Socialdem. 21st Century

I hope the “safe spacers” can take a joke.Sadly, it’s not funny when parts of the left actually think like this, and think their feelings are more important than facts or free speech.[embedded content]

And I hope more and more left-wing people can see this now. Look at some of the news from Europe in recent days. This in Sweden is just a recognition of reality.Unfortunately, people in Sweden and throughout the EU have failed to realise that the evidence is strong that most of the migrants coming into Europe this year are not genuine refugees, but merely economic migrants. Europe cannot take in 1 million or 1.5 million people a year for the foreseeable future when most of these people are...

Steve Keen gives an interesting lecture below on the Austrian school of economics.[embedded content]Some critical points: (1) it is an oversimplification to say that Austrians do not support equilibrium as the essential feature of a capitalist economy (see 2.20 onwards), though admittedly there is some balance in this point later on. In fact, it is really only the stream of Austrian economics connected with Ludwig Lachmann that questions whether a tendency to general equilibrium is a feature...

Trigger warningIt’s hard to even read this news story here. Even the politically correct UK Independent newspaper – well known for political correctness – appears to find it too much.It’s worse than this: it is unhinged. This is the result of 30 years of Postmodernist charlatanry, extreme identity politics, political correctness and that peculiar sub-species of Postmodernism called Postcolonialism.People are laughing their asses off at the left, and with good reason.The left is just turning...

For those of you who want a good list of critical analyses and critiques of Postmodernism.General Critiques Dennett, Daniel. 1998. “Postmodernism and Truth,” Butterflies and Wheels http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2003/postmodernism-and-truth/Detmer, David. 2003. Challenging Postmodernism: Philosophy and the Politics of Truth. Humanity Books, Amherst, N.Y.Devaney, M. J. 1997. ‘Since at least Plato …’ and Other Postmodernist Myths. St. Martin’s Press, New York.Ellis, John M. 1989. Against...

Keith Windschuttle is the author of the fascinating book The Killing of History: How a Discipline is being murdered by Literary Critics and Social Theorists (1994) and an insightful critique of Foucault’s history (Windschuttle 1998). I don’t agree with everything here (e.g., the introductory remarks on British imperialism), but nevertheless there are some very good points.[embedded content]Also, before people spew forth ad hominem fallacies, I’ll well aware that this gentleman is a...

This is simply another bizarre and manifestly false idea that has infected the left from Postmodernism.I can refute it in less than 500 words.Take the culture of Nazi Germany or modern neo-Nazism: The traits of Nazi German culture: racism, authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, hatred of Roma gypsies, extreme Social Darwinism, and German racial supremacism. If you seriously think all cultures are equal in every respect, then it follows directly that you must believe that Nazi culture...

A recent YouGov poll for Sweden suggests that the populist right-wing party the Sweden Democrats might get about 26.7% of the vote in Sweden if an election were held now. That makes it the most popular party in Sweden today. The once great Swedish Social Democratic Party got just 21.4%. If one looks carefully at the figures here and compares them with the 2014 election (available in that same link), it would appear that many voters are abandoning the Social Democratic Party for the Sweden...

Two important points here: (1) the evidence is building up that about 50%, or possibly even a majority, of the migrants entering from the Balkans are actually economic migrants, not genuine refugees (see here, and here). In essence, and even if it bursts the self-righteous bubble some people on the left like to live in, many of them are dishonest illegal immigrants. Isn’t letting so many people into Europe grossly unfair to the honest and law-abiding people from the Developing World who...

Just for all you Marxists out there.Here are Marx’s comments on mass immigration into Britain in the 19th century in a letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt in 1870: “But the English bourgeoisie has also much more important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English...