"É legal? Não. Pode-se fazer? Pode-se."

Durante algumas horas, Donald Trump defendeu que, se o aborto fosse ilegalizado, as mulheres que abortassem deveriam ser punidas; parece que pouco depois alguém lhe explicou que a posição pró-vida é que só os fornecedores de abortos devem ser punidos, não as clientes (uma curiosidade: a direita pró-vida e a esquerda escandinava anti-prostituição convergem em considerar que as mulheres são seres incapazes de tomarem decisões e que devem ser, perante a lei, tratadas como tal).

Um exemplo interessente dessa posição e as suas implicações é o artigo "Trump Attempts To Abort Candidacy", de Rod Dreher, em The American Conservative. Quer o artigo (onde o autor expõe a clássica posição pró-vida de só punir os "técnicos"), quer sobretudo os comentários, em que a maior parte dos leitores (tanto pró-vida como pró-escolha) demonstram que essa posição não faz grande sentido.

Alguns comentários:

- "A nice illustration of the vacuity of the pro-life movement. Of course banning abortion requires punishing at least some women who attempt or get abortions. That’s what it means to outlaw something! But more to the point, that’s what happened when abortion was generally illegal. Some women who sought abortions were prosecuted. Many women who sought abortions were ostracized by their communities and families. Expelled from schools and churches, fired from jobs. (...) Banning something – whether legally, morally, or socially – requires that offenders be punished. Without punishment, there is and can be no ban, no taboo, no norm. We need to face up to the moral accounting honestly, and be certain that the good we hope to do outweighs the harm in terms of lives derailed and families broken by prosecution, imprisonment, ostracization, and the like. If outlawing abortion is worth the costs to women who will in point of fact be prosecuted and shunned from their communities and families, fired from their jobs, expelled from their schools, fine. But to say that there will be no such costs, only benefits, is a lie"

- "I’m glad Trump said what he did regarding women being punished for having an abortion. He exposed the pro-life movement as a movement that doesn’t really think abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent child or they never would treat the poor little women as victims."

- "Let me get this straight. Pro-life candidates are perfectly fine with robotic abortion factories. Its just the manually operated ones they object to?"

- "From what I’ve read a lot of abortions these days–particularly early in pregnancy–are pharmaceutical and not medical procedures. So there’s no doctor performing a procedure to hold responsible. So who do you go after for violating the law–the medical professional who wrote the prescription? The pharmacist who filled it? The person who smuggled the drug into this country if the drug was banned here? The woman who sought out, sourced, and voluntarily took the drug, understanding full well what the known and recognizable consequences of her actions were–in actuality, seeking out those known and recognizable consequences? (...) Telemedicine is rapidly advancing. It will be possible in the near future to set up “remote” surgical centers where doctors who are miles away–say, in another country–perform the abortion. So how do you handle a surgical center, one where a multitude of operations are performed (scoping knees, colonoscopies, removing cancers, etc) that also had doctors residing in locations where abortion is legal accomplishing the teleoperating? When you can’t swoop in and arrest them, but the individual demanding the illegal procedure, who set up the whole thing, does reside in the jurisdiction where that procedure is illegal to perform?"

Também sobre isto, "Trump's Politically Incorrect Abortion Comments Complicate Republican Narrative", por Elizabeth Nolan Brown, na Reason:

But here's what neither Camosy, Hemingway, Scheidler, or any of the major pro-life voices have addressed: What happens when there is no abortion doctor? No sketchy clinic. No nagging or coercive partner. What happens when a woman decides to terminate her pregnancy and takes matters into her own hands?

Women have been self-inducing abortions for time immemorial. Herbs. Coat hangers. Mifepristone. It's that last one, used in conjunction with another drug (misoprostol), that's likely to be most common for illegal 21st Century abortions. This two-pill regimen, referred to as "medical abortion" (as opposed to surgical abortion), is currently a common method for legal first-trimester abortions in America. (...)

