern for the size of deficit and budget is usually bullshit. Look who’s getting more of that spending and who’s getting less. That’s what it’s almost always about.
What’s your ideal government worker percent vs private sector?
I don’t have percentage number. I do however have an ideal percentage unemployment - really fucking low - as that gives workers some bargaining power to get higher wages and better working conditions. And for me the government should play a role of an employer to regulate the labour market, like it has done in the pre-neoliberal era. Removing workers from well paid jobs during 6.5% unemployment adds more people to the unemployed pool, competing for the same private sector jobs, lowering wages for everyone. This is what the layoff part of the austerity measure does. It lowers wages across the board. In other words it favours the interest of business owners, by having them pay lower wages and therefore collecting higher profits.
If on the other hand the private sector is short on workers and need these people, I think firms should up their wages to attract them.
So no welfare, but but more like Chinas system. I’d be curious about second order effects if there are any.