Trump's original statements on abortion might not have been politically correct from a conventional conservative perspective, but they were the closest to honesty or authenticity we've gotten from a pro-life politician in a long time.

Na verdade o que eu suspeito é que muitos pró-vida defendem é sobretudo o chamado "papel pedagógico da lei" - a ideia de que ao se proibir algo (mesmo que nunca ou raramente a proibição seja aplicada e os infratores punidos), está-se a enviar um sinal de que esse comportamento não é aceitável, e assim se reduza significativamente o comportamento em questão (não tento por os potenciais infratores fazerem um cálculo intelectual custo-beneficio, e chegarem à conclusão que os custos da punição conjugados com o risco de serem apanhados são mais altos que os benefícios de empreender a ação em causa, mas sobretudo pela relutância intuitiva que grande parte dos seres humanos têm em fazer algo que vá contra as regras "da tribo"). Diga-se que eu acho que a ideia do "papel pedagógico da lei" é algo pouco conciliável com a filosofia de base de uma sociedade democrática (pode ser que algum dia escreva algo sobre isso).

Os muçulmanos não condenam o terrorismo?

Muslims Are Standing Up To Extremism, por Dan Sanchez:

Following every Islamist terror attack on a Western soft target, like the recent one in Brussels, we hear the same refrain from certain corners: “Why won’t Muslims stand up to Islamic extremism?” (...)

But the argument contains a false premise. Plenty of Muslims are standing up to Islamic extremism, both in word and deed. In fact, it is Muslims who are doing all the heavy lifting in this regard, while the chief contribution of the self-righteous Western powers has been to add to their burden.

First of all, Muslims have opposed extremism ideologically. This goes for Muslim leaders, including top clerics and such groups as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the 50-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).
It also goes for the general Muslim populace. The 2008 book Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think was, according to its publisher Gallup, “…based on six years of research and more than 50,000 interviews representing 1.3 billion Muslims who reside in more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have sizable Muslim populations. Representing more than 90% of the world’s Muslim community, it makes this poll the largest, most comprehensive study of its kind.” (...)

Muslims are also doing the lion’s share of standing up to extremists militarily. As an anti-statist, I do not endorse any military or act of war. But who else do you think is retaking towns and territory from ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq, under Russian air cover, and to the chagrin of the U.S. State Department? What religion do you suppose is practiced by the foot soldiers in the Syrian army of Bashar al-Assad or the Iran-backed militiamen from Iraq and Lebanon? (...)

What makes the accusation particularly galling is that it is the accusers’ own governments that provided many of the bullets and shells that these moderate Muslims are dodging. For years, and especially since the Arab Spring, the U.S. and other Western governments have flooded the insurgencies being led by Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria and Libya with guns, artillery, and money. Furthermore, the West also arms and sponsors Saudi Arabia, while that extremist theocracy also backs Al Qaeda in Syria and Yemen, terror-bombs and starves civilians in Yemen, and finances radical madrassas around the world.

And the West has done all this in order to overthrow secular-Arab nationalist regimes that hate and are hated by Islamic fundamentalist groups.

Porque é que os EUA estão sempre a matar o nº 2 do Estado Islâmico?

Why does the United States keep killing #2 in ISIS?, por Tyler Cowen:

As Zack mentions, there may be reasons why the #1 is harder to find and kill, but I would suggest a complementary hypothesis. At many points in time there is more than one #2, just as corporations may have a variety of Executive Vice Presidents.

If you a leader of a terror group, do you really want a well-defined #2 who is a focal alternative and who can move to overthrow you? Or do you prefer seven competing #2s, with somewhat unclear status, whom you can play off against each other, or make compete against each other, and offer various sticks and carrots and promotions of influence against each other?

And let’s say that one of these #2’s is killed. How will the United States report this? “One of seven #2’s has been killed”? Or perhaps the easier to communicate and more important sounding “We have taken out number two.”

Um "anarco-capitalista de esquerda" nas manifestações anti-Dilma

Uma esquerda contra Dilma, por Stefan Rotenberg (Center for a Stateless Society).

Pelos vistos, ir a uma manifestação anti-Dilma com roupas vermelhas e com cartazes a dizer-se "de esquerda" não foi a melhor ideia.

A "espanholização" da banca

Quase nenhum dos bancos que opera em Portimão é portimonense (só a caixa agrícola, que só tem um balcão).

Um aparte - se a Grécia não tivesse bancos gregos, mas apenas balcões de bancos internacionais, provavelmente teria dado KO aos credores no Verão passado (já que estes não teriam a única arma que tinham e usaram: cortar o financiamento aos bancos gregos).

De Sanders para Trump?

The Bernie Sanders voters who would choose Trump over Clinton (The Guardian):

The latest startling phenomenon is the voter who is feeling the Bern, but also has eyes for the Donald.

This week the Guardian sought out Sanders fans who are contemplating switching their allegiance to Trump if Hillary Clinton secures the Democratic nomination.

Almost 700 people replied to the call-out, and some 500 of them said they were thinking the unthinkable: a Sanders-Trump switch.

They explained their unconventional position by expressing a variety of passionately held views on their shared commitment for protecting workers and against new wars, on their zeal for an alternative to the establishment, and on their desire to support anyone but Hillary Clinton. (...)

The demographics

A look at the demography of Trump and Sanders supporters also provides some insights. If you were to get Sanders’ supporters in a room with Trump’s supporters, the two groups would be pretty hard to tell apart.

Repeated polling (including exit polls of individuals who have actually voted in primary elections so far) shows that Sanders’ supporters are overwhelmingly white, and that black voters are unlikely to vote for Sanders.

Both of those facts are also applicable to Donald Trump. (...)

Income is another shared characteristic. Exit polls from New Hampshire where Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton showed that the biggest fissure between voters was income. Among voters with a family income of less than $30,000, Sanders defeated Hillary by 48 percentage points but when the income was above $200,000, Sanders lost by seven percentage points. The Republican primary exit polls in New Hampshire revealed the same trend for Trump; his support was seven percentage points higher among low-income families than those earning $200,000 or more. (...)

But the demographics of Trump and Sanders supporters also differ in several significant ways. Respondents in the CNN/ORC poll were more likely to have a favorable opinion of Trump if they were older (44% of those age 65 and over supported the candidate compared to 25% of those age 18-34) but younger respondents were more likely to support Sanders (51% of those age 65 and over compared to 69% of those age 18-34). While Sanders supporters were likely to say that they lived in urban areas, Trump’s supporters were more likely to say that they lived in rural parts of the country.

A respeito da parte dos eleitores de Trump viverem nas zonas rurais e os de Sanders nas urbanas, não sei se será tão assim - afinal, os melhores resultados de Sanders (como se podem ver naqueles mapas de votação por condados) parecem ser, se não nas zonas rurais, pelo menos nas pequenas cidades; uma diferença mais relevante seria que Sanders tem melhores resultados fora do Sul e Trump no Sul (eu até já me ocorreu que Sanders parece ter os seus melhores resultados nos meios onde o Stephen King muitas vezes ambienta as suas histórias - a classe operária das pequenas localidades não-sulistas, sobretudo da Nova Inglaterra).

"Tráfico de seres humanos"

Os "números do tráfico de seres humanos são avassaladores", segundo a Ministra da Administração Interna.

O problema nisto é que nem se sabe muito bem o que é "tráfico de seres humanos".

Repito algo que li em tempos e já postei aqui:

'trafficking' is confused with three different things: Any kind of prostitution; any kind of forced labour; illegal immigration using any kind of facilitator (which is likely most of it). Maybe that is why so many people like to campaign about it: they can take the moral indignation from 'forced prostitution' and the large numbers from illegal immigration, and apply it to a campaign on any vaguely related topic that they feel strongly about.

"Chefes são quem mais comete assédio sexual no local de trabalho"

É o título de um artigo do Público; o que me surpreende a mim é o assédio sexual cometido por outras pessoas além dos chefes - é que tenho uma certa dificuldade em perceber o que possa ser "assédio sexual" sem a componente de submissão hierárquica do/a assediado perante o/a assediador/a (que pode usar o seu poder para prejudicar o/a assediado/a se ele/ela não ceder). Usar o conceito de "assédio sexual" para situações em que o/a assediador/a não possa retaliar sobre o/a assediado/a parece-me misturar alhos com bugalhos.

Liberdade de expressão, estado e sociedade

N'O Insurgente, Helder Ferreira publica dois posts sobre o tema da liberdade de expressão; se os casos a ver com universidades parecem-me ter sobretudo ocorrido em universidades públicas, os relacionados com o Facebook e a tentativa de suprimir o livro do Henrique Raposo sobre o Alentejo (o HR já tinha sido submetido a uma execução virtual há uns tempos) parecem-me fundamentalmente privadas (indivíduos privados a fazerem pedidos e petições a organizações privadas); na verdade mesmo no caso das universidades o facto de muitas serem estatais é capaz de ser mais incidental - as referidas expulsões de alunos (ou pelo menos processos disciplinares) parecem-me ser decididas localmente, e mais em resposta também a pressão social do que política.

O que quero chegar com isto é algo que também é referido num dos textos que o Helder linka:

The First Amendment is nice to have if you find yourself arguing for free expression in a case before the Supreme Court. And that’s no small thing. But the Constitution isn’t the most important guarantor of free speech for the average citizen in ordinary circumstances. More important is a culture of free expression, where people are encouraged to say what they think, where eccentricity of all kinds is tolerated or even appreciated, and where Voltaire’s aphorism is baked into everyday life.

Keep in mind that the Constitution protects freedom of speech only from infringement by the government. It will not help you if someone is offended by some theory you spin after two or three glasses of wine at a dinner party, or if students decide to picket your lectures because they object to what you say about dinosaurs. That second kind of free speech—everyday free speech—is arguably more important than arcane arguments before the Supreme Court. And, until recently, I would have said that this kind of free expression—a willingness to live and let live, an enjoyment of disagreement—was built into the culture in Britain more than it is in the United States.

Não diria que a pressão social seja "igualmente" ou "tão" opressiva como a pressão estatal (afinal entre ser socialmente marginalizado, perder o emprego e ser excluído do acesso aos meios materiais de expor a minha opinião versus ser socialmente marginalizado, perder o emprego, ser excluído do acesso aos meios materiais de expor a minha opinião e preso, a primeira opção sempre é um bocadinho melhor; e face à pressão social muitas vezes sempre há um canto algures onde os dissidentes se podem refugiar, talvez num emprego subalterno e a expor as suas ideias em livros de edição de autor - quiçá com pseudónimo - ou em grupos de discussão via mail), mas penso que também pode ser considerada opressiva, ainda que num grau diferente.

Já agora (e isto já é um aparte meu) tenho também a forte suspeita que é difícil conciliar liberdade estritamente política e pressão social generalizada - que numa sociedade em que haja um atitude persecutória generalizada contra uma dado comportamento (seja ele qual for - isto vale tanto para a homossexualidade como para a homofobia, p.ex.), quase inevitavelmente surgirão leis contra esse comportamento.

Mas acho que, se considerarmos que um ambiente de pressão social esmagadora pode ser restritivo da liberdade, isso pode levantar questões muito complicadas, nomeadamente nas que têm a ver com o chamado "politicamente correto", em que em muitas polémicas ambos os lados podem ver-se a si próprios como os defensores da "liberdade" contra a "cultura da intolerância", e se calhar ambos têm alguma razão; afinal, grande parte do "politicamente correto" consiste em "desaprovar a desaprovação", pelo que não é difícil que nalgumas discussões ambos os lados possam ver o outro como "as pessoas que nos querem obrigar a viver e pensar como eles". Vamos imaginar um exemplo hipotético (com uma situação que no mundo real em que vivemos não é objeto de polémica política ou social, para podermos ver o assunto de forma desapaixonada); vamos supor que alguém escreve um artigo a atacar as pessoas que usam óculos modelo "aviador", dizendo que são uns foleiros, que vivem mentalmente no principio dos anos 80, que são serial killers em potência, e que nos lugares em que é "reservado o direito de admissão" deveriam ser impedidos de entrar para não dar mau ambiente; em resposta, o twitter, o facebook e até algumas colunas de opinião na imprensa escrita levantam-se em peso, acusando o autor do artigo de ser um oculosdeaviadorofóbico e um imagengista, e até promovem petições dirigidas à entidade (revista, plataforma informática, etc.) onde ele publicou o seu artigo para que ele deixe de publicar lá; a respeito disso poderia-se dizer "já não se pode dizer nada" - mas a verdade é que se as opiniões do tal autor fossem dominantes na sociedade, também se poderia dizer que estávamos numa situação em que "já não se pode usar os óculos de que se gosta".

Ainda a respeito disto (esta possivel ambiguidade), recomendo o post de Roderick T. Long, Politics against Politics, onde este pega num texto de Murray Rothbard criticando a "esquerda cultural" e contra-argumenta que exatamente os mesmos argumentos de Rothbard (que escreve que o problema da esquerda não é apenas o recurso à coação, mas sobretudo uma atitude geral de se meterem na vida das pessoas, mesmo quando não são violentos) podem ser usados para defender ideias da "esquerda cultural" (contra a pressão social dos valores tradicionais convencionais, mesmo quando não se impõem pela coação estatal): "this is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been saying too. Restrictive cultural attitudes and practices can be oppressive even if nonviolent, and should be combated (albeit, of course, nonviolently) by libertarians for some of the same sorts of reasons that violent oppression should be combated." (Long; atenção que o facto de eu o estar a citar não implica necessariamente concordância)

O motivo por Bush julgava que havia armas de destruição massiva no Iraque?

Segundo a Fox News (numa entrevista com Donald Trump), "the Portuguese prime minster said they were there".

O que é a classe média (capítulo XXVII)?

Hoje (ou ontem) numa discussão sobre a classe média, expus a opinião que cerca de 1300 euros por mês é um ordenado de classe média-alta (e que a classe média começaria algures nos 700 e tal euros por mês). Toda a gente discordou, e alguém até disse que era triste eu achar que 700 e tal euros é classe média...

O "sonho americano" e o trabalho por conta própria

The Fading American Dream of Working for Yourself, por Charles Hugh Smith, em The American Conservative:

Americans pride ourselves on being entrepreneurial, and praise for the start-up culture that created Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and other global success stories is a staple in the media. But the data paints a much different picture: when the self-employment rate is compared among the 34 wealthy countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the U.S. comes in dead-last at 6.6 percent. Germany and Japan both have self-employment rates above 11 percent.; Italy and South Korea have rates above 25 percent.

Last time I checked, The American Dream was not “working for someone else.”


One common way to define the middle class is in terms of self-employment and the ownership of one’s work. As Marian Kester Coombs wrote recently, “Economically, the middle classes were once proprietors, self-employed owners of property and their own labor.” In Coombs’ analysis, “Middle class is not an income level but a material relationship to society,” specifically, ownership of one’s labor and income-producing capital: “the key middle-class elements (are) independence, self-sufficiency, ownership, entrepreneurship, and real social power.”

 Diga-se que, aparentemente, Tocqueville, quando andou pelos EUA, terá ficado com uma ideia diferente do que seria o "sonho americano", considerando que a cultura norte-americana consideraria trabalhar por uma salário mais aceitável do que na Europa [pdf]:

Les serviteurs américains ne se croient pas dégradés parce qu'ils travaillent; car autour d'eux tout le monde travaille. Ils ne se sentent pas abaissés par l'idée qu'ils reçoivent un salaire; car le président des États-Unis travaille aussi pour un salaire. On le paye pour commander, aussi bien qu'eux pour servir.

O Estado polui mais que o sector privado?

Governments are more likely than businesses to break pollution regulations, por Tyler Cowen

Imagino que a principal razão é que mesmo que uma empresa pública tenha que pagar uma multa por violar legislação ambiental, o dinheiro acaba por ficar em casa.

Já agora, uma coisa que costumo ouvir dizer em Portugal é que em termos de legislação laboral o Estado faz muitas coisas (sobretudo aos seus trabalhadores que não têm vínculo de "funcionários públicos") que numa empresa privada dariam logo direito a uma inspeção e processo (diga-se que eu, pessoalmente, sou um trabalhador do Estado sem vínculo de "funcionário público" e não tenha nenhuma razão de queixa)

Venezuela e reestruturação da dívida - posições trocadas?

Pro-default populism in Venezuela, por "boz":

Venezuela is tens of billions behind in payments to various foreign companies who have provided food and other imported goods. The country owes China billions, much of which is being paid in oil. There is about $10 billion in payments due this year between sovereign debt and Pdvsa bonds. (...)

In the past in Latin America, there has occasionally been support for strategic default by populists, usually from the political left, who believe that bankers and bondholders deserve to not be paid for the unethical way they have treated countries. Looking back at Argentina's default in the early 2000s, the Kirchners and their political allies certainly played up the narrative of default being both the proper economic strategy as well as the ethical thing to do as they fought the "vulture funds" who tried to profit from Argentina's loss.

The interesting part of what we're about to see in Venezuela is that the populist and moral case for defaulting on unethical debt is about to be made by the right leaning side of the political spectrum. They will argue that the banks, bondholders and Chinese who have profited from the Venezuelan government's poor economic policies deserve to lose the money they have invested as the cost of propping up the Chavez and Maduro governments. (...)

Meanwhile, the Maduro government continues to insist it will pay Wall Street and China first and second, even at the expense of rising poverty and food scarcity in the country. That is not exactly the most revolutionary or socialist of policies.

"Eles assustam-me"

They Scare Me, por Bryan Caplan:

Occasionally, though, I wonder: What would happen if Mormons were a solid majority of the U.S. population?  Maybe they'd be as wonderful as ever, but I readily picture a sinister metamorphosis.  Given enough power, even Mormons might embrace a brutal fundamentalism.  Despite my lovely experiences with Mormons, they scare me.

To be fair, they're hardly alone.  You know who else scares me?  Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and atheists.  Sunnis, Shiites, Catholics, and Protestants.  Whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and American Indians.  Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, Marxists, and reactionaries.  Even libertarians scare me a bit.  Why?  Because given enough power, there's a serious chance they'll do terrible things.  Different terrible things, no doubt.  But terrible nonetheless.

If you're afraid of every group, though, shouldn't you support whatever group has the minimum chance of doing terrible things once it's firmly in charge?   Not at all.  There's another path: Try to prevent any group from being firmly in charge.  In the long-run, the best way to do this is to make every group a small minority - to split society into such small pieces that everyone abandons hope of running society

A divisão nos "progressistas" norte-americanos

The progressive crack up, por  Jeffrey Eisenach (do think tank conservador American Enterprise Institute):

From a historical perspective, Bernie and Hillary are both progressives. Yet the ideological divide between them, and the constituencies they represent, could not be more profound. (...) the political battle now underway in the Democratic Party has roots much deeper than most people realize, revealing a rift in the Progressive Movement that dates to its birth in the early 1900s.

The debate then was over “bigness” — specifically the emergence of industrial giants known as “trusts” — and it was fresher and hence even more politically potent than today. As business historian Thomas McCraw put it, the big corporations that rose up out of the Industrial Revolution “seemed to be mutations, the consequence of some sinister tampering with the natural order of things … powerful new political forces which must be opposed in the name of American democracy.” (...)

The early Progressives were united in their concern about big business, but the agreement ended there. The movement was deeply split between two wings: the radicals, who (echoing Jefferson a century earlier) thought bigness was an evil to be fought on principle, and a more pragmatic wing (more in the mold of Hamilton) who saw the rise of big corporations as inevitable and even positive — a phenomenon not so much to be resisted as to be accommodated and even promoted.

The principal combatants in this political and intellectual battle were no slouches. The radicals were led by Louis Brandeis, plaintiff’s lawyer, muckraker, and ultimately Supreme Court Justice. Brandeis famously bemoaned “the curse of bigness,” and opined that “If the Lord had intended things to be big, he would have made man bigger — in brains and character.” Brandeis inspired William Jennings Bryan (who favored a Federal law capping the size of corporations) and served as chief economic adviser to Woodrow Wilson (who nationalized big chunks of the economy during World War I) until Wilson put him on the high court in 1916.

Opposing Brandeis for the accommodationists or pragmatists was Herbert Croly, founder of The New Republic and author of “The Promise of American Life” (1909). Arguing that “the huge corporations have contributed to American economic efficiency,” Croly promoted a reform agenda that included legalizing and empowering labor unions and strengthening the regulatory state — that is, rationalizing the emergence of Big Business by promoting the rise of Big Labor and creating Big Government. Croly’s views initially were embraced by the (Teddy) Roosevelt wing of the Republican Party, and, 30 years later, by Teddy’s distant cousin Franklin, who mostly resisted calls to break up big companies or nationalize significant chunks of the economy and instead promoted the growth of government while trying (...) to grow the industrial economy.

The New Deal thus constituted what seemed until lately to be the permanent triumph of the accommodationist wing of the Progressive Movement. With the arguable exception of George McGovern in 1972 (arguable because McGovern was first and foremost an anti-war candidate and only secondarily a radical progressive), the radicals have never come close to controlling the Democratic Party, let alone the White House.

What about Barack Obama? He certainly campaigned as a radical, and as President he has often talked like one — but his policies are mainly accommodationist. Indeed, his two biggest domestic accomplishments — Dodd-Frank and ObamaCare — promote and favor big banks, big insurers, and big pharma rather than, as radicals preferred, breaking them up or nationalizing them.

Now comes Bernie Sanders, democratic Socialist and radical progressive, pitted against the ultimate accommodationist, Hillary, the “Progressive who gets things done,” for whom accepting $675,000 from Goldman Sachs for a few speeches seems perfectly natural. A radical candidate couldn’t have hoped for a better foil, but the energy behind the Sanders campaign flows from deeper wells than simple revulsion of the Clintons. It is grounded in legitimate dissatisfaction with the economy, driven by a sincere belief in the radical progressive agenda, and fueled by resentment of Obama’s perceived betrayal.

Candidatos "elegíveis" e "não-elegíveis"

"Unelectable", por Chris Dillow:

There’s one increasingly common meme I find very irritating: the dismissal of politicians as “unelectable”. Corbyn has long been tagged such, as are most US presidential candidates. (...)

As Anne Perkins and Jacques Peretti have pointed out, Thatcher was regarded as “unelectable” in the 70s, by both Tory wets and the Labour party. Look how that turned out. Public tastes are unpredictable – especially given today’s anti-establishment attitudes. (...)

What I especially hate here is the pretence to knowledge, even in the face of contrary evidence. People who never foresaw a Tory majority or the rise of Corbyn continue to pretend that they have the foresight to declare Corbyn “unelectable” (...)

My second problem with talk of “unelectability” is that it betokens a sense of entitlement. It is usually outsiders who are “unelectable” – Thatcher, Corbyn, Sanders, whoever – and only rarely Establishment figures. There’s a presumption here that elections can only be won by particular types: youngish good-lookers who went to the right schools and universities and who don’t unsettle the Very Serious People. “Unelectable” can be used to close off debate (...)

Um assunto que é capaz de criar confusão à esquerda e à direita

Reino Unido dá luz verde à manipulação genética em embriões humanos

Talvez mais à esquerda, onde o sector pró-escolha tem uma grande sobreposição com o sector anti-OGM, e muitos podem ficar com um conflito interior sobre o assunto; já à direita, parece-me que o sector pró-vida e o sector pró-OGM estão mais separados, o primeiro ligado à direita "cultural" pró-valores tradicionais e o segundo mais ligado à direita "económica" pró-empresas (aliás, alguns direitistas "culturais" que ei conheço até são bastante anti-OGM).

"Quarta revolução industrial" e destruição de postos de trabalho

Há dias, foi noticia que um relatório do Fundo Económico Mundial dizia que "quarta revolução industrial pode causar a perda de cinco milhões de empregos em cinco anos nas principais economias mundiais".

Isso não porá em causa a minha opinião que a "revolução-tecnológica-que-vai-destruir-montes-de-empregos-por-causa-da-automatização, simplesmente... não existe"?

Vamos ver a notícia com mais pormenor:

Depois da primeira revolução (advento da máquina a vapor), da segunda (electricidade, linha de montagem) e da terceira (eletrónica, robótica) vem a quarta que combina diversos factores no trabalho, como a Internet e os dados que transformam a economia. Estas alterações resultam numa perda líquida de mais de cinco milhões de empregos nos 15 principais países desenvolvidos e emergentes, diz o FEM que analisou a situação em economias como a dos Estados Unidos, Alemanha, França, China e Brasil.

A população ativa dos Estados Unidos, Alemanha, França, China e Brasil em 2014 era de cerca de 1.150 milhões de pessoas (e esses são apenas 5 dos tais 15 países); assim, os 5 milhões de empregos destruídos corresponderão a pouco mais que 0,4% da população ativa. Sim, poderá ser trágico para grande parte dessas pessoas, mas para a economia no seu conjunto não me parece uma destruição de empregos por aí além.

Sobre as presidenciais

As norte-americanas, que hoje não se pode falar das portuguesas.

De há uns anos para cá (sobretudo desde a reeleição Obama, mas já havia sinais desde a década passada) que a ala "responsável" e "moderada" da elite conservadora norte-americana andou a defender uma reforma do conservadorismo e do Partido Republicano que combinasse uma filosofia social conservadora com uma posição mais pragmática na política económica, sem grandes radicalismos individualistas ou anti-governo à Tea Party (os dois representantes do conservadorismo no New York Times, o David Brooks e o Ross Douthat, andavam quase sempre a dizer isso), reformando o Estado Social em vez de simplesmente querer reduzi-lo radicalmente, e que conseguisse solidificar a posição dos Republicanos entre a classe trabalhadora (sobretudo a branca, embora aqui a referência racial normalmente ficasse nas entrelinhas), em vez de ligar apenas aos mais abastados  (a dada altura os defensores desse programa foram chamados de "reformicons", os conservadores reformistas, mas penso que a etiqueta não pegou).

Parece que essa combinação de uma espécie de conservadorismo social, relativa moderação na economia e apelo à classe trabalhadora finalmente chegou, mas pelo vistos não com o corte de cabelo e maneiras à mesa (dos debates) com que esses intelectuais conservadores estavam à espera (possivelmente quereriam algo mais no molde da democracia-cristã europeia).